A New Twist on the Classic Sandbox

You can make any kind of landscape your mind desires in this new augmented reality sandbox.  The best part about it is being able to use your hands and get involved.  It might not be like a real sandbox, but at least you are getting your hands a little dirty rather than pushing buttons on a controller.  This sandbox could be useful for architects that need to model the landscape.  With the sandbox, this task can be done very quickly.  Much faster than adding points on a computer.  It may not be as accurate, but it will give the architect a better view sort of like a rough draft.

Picture from Geek.com

The sandbox works using a Kinect, a computer and a projector.  The Kinect uses it's 3d camera to analyze the depths and height of all the mounds and holes.  It then sends that data to a computer.  The computer translates the data into a picture which is sent to the projector.  The projector displays the image right over the sandbox.  It may be a little hard to get everything suspended above the sandbox and for the camera and project to be perfectly lined up, but it would be worth it.

Sandboxes are one the best things a kid could have.  It allows for an almost endless amount of possibilities for a child to make.  You can make castles, rivers, moats, lakes, mountains, etc.  I remember my days spent outside carving away into the sand.  Perhaps this digital sandbox is what children a few years from now will be playing instead.

Million Short

Million Short is a pretty basic search engine. Only except getting the biggest and most popular websites, Million Short deliberately get rid of these sites.  It takes the top million websites indexed and hides them from the results.  This gives you access to the less known sites and links you have never been to before.  It's great if you are just browsing for something new.

There are a few settings you can change with your search.  You can switch the adult filter to low, medium, or high.  You can choose to include and exclude specific sites.  You can change the filter hiding the top one millions sites to only hide the top 100k, 10k, 1000, 100, or none at all.  You can also add specific sites that you love to the SiteBoost section.  This will automatically make the sites you enjoy to appear much more often.

I decided I wanted to try the search engine out myself for a few searches.  I typed "electronic music" and chose to only hide the top 100k sites.  The results seem to be better while also keeping a very unique and interesting level to it when you only remove the top 100k sites.  The first  site that popped up was "techno.org."  I found this website to be very interesting.  It showed all the hundreds of varieties of electronic music and offers about 8 different music loops for each.

Overall, this is a very interesting website.  You can get some really neat and never before seen content.  Check it out at http://millionshort.com/.

Asteroid Mining

Some asteroids are just floating gold mines.  Literally.  Asteroids have been know to contain a massive quantity of precious metals.  However, as you can imagine, these resources can be extremely hard to reach.  Before, mining asteroids was just Science Fiction.  Now, Planetary Resource may prove that its closer than we ever thought before.  Planetary Resource is a company funded by private investors that hope one day to make their billionaires into trillionaires.

Whats the big deal with asteroids? 
You may think that an asteroid is just a hunk of rock, but it really is much more.  John S. Lewis, author of Mining in the Sky,  states, "an asteroid with a diameter of one kilometer would have a mass of about two billion tons. One of these asteroids would contain 30 million tons of nickel, 1.5 million tons of metal cobalt and 7,500 tons of platinum. The platinum alone would have a value of more than $150 billion!"  There are over a million asteroids just like the one described.


Asteroid mining will become a huge industry if it proves to be successful.  More corporations other than Planetary Resource will see the amount of money waiting for them and will jump on board in no time.  This will create many jobs.  Space Miners would be paid very well.

In the next few years, we may be able to relate is Isaac Clarke (Space Miner in the game Dead Space) more than ever before.

How will asteroid mining work?

As the video stated, it will start by scanning lots of asteroid to see what they are made of.  Then the most valuable ones will be subject to actually be mined and for the valuable minerals to be extracted.  The way they actually intend to do this is not yet known.  The video shows the asteroid going into a large net like device which will close around it.  Another theory is to destroy the asteroid by having one ship blast off some of the asteroid into small chunks and then another ship collecting the floating  rocks or dust.  Then these materials will have to be transported.  They will first have to be transported elsewhere in space.  It is much easier to transport heavy materials in low or no gravity.  A moon base or a space station will have to be set up for that step.  From their, it will likely go straight back to Earth for our use.

If you would like to know more about Planetary Resource, visit their website at http://www.planetaryresources.com/.

Eole Water Turbines

 

Give us wind, we give you water

Eole Water's slogan for their new WMS1000 Wind Turbine.  What is so special about this particular wind turbine?  This turbine's output isn't energy like most turbines.  Instead, you will receive completely pure water right out of the air.  Eole Water states that one of these guys can produce up to 1500 liters a day to desolate places without clean water.  Another amazing feature is that is doesn't need to be hooked up to anything.  This machine is completely "wireless."



How does it work?
Inside the WMS1000, there is a 30kW direct drive generator.  This generator is powered completely by the wind.  The blades spin just like any other wind turbine to produce power.  However, in the center of these blades lies the rotor hub.  The rotor hub can take in air.  Almost all air contains some amount of moisture within it.  This moisture is called humidity.  The generator then separates the moisture from the air by using condensation.  Water droplets on the side of a cold glass is an example of condensation.  The generator simply makes this process much faster.  The water then exits down the shaft of the wind turbine to ground level.  Below is a diagram of what the inside of a WMS1000 wind turbine looks like.

As you can see, it is a relatively simple idea but a complex and ingenuousness design.

The amount of water and WMS1000 can produce in a day depends on the amount of moisture in the air.

Eloe Water has proven themselves very valuable to the world.  Not only are they quenching the thirst of thousands of dehydrated people, but they are also doing it without any harm to the environment.  The WMS1000 does not give off any emissions that would be potentially harmful.This product is truly friendly to everyone.

If you would like to know more about Eole Water, visit their website at http://www.eolewater.com/

Why I Oppose CISPA

CISPA stands for Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act.  This Act basically gives the government the power to gain cyber information through the means of private companies.  In order for the government to do this, they can request certain information from companies.  The company, in turn, can deny this request.  In this case, the government must then get a warrant to obtain the information.

Why I oppose this Act

There are many reasons why this act is bad.  The main reason is privacy.  We deserve the right to be able to do what we want online without a watching eye.  It doesn't matter if you have anything to hide or not. The government is not our parents and they shouldn't act like it.  My private life is my own and shouldn't be subject to an intelligence agency.

Some people say that if you have nothing to hide, then this act shouldn't affect you. While this may be true, what happens when the government wants to take the next step.  If this is passed, the government will have a much easier time adding more and more surveillance. They could be reading your texts  and listening to your calls freely and with no consequences.  It could be the gateway drug of surveillance.

You may wonder why Facebook and Microsoft like this act.  It is pretty simple.  Companies need to police their users.  That's why there are things such as banning and suspension.  CISPA will take this load off of the companies and share it with the government.  Chances are the government will have a much much harsher penalty the simply banning.

One very bad thing about this act is that it uses very broad terms.  This could prove to be very bad in the future when the government begins stretching this act to its limits.  No one really knows how far the government can go.  

If you want to help spread the word about the dangers of CISPA, join this online petition and tell your friends: http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_cispa/?slideshow  Feel free to voice your own opinion on the topic.

Remee - Experience Your Own Lucid Dream!

What is the Remee?

Remee stands for Rapid Eye Movement Enhancing Eyemask.  You may then wonder what "Rapid Eye Movement" is.  Rapid Eye Movement (REM) is the moment in your sleep where your brain is most active.  This is where dreams occur.  During this stage, under your eyelids, your eyes are moving very rapidly and randomly.  The main purpose of this mask is to detect when you have entered the REM stage of sleep and to wake your brain up without waking you up.  This is known as conscious dreaming or lucid dreaming.

What is lucid dreaming?

Lucid dreaming is the state where you know you are dreaming while still asleep.  Lucid dreaming is actually quite common and can occur naturally.  Almost everyone has had a lucid dream naturally but simply cannot remember it.  That is why those who want to lucid dream are highly recommended to keep a dream journal.  Writing your dreams down can train your brain to remember your dreaming experiences more often and much more vividly.  Training yourself to lucid dream often is very difficult.  You can teach yourself reality checks to make sure that you are in the real world.  If you do enough of these reality checks in your daily life, your brain may start to do them in your dreams.  At this point, you can start to recognize that you are indeed in a dream.  Once you realize that you are in a dream, you can start to try and perform some tasks.  The first thing I tried to do was jump.  Jumping in a dream is not like any ordinary jump.  I rose up several feet before slowly drifting back to the ground.  The first few times I did this, I got too excited and woke up.  It takes some practice to stay asleep through this wonderful experience.  After I seemed to have mastered jumping, I told my brain that instead of jumping and going back down, I was just going to keep going up.  Amazingly, it worked!  I could feel the breeze flow past my body and see the mountains and other creations of my mind below.  Once you've mastered the technique, you can do almost anything!

What does Remee do?

Well, Remee is kind of a digital reality check.  You can tell your brain that when you see these lights in your eyes, you are dreaming.  This makes lucid dreaming much easier to begin.  After lucid dreaming becomes consistent, the rest is all downhill.

I support these guys because I want everyone to experience the wonders of your own brain.  If you want to support them too, visit http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1047510073/remee-the-rem-enhancing-lucid-dreaming-mask

The Sand Flea (Jumping Robot)

From the picture above, you may believe that this is just any ordinary robot.  You are wrong!  This guy can jump up to 30 feet in the air on command.  It can scale entire buildings in a single leap!  Along with the ability to jump 30 feet, the robot has to be made to be nearly indestructible.  No normal robot is going to survive a 30 foot drop and immediately keep going on its way.

Here you can see the Sand Flea in mid-jump.

Boston Dynamics never ceases to amaze.  They are proving to be quite in innovators.  This is right after creating a 4 legged robot "Cheetah" which could run up to 18 miles per hour breaking the world record.  To see more of Boston Dynamic's projects, you can visit their site at http://www.bostondynamics.com/