innovations
A nifty compilation of books that glimpsed the future before it happened, relating/connecting/ascribing each of the literary predictions with the actual/corresponding discovery/invention/emergence.
Complete list on the other side of the jump.
This organic-looking tent (design/concept by Abeer Seikaly) provides all-weather shelter, while offering such amenities as energy/electricity (solar-powered, battery stored), "running" water (collection and distribution of water, courtesy of the tent's unique design), storage (again, as a by-product of the design), ventilation (again, the design…) and the benefit of natural light (through the controllable tent’s openings).
Its foldable nature/design and use of lightweight fabric implies ease of transport and deployment.
Oh! And it’s also easy on the eye!
The first jump has all the details, photos and schematics.
We present a method for converting first-person videos, for example, captured with a helmet camera during activities such as rock climbing or bicycling, into hyper-lapse videos, i.e., time-lapse videos with a smoothly moving camera.
[...]
No!
Just the Ninebot One, an electric-powered, portable, self-balancing, unicyle...
Doing more (and better) with less: the Vipukirves (C)Leveraxe 2.
From an original project of the University of Adelaide, a tool that allows the capture and transformation/conversion of (2D) video images into (3D) model(s).
In their own words:
VideoTrace is a system for interactively generating realistic 3D models of objects from video—models that might be inserted into a video game, a simulation environment, or another video sequence. The user interacts with VideoTrace by tracing the shape of the object to be modelled over one or more frames of the video. By interpreting the sketch drawn by the user in light of 3D information obtained from computer vision techniques, a small number of simple 2D interactions can be used to generate a realistic 3D model. Each of the sketching operations in VideoTrace provides an intuitive and powerful means of modelling shape from video, and executes quickly enough to be used interactively. Immediate feedback allows the user to model rapidly those parts of the scene which are of interest and to the level of detail required. The combination of automated and manual reconstruction allows VideoTrace to model parts of the scene not visible, and to succeed in cases where purely automated approaches would fail.
An "oldie" (so to speak) but goldie: Wired's article recounting the pioneering efforts/attempts of Leonard Adleman to materialize the world's first DNA computer/computations.
From the article itself:
[...]
Thanks to learning algorithms and other evolutionary tools being incorporated into computers, the machines around us are becoming more lifelike. But Adleman wanted to tackle the question from the opposite direction. What if life itself, already susceptible to genetic engineering, could be used to solve problems? What if DNA could be shifted from reproducing life to thinking about it? Adleman imagined a future in which organic and inorganic computers link up; he wanted to witness this momentous occasion in his lifetime.
Inspired, he hopped out of bed and started to build the world's first DNA computer.
[...]
An interesting concept/"mashup", between a door chain and a maze.
One that, on a second look, could raise the question: "What if one needed to exit in a hurry?".
Eureqa is a software tool that allows to derive formula(s) from data, using Symbolic Regression.
Everybody can use it. Here is a(n) (gentle) introduction:
Brainchild of Gábor Domokos and Péter Várkonyi, after a conjecture/question by Vladimir Arnold.
Definition:
The 'Gömböc' is the first known homogenous object with one stable and one unstable equilibrium point, thus two equilibria altogether on a horizontal surface. It can be proven that no object with less than two equilibria exists.
[...] superhydrophobic spray-on coating that repels water, mud, ice and other liquids.
Brave new world. Programmable, ultra-thin, modular electronics are just here.
