NASA and SpaceX have made history today, with the International Space Station reaching out and grappling the Dragon capsule with its robotic arm. The culmination of a three day flight and numerous tests of the safety functionality necessary to protect both Dragon and the ISS, the team aboard the orbiting space platform guided the robotic arm to pluck the capsule out of the sky at 9:56 ET this morning.
SpaceX's Dragon capsule has reached the hold point near the International Space Station, just 30m from the orbiting platform, and waiting for the optimum time for the station to grapple it in. It's taken several hours of testing and positioning to get Dragon in so close, with NASA and the SpaceX ground team repeatedly running through the "retreat" procedure which will halt the craft and back it away from the ISS should an issue arise.
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If you thought navigating through crowded museums was a hassle right now, just wait until you have to watch out for speeding robots that people are able to control from anywhere in the world. Okay, so that's kind of a sign of where the future may lead, but for now, the idea of bringing in a robotic creature into an Australian museum will have a tepid presence, and its accessibility will be limited to school children.
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Sony Online Entertainment is showing off a video game called Bullet Run that is a first-person shooter set in a reality show environment. The game lets players play more or less traditional online shooter combat under the guise of the player's online character being part of a reality TV show. The best part about this game is that it will be free to play on the PC and Sony is accepting beta registrations now.
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If you happen to be in the area of the Spanish port of Gijon in the near future and you notice some awkward fish in the water, don't be alarmed. What you're seeing might be robotic creatures that are designed to test the water for pollutants, reducing the amount of time it takes to survey large bodies of water from weeks to just seconds. British consultancy group BMT Group, which is at the helm of the project, hopes to sell the fish to local port authorities.
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A lot of geeks grew up playing with Lego. When I was young Lego bricks were just bricks, didn't have much in the way of the robotics-focused kits that are available today where you can develop fully articulated robots that can actually perform tasks. Many K-12 schools in the United States are finding that Lego is a great way to encourage students in science and other areas.
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While this summer has no lack of action adventure movies going for it, what with the likes of The Avengers, Prometheus, and The Dark Knight Rises on deck, Battleship is prepared to be the cleanest selection of the group. The blockbuster category requires that a movie be spectacularly large in its on-screen scope, and the movie Battleship does this – and little else. Like each of the interviews you may have heard thus far on the film, including our most recent interview on Battleship with Industrial Light and Magic, this movie is definitely a “popcorn” flick – that means you should come prepared to quite simply sit back and be entertained, and entertained well.
The people behind-the-scenes at Raspberry Pi are going full steam ahead with plans to release a camera module. The innovative startup has already come out with a working prototype that can take pictures at a resolution of 14 megapixels. However, the final consumer version might have a lower resolution. The module will plug into the CSI pins that are exposed in the middle of the Raspberry Pi.
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Have you ever wished that you could move things with the power of your mind? Yeah, that isn't just a thing for science fiction writers anymore. An emerging technology company called BrainGate has revealed a robotic arm that can actually be controlled by brain waves. It requires the use of a sensor that contains 96 electrodes. The sensor is implanted into the motor cortex of the brain.
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A brand new viral advertisement has been released today for the blockbuster science fiction film Prometheus, taking on this time the hereto-unmentioned Yutani corporation. Fans of the original Alien series will remember that the company that acts as antagonist in many situations goes by the name Weland-Yutani, this the combination of the company headed by Peter Weyland (played in this film by Guy Pierce) and the not-yet-mentioned (until now) Yutani group. This video shows the main protagonist of the film, researcher Dr. Elizabeth M. Shaw addressing none other than Weyland himself even though by the time she's the age she appears in the video here, Weyland should be long dead.
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This next-generation console-level mobile game takes everything that keeps one of the most famous game franchises alive even to today and makes it mobile as SEGA collaborates with NVIDIA on the Tegra 3 quad-core processor platform. What you’ll see here is what NVIDIA notes is a “near mirror-image” of the full PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game, here on Android for you Tegra 3 loving gamers to enjoy. Have a peek at this game as it launches today on the NVIDIA TegraZone as well as the Google Play app store – classic SEGA action at your fingertips!
Those of you who recently picked up a Canon 5D Mark III have the comfort of knowing that your super-expensive DSLR was lovingly assembled by hand in Japan. That may not be the case for much longer: today a Canon spokesperson announced that the company would be moving towards completely automated production starting immediately. There's no definite date on when the transition will be complete, but Canon hopes to finish by 2015.
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