Duck Goes Moo!

I have often heard that having autism is like having all of your senses turned up to full volume, so that everything just kind of blends together into one overwhelming mass of input. The reason why autistics tend to have trouble dealing with other humans is that human communication involves so many elements that it is too much to bare.

An organization called IROMEC has developed a robot called KASPAR (Kinesics and Synchronisation in Personal Assistant Robotics) to aid in this problem:

“Human interaction can be very subtle, with even the smallest eyebrow raise, for example, having different meanings in different contexts,” Robins said. “It is thought that autistic children cut themselves off from interacting with other humans because, for them, this is too much information and it is too confusing for them to understand.”

With this in mind, the team designed KASPAR to express emotion consistently and with the minimum of complexity.

KASPAR’s face is made of silicon-rubber supported on an aluminum frame. Eight degrees of freedom in the head and neck and six in the arms and hands enable movement.

The researchers hope that the end result is a human-like robot that can act as a “social mediator” for autistic children, a steppingstone to improved social interaction with other children and adults.

“KASPAR provides autistic children with reliability and predictability. Since there are no surprises, they feel safe and secure,” Robins said, adding that the purpose is not to replace human interaction and contact but to enhance it.

from wired.com

With the rising rates of children diagnosed with autism something like this may definitely be needed. I wonder if there will be autistic hotels in the future where all the staff is mechanized.

An even more interesting question: Do virtual worlds like World of Warcraft and Second Life present a similar relief to the autistic? These online games allow people to communicate via text and some minor gesticulations.

You know what, I just googled online and found some articles online about Second Life and Autism:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=203

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7012645/

I just recently downloaded a Sudoku game onto my cellphone and I am officially hooked. If you haven’t tried playing Sodoku yet, then I suggest you do not try it. It’s very addicting and completely pointless, though some people do state that it helps stave off Alzheimer’s and keep the mind sharp and strong.

All it has done so far is provide a false sense of accomplishment… and yet I keep playing it more.

More Here

SimCity 5 is on the way… sort of. A new game idea being called SimCity Societies is being developed by a third-party under Maxis’ direction. Maxis itself is too busy trying to finally finish Spore, a game which is way past its original deadline and may never be finished at the rate they are going.

Official SimCity Societies Site

1UP Preview

Alternate Reality was one of the greatest games ever made. Sure by today’s standards it is rather primitive, but with what home computers could do at the time the game was made it was nothing short of extraordinary. The game broke ground in terms of imagination, creativity, game play and graphics and had some darn catchy tunes with lyrics to boot.

The above youtube clip includes the time it takes to load the game, so if the screen is blank or stays still for a bit don’t worry. It shows the opening sequence for the game, which takes the form of a full theatrical musical experience, again, something not seen before in games and not often seen to this day.

Here is an article that describes very well the wonders of Alternate Reality:

Link

I’ve been working on a profit/loss application I’m calling “Manatee” which I am designing to be as simple and user-friendly as possible. It is coming along okay, though of course I am working on way too many things at once so I haven’t had much time to work on it.

One of the features I was thinking of adding was a to-do list for remembering to contact clients, remember project due dates, and the like. I was aiming to make that as simple as possible too, pretty much just having an icon and a short description for each item in the list.

I recently checked out rememberthemilk.com and it seems to be pretty much what I was thinking of, except this is much better as it is all integrated with the Google.

It looks pretty neat but, as always, I prefer writing things myself instead of borrowing from what others have done. I really need to get over that complex, as I could save myself so much time, but I just love making things from scratch. I love the fun and frustration of figuring it all out for myself and making things work.

Then again, if did just borrow code from libraries and use third-party projects more often maybe I’d get more done.

Hmm… I’ll have to put “try to be less self-reliant” on my to-do list. I’ll get to that later.

The military is creating a robot capable of recovering wounded soldiers from the battlefield.

This sounds like a great idea, but the part I don’t understand is that they are giving it a head like a teddy bear.

It’s supposed to be friendly and comforting. Personally I think it’s a tad disturbing, but it is true that soldiers are starting to develop emotional attachments to robots that serve with them in battle.

More Here

This is reminds me so much of when I used to do tech support.

Never would have guessed it, but Microsoft has managed to not only create something innovative and cool, but they also managed to keep it completely under wraps from the public. This is something that generally Apple succeeds in best.

They’ve made a very well functioning and practical interactive experience for coffee-tables.

Click Here

I want it, and I want it now.

I heard about this a few days ago, but I am still very excited. Starcraft was one of the better games I’ve ever played, and I had assumed that Blizzard was going to keep all of its efforts focused on WoW.

It’s odd how everytime I say to myself that I am going to stop playing electronic games so much they come out with something new to pull me back.

Toaster + Rollers = Coolness

Commodore is back! Well.. sort of. Their brand name was acquired in 2005 by a custom PC company that sells all sorts of interesting designs and casings for PCs. They have what they call is a Ckin, which is a removable shell for a PC that looks all fancy and has the Commodore logo on it, though they also sell the actually PCs that go in them too.

So far they seem to only be operating in the UK. Will nostalgia and funky looking PC cases be enough to bring it all to America?

What’s the newest exercise craze sweeping the nation? It’s a bit like riding a stationary bike but bound to garner more attentive male stares: It’s stationary horse riding!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=441098&in_page_id=1770

One of my most insisted upon technologies is perhaps coming into fruition. Purdue researches have come up with a device which “yields information about the precise chemical composition of samples in a matter of minutes without harming the samples”… which is somewhat similar to the “Tricorder” featured on “Star Trek”.

Will it be able to detect cancers and viral infections as well as its the SciFi namesake? Read on:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070227104038.htm

What time is it? It’s Two Potato O’Clock!

Hello everybody, I’m posting this from my new Nintendo Wii! I downloaded the Opera web browser onto it, which works amazingly well. Anyhoo, will post more later on.

It’s official; Not only is Apple coming out with a phone and a wide-screen video iPod, it’s all going to be wrapped up into one package. Introducing the iPhone, a truly awesome looking piece of gadgetry that has a touch-based interface, wifi and bluetooth connectivity, ability to make and receive calls, play music and video, and it also has a full version of the Safari browser included… and that’s not even all of the features yet.

How much will it cost? I haven’t been able to find out the official price for certain, but I have heard prices all the way from $200 to $600 from different news sources.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Ask.com had a neat idea where you could see a small preview of the sites that show up in your search results, but pagebull.com has an even neater idea: Why bother with text at all and just show the previews of the sites? Here’s what came back when I did a search for “duck goes moo”:

Pretty neat, huh? It will also highlight any words that match your search terms and you can roll over some icons in the corner of each image to see a quick text blurb and a larger image of the preview.

I am not sure if the search results are filtered for content or not, so I can’t vouch you might get a filthy image or two… unless that is what you’re looking for anyway.