techyum ::

Japanese telecom NTT is scheduling a September launch for their cellphone (remote) controlled home system U-Consento, which will include control of home devices and appliances. It’s a web-accessed service that will cost users around $4 a month, and its proposed function is to control and monitor things from air conditioning to DVD timers, etc. — which will be a lot of fun if your phone crashes or your air conditioning drops with your signal… and no word yet on remote cell control of home security systems. Or what to do when you accidentally download tentacle porn to your toaster, which would likely be my first service call (if I survived my morning whole wheat bagel’s attempted non-Consento tentacle-rape, that is).
NTT’s cellphone-operated remote control home system (pinktentacle.com)

Sink your — cannibalistic mouse into this article at the Guardian UK about crops modified with human genomes. No, really — researchers are “frustrated by the ‘ethical’ arguments against placing human genes into plants.” For research purposes, of course. Interesting stuff, snip from Down on the pharm:

In a windowless room on the roof of a hospital in south London, the air is being slowly sucked away. It’s not enough to notice, but it keeps the sealed laboratory at a slightly lower pressure than the air outside. It’s a security measure. The contents of this laboratory are highly controversial, and if anything escaped it would be a public relations disaster for the scientists who work here. The lab holds some of the most controversial plants in the UK, which nearby residents would be less than happy to find drifting on the breeze through their back gardens. Open the door, and air rushes in, not out.
The plants are tobacco, but they are not intended to be smoked. Instead, the scientists who work on them believe they could save lives. Each has been genetically engineered to carry a gene that is usually found in common algae. Inside its cells, the foreign DNA forces the tobacco plant to churn out a protein that is useless to it, but that happens to be a potent drug against HIV. The scientists say the drug, and others like it, could save millions of lives across the developing world. The technique has been dubbed pharmaceutical farming, or pharming, and it is emerging as the latest battleground in the war over genetic modification.
(…) The HIV drug produced by the London tobacco plants is called cyanovirin-N, which can help stop the virus entering human cells. Experiments with rhesus macaques, which have a similar reproductive physiology to humans, have suggested that the drug could dramatically cut transmission of the virus during sex, and the St George’s team wants to turn it into a cream that could be applied by women in countries where men are resistant to using condoms. “If you’re a woman in sub-Saharan Africa, you’re not going to pay even a dollar or two a week for this. It has to be pennies, and that means it has to be produced in plants,” Ma says. He reckons five tonnes of cyanovirin-N would be needed for 10 million women to have two doses a week – a production scale way beyond the economics and capabilities of conventional drug manufacturing.

Link.

I was all prepared to see another so-so homemade robot video, but this one is really sweet — so much is reminiscent of an SRL machine that it had me really examining the (literal) legwork. Of course, we don’t make machines that play nice with humans so we don’t make ones for riding. But this machine is remarkable, surprisingly fast and turns itself quite well; the media looks to be from late last year, and I feel like I’ve seen this bot somewhere else before…
* Watch the Spider Machine video here or embedded after the jump. (Thanks, Pauly!)
* I found a Flickr set of “mondo spider” here (image via).

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This is neat, and reminds me of being a kid: “The squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray.” (by Edward H. Adelson) Look at the main page for an explanation, and more neat illusions.

And now he rules us all from Zero G, snip:

Hawking, 65, perhaps the most renowned theoretical physicist of his time, has long suffered from a motor neuron disorder called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Unable to move his hands and legs, he has been wheelchair bound for nearly four decades. In the mid-1980s, he also lost his ability to speak naturally after a tracheotomy following a bad bout with pneumonia.
As a result, Hawking, who is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in England, communicates by making small facial expressions, using the muscles around his eyes, eyebrows, cheek and mouth, raising an eyebrow, for example, to signal “yes.” Technology has allowed him to communicate more extensively through a computer that talks for him in a synthesized voice while he chooses words on the screen through an infrared sensor on a headpiece that detects motion in his cheek. That voice has resounded — as definitively Hawking’s — through pop culture as well as scientific circles and he has defied all ALS odds. But he lives immobilized in a body debilitated by the irreversible neuromuscular disorder.
Yesterday, Hawking escaped the confines of his illness for 4 minutes and experienced a freedom unlike any he’s ever known, becoming the first person with a disability to experience a zero-g flight on this commercial airline.
Before taking off over the Atlantic Ocean, Hawking acknowledged that experiencing weightlessness even for a few seconds would be a welcome change from life in the wheelchair. “The chance to float free in zero-g will be wonderful,” he said through his computer voice synthesizer during a pre-flight news conference. “I want to demonstrate to the public that anybody can participate in this type of weightless experience.”
(…) “It was amazing . . . I could have gone on and on,” Hawking said after landing. “Space, here I come.”

Link.
Also, The Age has a video that is just incredible.
Sing it with me, people:
Verse 1
“E” stands for energy, yo that’s me,
I’m a brilliant scientist and a dope MC.
Before you step to me I’d think twice G,
I’m the Lord of Chaos, King of Entropy.
You down with it? I motherfuckin’ hope so,
’cause if you’re not, I got a motherfuckin’ rope yo!
I’ll string you up, from a big-ass tree,
with a sign round your neck that says, “Wack MC”.
There ain’t another motherfucker hard like me,
I’m a universal constant, I’m a singularity.
Got Doomsday at my back with fat-ass tracks,
he pumps funk in the cracks and cuts wax with an axe.
So listen up bitch, ’cause there may be a test,
my style is smooth, but it’s hard to digest.
My science is tight, rhymes faster than light,
like a ton of TNT I’m about to ignite.
Chorus
E=mc,
E=mc Hawking!
(From MC Hawking‘s E=mc Hawking)

When I’m standing in those long airport security lines, I often find myself thinking about how incredibly safe I feel thanks to the Patriot Act and the diligent, thoughtful work of the TSA. But, I also think, gosh darn these lines are long. I wish there was a way I could show my trust in the government, my faith in the Patriot Act and the TSA, and find a more convenient way to travel. Hell, I’d *pay money* and give up a few freedoms just to not wait in long lines. Well, now I can!
It’s FlyClear’s Clear Card (first spotted here) which is a biometric card that is getting its own express line in airports all over the US. Enroll in FlyClear’s program for $99 USD, then submit to a “Security Threat Assessment” — an extensive background check through the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), including registering biometric information such as iris scans and multiple finger prints, among other ways to make you a completely trackable, docile animal. But don’t fret, this information is *safe* with the TSA, who will keep you “in the clear” by conducting “continuous security reviews of Clear members”.
You are not creeped out enough. Go read Tim Ferriss’ blog post about becoming “Clear” (via) and why he thinks it’s a good idea.

This morning, Jonathan sent me a link to Fotowoosh, a service (now taking signups for beta) that aims to take your digital photos and map them into a 3D space, so you can “enter” your pictures. Of course, I signed up immediately, with images of cupcakes and porn and LOLcats in my head, but I’m sure I’m the only one thinking like that. Riiiight. Anyway, I’m told that this “3D Flickr” is based on work by Hoiem, Efros, and Hebert at CMU.
Fotowoosh Alpha (fotowoosh.com)
See the research: Geometrically Coherent Image Interpretation and the awesome animations at Automatic Photo Pop-up.

There’s a new turn in the internet radio story I posted about mid-month in Possibly Fatal Blow Dealt to Web Radio — it looks like there might be some Congressional action to soften the blow, or possibly shatter the sickening money-grab altogether. Snip from The Register:

A bill introduced in Congress today could nullify the new rates set by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) which advocates say would put webcasters out of business.
Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) and Rep. Don Manzullo (R-IL) have headed the “Internet Radio Equality Act,” which aims to stop the controversial March 2 decision which puts royalty of a .08 cent per song per listener, retroactively from 2006 to 2010 on internet radio.
Advocates have dreaded the CRB ruling, which they say could raise rates between 300 to 1200 per cent for webcasters. Earlier this month, the CRB threw out an appeal by commercial webcasters, National Public Radio and others to review the new rates and postpone a May 15 deadline for the introduction of the royalty schedule.
If passed, today’s bill would set new rates at 7.5 per cent of the webcaster’s revenue— the same rate paid by satellite radio. Alternatively, webcasters could decide to pay 33 cents per hour of sound recordings transmitted to a single user.

Link.
See also: Lawmakers propose reversal of Net radio fee increases (news.com)
There’s a bit at the end of the piece indicating they’re talking about rates for streaming as well. I think we really need to look at how this goes and what kind of precedent gets set for this type of media. Check for all breaking news on this at SaveNetRadio.org. (thanks, Cliff!)
Also: Scott Beale at Laughing Squid has a really thorough post about all the coverage and info, very worth a look.

It’s called Walk-Smash-Walk. Adorable and fun, in case you need to remember what *that’s* like…

This one is of a CNC machining an engine block out of a single billet of steel, quite amazing if this is your kink. Bizzarely, it’s set to bad gay porn music. Embedded after the jump.

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