Science, Space, & Robotics - Page 474

Raspberry Pi, an ARM based micro computer that runs Linux, has seen a huge surge in its user base since its release. The reason for this is no doubt its price point of $35, which gets you a fully capable Linux machine with 512mb of memory, USB, Ethernet, and SD Storage. Well the Pi just got cheaper, with the model A costing a mere $25.

The Raspberry Pi model A is a slimmed down version of the model B. The model A features only 256mb of memory, and lacks an ethernet chip and jack. The Raspberry Pi Foundation did this because they know that not all projects will need the networking hardware and that by removing the Ethernet chip, they save 200mA of power consumption with the model A consuming just 100mA of power.

The model A has not yet been released for sales yet, but some boards did wind up in the hands of Limor Fried of Adafruit Industries as well as Pete Wood of Design Spark. Both of whom has released videos covering the new little ARM board.

Skywatchers across the globe are in for a major treat tonight as the Geminid meteor shower peaks tonight along with a new unnamed meteor shower. With the moon at its new phase tonight the skies will be as dark as possible for the breathtaking event which is expected to produce around 100 "shooting stars" an hour.

To view the event you simply need to lay on your back and watch the constellation of Gemini. The meteors will seem to magically appear from that constellation. The action will be taking place all night with things really heating up starting at 10:00 local time and going into full effect around 2am. "Meteors from the new shower (if any) will be visible in the early evening, with the Geminids making their appearance later on and lasting until dawn," Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, said in a statement.

For those of you unfortunate enough to have cloudy skies tonight like me, NASA will host a live web chat overnight from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. EST (0400 to 0800 GMT), complete with live video of streaking meteors captured by a special camera at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. It will all happen here:

A couple of months ago, we reported that a team of physicists were going to see if The Matrix were more real than meets the eye - well, we've gotten a little further now and another team of physicists have found another way to experiment if we're all living within a computer.

There has been a philosophical thought experiment that has for quite some time shown that it is more likely that we're actually living in a machine - yes, that the real world is not so "real". This theory goes onto a path that any civilisation which would get as far as a 'post-human' stage would end up with the ability to run simulations on the scale of a universe. Considering the scale of what is out there, billions of stars, suns, worlds, and more - it is not only possible, but it is likely that it has already happened.

Then we tumble further down the rabbit hole, and it is statistically possible that we're (the human race, our universe) is within a chain of simulations within simulations. Inception springs to mind, so does The Matrix. The alternative to this is that we are the first civilisation, within the first universe - and this is virtually impossible.

Caltech engineers have developed a cheap X-ray technology that will allow it to see through solid materials. The engineers, Ali Hajimiri and Kaushik Sengupta, have tweaked silicon microchips to emit terahertz waves. These high power waves can go through solid materials and send back an image of what is inside.

The wave used by the engineers is also quite a bit safer than ionizing X-rays, and has actually been used for a while now. Current systems, however, are bulky and costly. This new chip uses a microchip like you would already find in your phone, making it cheap and compact and able to be put into a mobile device.

"We are not just talking about a potential," Hajimiri said. "We have actually demonstrated that this works. The first time we saw the actual images, it took our breath away."

If you thought NASA's Curiosity rover was already cool, checking in on Foursquare on Mars and all, well, they're looking to launch another rover in 2010. NASA have announced the news at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco, but haven't provided many more details unfortunately.

NASA's Management Astronaut and the Associate Administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters (imagine that on your resume), John Mace Grunsfield, did tease the world by saying that the next-generation rover would be "based on Curiosity". The current budget for the currently-dubbed "Science Rover" will hover at around $1.5 billion, with no funding coming in from other departments.

The launch of the Science Rover is part of a multi-year Mars program, which NASA says "affirms the agency's commitment to a bold exploration program that meet's our nation's scientific and human exploration objectives". The portfolio includes the Curiosity and Opportunity rovers, two NASA spacecraft and contributions to one European spacecraft that is currently orbiting Mars, the 2013 launch of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiter to study the Martian upper atmosphere, the Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) mission, which will look into the deep interiors of the red planet, and participation in the ESA's 2016 and 2018 ExoMars missions.

Our little Curiosity rover is all grown up now. Sitting on the surface of Mars, it has gone to work analyzing soil samples collected from a drift known as Rocknest. The sampling at this location served two purposes. One, it tested the equipment and provided data. Two, the fine sand particles were used to scrub the equipment of any lingering substances that came with the rover from Earth.

"We have no definitive detection of Martian organics at this point, but we will keep looking in the diverse environments of Gale Crater," said SAM Principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

"We used almost every part of our science payload examining this drift," said Curiosity Project Scientist John Grotzinger of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. "The synergies of the instruments and richness of the data sets give us great promise for using them at the mission's main science destination on Mount Sharp."

Curiosity is awesome from many different standpoints. It's one hell of a robot, a feat of engineering, and a great way to increase our knowledge about Mars and space in general. Rumors of a massive discovery, according to NASA and Curiosity's Twitter account, have been a bit overblown, but never-the-less, NASA will be presenting its findings so far tomorrow at 12:00 p.m. EST, 9:00 a.m. PT.

The press conference will be held during the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, which takes place in San Francisco. NASA has been trying to dial-in expectations and has said that there won't be any unbelievable findings presented tomorrow. "Rumors and speculation that there are major new findings from the mission at this early stage are incorrect," officials at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory wrote. "The news conference will be an update about first use of the rover's full array of analytical instruments to investigate a drift of sandy soil."

The rumors of a massive discovery started making their rounds two weeks ago when an NPR story used a quote from John Grotzinger, mission chief scientist, that said the SAM tool had found data "for the history books." If an earth-shattering discovery is presented tomorrow, you'll be able to read about it here.

Solar power, up until now, has not really been all that great - sure, it provides a different method of powering things, but it doesn't capture anywhere near enough light to truly replace coal, oil or nuclear power. But, this week a team of MIT researchers hope to put us on the path of truly sustainable solar power.

Current solar power technology is not that efficient, with the latest development in solar systems delivering around 32% efficiency. This was met with titles of a "major breakthrough" in solar power - but in reality, it's still nowhere near as good as it should be. At this rate, solar farms need to be gigantic, taking up valuable space, in order to collect a useful amount of energy. The price per square foot has always been another issue altogether.

The main issue is that solar energy collectors can only absorb a small amount of the energy being blasted onto it from our star, with the rest of the potential energy not being captured. A recent MIT study has proposed an "atomically thing" sheet of semiconducting material that would be stretched by pushing a pin down onto the center. This may not sound like much, but it has endless possibilities for the future of our species.

Ever since Transformers debuted back in the 1980s, toy creators have been trying their best to create their own real Transformer that would be able to change between a robot to a vehicle of some sort with the simple push of a button. It looks like one group has finally been able to produce a fully-functioning Transformer that not only is able to function as a robot and vehicle separately, but it also has a few awesome surprises as well.

Brave Robotics spent months building its Transformer-style toy that can switch between a luxury vehicle to a standing robot complete with projectiles that can be shot out of each arm. The mechanics of the robot changing from a vehicle to a robot and vice versa seems a little sloppy as in the video below, you can see the robot wobbling all over the place.

Not only can the toy be used as either a vehicle or robot, but it also has a Wi-Fi camera that faces the correct way regardless if the toy is in its vehicle or robot form.

Here I am thinking we're getting closer to the end of the Mayan long-count calender, and the world won't end - but now Disney have taught one of their humanoid robotic subordinates how to play catch and juggle with human participants.

Yes, I'm not trolling - Disney have just unveiled this new effort, and designers have given the unit (not named the T100) a cup-shaped, human-like hand which helps with the catching and juggling. The robot uses an ASUS Xtion Pro Live camera which tracks faces and incoming balls - technology similar to Microsoft's Kinect.

The project started off with Kinect, but researchers switched to the ASUS Xtion Pro Live because they didn't need the Kinect's panning motor or microphone.