Cicret Smart Bracelet brings a tablet to your skin

The mobile market is not immune to trends and fads, and sometimes they can run counter to established norms. At first users wanted the smallest phone on the market. In the prehistoric pre-smartphone era some phones were so small they were almost impossible to dial. Smartphones changed that trend, and initial small versions have given way to phablets. Once again, bigger has become better. Cicret looks to solve the problem for us all with the largest useable screen packed into the smallest device possible. It seems a bit counter-intuitive, but the design is genius.

The Cicret Smart Bracelet debuted on Indiegogo and just finished its round of funding. The Smart Bracelet looks like a simple bracelet but has an embedded memory card, processor, accelerometer, vibrator, USB port, Bluetooth functionality, and Wi-Fi. The most important components consist of a pico-projector and an array of 8 proximity sensors. The projector beams the screen down onto the users forearm, and the proximity sensors track fingers to allow device interaction. The video below is simply amazing.

Man Eaten Alive by Anaconda

Discovery's 'Eaten Alive' special airs on December 7th and will show Paul Rosolie being eaten alive by an anaconda. Rosolie spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the experience. Gillian Pensavalle (@GillianWithaG) has more.

Bio-Electric-Hybrid-Aircraft concept aims to quietly rule the skies

The Faradair BEHA concept is intended to be one of the world’s quietest, most efficient and environmentally friendly aircraft ever created (Image: Faradair)

Touted as the world's first true hybrid aircraft, the Faradair BEHA (Bio-Electric-Hybrid-Aircraft) is a triple box-wing design concept that combines electric motors and a bio-diesel engine. Fitted with a range of energy conservation and recovery technologies, including solar panels on all flight surfaces and high-lift, low-speed flight capabilities, the BEHA is intended to be one of the world’s most environmentally friendly aircraft.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/projects/1421946/photo-main.jpg?1416186577

Snake Robots! Slithering Machines Could Aid Search-and-Rescue Efforts

One snake's ability to shimmy up slippery sand dunes could inspire new technologies for robots that could perform search and rescue missions, carry out inspections of hazardous wastes and even explore ancient pyramids.

A new study looked at the North American desert-dwelling sidewinder rattlesnake (Crotalus cerastes), a creature better known for its venomous bite than its graceful movements. But this snake can climb up sandy slopes without sliding back down to the bottom — a feat that few snake species can accomplish.

Snakelike, or limbless, robots are intriguing to scientists for several reasons. First, their lack of legs, wheels or tracks means they don't often get stuck in ruts or held up by bumps in their path. They could also be used to access areas that other bots can't get to, or to explore places that aren't safe for humans. [Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature]

sidewinder shimmy

To get a closer look at their live study subjects, the researchers headed to Zoo Atlanta, where they were able to examine six sidewinderrattlesnakes. They tested the snakes on a specially designed inclined table covered with loosely packed sand.

Fifty-four trials were conducted, with each of the six snakes slithering up the sandy table nine times, three times each at varying degrees of steepness. As the snakes worked their way up the makeshift sand dune, high-speed cameras tracked their movements, taking note of exactly where their bodies came into contact with the sand as they moved upward.

The researchers found that sidewinder snakes live up to their name. The slithery creatures moved up the sandy incline in a sideways motion, with their heads pointing toward the top of the incline and the rest of their bodies moving horizontally up the slope. The researchers then looked more carefully at how sidewinders carry out these complex movements.

"The snakes tended to increase the amount of body in contact with the surface at any instant in time when they were sidewinding up the slope and the incline angle increased," said Daniel Goldman, co-author of the study and an associate professor of biomechanics at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Specifically, the snakes doubled the amount of their bodies touching the sand when navigating the slope, he added.

The Carnegie Mellon snake robot has finally mastered the art of slithering up a sandy slope.
Credit: Nico Zevallos and Chaohui Gong

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And the parts of the snake's body that were touching the sand during the ascent never slipped back down the slope because the creature applied the right amount of force in its movements, keeping the sand under it from sliding, Goldman told Live Science.

Snake robots

To put their newfound understanding of sidewinding to good use, Goldman and his colleagues got in touch with Howie Choset, a professor at The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Choset, who has been developing limbless robots for years, already developed a snakelike bot that performs well both in the lab and in real-life situations. However, his slithering machine has run into one particular problem during field tests.

"These guys have been making a robot sidewind for years over a wide diversity of substrates, but they had a lot of trouble on sandy slopes," Goldman said.

To get the robot moving over sandy dunes, the researchers applied what they now know about the sidewinding rattlesnake's patterns of movement. They programmed the robot so that more of its body would come into contact with the ground as it slides up the slope. They also applied what they had learned about force, which enables the robot to move its weight in such a way that it keeps moving upward over the sand without rolling back down the slope.

Now that Choset's snake robot can move over tough terrain, it'll be better equipped to handle the tasks that it was built to tackle.

"Since these robots have a narrow cross section and they're relatively smooth, they can fit into places that people and machinery can't otherwise access," Choset told Live Science.

For example, these limbless robots could be used during search-and-rescue missions, since the slithery machines can crawl into a collapsed building and search for people trapped inside without disturbing the compromised structure. The snake bot could also be sent into containers that may hold dangerous substances, such as nuclear waste, to take samples and report back to hazmat specialists.

Choset also said these robotic sidewinding abilities could come in handy on archaeological sites. For instance, the robots could one day be used to explore the insides of pyramids or tombs, he said.

The research represents a key collaboration between biologists and roboticists, said Auke Ijspeert, head of the Biorobotics Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne (EPFL), who was not involved in the new study.

"I think it’s a very exciting project which managed to contribute to the two objectives of biorobotics," Ijspeert told Live Science.

"On one hand, they took inspiration from biology to design better control methods for the robot," Ijspeert said. "By looking at how sidewinding takes place in a snake, especially with slopes, they found out the strategy that the animal uses and, when they tested it on the robot, it could really improve the climbing capabilities of the robot."

The researchers also achieved the second goal of biorobotics, he said, which is to use a robot as a scientific tool. By testing the different speeds at which the robotic snake could successfully climb up the sand, the researchers were able to pinpoint exactly how fast real snakes make their way up these slippery slopes.

"It's a nice example of how robots can help in biology and how biology can help in robotics."

The study was published online today (Oct. 9) in the journal Science.

Beautiful Phones

Samsung, the world’s largest electronics company worldwide, has announced that it has been able to develop the world’s first adaptive array transceiver technology which operates in the millimeter-wave Ka bands designed primarily

 Samsung Galaxy S5 Coming Out and release date set around April 2014.

Instead, Microsoft is reportedly holding back to make a major Windows Phone push at its own Build developers conference that will be held in April, in San Francisco, California. There Microsoft, Nokia

Order pizza from your Xbox One

Domino's release an app for the Xbox One, so you can order pizza while gaming

Yesterday, Domino’s quietly released a new app for Microsoft's Xbox One console. First announced back in October as a partnership between Microsoft and Domino’s, the app promises easy delivery and order customisation, all using a controller - or Xbox One's Kinect system.

Now available in the UK, the 32Mb app can be found in the Xbox One’s Marketplace, and allows gamers to specify their pizza order without picking up the phone. If using a controller is too much effort, it’s possible to use Kinect, Microsoft's speech recognition software, to order your toppings and sides of choice.

The Domino’s app is also compatible with the Xbox One’s Snap feature. Allowing a margin of the screen to be taken up by an app, Snap makes it easy to multi-task. This means you can discretely track your Domino's order in real time - all without interrupting your gaming or TV session.

As reported by Eurogamer.net, the inclusion of a Domino's app for Xbox One represents a dramatic change in taste from Microsoft’s last gen console: the Xbox 360 had a similar app for Pizza Hut.

Online life for teens may lead to real-life problems

Teen's online behaviors may create real-life problems like relationship abuse and negative thoughts on body image, according to two new studies.

The studies, published in the journal Pediatrics, suggest that education and monitoring by parents may help reduce these behaviors and their negative consequences.

Both studies confirm "what we’re finding out in research, that the online behaviors seem to mimic offline behaviors,” Jeff Temple told Reuters Health.

Temple, who was not involved with the new studies, is a psychologist and women's health researcher from The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.

In one study, researchers led by Rebecca Dick at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh surveyed a representative sample of 14 to 19 year olds from California in the 2012 school year and found that about 41 percent reported cyber dating abuse during the previous three months.

So-called cyber dating abuse can involve control, harassment, threats and stalking, the researchers write.

Cyber dating abuse was more common among girls than boys. It was also linked to a greater risk of physical abuse, sexual abuse and sexual assault.

Cyber dating abuse also increased the risk of not using contraceptives and being coerced to have children among girls, according to the researchers.

Dick told Reuters Health that the research is part of a larger study that will also look at how cyber dating abuse can be prevented and how its negative effects may be stopped. Those results will be published in January.

Until then, she said it’s important to know how common this type of abuse is.

“I think the message to parents is that this is really common and that also the relationship abuse - the hidden nature of this - could be potentially dangerous for their teens,” Dick said.

“We do want clinicians, health educators and coaches in high school to be aware of the abuse,” she said.

In the second study, Suzan Doornwaard at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and colleagues found that sex-related online behaviors are not widespread among seventh to tenth grade Dutch students. That includes looking at pornographic images online.

Those who do engage in those behaviors, however, are more likely to have negative thoughts about their bodies and perceptions of themselves sexually.

Social media use, which was common among the teens, was tied to more evaluations of their bodies and less satisfying sexual experiences. It was also tied to less physical self esteem among girls.

“We present ourselves in our social networks in a very positive light, which makes sense,” said co-author David Bickham from the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children’s Hospital. "When they see their peers in such a positive way, they can’t help but compare themselves to them.”

The study also found that greater access to private Internet use among adolescents and lax rule setting by parents about Internet use was tied to more involvement in sexual online behaviors.

Bickham said that finding is similar to a previous study of his that found kids benefit from having rules of Internet use spelled out by parents.

“Kids and parents have vastly different ideas of when there is a rule and when there isn’t, when you look at the literature,” he said.

The authors of both studies warn that their results may not be applicable to a wider population, because one study looked at teens in a confidential healthcare setting in California and the other included only Dutch students.

Temple said people should continue to expect research and findings like these as devices like smartphones become increasingly common among children and adolescents.

“We probably for whatever reason have given kids access to the online world and said ‘that’s their thing,’ but I don’t think we can do that anymore,” he said.

Parents should have a similar presence in their children’s online lives as they do in their offline lives, Temple said. If that’s not possible, he said they should at least understand social media, including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

“There is this bidirectional relationship that what happens online can happen offline and what happens offline can happen online as well,” he said.

Dick said it’s also important for parents to exhibit good behaviors online and in their own relationships.

“It’s important for parents to think how they can be good role models for their kids,” she said.