Remember a couple months ago when I was all excited about the advent of 3D printing, aka Star Trek replicator technology? Well, my past and our future have collided into this present happening, and it freaks me out!
Some smart cookies have already decided to monetize this amazing future-tech in the coolest way possible: by building and selling customized robots!
My Robot Nation gives robot enthusiasts the chance to design unique robot figures online and then uses a 3D printer to fabricate them to your specifications. The do a pretty good job of explaining the process here, as well as showing some of it here:
This is Jukusui-Kun, a new robotic pillow combo in the form of two polar bears designed in Japan as a sleep aid to combat snoring. Yes, seriously.
How is this miracle of science achieved? Well, the smaller bear-pillow contains a small sensor which attaches to the afflicted sleeper’s hand. This sensor monitors oxygen levels in the blood, which a microphone embedded in the larger bear-pillow records noise levels.
Both pillows feed this data wirelessly into a THIRD unit, a terminal that compiles and analyzes the data. When blood oxygen levels dip and noise levels increase at the same time, the “mama” bear is triggered by the terminal and gently brushes its paw across the sleeper’s face in order to induce them to roll over without waking them up (sleeping on one’s side instead of the back is believed to alleviate the snoring).
Interested? Well, too bad — the researchers who designed this not-at-all ostentatious device that nobody asked for will not be producing it commercially.
So Japan spent an obscene amount of money to design a robotic anti-snoring pillow device and fabricated it in the form of an adult and an infant polar bear (complete with baby bottle) that essentially does what my wife’s elbow does for free after I pass out drunk. With no plans to recoup the R&D budget by mass-producing it.
No, don’t get up, Japan — we’ll lick this climate change/famine/poverty/overpopulation/war/pollution thing in a jiff.
It’s been a while (well, a few weeks) since Japan teamed up with Science to give me nightmares—guess they wanted to give the first few episodes of season two of The Walking Dead a few at-bats in my mindscape—but they are back on the job and better (worse?) than ever:
Basically, these are what will be applauding the zombie herds from the sidelines as they chase me through the southeast in my dreams. Because relentless undead hordes need a cheering section.
Halloween in Fells Point is always a blast, because all the most creative revelers come out in some pretty sweet costumes that are either really obscure, or really authentic and detailed, or both! Meredith and I went as Little Red Riding Hood and the Big, Bad Wolf this year, and while we saw a fair share of both characters over the course of the weekend, I think Meredith’s Red was the best because it was the most authentic-looking and wasn’t super-slutty.
And speaking of slutty, we were shocked to discover that the sluttiest costume we saw last night was being worn by a dude! It was pretty nuts given the outside temp (a not-so-balmy low 40s, with a nice wind whipping up off the river about 100 feet from the square) — just a skinny dude in gold lam´hot pants, humping everyone he saw. If I had to guess, I’d say he was supposed to be Chris Kattan’s ‘Mango’ character from SNL.
Anyway, here are some highlights from the weekend!
10. The big pumpkin-headed character from that animated movie I never saw:
3. Meredith & Me as Little Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf:
2. Disco Ball:
1. Bumblebee:
Now, if it was just a dude in a costume, this wouldn’t be quite so impressive. But I always give bonus points to costumes that incorporate electronics. And not only did this thing have lights all over it, but he seemed to have built servos to help improve his mobility. This doesn’t really come across in a still; luckily, I took some video, too:
OK, the title is a bit misleading, in that I (and I imagine a lot of us) already think of our iPhones as robots. And with the release of the iPhone 4S and its introduction of Siri, the already-amazing devices certainly became much more robotic. But they still count on you for gettin’ around.
Peter, Phu and Keller at Romotive would like to put a stop to that. They’ve developed Romo, a mobile platform and app network that turn your iPhone into a moving, talking robot. For funding, they launched a Kickstarter page, and based on the response so far, it looks like they should be able to expand Romo’s capabilities a lot in the coming months—their goal deadline is Nov. 21st and they’ve already more than doubled it. This is good news, because in theory, the more money they receive, the more command apps they’ll be able to develop, as well as new hardware modules to attach to the basic base to enlarge Romo and (ideally) increase its functionality.
See, Japan? Not every robot has to be man-sized and terrifying. Ease us into the future…baby-steps!
As we’ve already discovered ad nauseum (literally), Japan loves re-purposing poop. So it comes as absolutely no surprise that TOTO, Japan’s version of American Standard, is promoting it’s new eco-friendly image with an upcoming 500-mile jaunt from Kyushu to Tokyo on its prototype Toilet Bike Neo.
What makes Neo a “toilet bike”, you ask? Well… it’s “powered entirely by the on-board biogas digester. Biogas systems use an anaerobic bacteria system to convert dead organic matter into a usable fuel primarily made of methane.” Theoretically, this hog could run forever, provided the driver’s nice an’ regular. Oh, and if pooping out in the open into your vehicle is not embarrassing enough for you, Neo also talks as part of this campaign. Because nothing makes you less self-conscious while pooping in public than the robot you’re sitting on shooting the breeze with you. Still—pooh-derived energy certainly beats nuclear meltdowns. Right?
Look, I love robots as a concept. Cats riding around on them while they clean my house. A red & blue semi that protects us from Decepticons. Pudgy maids sassing me as I swallow my three-course breakfast pill before I head off to work in my flying suitcase-car. These are just a couple of the things that excited me about the future as a little kid. MABEL, however, is a little too much T1000, not enough Hedonism-Bot:
That’s right—scientists at the University of Michigan have developed a robot that can outrun the average person. And honestly, it’s not the speed that makes this frightening—it’s the combination of MABEL’s appearance and the ominous sound of “her” metallic legs clanking along as it circles this track.
Smirnoff? Absolut? Seagram’s?! NO, Michael Bay. No.
I get that you need to offer parents some way to dull the pain of sitting through your lump of childhood-ruining waste, but this is not the way. In fact, I cannot think of a WORSE way to add another $8 on top of a $12 ticket than being forced to drink “Michael Bay’s X-Plode Juice” while losing two hours of my life. $20 to be trapped in a life-sucking machine? Talk about a Pit of Despair.
(If this Youtube analogy causes Michael Bay to re-make Princess Bride, I will jump right out my f@#king window.)
Have you guys heard of Klout? It’s a new social media influence-compiler that takes all of the data produced by you on your various social networking accounts and grades you out based on link-clickage and page views and follows and likes. Like Google Analytics, BUT FOR YOUR VERY DIGITAL ESSENCE. I can’t decide if this is awesome or horrible. Probably both; the social media equivalent of watching some other dude get hit in the balls with some sort of object.
Here’s why it’s awesome:
Klout is new, so it has that “new app smell”, and it satisfies a navel-gazing urge and desire to have my ego stroked.
Here’s why it isn’t:
Klout is also pretty much a robot. And if a robot just rolled into your job or class wearing the coolest new clothes (mine, for instance), you’d probably want to hang out with it. But then it opens its mouth/switches on its speech facilitatrix, and just spews weird, random analysis of you based on what it sees with zero context. All of a sudden the cool new robot with the fly kicks seems a lot more like someone you’d like to shake down for lunch money.
For example:
That’s me. 29. My whole online existence, boiled down to a single (relatively low) number. High compared to my friends, but I rank lower than a lot of back-up outfielders on small-market National League baseball teams (how does Nyjer-f@#king-Morgan score a 57?!)
But check out the five topics I’m supposedly “influential” about:
1. Homelessness
2. Animals
3. Money
4. Billy Joel
5. Mystery
Let’s break it down: “homelessness” and “animals” should be paired together; my love of shelter pets and work with the SPCA is pretty well-known. Money…well, let’s just say that I always thought in order to be influential regarding that, you had to actually HAVE some. Klout thinks I’m Warren Buffet over here.
Billy Joel; OK, fair enough. I love The Piano Man. Apparently so much that he is the thing I care fourth-most about IN ALL THE WORLD. My wife, my cats, art, baseball, comics…don’t even make the list. And “mystery”?! I get that Klout is probably just picking up on the frequency of my Mystery Monday posts, but believing I’m influential about something as abstract as “mystery” is like saying you can actually “win” against terror.
Robots: awesome, but stupid.
FURTHERMORE, Klout believes that I am a.) not really all that influential, and b.) am only really influenced by ALCOHOL:
True though it may be, I don’t really need to be reminded of it by some douchey robot (whose shoes really aren’t all that great anyway). That’s right—my only influencer is Bad Decisions. My favorite bar.
Whatever. At least I’m not alone; Bad Decisions has a Klout score of 51, so clearly there are many other drunken Billy Joel fans with an air of mystery about them. I just need to find them.
In completely unrelated news, I’ve posted two new designs: Pirate Bunnies, and Ghost World. Snap ‘em up!
So after a quick diversion into the robotic realm last week, I thought I’d wrap up this two-part series about my recent European escapades!
Previously I posted some pics of the cool art to be seen in Oslo, Norway and the choicest selections from Berlin’s East Side Gallery. This week’s focus is a bit more on Berlin’s excellent street art scene.
This awesome Japanese woodcut-style portrait decorated the side of a hotel across the street from the East Side Gallery facing the Spree River. We really loved the economical use of color and elegant contours and just thought in general it was great art AND marketing for the hotel; it’s hard to miss AND hard to forget.
After a couple of mis-steps seeking out the cream of the art scene crop that we’d heard so much about before arriving in Berlin, we asked the proprietor of Big Brobot, a very cool book/toy/comic/t-shirt shop in the Friedrichshain section of the city, if he could recommend any good galleries that exhibited more street art and pop art (as opposed to the truly awful installations we’d seen up to that point.) He kindly pointed us in the direction of the NeuroTitan gallery and shop.
After a couple of missed turns, we finally were pointed in the direction of the correct alley leading to the gallery. Once we stepped into the alley, we were greeted with some really wonderful pieces of street art, from spray can art to traditional media to paste-ups.
The alley then led into a courtyard that featured this very cool steam-powered sculpture of a steampunk bat-creature with flapping wings, roving eyes, and flailing proboscis. I really wish I’d switched on my video camera to catch it in action!
Finally, to get to the NeuroTitan gallery, we had to climb a few flights of stairs to enter the shop area before checking out the exhibit. While the exhibit was pretty “meh”, the trip up the stairs was awesome, with the walls just COVERED in really cool graffiti and street art. One of our favorites was the “Fashion Chimp” ad paste-up, done in the style of a 1930s-40s women’s magazine. Who wouldn’t want a giant, life-sized “fashion chimp” for their home?
That pretty much wraps up our 2011 European adventure. Sad as we were not to be able to make it to Tokyo, it was an excellent diversion none the less, and hopefully the planet is done kicking Japan’s ass for a few years and we can make it over there soon.
In OTHER Ex-Boyfriend news—AT LEAST two new designs are going to be up by the end of this week. If you or someone you know is into vampires, kitties, and/or kawaii-style art, be sure to check back!
ALSO: Be sure to tune into The Daily Show on Comedy Central tonight at 11pm. Our good friend Jackson Galaxy from Animal Planet will be sporting our very own Fuzz Aldrin this evening during Aasif Mandvi’s segment! Woot! Be sure to spread the word!
UPDATE: The Daily Show segment featuring Jackson Galaxy wearing Fuzz Aldrin tonight has been postponed thanks to some big political news today, but I’ll keep you guys updated about when it really airs!
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