Rexfeng

SRI International and DARPA are making little tiny robots (some are way smaller than a penny) that can actually manufacture products.

They can move so fast! And that shot of dozens of them moving in a synchronized fashion! Perhaps Skynet will actually manifest itself not as human-sized killing machines but as swarms of trillions of microscopic nanobots, a la this episode of Star Trek:TNG. (via @themexican)

Tags: robots   video

California farmers have never relied only on rain. But given a prolonged drought and environmental regulations, the jockeying for water is becoming more intense.

The idea of a new lottery in Slovakia is to encourage citizens to collect sales receipts and register them with the government, forcing restaurant and shop owners to pay the taxes they owe.

As the Sherpas, who put themselves at great risk to guide affluent clients up Mount Everest, mulled an unprecedented strike, some would-be climbers said their passion for the ascent was gone.

We showed you the preview earlier this week, now watch the full version of Darwyn Cooke's Batman Beyond animated short, featuring Kevin Conroy and Will Friedle.

Read more...

Zachary Crockett, writing for Priceonomics, on Alan Adler, inventor of (among other things) the Aerobie flying disc and the AeroPress coffee maker:

Adler says the mainstream toy industry has a tendency to push out new products every three years. “Parker Brothers, for instance, has a quota of ten new toys every year at the NY Toy Fair,” he tells us. Aerobie finds this practice counter-intuitive, and goes against the grain:

“A lot of companies feel the need to release new products; they’ll release products that never really deserved to be sold! They’re just not that good. We don’t look at it that way: we only release products that we think are innovative and offer excellent play value. Companies often spoil products by revising them in an effort to make them new.”

Conversely, Aerobie has stuck with a relatively small list of products (18, over a 30 year business), and has never had to discontinue a product (this is a routine practice at major toy manufacturers).

Bobby Flay went through many options before settling on the "stylish-but-tough typeface" that he chose for Gato. The restaurant's design firm, Pentagram, has the whole story: everything from color and paint selections to inspiration based on "Mediterranean locales." [Pentagram via Eater National]

Putting a can of beer in a brown paper bag is about to look like child's play. A new product that's somehow been approved by US regulators makes booze as discreet as a packet of sugar. It's called Palcohol, and it transforms a shot of vodka or rum into a pocketable pouch of powder. Tear it open, add some water, mix, and you've got hard liquor. Considering the age group that Palcohol is going to appeal to, however, the sweet, pre-mixed powders are probably going to be far more popular. To start off, the company plans to make margarita, mojito, cosmopolitan, and lemon drop flavors.

Continue reading…

The small village of Ciocanesti in Romania produces the most beautiful hand-painted Easter eggs I've ever seen. This video is a wonderful look at the process and tradition.

Here's how it works:

First, the (duck, goose, chicken, or even ostrich) egg is drained, through a tiny hole. Then, using a method akin to batik, it is dipped in dye and painted one color at a time, with the painter applying beeswax to those areas she wants to protect from the next round of dying. The painting implement, called a kishitze, is a stick with an iron tip. (Previously, egg-painters would have used thorns or pig bristles.)

And then the wax is melted and wiped off the egg, revealing the colors underneath. So cool. (via @colossal)

Tags: art   Easter   how to   Romania   video

Airbnb may soon have to hand over the names and addresses of its renters in New York—the company is set to appear in an Albany courtroom on Tuesday to contest the attorney general's subpoena for the personal data. [ more › ]

An avalanche that left at least 13 dead has focused attention on the Sherpas, skilled high-altitude climbers who put themselves at great risk for the teams that pay them.

The golf world has lost five million players in the last decade, spurring a growing revolution to create alternative forms of the game.

Lee Jun-seok became the second sea captain in two years to flee a sinking vessel when he left a South Korean ferry as terrified passengers were still struggling to get off.

Nick Statt, reporting for CNet:

Nike is gearing up to shutter its wearable-hardware efforts, and the sportswear company this week fired the majority of the team responsible for the development of its FuelBand fitness tracker, a person familiar with the matter told CNET. […]

There’s increasing competition in the market for wrist-worn fitness trackers, and Nike’s digital app ecosystem, Nike+, has grown less reliant on wearables as smartphone sensors have improved. In other words, it makes less and less sense for Nike to stay in the hardware race when its physical wearables are not bottom-line needle movers, especially as companies like Apple and Google prepare to join the fray.

Interesting, particularly when you consider that Tim Cook sits on the Nike board — and that he wears a FuelBand.

Update: Nike issued a sort of non-denial denial to Recode.

Filed under: Concept Cars, Motorsports, Coupe, Toyota, Toys/Games

The path to become a racing driver is a difficult one. It requires starting early, with karts, and then building up through the years and if you're really, really good (and really, really lucky), a team will notice you and sign you up. Or, you know, you could just become really good at Gran Turismo, and beat out other like-minded fanatics for a seat in the GT Academy.

The racing school, which culls its students from the ranks of Gran Turismo players has already pumped out successful racers, most notably, Lucas Ordoñez, who has a second and third-place finish under his belt at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. With the 2014 GT Academy kicking off April 21 and running through June 16, you could have a chance to be the next Ordoñez.

That won't be easy, though. We recently had a playthrough on GT6 the proper way - with a racing seat, pedals and a steering wheel, complete with column-mounted paddles. (Our setup looked just like the one you see above, though that image is from E3.) In other words, it was as close to driving an actual car as most console games can get.

During the 2014 New York Auto Show festivities, we took part in a tournament put on by Toyota that pitted this humble Autoblog scribe against some writers from other publications. Using a full driving setup, we raced around Fuji Speedway in Toyota's 2014 Detroit Auto Show concept, the FT-1. It didn't go too well.

After practicing at home, the best we could manage was a 1:47. In the NYC hot seat, though, our times improved rapidly. Initial practice laps started at 1:45 and dropped steadily, until we belted out a fast time of 1:37.295, which put Autoblog in the lead. It was a brief triumph, though. A friend from Cars.com bested us by a few tenths of a second, turning in a high 1:36, before we were royally whopped by a hot shoe from Popular Mechanics, who delivered a time in the 1:35s.

Looks like we won't be winning the GT Academy any time soon. That said, the improvement provided by a good wheel-and-pedal setup is enough to make us believers. It's a sound investment if you're looking to experience your favorite racing games a new way and a must-have if you're thinking about tackling the 2014 GT Academy.

GT Academy returns, and why Gran Turismo 6 demands a pedal/wheel setup originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 18 Apr 2014 14:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Comments

If you are ready to indulge your taste buds and up your noodle game with Burmese, Taiwanese, Chinese, Vietnamese and even Halal choices, here are 10 noodle dishes you need to try in the SGV. [ more › ]

Manton Reece:

It has been nearly a year since the first iOS 7 beta, and something about tint color still bugs me. In fact it bothered me enough at the time of the early betas that a filed a bug on it with Apple, something I very rarely do. The problem isn’t so much in the concept of tint color, which I like; having a consistent color for buttons and links, especially now that buttons are so understated, makes a lot of sense. The problem is the implementation in apps that use tint color anytime they want to highlight something, whether it is tappable or not.

Too many buttons that don’t look like buttons — that’s my single biggest gripe about iOS 7.

Tim Brown, Typekit:

Fonts are great, but using them well can be hard. Volumes have been written about typography, yet every good designer will say there are no rules; there is no magic formula for success. Typography simply takes practice. Typography is a practice.

So today, we’re launching a new website: Typekit Practice, a place where novices and experts alike can hone their typographic skills. We hope it will help students learn, help teachers teach, and help professionals stay sharp.

Companies across the globe have long tried to attract viewers to live Internet broadcasts, with X-rated sites the only real success stories. China appears to have cracked the code.

Hamburger Helper: He's been burned one too many times.

Well, that didn't last long: General Mills is taking a few steps back from its revised new legal policy, reported in yesterday's Times, which seemed to signal all consumers forfeited their rights to sue if they simply "engaged" with things like the company Facebook page or "liked" a photo. A spokesperson now clarifies: "No one is precluded from suing us merely by purchasing our products at the store or liking one of our brand Facebook pages." The way one is precluded, apparently, is by "subscrib[ing] to one of our publications or download[ing] coupons." Clears things up, right?

But, as at least one confused consumer is wondering, "How does this language not mean precluded from suing?" The company's answer is that the policy doesn't "preclude a consumer from pursuing a claim. It merely determines a forum for pursuing a claim. And arbitration is a straightforward and efficient way to resolve such disputes." Totally — at least for one of the two legal parties.

General Mills Amends New Legal Policies [NYT]
Related: Cheerios Facebook Fans Agree Never to Sue General Mills Under Sneaky New Rule

Read more posts by Clint Rainey

Filed Under: cereal talk, facebook, general mills, hamburger helper, lawsuits

Bespoke Peeps

Go beyond the chocolate bunny — or not, that's fine, too — with this lineup of next-level candy and sweets from places like Dominique Ansel Bakery, FP Patisserie by François Payard, and Bouchon Bakery. Or splurge for the $1,200, 11-pound tableau from La Maison du Chocolat. There's even some gluten-free and vegan picks from BabyCakes on the list. [New York]

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: easter, babycakes, bouchon bakery, dominique ansel, easter candy, eatser, jacques torres, papabubble

With some of the hottest seats in town and a little business savvy, Sushi Nakazawa stands to make a serious profit this year. Owner Alessandro Borgognone won't reveal the exact revenue, but tells Bloomberg that the restaurant is "on track to pull in the high-seven-digits for the year." That's despite the fact that he changes the art on the walls regularly and spends $850 a week on flowers. [Bloomberg]

Filed under: Concept Cars, Misc. Auto Shows, Motorcycle, Fisker

Henrik Fisker has designed some seriously beautiful vehicles over the course of his career thus far. You'd naturally associate his name with the Karma hybrid that shares it, or maybe the reskinned Mercedes SL and BMW 6 Series he crafted as a coachbuilder, but he was also responsible for such beautiful shapes as the BMW Z8, Aston Martin DB9 and V8 Vantage, Tesla Model S and Artega GT. And now he's turned his attention to a motorcycle.

Called the Viking concept, the Fisker-designed chopper is the product of a collaboration with Lauge Jensen, a Danish custom bike shop owned by Lego scion Anders Kirk Johansen. The 660-pound Viking packs an air-cooled 45-degree V-twin engine (built, incidentally in Wisconsin, we wonder by whom) churning out 100 horsepower with a six-speed transmission to propel it to a 130-mile-per-hour top speed and meeting Euro IV emissions regulations. It's packaged into a rather sleek take on the classic hog, the curve of the fuel tank melding into the seat and the rear fender.

The Viking is set to be unveiled this week at the Top Marques show in Monaco where Lauge Jensen will watching to see how it's received. Given a positive reception, it could soon join the Great Dane in the company's lineup. Considering that bike already sells for €42,800 (about $60k), and that the Viking would likely command an even bigger premium, that would make for one very expensive chopper. Still, it might be one of the least expensive ways to get your hands on a Henrik Fisker original.

Henrik Fisker designs a chopper for Lauge Jensen originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 18 Apr 2014 11:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Nearly one fifth of China's farmland contains pollutants such as cadmium, nickel, and arsenic, reports the Associated Press. The news is outlined in a multi-year soil survey released this week by China's Environment Protection Ministry and its Land and Resources Ministry.

Continue reading…

Horace Dediu:

But there is another form of ignorance which seems to be universal: the inability to understand the concept and role of innovation. The way this is exhibited is in the misuse of the term and the inability to discern the difference between novelty, creation, invention and innovation. The result is a failure to understand the causes of success and failure in business and hence the conditions that lead to economic growth.

This is a step toward understanding why so many people get Apple so very wrong. If you don’t understand what innovation really is, you’re not going to understand an innovative company.

Celebrate with a free Cronut, why don't you.

That was fast: Last August, it was announced that pastry chef Dominique Ansel was writing a cookbook, just a scant three months after the debut of Cronuts, and now we have the cover. The dramatic shot of flour, along with Ansel's hands, is an interesting choice, considering how most cookbooks go for extreme close-ups on chef's faces, or heavily stylized food shots.

The book, which comes out October 28, now also has its own website, and to promote the cover release, the bakery will hand out cronuts and chocolate-chip-cookie shots today, April 18, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., at random locations throughout Manhattan — a large smallish rabbit, of course, is involved. Follow @dominiqueansel for all the details on that.

Dominique Ansel Book [Official Site]
Earlier: Cronut King Dominique Ansel Gets a Cookbook Deal

Read more posts by Hugh Merwin

Filed Under: bookshelf, cronuts, dominique ansel, dominique ansel bakery

Back in January, arts and crafts retail giant Michaels announced that it was investigating a potential security breach, and now the company has confirmed that millions of credit cards may have been compromised by a cyberattack. The company says that the attack targeted its point-of-sale systems at a "varying number" of stores from May 8th, 2013 through January 27, 2014. Overall, some 2.6 million credit and debit cards may have been affected, which is about seven percent of cards used in its stores over that timeframe.

The Michaels website has details on what specific stores were targeted and at what times they were vulnerable, so concerned customers can go and check to see if their credit card info was potentially hacked. While it...

Continue reading…

Titanfall was the best-selling game for the month of March, according to NPD, but it didn't help Microsoft take the lead in the latest console war. Today, Microsoft has announced that the Xbox One has shipped over five million units, but yesterday Sony reported selling seven million units of the PlayStation 4. That's a sizable lead for Sony, especially considering that Sony says those consoles were actually sold to consumers, not just those sitting on retail shelves. (The PlayStation 4 is frequently sold out.)

Still, it's important to note that neither company is losing this battle: both Sony and Microsoft's gaming machines are doing fantastically well. The Xbox One may not be the top seller, but Microsoft says it sold 311,000 consoles...

Continue reading…