Augmented Arthropod Gets A Self-Balancing Ride

There are many people who find being around insects uncomfortable. This is understandable, and only likely to get worse as technology gives these multi-legged critters augmented bodies to roam around with. [tech_support], for one, welcomes our new arthropod overlords, and has even built them a sweet new ride to get …read more

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Edgybees’s new developer platform brings situational awareness to live video feeds

San Diego-based Edgybees today announced the launch of Argus, its API-based developer platform that makes it easy to add augmented reality features to live video feeds. The service has long used this capability to run its own drone platform for first responders and enterprise customers, which allows its users to tag and track objects and […] Continue reading Edgybees’s new developer platform brings situational awareness to live video feeds

Cyborg, Or Leafy Sensor Array?

Some plants react quickly enough for our senses to notice, such as a Venus flytrap or mimosa pudica. Most of the time, we need time-lapse photography at a minimum to notice while more exotic sensors can measure things like microscopic pores opening and closing. As with any sensor reading, those measurements can be turned into action through a little trick we call automation. [Harpreet Sareen] and [Pattie Maes] at MIT brought these two ideas together in a way which we haven’t seen before where a plant has taken the driver’s seat in a project called Elowan. Details are sparse but …read more

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Digital Dining With Charged Chopsticks

You step out of the audience onto a stage, and a hypnotist hands you a potato chip. The chip is salty and crunchy and you are convinced the chip is genuine. Now, replace the ordinary potato chip with a low-sodium version and replace the hypnotist with an Arduino. [Nimesha Ranasinghe] at the University of Maine’s Multisensory Interactive Media Lab wants to trick people into eating food with less salt by telling our tongues that we taste more salt than the recipe calls for with the help of electrical pulses controlled by everyone’s (least) favorite microcontroller.

Eating Cheetos with chopsticks is …read more

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