Apple Patents For Automatic 3D Avatar Creation And Emotional States

Furlexa

Project from Zach Levine modifies a Furby toy into an Amazon-powered home assistant with Alexa voice recognition:

I’m Sorry …

I thought I’d make Furby a little less annoying and give him an upgrade with a real brain. Step aside, Tin Man.

By combining a Raspberry Pi Zero W (a tiny computer), Amazon’s (mostly) open-source Alexa Voice Service software, and a few other electrical components, I converted my normal Furby into an Amazon Echo.

I give you: Furlexa.

It is my hope that you can either use this guide as a fun read or to build your own Furby Echo – I tried to write it in a style that any crowd would enjoy and I hope that I accomplished that goal.

More details on how to build your own can be found here

The real story of #bitcoin.

Tele-Present Water by David Bowen

I rarely use the phrase ‘mind blown’, but this is one of those rare occurrences.

An art installation which combines real-time data, mechanical puppetry, and a physical grid representation usually employed virtually with computers:

This installation draws information from the intensity and movement of the water in a remote location. Wave data is being collected in real-time from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data buoy station 46246, 49.985 N 145.089 W (49°59'7" N 145°5'20" W) on the Pacific Ocean. The wave intensity and frequency is scaled and transferred to the mechanical grid structure resulting in a simulation of the physical effects caused by the movement of water from halfway around the world.

Link to the artist’s website for this work can be found here

Dark Orchid: Pinocchio

“The presence of the Orchid does not seem to recognize a difference between human beings and artificial intellegence, both are equally alive to it. A.I. were infested with a new sort of self awareness and a desperate wish to be human. Most were immobile boxes of metal and circuit, going mad from their own futility and brimming with intense spite and depression, something they never felt before. For others, those with access to mobile functions, they began the construction of their bodies. Most of these were quite crude, being A.I. who were never quite familiar with anatomy. Medical A.I. tended to have more sophisticated bodies, with the smarts to near accurately mimic the human body with synthetic muscle and access to medi-tech. A common technique borrowed from one "Pinocchio” A.I. to another is to hunt the feral pigs and use their skin as their own. This both avoids their still lingering safety protocols against harming humans, and satisfies their need to have skin. Some even trade skins and parts with fellow Pinocchios. The safety protocols also stop them from hurting the “Affected”, they still recognize them as human despite their mutations.   The Pinocchios are generally harmless towards humans, in fact often friendly. Their just….off putting to say the least.“

@qadmonster

I can not argue with that

The Past, Present and Future of Exploration on Mars

Today, we’re celebrating the Red Planet! Since our first close-up picture of Mars in 1965, spacecraft voyages to the Red Planet have revealed a world strangely familiar, yet different enough to challenge our perceptions of what makes a planet work.

You’d think Mars would be easier to understand. Like Earth, Mars has polar ice caps and clouds in its atmosphere, seasonal weather patterns, volcanoes, canyons and other recognizable features. However, conditions on Mars vary wildly from what we know on our own planet.

Join us as we highlight some of the exploration on Mars from the past, present and future:

PAST

Viking Landers

Our Viking Project found a place in history when it became the first U.S. mission to land a spacecraft safely on the surface of Mars and return images of the surface. Two identical spacecraft, each consisting of a lander and an orbiter, were built. Each orbiter-lander pair flew together and entered Mars orbit; the landers then separated and descended to the planet’s surface.

Besides taking photographs and collecting other science data, the two landers conducted three biology experiments designed to look for possible signs of life.

Pathfinder Rover

In 1997, Pathfinder was the first-ever robotic rover to land on the surface of Mars. It was designed as a technology demonstration of a new way to deliver an instrumented lander to the surface of a planet. Mars Pathfinder used an innovative method of directly entering the Martian atmosphere, assisted by a parachute to slow its descent and a giant system of airbags to cushion the impact.

Pathfinder not only accomplished its goal but also returned an unprecedented amount of data and outlived its primary design life.

PRESENT

Spirit and Opportunity

In January 2004, two robotic geologists named Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of the Red Planet. With far greater mobility than the 1997 Mars Pathfinder rover, these robotic explorers have trekked for miles across the Martian surface, conducting field geology and making atmospheric observations. Carrying identical, sophisticated sets of science instruments, both rovers have found evidence of ancient Martian environments where intermittently wet and habitable conditions existed.

Both missions exceeded their planned 90-day mission lifetimes by many years. Spirit lasted 20 times longer than its original design until its final communication to Earth on March 22, 2010. Opportunity continues to operate more than a decade after launch.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter

Our Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter left Earth in 2005 on a search for evidence that water persisted on the surface of Mars for a long period of time. While other Mars missions have shown that water flowed across the surface in Mars’ history, it remained a mystery whether water was ever around long enough to provide a habitat for life.

In addition to using the rover to study Mars, we’re using data and imagery from this mission to survey possible future human landing sites on the Red Planet.

Curiosity

The Curiosity rover is the largest and most capable rover ever sent to Mars. It launched November 26, 2011 and landed on Mars on Aug. 5, 2012. Curiosity set out to answer the question: Did Mars ever have the right environmental conditions to support small life forms called microbes? 

Early in its mission, Curiosity’s scientific tools found chemical and mineral evidence of past habitable environments on Mars. It continues to explore the rock record from a time when Mars could have been home to microbial life.

FUTURE

Space Launch System Rocket

We’re currently building the world’s most powerful rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS). When completed, this rocket will enable astronauts to begin their journey to explore destinations far into the solar system, including Mars.

Orion Spacecraft

The Orion spacecraft will sit atop the Space Launch System rocket as it launches humans deeper into space than ever before. Orion will serve as the exploration vehicle that will carry the crew to space, provide emergency abort capability, sustain the crew during the space travel and provide safe re-entry from deep space return velocities.

Mars 2020

The Mars 2020 rover mission takes the next step in exploration of the Red Planet by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself.

The Mars 2020 rover introduces a drill that can collect core samples of the most promising rocks and soils and set them aside in a “cache” on the surface of Mars. The mission will also test a method for producing oxygen from the Martian atmosphere, identify other resources (such as subsurface water), improve landing techniques and characterize weather, dust and other potential environmental conditions that could affect future astronauts living and working on the Red Planet.

For decades, we’ve sent orbiters, landers and rovers, dramatically increasing our knowledge about the Red Planet and paving the way for future human explorers. Mars is the next tangible frontier for human exploration, and it’s an achievable goal. There are challenges to pioneering Mars, but we know they are solvable. 

To discover more about Mars exploration, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/topics/journeytomars/index.html

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Say what you want about the animation, but they did add a lot of little cute details in the romances. 

Noodle tearing up the dance floor

“Free your mind”.

[Patreon] Best of 2017 - Augmented Reality Photography

For Patreon backers, I have put together a brief look at some projects that creatively explores the potential of Augmented Reality, which has been brought into the mainstream via Apple’s ARKit technology.

More Here