Lifeboat Foundation

Wonder when someone will attempt to 3D Print Atlantis; or recreate the ancient Colossus of Rhodes.

Rio 2016 is a much-awaited event of people from all over the world that has already been happening in Brazil. On the other hand, the Summer Olympics that was held in Atlanta in 1996 has celebrated their 20^th anniversary by creating a replica of Zeus using 3D printing technology. The statue of Zeus that was taken from Olympia is commonly used to represent the Olympics. As a matter of fact, it is also considered as a part of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.

Continue reading “The Use of 3D Printing in Reviving the Statue of Zeus in Olympia” »

Absolutely, undeniably awesome.

We got about a minute of footage last week, and now the full trailer for the movie adaptation of Ted Chiang’s “Story Of Your Life” is here. And it is tense.

Whereas before, the footage ended with Amy Adams’ Dr. Banks getting her first look inside one of the weird alien monoliths that have appeared, the trailer goes much further. We see her actually communicating with the aliens, while the rest of the world goes appropriately batshit. There’s a lot less action in this sci-fi movie than there is drama, and it all looks great.

Continue reading “The First Arrival Trailer Makes Talking to Aliens Terrifying” »

Video games. The last i heard AI had been up to playing and Mastering Atari 2600 games, and that was a few years ago. Figured it was only a matter of time til they started playing around with current gen stuff.

Neural net driving in GTAV — View all crizcraig’s Rockstar Editor videos at http://socialclub.rockstargames.com/member/crizcraig

Finally a trailer for this!

And it looks like it’s been worth the wait!

Continue reading “The First Footage From Arrival is Here, and It Looks Incredible” »

UCLA freshman cluster course combines anatomy, history, philosophy and humanities to provide an interdisciplinary approach to studying neuroscience.

Watching glasses-free 3D on a TV is no longer an outlandish concept, but that hasn’t been true for movie theaters. How are you supposed to create the same parallax effect for everyone, whether they’re up front or way in the back? Researchers at MIT CSAIL and Israel’s Weizmann Institute for Science finally have a practical answer. Their Cinema 3D tech creates multiple parallax barriers in a single display, using lenses and mirrors to deliver a range of angles across the whole theater. And unlike previous attempts at large-scale glasses-free 3D, you don’t have to take a hit to resolution.

You won’t get to forego the unwieldy eyewear for a while. The prototype is only slightly larger than a pad of paper, and uses 50 lens/mirror combos to achieve its 3D effect. You’d need a far bigger and more intricate system to make it work at the local movie house, which might make it prohibitively expensive. However, it’s imaginable that a future, optimized version might find its way into theaters and spare you from one of the biggest hassles in modern moviegoing.

Continue reading “Scientists create glasses-free 3D for the movie theater” »

Interesting…

The SETI concepts now called ‘Dysonian’ are to my mind some of the most exhilarating ideas in the field. Dysonian SETI gets its name from the ‘Dyson spheres’ and ‘Dyson swarms’ analyzed by Freeman Dyson in a 1960 paper. This is a technology that an advanced civilization might use to harvest the energy of its star. You can see how this plays off Nikolai Kardashev’s classification of civilizations; Kardashev suggested that energy use is a way to describe civilizations at the broadest level. A Type II society is one that can use all the energy of its star.

In the film 2010, director Peter Hyams’ 1984 adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel 2010: Odyssey Two (Del Rey, 1982), we see an instance of this kind of technology at work, though it has nothing to do with a Dyson sphere. In the film, a dark patch appearing on Jupiter signals the onset of what Martyn Fogg has called ‘stellification,’ the conversion of a gas giant into a small star. Rapidly replicating von Neumann machines — the famous monoliths — increase Jupiter’s density enroute to triggering nuclear fusion.

Continue reading “Making Jupiter into a Star” »

Nintendo fans may be anxiously awaiting next March’s supposed NX launch (and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild), but the Japanese gaming giant has a little something up its sleeve in the meantime: a re-release for the iconic NES. Dubbed the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition, the console comes in the form of a miniaturized, HDMI-equipped take on the original and comes with 30 games built right in. Said Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime:

We wanted to give fans of all ages the opportunity to revisit Nintendo’s original system and rediscover why they fell in love with Nintendo in the first place. The Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition is ideal for anyone who remembers playing the NES, or who wants to pass on those nostalgic memories to the next generation of gamers.

Players will even be able to pick up a second controller for just $10 USD when the revamped NES drops this fall. And best of all? The mini console will only run you $60 USD.

Continue reading “Nintendo Is Bringing Back the NES This Fall” »

2016 has been called the year that virtual reality becomes a reality, as some of the most anticipated devices will be made available on the consumer market. From Magic Leap (valued at over $1 billion) to Oculus (acquired by Facebook last year for $2 billion), there’s plenty of interest in the market, and ample room for it.

Though virtual reality is often depicted as an experience for the recliner or gaming chair, a number of VR enthusiasts want us to rethink how we engage with the technology. Instead of sitting around, they’d like to get us moving and looking beyond the go-to medium of gaming. Developers of these new devices consider fields like military training and healthcare as valuable places for mobile virtual reality to be applied.

Leading this approach is a Kickstarter VR company called Virtuix, whose treadmill-like device Omni encourages users to get upright and active. The reason to develop such a device felt like a natural evolution to Virtuix’s former Product Manager, Colton Jacobs.

“If I am walking in the virtual world my avatar is actually walking…”, he says, “…then the body’s natural reaction is, I want to stand up, I want to be walking with this avatar as if I’m actually there.”

Continue reading “Virtuix Omni Provides Virtual Worlds in Which to Walk, Run, and Jump” »