The most ambiguous breakthrough ever
A Malaysian student claims to have made a breakthrough in AI which will allow ‘thinking robots’ to be created in five to ten years. Sadly, that’s about all of the information that the article contains. He’s won awards for it though, so I’m presuming there’s more to it than him saying “Hey Guys! I’ve just created something cool, but I can’t tell you what it is.” I guess I’ll see what Google can tell me about it a bit later.
The Droidyard 500 is essentially the nerdiest interpretation of vehicle racing that has ever existed, and features home build R2-D2s racing over a 60 yard course. Included here because it notified me of the existence of an R2-D2 builders club. This is a useful example of the way the Internet is slowly destroying my tiny mind: On reading about this, my first thought wasn’t “There’s an R2-D2 builders club?” but rather “There’s only one R2-D2 builders club?”
A hands on (head on?) test of Mindball. I’ve been hearing about this system for a while now, but it’s the first time I’ve read a first hand account of playing it. It’s basically a game where 2 opponents have sensors strapped to their heads which measures their Alpha and Theta waves. A ball moves between the 2 players according to how calm they are. The winner is the one to get the ball to the opposite side of the table.
I thought it was interesting that they describe the required state as ‘focused and calm’, since I’m not sure they’re the same thing. I’ve noticed that when I’m really zoning out on some task I get much more twitchy and animated than normal. I move around and fidget more, and generally tend to notice sensory input more acutely than I normally do. ‘Focused’ and ‘calm’ seem to be at different ends of the scale. Maybe that’s just me though.
The article also mentions being able to administer electrical shocks to your opponent, though I can’t tell if that’s actually in the game or something that the author wishes you could do. ECT to help you become a better games player? See also, the Mortal Kombat Xshok controller.