Sep 06
The Office of Naval Research has given a team from Northeastern University $600,000 to develop micro-robots to find underwater mines. Professor Joesph Ayers directs the program. Over the last seven years, the synthetic biologist has become famous for designing the RoboLobster and RoboLamprey — autonomous underwater robots that mimic the neurophysiology and behavior of their …
Jul 19
pic nicked from here The Pentagon is looking to harness the power of cricket communications to warn of impending chemical attacks. They’ll turn the bugs into cyborgs and program their wing beats, which they communicate through, to alter when the insects detect certain chemicals. So cricket smells something, cricket changes its call tone. Cricket hears …
Mar 13
Post also appears on The Worldwide Culture Gonzo Squad Inc. Canadian film maker Rob Spence is getting a cyborg camera eye. He’ll use this to secretly record people for a movie about the upcoming surveillance society. Looking at a cell phone camera, he realized that a camcorder could now fit into an empty eye socket. …
Jan 29
At the University of California, Berkeley, researchers have created a remote control beetle. Now, this isn’t a mechanical beetle. It’s a real beetle. Controlled by remote. This task was accomplished using six electrodes and a 1.3 gram radio module on the beetle’s back. It almost seems easy enough to do at home. As part of …
Aug 26
I dislike children. They irriate me. When people think they’re being cute, I think they’re being manipulative little con-men. But Devin Funck is different. I like and respect this kid. I’m even jealous of him. Not only is his last name just one letter off “funk” or “fuck” — that’s life dealing you an ace– …
May 08
Just the other day I was wondering where all our cut hair went. It seems wasteful to just throw it all out. Can’t it be used for something? There must be piles of the stuff, just doing nothing. But this story has nothing to do with that. In California, researchers have built an artificial muscle …
Feb 02
I bet you didn’t expect cyborgs to look like that. To be men who might have a case of plumber’s crack and use their mechanical appendages to eat more nachos while watching the game. I expected cyborgs to look like that. But not so soon. That is, not today. That’s Chuck Hildreth, who lost both …
Jan 13
Not only is the army attempting to make robots who think like soldiers but it’s also trying to make soldiers who think like robots. Rightly disturbed by the amount and nature of mental problems that are emerging in veterans, The Pentagon plans to make remorse obsolete. To do this they will use the same technique …
Dec 05
We may be waiting a while for this but Frog Design wants to make Dattoos. “The idea of DNA tattoos (Dattoos) is to use the body itself as hardware and interaction platform, through the use of minimally-invasive, recyclable materials.” Basically, your tattoo is your computer. How is that accomplished? Magic. DNA and genetic engineering is …
Oct 12
The insane might be true. And we’ve hit a reality bump. Some people at anti-war protests are now claiming that they are being watched by insects. This sounds like a paranoid fantasy. It might not be. In March of 2006 I wrote about DARPA’s interest in manufacturing cyborg insects. It’s now October of 2007. They …
Although Ryan Oakley began his career as a simple rake (drunk) he has since become Toronto’s most renowned flaneur (no car) and notorious dandy (overdresses). A misanthropic composer of psycho-geographical fictions (sci-fi), he is also a server of food, a tender of bar and a washer of dishes. While performing all these functions with efficiency and elegance (disdain and malice), he somehow finds the time to publicly criticize friends, strangers and cultural crap.
