Watch as it appears that time is reversed before your very eyes! This amazing marvel is an ingenious design that uses a strobe light to light capture consecutive instants of time just out of sync with a periodic occurrence such as dripping water from a faucet, and can appear to have the drops move slowly or even backwards. In case your so amazed that you simply think that the video was ‘rigged’ and is playing backwards, well its not.

The way the Time Fountain works is pretty simple and similar to how you see a car’s wheels spinning backwards on the highway. The strobe lights work to only illuminate the drops at certain intervals that appear to the eye as moving at a different rate.This is more commonly known as the ‘wagon wheel effect’ and has to do with signal aliasing. Feel free to ‘google it’ if you’re still in disbelief.

link to the original

Do you sometimes wish you hand an extra hand lying around? Do you just sometimes need a third arm to help you out? Well Oomlout has released open source files and details needed to build your own Robotics Arm!

The aim is that others will begin developing their own adaptations and more importantly start improving upon the design. So why not give it a go?

via Flickr

Hair plugs. It’s a topic no one wants to talk about. Getting hair plugs is a sign of aging. Besides, what if, instead of using spare arm or leg hair, they plant those crinkly, thick hairs from your big toe onto your head?

Restoration Robotics can’t help with that problem, but it will help with the actual planting. The company has created a robot that assists doctors in this part of the operation. Now, doctors put in the hair plugs by hand, just like rice farmers. These robots can save time and money.

Medical devices are getting big and venture money has been streaming in. Israel, which has a large number of doctors and engineers, has been a hot market. Hair removal and cellulite sculpting company Syneron Medical had a successful IPO a few years back.

Surveyor Robotics have introduced SRV-1 Console, an open source Android app for operating robots based on the company’s camera board and firmware.

Using the G1’s WiFi capabilities, the operator can access a live video feed from the robot and control the device using the handset’s touch screen and accelerometer. So far the app’s been demonstrated with several robots, including the SRV-1 Blackfin, the YARB Robotic Blimp, and Forknife.

Researchers at the University of South Florida have developed a wheelchair-mounted robotic arm (WMRA) that captures the user’s brain waves and converts them into robotic movements. The revolutionary device can help people with disabilities better perform their activities of daily living.

The BCI system – developed, used and modified by USF psychology professor Emanuel Donchin and colleagues – captures P-300 brain wave responses and converts them to actions. Donchin and colleagues harnessed the P-300 brain signal to allow the user to “type” on a virtual keyboard by thinking with the P-300 response serving as the virtual “finger” for patients who cannot move, such as those with locked-in syndrome or those with Lou Gehrig’s Disease (ALS).

Early testing by human users has shown that the WMRA can be controlled “without the user moving a muscle.” The WMRA does not use any pre-programmed movements unless chosen by the user. The WMRA holds particular promise for persons suffering from “locked-in syndrome,” a totally paralytic condition that leaves people unable to move but intellectually normal, a condition that has gained greater attention thanks to the book and subsequent movie The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly. Even in its development stage, the WMRA offers hope for a better quality of life for people with all levels of mobility challenges.

If Hans Moravec of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University is right, we only have a good twenty to thirty years left before robots become a new type of artificial species. As we wait for the inevitable robot apocalypse, we’ve already begun to see a lot of little robotic guys pop into our lives, whether they’re sweeping the floor, giving us something to hold, or bringing us a cup of tea.

In addition to its miniature waitstaff ability, Pyuuun, Robo-Engine’s “LifeLog Robot,” is equipped with eight sensors including brightness, movement, collision, sound, distance, temperature, slope and infrared) and can be programmed to monitor an area, collecting various data such as keeping an eye on a temperature-sensitive workspace and reporting back to you via WiFi.

With a 12-volt battery that promises six hours of use on a single charge, the utility of this bad boy is only limited by your imagination…. and its $3,100 price tag.