Don’t you hate it how simply moving a robotic arm in a microgravity environment can produce enough negative reaction forces to alter a spacecraft’s orientation? Well, a group of researchers from Cornell University have now devised a new type of robot arm that they say could make that pesky problem a thing of the past. To do that, they’ve employed a device known as a control-moment gyroscope (or CMG) instead of a motor to control the arm’s joints, which not only reduces the amount energy requied to move the arm, but lets it move faster as well. As you can see above, they’ve already tested the arm on board NASA’s famous Vomit Comet, but there’s no indication just yet as to when or if the arm will actually see action in space.
It’s taken more than a year, but Verizon has just officially announced that it has completed its purchase of Rural Cellular, which you may also know by its business name, Unicel. This latest announcement follows a conditional approval from the FCC earlier this week, which required one of the two companies to sell licenses in six markets in order to “improve competition” — a compromise Verizon seems to have been more than willing to accept. All told, Verizon will be forking over $2.66 billion in cash and assumed debt for the company, which will increase its customer base by more than 625,000, and expand its coverage area by 4.7 million people, including markets in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Alabama, Mississippi, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Idaho, Washington and Oregon.
There’s a new exhibit at Coney Island that’s fun for the whole family: the “Waterboard Thrill Ride.” Greeted by Spongebob exuding “It don’t Gitmo better!” you walk in to peer through bars at dude in dark sweats leaning over another guy in an orange suit, his face wrapped in a towel. Slip a dollar into the machine, and for 15 seconds, “Dark Hood” pours water into Orange Jumpsuit’s nose and mouth while he convulses.
I think there might be some sort of political and cultural commentary going on—something about the US and torture and calling it a thrill ride and people paying to see it at a carnival. Anyways! The artist who created the animatronic exhibit, Steve Powers, actually wanted to do a waterboarding exhibit with real people—he’d be waterboarded first, then perform it on a volunteer, who would do it to the next guy and so on. But pseudo-drowning robots is obviously safer, and maybe a touch less controversial—after all, do androids dream of electric freedom? [NYT via BoingBoing]
Sure, Will.I.Am’s “One More Chance” video looks like it was directed by RIM, what with it’s huge BlackBerry billboard and a prominently featured Curve. But you know what? Everyone’s gotta eat, and when we insist on BitTorrenting albums instead of buying them, we should expect this from musicians. Along with Jay-Z shilling beer and Bob Dylan peddling panties, Will found a way to continue making music in a climate of slumping record sales, and it only cost a little piece of his soul. Pirating music is the only choice for many of us today, whether it’s out of convenience, cost, DRM or anything else, but we better be prepared to live with the consequence. BlackBerry ad down below. [CrackBerry]
Sure, we just saw the Celio REDFLYunboxed last month, but come on — you know you really wanted one of the Foleo-like WinMo “companions” all to yourself, and now you can have one — for $499. Yep, 5 bills to use WinMo 5 or 6 on an 8-inch screen — and you can’t use it at all if you don’t have your phone. Or, you could spend your money on something 1000x more useful and get one of the million netbooks that have been released since this thing was first announced, but hey — don’t let a silly thing like common sense stand between you and your phone’s desire to be loved. One more short unboxing vid after the break.
In case you haven’t noticed, HP has a thing for attempting (emphasis on attempting) to stay one step ahead of the sector. Now, it’s being reported that touch technology is all the rage within Palo Alto, and HP is purportedly aiming to introduce “an array of products, including notebooks,” that utilize the finger-friendly tech within the next 18 months. Details on those very products are few and far between, but Phil McKinney (CTO of the Personal Systems Group) sees touch “as the almost preferred method for nontechnical users.” Funny thing, though — it seems most everyone else recognized touch as the new hotness a good while back. We’re betting HP has just been holding all of this mighty close to the chest… guess we’ll see in 18 months, huh?
Fanboys, get your commenting fingers warmed up. A new study shows that, on average, the cost of a Windows PC is half that of an Apple computer. According to data collected by the NPD group, the average Windows notebook goes for $700, while the average Apple laptop costs above $1,500, dropping a mere $59 in the last two years. And that’s nothing compared to desktop computers.
The average Mac desktop sells for about $1,000 more than the average PC desktop, which sells for a mere $550.
“But wait,” you say, “that’s because people interested in higher-end machines buy Apple, while cheap idiots buy PCs.” Eh, maybe. But that doesn’t explain away the discrepancies.
Specifications often vary sharply for these systems, with Apple often focusing on faster processors than some rivals in notebooks but at the expense of memory and hard drive space. Its insistence on using mobile processors and custom designs for desktops, however, has created feature discrepancies where a Dell Inspiron 518 tower nearing the $700 mark features two more processor cores, three times as much memory, and twice the hard drive space of an $1,199 entry-level iMac despite both coming with near-equivalent LCDs.
While the average price for Windows-based systems is described in the NPD data as having largely flattened and unlikely to drop further in the near future, the disparity between these and Macs has only widened in the last few months, according to eWeek. Apple’s general policy of refusing to alter prices until its next hardware revision has reduced the value of its systems relative to Windows competitors.
So while Apple’s marketshare has gone up quite a bit in the last few years, analysts don’t think they’ll be able to keep up the growth with prices so much higher than their PC counterparts. There are only so many video editors, bloggers and rich fanboys in the world, after all. Sooner or later, they’ll need to appeal to those cheap idiots as well. [Electronista]
Depending on your definition of “cheap,” Sharp may or may not be releasing inexpensive SB Series LCDs, but their prices aren’t so bad relative to the market. Their new line of 52, 46 and 42-inch 1080p televisions will feature a decent 6ms response time and run $2,300, $1,700 and $1,400, respectively. But since these figures are retail prices, don’t be surprised to see the displays around for plenty less. All televisions are available now save for the 42-inch, which will be around next month. Here are the full details:
SHARPÒ INTRODUCES ENTRY-LEVEL LINES OF FULL HD 1080P WIDESCREEN LIQUID CRYSTAL DISPLAY TELEVISIONS
New Models Provide Stunning High-definition Viewing & Stylish Slim-Line Designs at Competitive Prices
MAHWAH, N.J., August 5, 2008 - Sharp, a worldwide leader in flat-panel Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) Televisions, is expanding its large-screen SB series of LCD HDTVs, making the sought-after high-definition (HD) experience available to more consumers. The SB series (LC-52SB55U, LC-46SB54U and LC-42SB45U) provides consumers with affordably-priced Full HD, big-screen options, available in 52- 46-, and 42-inch screen size class units (diagonal 52 1/32″, 45 63/64 and 42 1/64″ respectively), some of the most popular screen sizes today. All three feature Full HD 1080p (1920 x 1080 resolution), and are cased in a glossy piano-black bezel. “As the demand for high-definition home entertainment continues to rise, we are creating a wide range of reasonably-priced HDTVs that incorporate Sharp’s esteemed picture quality and renowned features,” said Bruce Tripido, associate vice president, marketing, Entertainment Products Division, Sharp. “The large-screen SB series of LCD TVs opens up the high-definition viewing experience to a wider audience, providing an affordable, yet high-quality option for consumers.” Helping more consumers create a true high-definition home theater, the large-screen 1080p SB models feature Sharp’s Spectral Contrast Engine for deep blacks and crisp images. All three models also feature an impressive pixel response time of 6ms (6.5ms on the LC-42SB45U), providing excellent picture quality on fast-moving action scenes, and wide viewing angles so the TV can be viewed from virtually any seat in the room. Additionally, these sets come fully equipped with built-in ATSC/QAM/NTSC tuners and an array of inputs, including four HDMITM on the LC-52SB55U, two on the LC-46SB54U and three on the LC-42SB45U, as well as two HD component terminals on each. All models feature a dedicated PC input so the TV can also act as a PC monitor. An OPC Power Save function automatically adjusts luminance to room brightness and lighting conditions.
We’ve seen plenty of robot security guards before, but not one quite like this so-called Guardium UGV built by G-Nius, which is apparently just as comfortable going off-road as it is patrolling a parking lot. Unlike some other “robots,” this one is also fully autonomous, with it relying on GPS most of the time, and it able to fall back on its own decision-making skills to overcome poor GPS conditions and avoid obstacles. Naturally, the bot can also be loaded up with any number of different payloads to let it take on more ambitious missions, including a hostile fire indicator, a missile approach warning system, chemical snifters, fire extinguishers, and even an “RFID Interrogator,” to name but a few. Be sure to head on past the break to check it out in action.
That wasn’t fun at all, actually. Turns out the $-70 128GD SSD option for the ThinkPad X200 was not only a mistake, but the part isn’t even available. Eager orderers received the following e-mail from Lenovo this morning:
Dear Valued Lenovo Customer,
We are contacting you with regard to your recent Lenovo X200 order.
Please note that we recently experienced a web error which caused the price of the 128GB Solid State Drive to be erroneously listed at $0. Unfortunately, we are unable to honor this pricing; in addition, the part is currently not available.
As a token of appreciation for your patience and understanding, we are pleased to offer you a substitute of either a 64GB Solid State Drive or a 200GB Hard Disk Drive (7200rpm) free of charge in place of the 128GB Drive.
To accept this offer, please reply to this email and fill out the below fields by Monday August 11th with your selection.
*** If we do not receive a reply by that date, your order will be cancelled at that time.
We can’t exactly hate on Lenovo for not honoring the mistake, especially since they’re offering a 64GB SSD in exchange for free.
There’s 
I think there might be some sort of political and cultural commentary going on—something about the US and torture and calling it a thrill ride and people paying to see it at a carnival. Anyways! The artist who created the animatronic exhibit, Steve Powers, actually wanted to do a waterboarding exhibit with real people—he’d be waterboarded first, then perform it on a volunteer, who would do it to the next guy and so on. But pseudo-drowning robots is obviously safer, and maybe a touch less controversial—after all, do androids dream of electric freedom? [
Sure, Will.I.Am’s “One More Chance” video looks like it was directed by RIM, what with it’s huge BlackBerry billboard and a prominently featured Curve. But you know what? Everyone’s gotta eat, and when we insist on BitTorrenting albums instead of buying them, we should expect this from musicians. Along with Jay-Z 
Fanboys, get your commenting fingers warmed up. A new study shows that, on average, the cost of a Windows PC is half that of an Apple computer. According to data collected by the NPD group, the average Windows notebook goes for $700, while the average Apple laptop costs above $1,500, dropping a mere $59 in the last two years. And that’s nothing compared to desktop computers.
Depending on your definition of “cheap,” Sharp may or may not be releasing inexpensive SB Series LCDs, but their prices aren’t so bad relative to the market. Their new line of 52, 46 and 42-inch 1080p televisions will feature a decent 6ms response time and run $2,300, $1,700 and $1,400, respectively. But since these figures are retail prices, don’t be surprised to see the displays around for plenty less. All televisions are available now save for the 42-inch, which will be around next month. Here are the full details:
Entries (RSS)