It wasn’t mentioned in Mac’s official software update, but iPhone (and iPod Touch) users can now download one of the most…titillating applications yet: iSperm.
To play, you tap, shake, and tease the phone to guide an individual sperm down a “fallopian tube” in the race to fertilize an egg. The Mobigem game, now available for $0.99 on iTunes, is designed to demonstrate the stiff competition a sperm faces when it is released into the race for fertilization.
Strange, perhaps—though the title of most promiscuous iPhone app should probably be saved for its use as a personalized sex toy.
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Image: Mobigem
She introduced herself as “cybernetic human HRP-4C” at her first press conference, and charmed her audience just as any supermodel would. She smiled, struck seductive poses, and even made mistakes that her inventors attributed to nerves. Except that this head-turner is a fashion-bot, and she’ll make her catwalk debut in Tokyo on March 23.
The model-bot met a smaller crew of journalists this week at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology. They transmitted commands by Bluetooth and she acted accordingly, tapping into the 42 fashion-model-like movements that she’s been programmed to emulate. She gave the wrong facial expressions a couple times, but her inventors say that was because all the noisy cameras confused her sound recognition sensors.
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Following on the, er, tails of yesterday’s animal prosthetics news, a New Zealand woman has become what is probably the closest thing to a real-life mermaid since…well, ever. Nadya Vessey, who had both legs amputated due to a childhood congenital disorder, contacted the Weta Workshop, the special effects company behind such cinematic feats as Lord of the Rings and King Kong, to see if they would create a functional mermaid tail for her.
To her surprise, they said yes.
It took several thousand dollars, eight staff members, and two and a half years, but the tail was completed in December [for more pics and video, go here] and now successfully helps guide Vessey through the water—though it did force her to learn a new way of swimming. The engineers used 3-D modeling, milling technology, and vacuum forming to design the tail. Its spine and fin are made from polycarbonate, a pliable material. Wetsuit fabric is used for the “skin,” and a scale pattern, designed by a Weta artist, is printed on the outer Lycra layer.
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Is it a “chickenosaurus,” or a “dinochicken?” Famed paleontologist Jack Horner says that if you want to grow a dinosaur, you have to start with a chicken egg. As descendants of dinos, chickens carry some of the same DNA. So if chicken embryos have their genes reversed-engineered for every trait that they share with dinosaurs— like long tails, teeth, and three-fingered hands— you can grow living animals with dinosaur traits.
Previously, paleontologists thought they would be able to extract DNA from amber and then use it to clone dinosaurs, just as Michael Crichton detailed in his novel. But the real life experiments repeatedly failed and the idea appears to be possible only in fiction.
Horner (who was an inspiration for the character Dr. Alan Grant) thinks “the better route is to start with a descendant and work backwards. By taking a bird and manipulating four or five of its genes, you can grow a long tail instead of wings.” Then you can manipulate other traits to produce a complete dinosaur.
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Move over all you Webcasters who stream your life on Justin.tv. Now, 36-year-old filmmaker Rob Spence claims to have a better way of filming his life — he wants to implant a wireless video camera in his eye socket, to record (and reveal to the whole world) everything he sees.
After a shotgun accident cost Spence an eye at age 13, he eventually had his eye surgically removed and replaced with a prosthetic one. And now he sees a way to exploit his loss of sight by essentially creating a video crew in his eye socket.
Of course, actually building an eye camera is quite a feat of engineering. It involves getting a tiny camera (8 square mm for an imaging sensor) into a prosthetic eye, then figuring out how to relay images with a wireless transmitter on a circuit board, and finally streaming the whole thing live on the Internet.
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Imagine a device that’s like The Clapper on speed: A smile, finger gesture, or wink can start up your washing machine. Or control your iPod. Or tell your cell phone to call your mom. Now, this wonder-remote is a reality. A new gadget that looks just like a pair of ear buds can measure facial expressions to control electronic devices—so winking your right eye, for example, will change the song on your iPod.
The “Mimi Switch,” developed by Kazuhiro Taniguchi, a Japanese scientist, uses infrared sensors to measure movements inside the ear, which are triggered by various facial expressions, and then transmits signals to a micro-computer that controls electronic devices. It’s pretty much a hands-free remote control for anything electronic. It stores and can even interpret data, allowing it to customize itself to individual users, as Taniguchi told AFP: “If it judges that you aren’t smiling enough, it may play a cheerful song.” (more…)
Roman Catholic bishops have called for a new kind of abstinence this Lent: no text messaging. They have deemed every Friday during Lent “no SMS day,” partly to honor “concrete” rather than “virtual” relationships. But the refrain from phones is also an attempt to bring attention to the ongoing conflict in Congo, which is partly fueled by coltan, a mineral found aplenty in the eastern part of the country and which is crucial for many technologies, including cell phones.
Others, meanwhile, are embracing technology to the fullest—enough to try and turn magic carpet rides into reality. In space, no less. A Japanese astronaut will try to fly on a carpet when he arrives at the International Space Station later this month—he’ll also try 16 other challenges out of the total 1,597 total suggestions submitted.
Over in Italy, a “vampire” skeleton has been exhumed from a mass grave in Venice. It is thought to be from a period during the Middle Ages when vampires were believed to spread the plague by chewing on people’s shrouds after dying—an act that grave-diggers sought to prevent by putting bricks in the mouths of suspected vampires.
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Imagine what it would be like if you could instantly feel the heat of the Aruban sun, smell the ocean, and hear the sound of waves on the sand as you sip a Caribbean cocktail—all without leaving your living room. U.K. researchers from the University of York and the University of Warwick are hoping their new virtual reality gadget will allow people to do just that, essentially becoming “virtual tourists.”
While virtual reality has been used in video games, helped soldiers cope with war trauma, and even allowed a women to commit “virtual murder,” the experience has been limited to two senses (sight and sound). But the new Virtual Cocoon helmet can mimic all five senses, so that people can truly experience the trip.
The Daily Mail illustrated how the machine actually works:
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While we know that nanotechnology has been used to improve products such as Miller Lite beer and tennis balls, news of a nanotech-made swimsuit that reportedly “dries itself” is here just in time for spring break. And while the SwimSport would likely never make it into Victoria Secret swimsuit line, it might become a hit if it can do what it promises: repel water and keep beachgoers dry.
The Brooklyn-based company Sun Dry Swim, which makes the SwimSport, uses an invisible, non-toxic mesh. Since “water cannot adhere to the material and the fibers cannot soak up liquid,” the water beads off the suit the same way it rolls off your skin. The whole suit is made of the mesh material, so the suit can look and feel like a normal one-piece.
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Sure, he may live in a country that banned all modern technology, including TV and the Internet, from 1996 to 2001. But Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, now relies on his iPhone for all the same reasons its other users are hooked.
The former ambassador, who spent nearly four years imprisoned in Guantanamo, is now back in Afghanistan and uses his iPhone for things like online banking and finding directions on his phone’s built-in GPS. He reportedly calls the device “necessary” in today’s world.
Meanwhile, the wife of eponymous Microsoft mogul Bill Gates remains cruelly iPhone-deprived. Melinda Gates recently admitted to Vogue that she and her Microsoft-founding husband have a household policy against Apple products. But this sacrifice doesn’t come without its costs: As she watches her friends using their Jobs-ian gadgets, she sometimes thinks, “Ooh, I wouldn’t mind having that iPhone.”
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Image: Flickr / ten safe frogs
