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Stanford’s Amazing Spinybot

While the Boston Dynamics’ BigDog quadraped has been getting lots of ink and electrons recently (and with good reason), we’ve been spending our time pouring over the work of the Stanford RiSE Project.

It’s so inspiring to see the evolution of the work that’s been done at Bob Full’s Poly-PEDAL Lab at Berkeley, UMich’s RHex hexapods, and the earlier Sprawl bots from Stanford. All of these designs were inspired by nature and insects’ and geckos’ abilities to climb vertical surfaces. Next stop? Climbing on ceilings. Woo-hoo!

Here’s a direct link to the Spinybot II movie.

[And if you haven’t seen the BigDog video yet, it’s definitely worth a look.]

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Mexico’s Answer to Rocketman

In the latest issue on Make (Vol. 5), I did a profile of Rocketman, a mad inventor from Minnesota, who’s created all sorts of crazy flying and racing contraptions, most of which run on hydrogen peroxide rocket engines.

Now meet RocketBELT Man, an equally crazed Gyro Gearloose from Mexico. He runs something he calls Tecnología Aeroespacial Mexicana. Like Ky Michealson (Rocketman), Juan Manuel Lozano Gallegos (Rocketbelt Man) seems obsessed with slapping a hyrdogen peroxide motor on just about anything that’ll move or fly. The only thing he has that Rocketman doesn’t is an H2O2-powered helicopter belt (tho it hasn’t actually been built yet).

Read an article about Juan Lozano on the Popular Science website.

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Online Video Download Utility

In response to my posting of the YouTube download tutorial, ST Patron Saint Alberto sent a link to this video download page which allows you to enter the URL for videos stored on YouTube, Google Video, iFilm, and elsewhere. You still need a Flash Video Player (FLV) or format converter to view the files.

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EFF 4th Amendment Packing Tape

We can’t guarantee that this packing tape, emblazoned with your 4th Amendment rights, won’t earn you the unwanted attention of airport security, if you seal your luggage with it, but what’s a full cavity search when our Constitutional rights are at stake? As EFF Chairman Brad Templeton puts it:

“Now, if they want to search your stuff, they have to literally slice the 4th amendment in half in order to do it. Ok, it may not stop them but it’s a nice metaphorical statement of protest.”

The tape is US$8/roll and available in the EFF Store.

[Via Boing Boing]

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ICANN Votes To Let Verisign Raise Rates

GoDaddy Chair Bob Parsons alerted us (via an otherwise obtrusive “dear loyal customer” letter) to a pretty dire situation with domain registration. Apparently ICANN voted a few days back to let VeriSign continue its monopolistic control of .com domain name renewals and allow 7% increase in fees each year, with an all-but-cerrtain extension of its control after 2012.

I did a little math (not my forte) and figured out that this amounts to a 50% increase over the remainder of the deal, and amounts to a huge cash giveaway straight from your pockets to those of VeriSign. Apparently the deal is part of a settlement of a suit by VeriSign against ICANN, but in typical back-handed, under-the-table deals, this benefits both companies.

As our new friend Bob points out, the deal still requires approval by the Dept. of Commerce, so there’s still time to intervene. Profiteering on URL registrations is an impediment to free speech, so call your rep! Email Dept. of Commerce head Gutierrez!

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DS Lite launches in Japan

Awesome posts on Kotaku about the Japanese launch of the Nintendo DS Lite. No exactly on par with the Vegas-y Xbox 360 roll-out:

“The kid waiting in line is no longer waiting in line, but playing in the middle of the street, jumping up and down. A pigeon nearly shits on him. His mother hollers at him when a car approaches. It’s an armored truck.

“The vehicle parks directly in front of the line and guys in helmets and flak jackets get out. Carrying sacks, they go inside.

“Minutes pass. The men in helmets and flak jackets return. One patrols the crowd with a nightstick. The Rotund Gentleman is discussing the socio-political meaning of the original Gundam series. The men in helmets and flak jackets get into the truck. Engine turns over and the armored truck pulls away. The guy in Converse sneakers to my left is asleep. Good for him.”

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Resistor Widget

I know wireheads who can tell the value of most resistors just by looking at their color bands. I am NOT that kind of geek. I’m the lazy kind. I’m the kind that thinks it’s not too much to ask for the values of components to be printed on them. I mean, Jeez, they can laser-etch logos and UPCs onto individual pieces of fruit now! Anyway, I use my trusty ol’ RadioCrap Resistor/Cap Color Code wheel to figure out what components I got stuck with in my Taiwanese parts grab bag.

This nifty OS X Widget works the same way. You enter in a resistor color sequence and it gives you the value, or you enter in the value you desire and it shows you the color code you need to look for on the resistor itself.

Tip: When you get a new pack of resistors, sit down with your color code wheel or widget, look up the values, and mark them down on the reel tape that holds the resistor sets together. Then, use wire snips to cut resistors off as you use them, leaving the reel tape in place. This way, the resistors are marked until you snip the last one from the tape.

[Via Make]

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TiVo to Host Press Event Tomorrow

Following on the heels of Apple’s rather disappointing press-haha on Tuesday, TiVo announced a press event for Thursday. As Engadget so succinctly put it:

“So, let the guessing game begin. TiVo Series 3? The subscription model? A partnership with NetFlix (could be; the invite promises appearances by CEO Tom Rogers and “other special guests”)? All we know is that if they end up showing off nothing but a speaker system and a leather carrying case for your DVR, we’re bailing.”

Update (3/2/06): It was even worse than anyone expected. None of the above speculated announcements. This “event” was to announce “KidZone,” a parental blocking and program recommendation service.

Whoopty-f’ing-Do. We feel sorry for the gadget press grunts that traipsed all the way out to this “event,” held this AM, at the Museum of Television and Radio, in the Big Applet.