Technology, features and articles | Educational Science

Apr 30, 2011

U.S. Considers Open-Source Software for Cybersecurity

Top 10 Inventions that Changed the World Open-source software may not sound compatible with the idea of strong cybersecurity, but the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sees such software, which anyone can tinker with, as a possible tool for defending government networks from both online thieves and professional cyberspies. A...

Sep 30, 2012

Cheaters, Cooperators, and Evolutionary Theory

(ISNS) -- An experiment involving yeast has revealed a method that allows organizations to avoid the tragedy of the commons, the situation in which individuals take advantage of shared resources -- such as common grazing land for animals -- without paying for their use or maintenance. By performing the experiment...

Aug 31, 2012

Cyborg Cockroaches May Be Future Emergency Responders

Researchers say they've figured out a way to create cyborg, remote-controlled cockroaches, hoping one day the resilient creatures could be steered into disaster zones to gather information and look for survivors. Video footage from the experiments at North Carolina State University shows the part-robot roaches being directed along a curving...

Jul 31, 2012

Robot Hand Could Disable IEDs

Researchers are showing off a robotic hand that they say could be dexterous enough to disarm an improvised explosive device (IED) and cost-effective enough to be used widely by troops. Hands are considered the most difficult part of the robotic system, and are also the least available due to the...

Jul 31, 2012

Blacksmith Talks about His Robot Suit Creation

Want to ride your own huge robot that resembles a futuristic starship trooper? You can thank Kogoro Kurata, an artist who channels the spirit of both superhero inventor Tony Stark and a blacksmith from Japan's feudal samurai era. Kurata built his eponymous robot suit, called Kuratas, with a group called...

Jun 30, 2012

Heavy Suit Gives the Young a Taste of Old Age

Young people can finally get a taste of what their aging parents and grandparents experience by putting on the Age Man Suit. The cumbersome suit pulls off a Rip Van Winkle feat by transforming wearers into their stiff, blurry-eyed elderly versions decades into the future. The Age Man Suit combines...

Jun 30, 2012

Uncanny Valley Watch: Making Android Faces

Can an android that looks convincingly happy or sad get beyond the creepiness of the uncanny valley trap? The FACE android's best efforts to imitate human expressions still leaves it floundering somewhere deep within the valley. The idea of the uncanny valley coined by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori attempted to...

Jun 30, 2012

Political Ad Database to Have Facebook-like Features

Americans will soon be able to look up how much TV stations are paid by political advertisers on a website run by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). And to make the new site more intuitive for people to navigate, it will look a little like Facebook, Greg Elin, the commission's...

May 31, 2012

Clumsy Insects Inspire Clever Flying Robot

Most flying robots resemble larger helicopters or aircraft that can't risk hard collisions or catastrophic crashes. But a Swiss robot takes a different approach based on flying insects — it can survive clumsily bumping into walls and learn about its environment based on such bumps. The idea allows the AirBurr...

Apr 30, 2012

Iron Woman: Paralyzed Mom Finishes Marathon With Bionic Legs

It took 16 days, but Claire Lomas of England, paralyzed from the waist down after a horse-riding accident in 2006, completed all 26.2 miles of the London Marathon last week with the help of robotic legs. She had with her at the finish line her 13-month-old daughter, Maisie — also...

Apr 30, 2012

First Video Captured by Google Glasses Hits the Web

Google has publicly unveiled new photos and the first video from the real view of their augmented reality glasses prototype. The images show what the wearer sees while reading a newspaper, catching a football in the backyard and helping a smiling child play on the jungle gym. Such views don't...

Mar 31, 2012

Navy Pilots Ejected from Jet Flying 170 MPH

Yesterday, just minutes after an F/A-18D jet took off from the Naval Air Station Oceana in Virgina Beach, Va., the two pilots on board realized their aircraft engine had failed catastrophically. Immediately, they turned back toward the airfield, dumping jet fuel in order to reduce the aircraft's weight, a technique...

Feb 29, 2012

Viral 'Human Bird Wings' Video Fake, Probably an Ad

A Dutch engineer has stunned the world with a new video in which he is shown taking flight by strapping on a set of wings, running and flapping his arms like a bird. Using Nintendo Wii technology, Jarno Smeets has rigged a contraption in which the motion of his arms...

Jan 31, 2012

2012 Mayan Doomsday Inspires Chevy Super Bowl Ad

It's perhaps as inevitable as seeing a partially clad Danica Patrick trying to sell us domain names; the 2012 Mayan doomsday phenomenon is coming to this weekend's Super Bowl. All this doomsday nonsense was bound to grab the attention of one or two marketing departments, and for the famous 2012...

Jan 31, 2012

New Technology Turns Hand Gestures into Music

Some people are said to talk with their hands. A professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of British Columbia decided to make it a literal statement. Sidney Fels and his team equipped a set of gloves with position sensors that track were they are in three dimensions....