DARPA Video Game Lets You Teach Military Software How to Hunt Submarines [War Games]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/#!5790414/darpa-video-game-lets-you-teach-military-software-how-to-hunt-submarines

So the graphic realism isn't quite Black Ops, but this military sim will actually influence real-world naval operations in the future.

Fancy yourself a suave military gaming tactician? Is prestige level 24 starting to bore you on Black Ops? DARPA wants to put your strategic savviness to real military use by integrating its Anti-Submarine Warfare (ASW) Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV) configurations into the sub-hunting simulator game Dangerous Waters. Download and play the game, and your tactical prowess may just be implemented into ACTUV's prototype software.

DARPA's ACTUV program aims to develop new tools for anti-submarine warfare that include unmanned autonomous ocean-going vessels that can track quiet submarines hiding in the depths. But in order to figure out what tactics work (and don't work) for their ACTUV software, they need to test a variety of maneuvers and sub-hunting configurations in naval scenarios.

That's where the crowdsourcing comes in. At the end of each round, the software will ask if you want to send your game data to DARPA for analysis—and for possible use in the crafting of ACTUV's software brain, once it is developed. Corner the crafty AI sub commander, and your data could inform a future line of defense against threats from the deep.

Download the game from ACTUV here. [Armed with Science]

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Here's Proof That People Have Been Trying to Go Green for Over a Century [Green]

Source: http://gizmodo.com/#!5790430/these-wave-energy-concepts-offer-proof-that-people-have-been-trying-to-go-green-for-over-a-century

When you think power generation in the early 1900s, coal and steam generally come to mind. But in Alexis Madrigal's upcoming book, Powering The Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology, he shows that people were trying to find environmentally friendly alternatives via ocean waves in the nascent days of household electricity.

Madrigal recounts the adventures of Terrence Duffy, Alva Reynolds, and Fred Starr, three men who sought to use the motion of ocean waves to generate power via motion or air compression. Starr, in particular, played up the environmental perks of such technology all the way back in 1907:

Starr went on to declare that by December 1908, "Los Angeles will be a smokeless and sootless city, clean pure. It will be made so by all the power and heating plants being supplied with power and heat from the ocean waves by the Starr Wave Motor."

Obviously this didn't pan out so well, but it's kind of cool (or possibly demoralizing) that clean energy was a consideration even before global warming entered the international lexicon. For the full excerpt from Madrigal's book, be sure to check out [Wired].

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Canon's XF305 and XF300 pro camcorders can now shoot in 3D... if you buy two of them

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/08/canons-xf305-and-xf300-pro-camcorders-can-now-shoot-in-3d-if/

Make no mistake: that whole 3D-everything trend is snaking its way into professional-grade products. Canon has issued a firmware update allowing its year-old XF305 and XF300 pro camcorders to record 3D HD video. There's a catch, though: you'll need two of these bad boys, which cost a princely $8,000 and $6,700, respectively. For those with a well-stocked studio, Canon's "3D Assist Feature" aims to take some of the grunt work out of setting up two cameras to record in 3D by optically aligning their lenses and calibrating their zoom settings. The company also beefed up the scan reverse feature so that you can flip the orientation of the video to horizontal, vertical or diagonal -- a strong likelihood if you're using a 3D mirror rig. Canon slipped in a few extra goodies as well, including the ability to turn off relay recording from one memory card to another, and to simultaneously record to two memory cards, should you be paranoid about data loss. So what are you waiting for? Download the update. And, you know, get yourself a second camera.

Continue reading Canon's XF305 and XF300 pro camcorders can now shoot in 3D... if you buy two of them

Canon's XF305 and XF300 pro camcorders can now shoot in 3D... if you buy two of them originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 11:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Kondo's spring-loaded spider robot creeps on the cheap (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/08/kondos-spring-loaded-spider-robot-creeps-on-the-cheap-video/

The latest in a long line of terrifying (and occasionally adorable) pseudo-arachnid robots, Kondo's upcoming KMR-M6 is doing more with less. Thanks to a unique spring supported linking leg joint, this hexapedal bug gives you the heebie-jeebies with only two servos per leg. The new leg design lowers build costs while improving performance and stability, and was developed for education, research, and hobbyist markets. The base kit hits Japan next month for about ¥76,000 (about $880) and comes with twelve servos, a control board, a 10.8V 800mAh NiMH battery, software, and a frame with extra space for adding optional, cameras, grippers, or other servo controlled fancies. Although it's not as lovable as Kondo's turtle-bot, watching this robo-bug scuttle and march (after the break, if you're wondering) is far more awesome than it is creepy. It's another sign of the robot apocalypse, sure, but are you seriously going to let that ruin your Friday, Friday, Friday, Friday?

Continue reading Kondo's spring-loaded spider robot creeps on the cheap (video)

Kondo's spring-loaded spider robot cre! eps on t he cheap (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Aurasma's AR iPhone app to turn everyday objects into multimedia triggers (video)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/09/aurasmas-ar-iphone-app-to-turn-everyday-objects-into-multimedia/

We've seen augmented reality done what seems like a million different ways, but we've never seen it quite like this. The New York Times reported Wednesday on a forthcoming iPhone app called Aurasma that has the power to turn ink-and-paper publications into interactive mine fields. Aurasma, conceived by enterprise software firm Autonomy, uses a scaled down version of the outfit's IDOL pattern recognizer to identify images stored in a vast database, and then converts those images into related video. Unfortunately, the first release of the app, scheduled for sometime next month, comes in the form of an AR advertisement / game for an unidentified upcoming movie, and the company's founder seems solidly focused on the technology's marketing potential. No word yet on when or if we can expect to see our New York Times come to life, as seen in the video at the source link below, but if this is the future of augmented reality, count us in.

Continue reading Aurasma's AR iPhone app to turn everyday objects into multimedia triggers (video)

Aurasma's AR iPhone app to turn everyday objects into multimedia triggers (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Apr 2011 01:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds! .

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