8-Foot Tall Boxing Robots Take To The Ring In New SyFy Show
A fan of Robot Wars as a kid? Syfy might have you covered. According to Entertainment Weekly, US cable TV channel SyFy has already green-lit and shot the entire first season of a new show entitled 'Robot Combat League' in which eight-foot-tall humanoid robots battle it out in the ring until one is 'defeated'. Presumably meaning when all that is left in the ring is a pile of contorted metal, electronic innards and pools of hydraulic fluid...
Argus II Allows The Blind To Physically 'See' Braille
Continuing ground-breaking advances in visual technology in recent years, scientists from Second Sight have produced a device that helps those with Retinitis Pigmentosa (a degenerative eye disorder) regain the ability to see colour, movement and objects.
Infographic: How Much Power Does The Internet Consume?
It's something that we now take for granted in our daily lives, but how often do we spare a thought for the energy poured into data centers minute-by-minute to keep our World Wide Web alive and kicking? With some 2.4 billion users generating the equivalent of around seven million DVD's worth of content every single hour – and the amount of data estimated to quadruple by 2016 - it's a question that nevertheless ought to be pondered. So exactly how power-hungry is the Internet? Allow Wireless Satellite Internet to demonstrate...
Cambridge University Centre To Study "Extinction-Level" Threat To Humans From Technology
Researchers at the University of Cambridge have formed a new centre to explore the threat advances in technology may pose on the human species. The Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER), they will investigate developments in biotechnology, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence, figuring out how these areas could become a threat to humanity.
The first line of defence against Skynet is now in place.
Maruyama's 'Nude' Series Is Both Artistically And Technically Stunning
Shinichi Maruyama presents us with the perfect example of capturing movement in still images. This concept has been done to death with amateur photographers and sparklers around bonfire night, hence why these awe-inspiring images stand out so well from other movement photography.
Football Manager Experience Lands 21-Year-Old Manager's Job
So you've taken Lincoln City from the Blue Square Premier all the way into the Premiership and beyond to European glory. What then? While we all like to admit we possess the talent-spotting expertise, the tactical awareness and team management calibre of a certain Jose Mourinho after a ten-hour, trophy-laden sesh on Football Manager, few will be able to match this.
Crystal Castles: (III) Review
With (III), Crystal Castles entirely abandon the quirky, screechy, bleepy approach that characterized their debut, instead opting to push the darker, softer sound introduced on the second half of their sophomore album.
Interview With Marc Laidlaw: The Writer Of Half-Life
Marc Laidlaw, the writer behind the Half-Life series, is probably aware of the impact he has made with his work; but not so to the magnitude of it. Check out our full interview with the mind behind one of the most influential games of the 20th century.
Microsoft To Introduce 'Xbox TV' To Take On Apple TV?
Citing “multiple sources familiar with Redmond’s plans”, The Verge has been tipped that Microsoft is planning to launch an Xbox-branded set-top box, similar to Apple TV, built to deliver movies and TV shows as found on the 360 marketplace, as well as more ‘casual games’ – most likely to be downloadable Xbox Live Arcade titles.
UK Government Official Job Site Advertises Fake 007 Position
Would you like the life of Bond? The British Secret Intelligence Service posted a job opening online for a "Target Elimination Specialist," with the job code "007." Unfortunately, this was fake, and taken down rapidly after being published; but made for a rather humourous slip-up regardless.
Disney Creates Robot That Plays Catch
Disney Research have built a robot that plays a scarily humanlike game of catch, tracking the user and the ball with its eyes. Aimed for use in Disney's theme parks of the future, it can also juggle too.
Stony Brook Unveils Real-World Holodeck, The 'Reality Deck'
So we’re some years off reporting on the invention of warp drive, or the development of a working medical tricorder, but our Star Trek future is getting ever closer - this might just be the closest we’ve ever come to seeing the holodeck. Named the ‘Reality Deck’ and built over four walls at Stony Brook University (SBU) in New York, it’s made up of 416 Samsung LCD high-resolution displays (each of 2560 x 1440 pixels), which brings in a total resolution of over 1.5 billion pixels.
The Walking Dead: Episode Five – No Time Left Review
The concluding part to Telltale Games' The Walking Dead presents not only an end; but a beginning.
This may seem like the generic vague statement that; but its relevance is strong. One of the best games this year has come to its explosive finale, and a revolution of in-game storytelling has been introduced with it.
Lee Everett's narrative in No Time Left is emotional, terrifying, exciting, and tense all at once, making for a fitting conclusion that will affect even the most hardened of players.
*EDITOR'S NOTE:* While the storyline of No Time Left will not be spoiled in this review, I do write about key plot points from the previous episodes. If you have not played any of the series, you may want to refrain from reading, in order to keep it a surprise.
Chris Robert's Star Citizen Smashes Crowd-Funding Records
The creator of Wing Commander and Freelancer, Chris Roberts, has come back from hiatus with quite the ambitious new project in mind, Star Citizen. The game heralds itself as the proof PC gaming is still alive and well, and from the opening sequences of the graphics it’s easy to see how it couldn’t be on anything but.
Skyrim Running 100 Mods At One Time Looks Phenomenal
Bethesda’s Skyrim, released just last year, is far from a bad-looking game any which way you look at it, but even so the standard version of the game can not come anywhere close to the kind of visual fidelity arising from installing some of the more graphically-intense mods around. Taking it one step further, a gamer going by the name of ‘Unreal’ has posted some of the most absurdly-detailed, gloriously picturesque screenshots we’ve ever seen of the game, the result of hand-picking over 100 different mods from a list of over 800 he has installed on his PC rig.
Robot Book Scanner Captures 250 Pages Every Minute
Researchers in Japan have built a book scanner capable of capturing 250 pages-per-minute. To put that into perspective, it would take under ten minutes to scan the entire Oxford English Dictionary.
'Terminator 2' Pre-CGI Special Effects Explained By Film Crew
Offering a unique insight into the creation 1991 Terminator 2's masterful special effects before CGI, the Stan Winston School of Character Arts has published a behind-the-scenes feature into the creation of the film's villain: the T-1000.
Brain-Controlled Helicopter Takes Flight On Kickstarter
The Puzzlebox Orbit, a flying helicopter orb guided by brainwaves, has successfully exceeded its target funding on Kickstarter.
Brainwave data is transmitted via a NeuroSky MindWave Mobile EEG headset to software running on either the pyramid-shaped base (called the Puzzlebox Pyramid) for the helicopter, or a tablet/smartphone. Through this, your thoughts are turned into flight commands and your spherical helicopter takes to the skies.
'The WITCH.' World's Oldest Digital Computer Resurrected
After a three-year restoration project at The National Museum of Computing, the 61 year old Harwell Dekatron (aka WITCH) computer has been successfully rebooted, becoming the world's oldest original working digital computer.
Ban ‘Killer Robots’ Before It’s Too Late, Says Human Rights Watch
With a 50-page report outlining “concerns about fully autonomous weapons, which would inherently lack human qualities that provide legal and non-legal checks on the killing of civilians”, Human Rights Watch has called for governments of the world to pre-emptively ban what they are calling ‘killer robots’, fully autonomous killing machines.