Strider's Sci-Fi

Coming up next year, The Prototype is a film about a dying man who uploads himself into the combat drone he is developing for the military. It seemed like a good idea at the time; he needed a way to escape death, and the drone needed a core intelligence around which to coalesce. Now, it [...]

Tomorrow is the day that MetroCAF 2012 takes place: the annual SIGGRAPH event honoring the best animation talents that NYC-area schools can muster. This year’s jury has selected four outstanding achievement pieces to be honored at MetroCAF, but even the least of these entries are amazing bits of work. If you have ever built computer [...]

It seems if you fill a classroom with robots that make mistakes, the kids get smarter. According to this New Scientist Report, a Nao Robot was operated by humans in the next room during an English class in a Japanese school. Yes, that is Telepresence rather than true robotics, but the kids didn’t know that. [...]

This one is for the iOS series of devices, including iPhones and iPads; the Free Graphing Calculator for iOS. This has a lot of built in functions, solvers for a variety of equation types, constants including those necessary to do orbital mechanics calculations, reference material including some very detailed but understandable explanations of how the [...]

I am still trying to decide if this is a major tech advance or just creepy. Using some Augmented Reality goggles and software, a Japanese engineer has come up with a way to date his favorite virtual idol, Hatsune Miku. A bit creepy, was my first reaction. But what if you then used a Kinect [...]

I wanted to break from my usual kind of entry for a moment and cheer on the MOD production process, meaning Manufacture On Demand. Warner Brothers, Shout Factory, MGM, and several others have done this with a lot of titles which have not been available for a while, and it is a great business model [...]

The Art of Video Games is a new exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, with a collection of 80 games, interviews with the creators, quite a bit of history and background, and a whole lot more. So I am sure not many will be surprised to learn that the folks from Think Geek are [...]

This example of Furby Modding was put together by Julie Watai, a woman who isn’t afraid to pick up a soldering iron and commit surgery on small innocent cute creatures. Even when reprogramming them means skinning them first, with the possibility of damaging the hide to the point where reskinning might be problematic. This particular [...]

Kickstarter is a way to mobfund projects that might not otherwise ever get made, a social media variation of the good old Begathon that public radio and TV go through all the time. In it’s simplest terms, if there is a project you think should be done, you can vote with your wallet, offering as [...]

If you are anywhere near DC this weekend the USA Science & Engineering Festival takes place on Saturday and Sunday. The schedule includes exhibitions, stage shows, and a monster book fair, with literally hundreds of events and exhibits taking place. A few of the events I am looking forward to are the Stargazing Party at [...]