Roboworld is now open at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh. Billed as the largest robotics exhibition in the United States, it includes robots you can play air hockey and basketball with, and a number who demonstrate the basics of robotic senses. There are also some famous Film Bots, such as C-3PO from Star Wars and Maria from Metropolis, as well as Gort, Robby, and Dewey. The Post-Gazette has a nice little video introduction to the exhibit, if you don’t mind sitting through a short commercial first. And then there is Robot Truth…
The latest issue of Sky and Telescope hit the stands a few days ago, with all the usual goodies and one not so usual. The cover article is called Uncovering Mars’s Secret Past, and to go with it they include a nifty little DVD with over 500 images and videos from the Mars Rovers cameras. You can also buy the Mars DVD separately, but for fifty cents more you get the July volume of the magazine along with the free DVD. The disk was put together by Dr Jim Bell, Lead Scientist for the Mars Rover’s panoramic cameras. NASA is building its own cloud environment, called Nebulous (I can’t prove it, but I suspect pun intended). This is for outreach and education, amongst other things, and is compatible with the Amazon web services platform.
The opening version of Wolfram/Alpha is now online and ready for testing. As I mentioned back in March, while the name sounds like the IT department of the evil Lawyers company in Angel, Wolfram Alpha is a computer program that actually answers the question you ask. Or at least that is the goal, and they are off to a good start. For those who think this sounds like Deep Thought from Hitchhikers, my favorite answer so far: if you ask it what is the meaning of life, the universe, and everything it gives the correct answer. Thanks to Sci Fi Scanner for thinking to ask it that question.
The folks at SFX have put together a listing of the New Fall Season Roundup of science fiction TV shows. Which I found just a bit strange, as they are all US Broadcast Network TV programs, and SFX is a UK magazine. Nowhere in the list is mention of current or upcoming Brit series, like Afterlife, Misfits, Paradox, or Primeval. More expected was SciFi Wire putting together a nice little chart of Every Sci-Fi Show, except its not; just like the previous list, it only includes US Broadcast Network TV programs. Which is again a bit strange, this time because the web site is owned by a US cable company, but it made no mention of Eureka or Warehouse 13, both of which start in July. Guess I’ll just watch the new trailer for Surrogates instead…
One of which is the Joy of Six, a definitive Brit Geek look at whats on offer… Slice of SciFi has a glimps at all things Fox, and Sci-Fi Scoop has some quality photos from V. Then there is the Toughest Gals list. Followed by this video…
Award winning science fiction author John Scalzi is looking forward to the future as much as the rest of us, but he just published a short list of technology he is NOT looking forward to. It does make you think a bit, and you do want to read the comments (if not add your own). If you haven’t had your daily dose of Steampunk yet, here’s a little Abney Park to see you through…