Susana M's List: technology

• A newly developed bra designed to change it’s shape and support according to changes in a woman’s body heat has been found to have an unforseen side effect - it tightens up and boosts cleavage when the wearer becomes aroused.

   

  The bra is made of a special foam and fabric that changes shape according to temperature. It’s design is intended to stiffen or expand the material at different times, like when the wearer goes jogging it offers more support and when she’s at rest it loosens up to become more comfortable.

   

  But when the woman’s temperature changes as she becomes sexually aroused, the bra also tightens up and boosts up her cleavage. A great side effect if you’re a woman on the prowl and trying to attract a mate.

   

  The specially responsive foam used in the bra uses technology developed by NASA in 1966. The space study center created the foam for use in aircraft cushions, but while it never made it into orbit, it is used today in form memory mattresses and as a safety lining for sports helmets.

   

  The Smart Memory Bra was unveiled at a Paris lingerie show recently and will be available for sale in Britain this summer, priced around £30.

• As the sheer volume of stuff on the Web keeps growing, keyword search keeps getting closer to its breaking point. Adding structure to the Web is one way to make sense of all that data, and Google is starting the tackle the problem with a Google Labs project called Google Squared, which Marissa Mayer mentioned earlier today at the company’s Searchology briefing.
• Another high-profile search startup which is launching on Monday, Wolfram Alpha, takes a slightly different approach in that it simply ingests massive amounts of information into its own databases where it can query it to its heart’s delight.
• Already there is a bit of a rivalry between Google and Wolfram because getting back structured results is a major new direction for search.
• Wolfram does a pretty good job parsing the information in its own databases, but those databases will never match what is available on the Web. Wolfram’s databases currently store only 10 terabytes of information, a tiny fraction of what is on the Web. (I will be posting my impressions of Wolfram’s search engine soon)
• Google Squared is an early attempt to take the messy data which exists on the Web and place it into simple tables. It is still very experimental and isn’t always on target, but you can see where this is going. Turning the Web into a giant database will crush any attempt to segregate the “best” information into a separate database so that it can be processed and searched more deeply.

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• When machines behave deadly, they are forced to spend eternity tortured by robots like these 10 monstrosities.
• SimMan 3G: Intended as an instructional aid for aspiring doctors, SimMan can reproduce human reactions like crying, bleeding, convulsions, and even cardiac arrest. And, as you can see, his intense creepiness is sure to eliminate any students that might not be able to cope. [Link]
• Cabbage Patch Spider-Bot: This DIY spider-bot takes the inherently creepy Cabbage Patch Kid and intensifies it a million-fold. [Make via Link]
• Gakutensoku: Designed 80 years ago for Emperor Showa (aka Hirohito), this robot was recently restored with a $200,000 computer-controlled pneumatic servo system. It can tilt its head, blink, smile and puff up its chest and cheeks with a system of inflatable rubber tubes. Check out that evil grin at about the 1:40 mark (*shudder*). [Link]
• Lucy: Steve Grand's infamous "Lucy" orangutan robot was an attempt at simulating the mind of a human baby.What he managed to create is an affront to all things good and holy. [Link Image via Streeb-Greebling]
• Saya: Humanoid robots interacting with children is just plain creepy—and Saya here isn't helping much with her appearance. Using 18 motors and some complex programming, Saya can express emotions, speak several different languages, take roll-call and assign tasks to her elementary school students. [Link]
• Yume Neko Smile: Intended to provide all of the benefits of owning a real cat without all of the drawbacks of taking care of a living, breathing creature, Yume Neko Smile adds the character-building element of terror that children so desperately need these days. [Link]
• Simroid: Like the SimMan, Simroid is designed as a learning aid—although the objective here is to train dentists. It reacts like a human would in most situations—except when sexually abused. Dentists trying that in the real world are often met with swift and severe punishment. [Link]
• WD-2: This shape-shifting robot can quickly change faces using an array of servos and microcontrollers. It's only a matter of time before these things infiltrate human society, becoming whoever they want, whenever they want. [Link]
• Geminoid: Designed as a realistic, robotic doppelganger for Hiroshi Ishiguro, a professor at Osaka University, the Geminoid can be remote controlled from anywhere—allowing the professor to, essentially, be in two places at once. [Wired]
• CB2: Quite possibly the creepiest robot on this list, Child Robot with Biomimetic Body (CB2) uses complex computers, 197 sensors, eye-cameras and 51 pneumatic "muscles" to learn like a human child. It taught itself to recognize facial expressions, follow the gaze of it's "mother" and even walk and talk. That's pretty impressive, but after looking at this video it becomes clear that the only course of action is to take it out back with a shotgun before it learns to kill. [Link]

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• Google's developed an algorithm that tells them which employees are most likely to quit. That's creepy.

   

  Think about it: It's a formula designed to let a machine essentially wriggle around inside your head to extract your true intentions—intentions you might not even realize you have yet—to reveal them to the company bean counters, who are basically machines themselves. Who can then take the Pre-Crime approach and shitcan you before you quit—if you were really going to quit at all.

   

  Google developed the algorithm in response to its best employees bailing, so presumably at least some of the unhappy people would be wooed, not written off. But this is just the beginning. Today, a computer knows if you're going to quit. Next, a computer calculates if you should be hired at all. Which is only a few generations removed from determining if all people shouldn't be fired, but like, permanently. From earth.

   

  The uprising is coming, and Google will be where it begins. [WSJ]

• It just happened in the International Space Station, where the new urine recycling system is now fully armed and operational. According to flight engineer Mike Barrat, this is great:
• This has been the stuff of science fiction. Everybody's talked about recycling water in a closed loop system, but nobody's ever done it before. Here we are today with the first round of recycled water. We're really happy for this day and for the team that put this together. This is the kind of technology that will get us to the moon and farther.
• In fact, without this system, any long trip up there—not just going up and then down like in the Apollo missions—would be impossible. Humans need water, and water takes a lot of space, so we need a way to recycle any waste liquid into drinkable water.
• So if we want to send people to the stars, this is the only way to do it. And actually, it is not really that gross. Think about all the crap that tap water has: Chemicals, germs, and all kinds of ugly things lurking in the pipes and reservoirs. Up there, the water is as pure as it can be.

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• The SMAVNET project aims at developing swarms of flying robots that can be deployed in disaster areas to rapidly create communication networks for rescuers. Flying robots are interesting for such applications because they are fast, can easily overcome difficult terrain, and benefit from line-of-sight communication.
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