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[Reelya]

I can already see the Illusion company in Japan incorporating this tech into their new games :/

Improved haptic is nice, but too good to be true for the 3D visuals:

What this means is that an array of ultrasound generators creates a variety of shapes -- such as cubes and spheres -- which the user can feel when they place their hand above the array. By itself, of course, it can't be seen  -- but the team has used a container of oil to show how the shapes work.

The video is a mock up showing what you can feel with the air pressure. But it's not a real hologram, just bumpy air that you can touch. In a sense that's not that amazing. Any fan will do the job: that's totally haptic already! The smarts is in directing the air molecules precisely in 3D to make shapes. But we're not actually getting 3D visuals for free as part of the deal, unless you want to stick your hand in a bucket of oil

The only other choice is to combine this with the laser / plasma holograms. But i don't want to think about touching one of those (needs high powered lasers that turn the air itself into plasma). Might as well shake hands with a lightsaber.

Some articles seem fatally confused about whether it's visible or not:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141202123846.htm

See it, touch it, feel it: Researchers use ultrasound to make invisible 3-D haptic shape that can be seen and felt

An invisible thing that can be seen? They've really outdone themselves.

a method has been created to produce 3D shapes that can be felt in mid-air.

So it is just a shape then, not a hologram? I hesitate to think how fast air molecules would have to be vibrating to be visible?

The method uses ultrasound, which is focussed onto hands above the device and that can be felt. By focussing complex patterns of ultrasound, the air disturbances can be seen as floating 3D shapes. Visually, the researchers have demonstrated the ultrasound patterns by directing the device at a thin layer of oil so that the depressions in the surface can be seen as spots when lit by a lamp.

So it can be felt, but it makes floating shapes that can be seen? Why do they demonstrate by pointing it at oil? And notice the oil demonstration does not have half a sphere coming out of the oil.

The system generates an invisible 3D shape that can be added to 3D displays to create something that can be seen and felt. The research team have also shown that users can match a picture of a 3D shape to the shape created by the system.

So it's added to 3D displays now? That makes more sense.

"In the future, people could feel holograms of objects that would not otherwise be touchable"

Why in the future? if it can be seen already?

Yeah, the language is so goddamn confusing and keeps contradicting itself. My guess is the video is a mock-up, and the reporters are terminally confused about what this does.

[alway]

Bats think about space in toroidal coordinates: http://www.nature.com/news/bat-nav-system-enables-three-dimensional-manoeuvres-1.16475
Interesting in that it means bats think about navigation in terms of both a heading and a binary 'am I upside-down.' This would imply they can fly upside-down without the mental gymnastics required of us ground-dwellers when flipped upside down, both orientations being native to their brain. As well as the applied topology of it in that the reason behind this structure comes in the form of the classic hairy ball theorem and the need for continuous navigation in 3 dimensions.

Meanwhile, detailed info from Disney on capturing and modelling eyes: http://www.polygon.com/2014/12/5/7341949/disney-shows-how-it-plans-to-end-the-uncanny-valley
It even includes capturing the details of how the iris muscles contract in response to light.

[Gentlefish]

I like how they call it bat-nav.

[penguinofhonor]

.

[Arx]

The question is, have they analysed their own paper to see whether they're also finding results they want?

[Sergarr]

Psychology articles being heavily subject to confirmation bias? Oh, the irony!

[scrdest]

Man-made biological leaf!

http://gizmodo.com/the-first-man-made-biological-leaf-turns-light-and-wate-1612646588

Still uses plant-derived chlorophyll, technically. But between the recent artificial yeast chromosomes and this, we sure seem to progress fast at that 'creating life' thing.

[alway]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/08/opinion/we-cant-trust-uber.html
Article about the sort of data analysis becoming increasingly prevalent and easy to do.

After the Uber executive’s statements, many took note of a 2012 post on the company’s blog that boasted of how Uber had tracked the rides of users who went somewhere other than home on Friday or Saturday nights, and left from the same address the next morning. It identified these “rides of glory” as potential one-night stands. (The blog post was later removed.)

Uber had just told all its users that if they were having an affair, it knew about it. Rides to Planned Parenthood? Regular rides to a cancer hospital? Interviews at a rival company? Uber knows about them, too.

What’s rare is not the kind of analysis Uber can do with sensitive data, but that it was publicly disclosed. Because of the user backlash, companies are moving toward secrecy.

[Il Palazzo]

As Carl Sagan used to say: Speeehs. Speeeeehs. SPEEEHS.
http://vimeo.com/108650530
(a short cgi film about exploration; really cool)

Achievements to unlock:
Nerd Level 1 - enjoy it
Nerd Level 2 - guess the names of all the various stellar bodies depicted
Nerd Level 3 - dissect the creative liberties

[Furtuka]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141210140840.htm

[Osmosis Jones]

They don't actually report any strength values in the paper, just hardness. While there's often a correlation between the two, it's by no means a gaurentee. That said, for a comparison, my research alloys have hardnesses ~4.4GPa, and yield strengths of 1.2GPa.

Strength of ~ 1.35 GPa then is decent, but not unheard of. From memory, Gum metal can get up to 3GPa yield strength after processing, which is nuts.

What's impressive is the low weight; if it rivals Al, it'll have applications. Wonder how well it copes with high temp oxidation, though?

[alway]

So Oculus acquired a couple companies. http://www.polygon.com/2014/12/12/7385371/oculus-vr-buys-nimble-13th-lab
One of which does hand tracking stuff, the other doing tons of computer vision AR stuff.

The latter of which does stuff like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rA2NI4NgsV0 Which appears to be real-time virtualization of the physical world. Potentially very useful additions to Oculus' VR tech, since it would effectively solve all their current problems with regards to motion (reflect real world in virtual one to allow the user to move without tripping on everything and using the hands directly instead of input devices made for sitting down).

[Knit tie]

The machines are coming.

[Lagslayer]

The machines are coming.

So they can feel, but can they... love?

[Frumple]

If they can fake it, does it matter?