STUFF: News, Technology, the cool and the plain weird

[MIKA27]

Montblanc Sport DLC Chronograph Watch

If you spend your weekdays working in the city and your weekends retreating to the outdoors — whether you're backpacking, climbing, hunting, kayaking — you need a watch that looks great but won't fall apart the first time you bash it into a rock.

The Montblanc Sport DLC Chronograph Watch ($6,100) was built with durability in mind, so it's trail ready, but was designed with a masculine minimalism that suits your business casual. It's made with a hardened stainless steel case, thermally treated, and coated with black carbon, all making it much harder than the average timepiece. The screwed case back and screw-down crown make it water resistant down to 200 meters, while the luminescent hands and face make it easy to read no matter the conditions.

[Duxnutz]

This Ultra-Slick GPS Watch Is Designed Just for Pilots (or Wannabes)

Oh my god the weekend warriors are gonna love this!

[MIKA27]

Forza 5 Hypercars With Added Top Gear Is Motoring Excellence Defined

Possibly the best thing about the BBC’s long-running car show Top Gear is the level of technical detail and the depth of story-telling weaved into the car reviews. As a result, Forza developers decided it would be a great idea to get Clarkson, Hammond and May to narrate career mode in Forza 5. It actually sounds really good!

Here’s Jeremy Clarkson narrating the hypercar porn you’ll see in Forza 5.

[MIKA27]

Pilot Ejects From Out Of Control Plane, It Goes On To Gently Land Without Him

If my younger years spent playing flight simulators are anything to go by, ejecting from one’s plane always results in it crashing into the ground and exploding. Shock? Horror? No, not really. In real life, however, all sorts of crazy things can happen, including an out-of-control plane, sans pilot, making a gentle landing all by itself.

As the video above from the National Museum of the US Air Force retells, such an occurrence transpired in February 1970, when an F-106, piloted by retired US Air Force Major Gary Foust, decided it was going to do more spinning than flying, forcing Foust to bail.

What happened next was entirely unexpected, give how cruel gravity and physics can be on objects such as unpiloted jets:

I finally, after being prompted by my wingman, ejected at approximately 8000 feet [2438m] above the ground. Immediately after I ejected, the plane went … nose down and recovered from the spin and flew off, flew off a number of miles away, and landed by itself in a little town by the name of Big Sandy. There was about six inches of snow on the ground [and] it was in a wheat field, probably skidded some couple of hundred yards or more and came to rest.

The plane was eventually repaired and returned to service. It also earned the nickname “The Cornfield Bomber”, which, as Foust notes, doesn’t make much sense — the F-106 is an interceptor and it landed in a wheat field. But hey, at least it sounds good.

[MIKA27]

A Brief Social And Scientific History Of Perverts

Changes in societal norms and human psychology can mean that some things that once seemed perfectly normal suddenly become taboo — so unpicking the murky world of perversion can be both interesting and difficult.

Once upon a time, having sex with your wife was perverted, but having sex with a seven-year-old wasn’t. That’s, um, no longer the case. Allow this video to shed a little light on the changing face of the pervert.

[MIKA27]

Saw's Jigsaw Is A Terrible Flatmate

What would it be like living with a serial killer? Decidedly not good, you would imagine. But let’s say that the serial killer was more of a serial pest and instead of being human-sized, they were more… hand-puppet proportioned. So, less death and more screwing around with you.

Still not keen on having them as a flatmate? That’s OK, I’m not surprised.

The humorous clip, put together by the collective known as HandleBatMustacheLand, gives us a look at what living with Jigsaw of Saw fame might be like. Instead of there being, well, lots of dying, Jigsaw strings together a series of semi-elaborate, moderately annoying schemes involving mouse traps, disposable plastic razors, overflowing toilets and BLOOD WINE (not the cool Klingon kind, sadly).

I think, by the end of it, death would be preferable to spending another minute with this guy. At least he’d be good for a laugh before you did yourself in.

[MIKA27]

Walking To The South Pole (And Returning Alive)

Endurance athlete, polar explorer and motivational speaker Ben Saunders is on his way to Antarctica. Recreating Robert Scott’s heroic but ultimately doomed “Terra Nova” expedition from 1910-1912, Saunders has launched his own Scott Expedition to reach the South Pole on foot — and, more importantly, to walk back to the coast alive. If successful, this will make him and his co-traveller, Tarka L’Herpiniere, the first human beings ever to have done so.

Last week, Gizmodo caught up with Saunders at a hotel bar here in Manhattan to learn more about his journey, to hear about the gear he’ll be bringing along with him, and, yes, to take a picture of him breaking-in his branded expedition jacket (and dodging afternoon traffic).

Whether communicating with the world through a redesigned satellite broadband antenna, relying on emergency rescue beacons (that they’ll hopefully never actually need), or documenting the whole experience on a pair of rigorously cold-tested Sony laptops, these extreme hikers — who leave for Antarctica in only three days — offer the world a fascinating glimpse into the everyday realities of a modern, high-tech expedition.

After all, Saunders explained, he will be broadcasting the entire journey, blogging the trip in its entirety from their daily base camps, in a sense revealing to a global audience, nearly in real time, how good equipment — and calm self-management in adverse conditions — can be the difference between surviving a trip and getting stranded along the way.

Saunders — who already holds a record for “the longest solo Arctic journey by a Briton” — has made a name for himself over the past decade with this Antarctic obsession. He wants to reach the pole and return, and thus complete a journey began more than a century ago by Robert Scott.

It’s important to point out here, however, that this is not (really) being done for scientific purposes — unless you count the extraordinary athletic rigours and the truly hardcore testing of the human body under extreme endurance conditions — and Saunders has been criticised for pursuing more of a vanity project as a sponsored athlete than undertaking something that will discover or reveal something scientifically new about the earth.

But, even acknowledging this, it’s hard not to be interested in the sheer technical challenge posed by the trip — by the harrowing details and the sheer survivalist inventiveness required to pull it off.

This will be “the longest unsupported polar journey in history,” Saunders explains on his website. Of course, this overlooks the incredible supporting tech — and the next-level outdoor gear — that he and L’Herpiniere will be bringing along with them, but they will, indeed, be alone in the Antarctic, without dogs or animals (Robert Scott, incredibly, even brought horses along on his expedition), hiking for nearly 2900km across the bottom of the world, the only link between them and civilisation a satellite connection.

Saunders is remarkably good-humoured in person, and almost suspiciously relaxed about the whole thing. He joked that we were catching him in his bulking-up phase, as he was putting on body fat to help survive the extreme temperatures ahead (he was somewhat reluctantly snacking on a flapjack when we found him in the hotel bar).

While chatting about everything from the now legendary hut Scott built in Antarctica — today, something of an iconic site that you can even explore on Google Maps — Saunders walked us through the process of testing and developing the gadgetry for his trip, as well as the satellite communications they’d be reliant on while out on the ice.

The dome pictured above, for example — which weighs about 8kg and is more or less the size of a generous cake plate — is a dramatic achievement in itself. Working with Intel — one of the exhibition’s major partners — Saunders and team successfully redesigned the high-speed data antenna used by the Pilot system normally found on large, ocean-going ships. It relies on the aforementioned Iridium constellation for communication.

The challenge was to make this system portable, to reduce its weight, and to find a way for it to survive with manageable battery power even in the frigid temperatures of the South Pole. The resulting custom-made Pilot antenna will be dragged on one of the sleds (which, in turn, will be strapped to the hikers’ chest), making them, in effect, a mobile telecommunications experiment in the middle of the Antarctic.

Then there are the laptops: 11″ Sony Vaio Pro ultrabooks, which were cold-tested in giant freezers back in England. The laptops underwent 70 days’ worth of “cold cycling” experiments, passing through a 60C differential over a course of hours. Even the cables were redesigned — wrapped in silicon — to prevent them from simply cracking apart.

So, each day, after eight to nine hours of skiing, Saunders and L’Herpiniere will pop up their tent, unpack the gear, and — somehow finding energy after all this — they will dial up to the Iridium constellation, those artificial stars flying far above the planet, and send back the day’s films, photos, and blog posts, going wireless and online from far below the southern horizon.

Their clothes, meanwhile, will include custom-made Mountain Equipment outerwear, a Hilleberg tent, and ultra lightweight Ski Trab skis (and they’ll be hauling a back-up pair each, in case something bad happens).

Redundancy was the name of the game: they will be carrying back up cameras, phones, lithium ion batteries, cook stoves, and more, to ensure they’re not one stupid mistake away from being stranded.

The expedition kicks off in only three days, and Gizmodo will be checking in now and again to track their updates, but stay tuned to the expedition blog for more.

[MIKA27]

Chinese Scientists Invent Lightbulbs That Emit Wi-Fi

A group of Chinese scientists at Shanghai’s Fudan University have a bright idea: A lightbulb that produces its own Wi-Fi signal. According to Xinhua, the technology is called Li-Fi, and the prototype actually works better than the average connection in China.

As many as four computers placed near a Li-Fi bulb can connect to the net, using light frequencies rather than the usual radio waves. The bulb is embedded with a microchip that produces a signal, yielding rates as fast as 150Mbps — far faster than typical connection speeds in China, and about three times faster than the speed I’m getting right now. (Seriously, I just did a speed test.)

One of the perks of Li-Fi is that it’s affordable. Have a lightbulb and a Li-Fi kit? Boom — you have internet. Next month, researchers are showing off 10 sample kits at a trade show in China, and the country is moving in a direction that could make Li-Fi a practical and commercially viable asset — especially since, as Xinhua reports, Chinese people are quickly replacing old fashioned incandescent bulbs with LEDs.

Of course, there are still a few technical details — mostly dealing with microchip design and manufacturing — that would need to fall into place before Li-Fi becomes ubiquitous. So for now, Li-Fi remains an experiment with a bright future.

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: The Stealthy Barracuda UAV Is Germany's Future Flying Force

After the end of hostilities in WWII, France and Germany have become surprisingly close. The two nations are stalwart proponents of expanded European Union integration and are regularly referred to as the EU’s “twin engine”. But on the issue of unmanned aerial platform, the two simply cannot agree. So while France and its cohorts are developing the nEUROn, Germany is building the stealth Barracuda.

Development on the EADS Barracuda fully-autonomous, medium-altitude, long-range UAV began in 2003, and is backed by both Germany and Spain. France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Greece, alternately, have funded the Dassault nEUROn, while the UK has independently forged ahead with the BAE Taranis. Despite crashing during a 2006 test flight, which grounded the project for nearly two years, the Barracuda has since successfully completed more than a dozen test flights.

http://youtu.be/rjWjtpae1J4

Though details on the vehicle itself remain classified, we do know that the Barracuda is built from a mix of off the shelf components and custom hardware systems. Its entire fuselage — save for a pair of reinforcing wing spars — is composed of the same carbon fibre composite that covers the Eurofighter Typhoon. What’s more, the 8m long, 2.7-tonne demonstrator does almost entirely away with hydraulics — aside from the landing gear, the UAV operates entirely on electronic actuators. And while it isn’t as quick as the Taranis, the Barracuda reportedly packs a 14kN Pratt & Whitney jet turbine capable of achieving mach .85 with a 6000m service ceiling and an estimated 200km operational radius.

For the foreseeable future, the Barracuda will remain a developmental test bed for future Cassian UAV technologies with hopes of eventually developing a system that can operate in unsegregated airspace alongside manned and civilian aircraft. And with both the nEUROn and Taranis gunning for deployment by the end of the decade, the skies over Europe are going to get crowded.

[MIKA27]

Why Exercise When You Can Buy A Fake-Muscle T-Shirt?

Fifty bucks might sound expensive for an undershirt, but not when it means you can cancel your gym membership, stop buying gallons of protein powder and sell all of your home gym equipment. Because not only does the Funkybod t-shirt promise to camouflage manboobs, it also creates the illusion you’ve got a muscular toned physique, no matter how frail you might be in real life.

It’s all thanks to a set of subtle plates — presumably made of a comfortable foam — that accentuate your shoulder, bicep, lat, pectoral and shoulder muscles. Worn by itself the fake muscles are easy to spot, but when worn under another shirt no one will be able to tell you don’t spend every morning at the gym. And the plates supposedly even feel like real muscle, so no one will be the wiser until you’re forced to take your shirt off. Which means that if you spill on yourself, you’ll be wearing that stained shirt all day until you get home. [Funkybod]

[MIKA27]

Abraham Bowman Gingerbeer finished Bourbon:

The fall season is a big one for new bourbon releases, but it's not too often that one of those releases tastes like fall as well. Abraham Bowman Gingerbread Beer Finished Bourbon ($70) tastes like it was made for the fall season, with hints of gingerbread spice, cinnamon and clove.

They used Bowman Bourbon barrels that held booze for a solid 8 years before emptying and passing them along to Hardywood Brewery, who then aged their award-winning Gingerbread Stout for 12 weeks. Finally, early in 2013 the barrels came back to Bowman and were filled with the bourbon that you will enjoy, like a crisp fall day, if you're lucky enough to score a limited edition bottle.

[MIKA27]

Skull of Homo erectus throws story of human evolution into disarray

A haul of fossils found in Georgia suggests that half a dozen species of early human ancestor were actually all Homo erectus

The spectacular fossilised skull of an ancient human ancestor that died nearly two million years ago has forced scientists to rethink the story of early human evolution.

Anthropologists unearthed the skull at a site in Dmanisi, a small town in southern Georgia, where other remains of human ancestors, simple stone tools and long-extinct animals have been dated to 1.8m years old.

Experts believe the skull is one of the most important fossil finds to date, but it has proved as controversial as it is stunning. Analysis of the skull and other remains at Dmanisi suggests that scientists have been too ready to name separate species of human ancestors in Africa. Many of those species may now have to be wiped from the textbooks.

The latest fossil is the only intact skull ever found of a human ancestor that lived in the early Pleistocene, when our predecessors first walked out of Africa. The skull adds to a haul of bones recovered from Dmanisi that belong to five individuals, most likely an elderly male, two other adult males, a young female and a juvenile of unknown sex.

The site was a busy watering hole that human ancestors shared with giant extinct cheetahs, sabre-toothed cats and other beasts. The remains of the individuals were found in collapsed dens where carnivores had apparently dragged the carcasses to eat. They are thought to have died within a few hundred years of one another.

"Nobody has ever seen such a well-preserved skull from this period," said Christoph Zollikofer, a professor at Zurich University's Anthropological Institute, who worked on the remains. "This is the first complete skull of an adult early Homo. They simply did not exist before," he said. Homo is the genus of great apes that emerged around 2.4m years ago and includes modern humans.

Other researchers said the fossil was an extraordinary discovery. "The significance is difficult to overstate. It is stunning in its completeness. This is going to be one of the real classics in paleoanthropology," said Tim White, an expert on human evolution at the University of California, Berkeley.

But while the skull itself is spectacular, it is the implications of the discovery that have caused scientists in the field to draw breath. Over decades excavating sites in Africa, researchers have named half a dozen different species of early human ancestor, but most, if not all, are now on shaky ground.

The most recently unearthed individual had a long face and big teeth, but the smallest braincase of all five H erectus skulls found at the site. Photograph: Georgian National Museum

The remains at Dmanisi are thought to be early forms of Homo erectus, the first of our relatives to have body proportions like a modern human. The species arose in Africa around 1.8m years ago and may have been the first to harness fire and cook food. The Dmanisi fossils show that H erectus migrated as far as Asia soon after arising in Africa.

The latest skull discovered in Dmanisi belonged to an adult male and was the largest of the haul. It had a long face and big, chunky teeth. But at just under 550 cubic centimetres, it also had the smallest braincase of all the individuals found at the site. The dimensions were so strange that one scientist at the site joked that they should leave it in the ground.

The odd dimensions of the fossil prompted the team to look at normal skull variation, both in modern humans and chimps, to see how they compared. They found that while the Dmanisi skulls looked different to one another, the variations were no greater than those seen among modern people and among chimps.

The scientists went on to compare the Dmanisi remains with those of supposedly different species of human ancestor that lived in Africa at the time. They concluded that the variation among them was no greater than that seen at Dmanisi. Rather than being separate species, the human ancestors found in Africa from the same period may simply be normal variants of H erectus.

"Everything that lived at the time of the Dmanisi was probably just Homo erectus," said Prof Zollikofer. "We are not saying that palaeoanthropologists did things wrong in Africa, but they didn't have the reference we have.

Part of the community will like it, but for another part it will be shocking news."

Reconstruction of the early human ancestor Homo erectus from the latest skull found at Dmanisi in Georgia.

David Lordkipanidze at the Georgian National Museum, who leads the Dmanisi excavations, said: "If you found the Dmanisi skulls at isolated sites in Africa, some people would give them different species names. But one population can have all this variation. We are using five or six names, but they could all be from one lineage."

If the scientists are right, it would trim the base of the human evolutionary tree and spell the end for names such as H rudolfensis, H gautengensis,H ergaster and possibly H habilis.

The fossil is described in the latest issue of Science.

"Some palaeontologists see minor differences in fossils and give them labels, and that has resulted in the family tree accumulating a lot of branches," said White. "The Dmanisi fossils give us a new yardstick, and when you apply that yardstick to the African fossils, a lot of that extra wood in the tree is dead wood. It's arm-waving."

"I think they will be proved right that some of those early African fossils can reasonably join a variable Homo erectus species,"said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London.

"But Africa is a huge continent with a deep record of the earliest stages of human evolution, and there certainly seems to have been species-level diversity there prior to two million years ago. So I still doubt that all of the 'early Homo' fossils can reasonably be lumped into an evolving Homo erectus lineage. We need similarly complete African fossils from two to 2.5m years ago to test that idea properly."

The analysis by Lordkipanidze also casts doubt on claims that a creature called Australopithecus sediba that lived in what is now South Africa around 1.9m years ago was a direct ancestor of modern humans. The species was discovered by Lee Berger at the University of Witwatersrand. He argued that it was premature to dismiss his finding and criticised the authors for failing to compare their fossils with the remains of A sediba.

"This is a fantastic and important discovery, but I don't think the evidence they have lives up to this broad claim they are making.

They say this falsifies that Australopithecus sediba is the ancestor of Homo. The very simple response is, no it doesn't."

"What all this screams out for is more and better specimens. We need skeletons, more complete material, so we can look at them from head to toe," he added. "Any time a scientist says 'we've got this figured out' they are probably wrong. It's not the end of the story."

[MIKA27]

The End of the Wii and What It Means for Nintendo

Looking back at a system ahead of its time

Nintendo will no longer manufacture the Wii, and the company may stop selling the system entirely.

With the lack of commercial sizzle on the next generation – and backward compatible – Wii U, this could be a business decision that, partnered with a recent price cut, may encourage a further growth in sales. With the Xbox One and PS4 less than a month away, the pressure on Nintendo to increase their hardware lead is immense. The company moved roughly 3.5 million systems in the Wii U's first year, but only 160,000 in the last quarter.

In comparison, the original Wii absolutely shattered sales figures. Over 67 million Wiis were sold in the system's lifespan, and unlike the competing Xbox 360 and PS3, the Wii was not a loss-leading venture – each Wii sold returned a healthy profit to Nintendo. But while the hardware was incredibly successful, the Wii's weak system specs made software success outside of Nintendo's own IPs (Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong) elusive. While motion controls looked to be the future of gaming – Microsoft and Sony were quick to release their own motion control gimmicks after the Wii penetrated the casual, non-gamer market – the execution on titles that required motion controls often left much to be desired ("I'm waving my hands – why is nothing happening"). A one-trick pony, beyond Wii Sports and a few other must-have titles, the Wii garnered few games worthy of a purchase, and that huge hardware base didn't mean diddly.

With the anticipation revolving around the PS4 and Xbox One, hardware sales on the Wii U aren't great. And the formerly reliable franchises may not be up to snuff. If Nintendo can't unload millions of its own games on a strong user base (a business plan they've followed since the GameCube), the company might be in for some serious financial trouble.

With the huge success of the original Wii, you'd think one hardware flop couldn't spell the end to the most storied video game company ever. But bear in mind – this past hardware generation (the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360) has been eight years long. The Wii U can't compete with the PS4 and Xbox One for nearly a decade considering its poor early showing. But if Nintendo comes back in a few years with a brand new system. . . we may be seeing shades of Sega.

In 1994, Sega released the Saturn. In 1998 they released the Dreamcast – both systems had (and continue to have) a die-hard following. Unique games, innovative features. . . the Saturn and Dreamcast were each a bit ahead of their time, but suffered from botched launches and poor 3rd party software support.

Sound familiar?

After the failure of the Dreamcast, Sega took its valuable IPs and software experience to other platforms. Now you can play Sonic on a Nintendo system, something that would seem impossible to a generation of kid who grew up on "Genesis does what Nintendon't!" So if you think you'll be long dead before seeing Mario collecting coins for Sony, remember – anything can happen.

[MIKA27]

Scientists Just Took A Huge Step Towards Curing Baldness

Hair plugs, comb overs and toupées beware; a team of researchers from Columbia has developed a way to induce new human hair growth for the first time ever. It’s not just the fact that they can just grow hair that’s so exciting, though. It’s that they can grow your hair.

The technique centres on the behaviour of human dermal papilla cells, the ones that make up the base of hair follicles. While the idea of using dermal papilla cells to generate new hair growth has been around for about 40 years, scientists have had a hard time doing it since the cells simply revert back to basic skin cells when they’re put into a culture. Rodent papillae, however, don’t have that problem, because they clump together and make it easier for the cells to communicate with each other.

Taking a cue from the rodent example, the Columbia researchers figured out how to encourage the human papillae to aggregate in a culture. After harvesting samples from human donors, the researchers transplanted the cells between the dermis and epidermis of human skin and grafted them onto the backs of mice. After a few days, scientists found that the hair was growing like normal. Sure, the human hair was growing on the backs of mice, but they matched up with the donors perfectly.

Now, we’re not suggesting you go grow yourself a new head of hair on the back of a mouse. This research is in the very early stages, though researchers hope to start clinical trials very soon. A magical hair growth tonic is probably still at least a few years away, if it’s coming at all. But at least we’re headed in the right direction.

[MIKA27]

How Close Are We To Building A Full-Fledged Cyborg?

The dream of the cyborg is coming true at an exhilarating rate. As humans gets better and better at making machines, we keep attaching those machines to our bodies to make ourselves better humans. It seems at times that the only question left is if we can put a human brain in a robotic frame. Actually, it’s not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when.

This week, social psychologist Bertold Meyer’s been travelling around the country with a contraption that looks like a cross between a Halloween mask and Johnny Number Five. It’s the subject of a new documentary by the Smithsonian Channel called The Incredible Bionic Man. Meyer makes for a great spokesman, since he was born without the lower part of his left arm and now wears a bionic prosthesis. He is, by definition, a cyborg — but only partially.

So just how close are we to a fully formed cyborg? And even more curiously, what will it look like?

What is a cyborg?

Let’s take a second to agree on what exactly it means to be bionic and what it means to be a cyborg. In many ways, the two words are interchangeable, and both came into usage around the same time in 1960s. Whereas “bionic” borrows the “bi-” from biology and “-onic” from electronic, “cyborg” is a portmanteau ofcybernetic and organism. Both refer to living organisms that are aided or enhanced by artificial means. Often these means amount to electronic or mechanical devices, much like the mind-controlled prosthetic hand that Meyer wears on his left arm. For now, let’s just stick with cyborg for simplicity’s sake.

The term “cyborg” probably brings to mind images of Robocop or Darth Vadar. But in fact, it doesn’t have to be so extreme. When Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline coined the term in a 1960 article about “altering man’s bodily functions to meet the requirements of extraterrestrial environments,” they explored chemistry as much as they did mechanical engineering. In this sense, even Lance Armstrong was a cyborg back in his juicing days. But for all intents and purposes, cyborgs these days use machines to help them regain lost capabilities — like amputees returning from Afghanistan — or to gain new ones — like soldiers armed with exoskeletons.

Our current capabilities

Those examples in mind, you have to admit that sometimes it feels we live in a sci-fi reality. But that’s only because we do. The so-called incredible Bionic Man that Meyers paraded around Washington DC last Thursday represents the sum of cyborg parts that have been in development for over half a century, many of which showed up in science fiction books in the interim. All things told, this TV-ready cyborg has between 60 and 70 per cent of the function of a human being. It even has blood. But blood does not a cyborg make.

To begin thinking about what it might mean to have a fully formed cyborgs, let’s go through our current capabilities in cyborg tech — starting with our most advanced capabilities.

Limbs

The robot featured in the Smithsonian documentary has the same model of prosthetic arm as Meyer, mechanical marvel made by Touch Bionics. He can move each of the fingers by activating two electrodes that connect to muscles in the residual limb. This is hardly as good as it gets, though.

The latest craze in prosthetics and, by proxy, cyborg technology involve mind-controlled limbs. DARPA’s developed a prosthetic arm that uses targeted muscle reinnervention (TMR) to enable amputees to move robotic limbs merely by thinking about it. This requires doctors to reattach severed nerve endings to different muscles in the arm, so that when the amputee wants to move his arm, he just thinks about moving his arm.

We saw similar technology in action earlier this year, when the world’s first fully mind-controlled leg arrived. Thanks to an Army-funded project, a Chicago man was able to walk normally years after he’d lost his leg in a motorcycle accident. Sensors on the mechanical leg are linked to two nerves in the man’s hamstring and enable him to walk up stairs and stroll through the park. It looks a little bit futuristic, but hey, wouldn’t it?

Bones

For the most part, bones are pretty easy. Just about anything from a tibia to a vertebra can be built out of artificial materials like titanium, and has been for a while now. More recently, techniques for creating artificial bones have improved. We can grow new bones using plastics and stem cells. We can also print new bones using 3D-printing technology — this guy got a new skull that was almost completely 3D-printed.

You don’t have to replace the bone entirely to enter the cyborg arena. Using titanium foam to make bones stronger, for instance, amounts to a cyborg-like enhancement. Along those lines, it’s also worth mentioning that your friend who got a metal plate in her leg after breaking it is technically a cyborg. Then again, so is your friend who wears glasses.

Organs

The plight of the cyborg gets a little more complicated once we move to things like internal organs, which have proved more difficult to replicate. Artificial hearts exist but are used more as stop gaps to help patients survive long enough for a transplant, although the technology is constantly improving. Artificial kidneys are also quickly becoming a reality, as are bionic eyes.

Things get even more complicated — but promising — from there. Doctors have successfully built an artificial stomach, but it’s hardly practical. Scientists have developed artificial liver cells, but they haven’t actually managed to build an artificial organ. Artificial intestines are still in the works. An artificial bladder, spleen, lymph system, gallbladder — these are all still to come. As is the most complex organ of them all: the brain.

Brains

This is a tough one. The (very long) quest to build an artificial brain can be divided up into two parts: recreating the brain’s architecture and perfecting artificial intelligence. Engineers are constantly coming up with new supercomputers that mimic the brain’s neural network. Some have as many as 530 billion neurons, a healthy amount compared to the average human brain’s 86 billion neurons. Some graduate students showed off a one-million neuron model that can make calculations just as fast as the brain, albeit briefly.

Building a neuron network isn’t the same as building a brain, though. You have to make the thing think. The challenge of making a cognisant machine has proved to be incredibly difficult, and even though we’re seeing artificial intelligence in more and more everyday applications (think: Siri) we don’t yet have a way to make machines completely think for themselves. We do have artificial brains that can solve problems on their own, but creating something of the same complexity as the human brain might be impossible.

So about that full-fledged cyborg…

Let’s just assume, for the sake of simplicity, that we’re not going to build an artificial brain. It might be impossible, but it’s certainly very difficult since scientists using a supercomputer with 83,000 processors could only mimic 1-per cent of the human brain’s activity. Brains are really, really complicated. Plus, if we build an artificial brain, is the bionic man even a man any more?

A pinnacle of cyborg technology, however, would be everything but the brain. Put simply, this version of a full-fledged cyborg would be a brain and a body completely made up of mechanical parts. Remember Krang from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? It would be something like that. To get a better idea of how possible this would be, understanding the current state of prosthetics and artificial organs, we talked to cyborg expert Tim Maly. (Maly curated the Tumblr “50 Posts About Cyborgs” — you should definitely check out.)

Maly’s point was very simple. There’s no way we’re going to have a completely cybernetic human being with the materials we’re currently using. “It probably won’t be a mechanical body,” Maly told Gizmodo. “It will probably be some biogrown body, and it won’t be recognisably to us as Robocop, because it’ll already be part of a long line of small improvements.” So instead of a shiny robotic shell, our cyborg might just get lab-grown flesh. That’s probably ok, though. He’d fit in better.

The inevitable ethical conundrum

Asked how long it would take for this biogrown body, Maly couldn’t say. Obviously, there are a host of ethical questions to be answered about how much enhancement is too much. Few people are comfortable with the idea of man playing God, and once we start building superhuman cyborgs, we’re definitely entering that territory.

That in mind, it’s probably safe to say that we’ll build a full-fledged cyborg when we’re ready to, not just technologically ready but socially, politically, and religiously as well. It’s very difficult to say when the ethical piece of the puzzle will fall into place. It could be decades, and it could be a century. But the ethical debate should progress alongside technology.

This is all to say that if you’re looking forward to a future of chrome-coated cyborgs, just keep reading those science fiction novels. Here on Earth, it’ll be a little bit more familiar. “We’re only at the very dawn of that techno biological revolution,” Maly concluded about our hypothetical full-fledged cyborg, “but I feel — at risk of ending up on Paleofuture in 10 years — I feel like it’s much more likely that anything like that is going to come from biotech.”

[MIKA27]

Heineken's Countertop Sub Chills Beer Colder Than Your Fridge Can

Our kitchens have become a warzone for beverage makers battling to get their drink dispensing appliances on our counters. Pod-based coffeemakers and soda carbonators have taken an early lead, but now Heineken’s decided to enter the fray with a sleek beer dispenser called The Sub that promises to chill your suds to two degrees celsius — or about four degrees colder than your fridge can.

Designed by Marc Newson and built by Krups, the pressurised aluminium appliance gets its name from its submarine-like appearance, which Heineken has decided to run with. The Sub’s refills come as metal cylinders filled with beer affectionately called Torps — short for torpedos — that are loaded through a hatch below the The Sub’s tap.

The creation is essentially a fancier version of the tiny Heineken kegs you can already buy, but since it’s able to chill the beer itself, it doesn’t take up any space in your fridge. And while at launch the Sub’s beer selection will be limited to Heineken affiliates like Desperados and Baffo D’Oro, eventually other brands should be available too if they don’t mind being served through Heineken-branded hardware. There’s no listed price yet, but whatever it is will be worth it for the chance to fire all torpedoes at your next poker night.

[MIKA27]

Lamborghini Veneno Roadster: Car Porn At Its Most Graphic

By definition, all Lamborghinis look straight-up bonkers, but there can be elegance in madness. Take the Aventador for example: a classy stealth-jet with bigger wheels. There is no subtlety in the new Veneno Roadster, however: it’s straight-up gratuitous car pr0n.

Only nine of these insane cars are being made, and with a price tag of $US4.5 million a pop, it’s probably a good thing.

The original Veneno debuted at the Geneva Motor Show recently, where Lamborghini announced that only three of the hypercars would be made. Now that it’s gone topless, Lamborghini plans to triple the production run of this ludicrous car.

Looking at the Veneno Roadster in this brief run of high-resolution press pictures, you’d be forgiven for thinking that one of the red, white or green buttons on the dash (very Italian!) would deploy rocket boosters, machine guns or an invisibility cloak. If you look down the car from the perspective of the seats, it genuinely looks like two boosters are hiding in the rear.

[MIKA27]

Discovery Of DNA 'Biological Clock' Could Get Us Closer To Immortality

The identification of the DNA markers associated with ageing has brought us one step closer to the ever-elusive Fountain of Youth. UCLA geneticist Steve Horvath just published details about the discovery, and says that this could actually lead to drugs that reverse the process of ageing.

“Ultimately, it would be very exciting to develop therapy interventions to reset the clock and hopefully keep us young,”

Horvath told The Guardian. He studied the methylation of nearly 8000 samples of healthy and cancerous tissue and found 353 DNA markers that varied with ageing. They effectively work like little biological clocks. Interestingly, different types of tissue age at different rates. Whereas the biological age of heart tissue appears around nine years younger than it should, cancerous tissue appears to be an average of 36 years older.

Horvath even figured out how we might potentially reset the clock. Using a technique that fetched a Nobel Prize for a British and a Japanese scientist last year, he converted adult cells into stem cells and found that the clock on those DNA markers returned to zero. “It provides a proof of concept that one can reset the clock,” he said.

The more immediate, practical implications of this research are a little unclear; we don’t know yet if the genetic markers control ageing or are just a consequence. But let’s not get bogged down by specifics quite yet. In a matter of speaking, scientists now have a roadmap to the Fountain of Youth. Now, we just need to hitch a ride.

MIKA: I'm up for this but how do we control population growth??

[MIKA27]

LITTLEBITS

Littlebits is a new electronic building toy for kids, it brings the simplicity of the classic building block to the world of electronics, making science/technology fun and accessible. Littlebits lets kids turn technology inside out. Color-coded electronic Bits modules snap together with magnets to form simple circuits, creating the foundation for young inventors to build anything they can dream of - like an "annoying sibling alarm”, glow-in-the-dark puppets, a bubble blowing flute, whatever your imagination can conjure. Several Kits are available, no coding, wiring or soldering required.

[MIKA27]

Helios Bike Bars

If you live in the city your bike can be a great way to get to and from work — you save money on gas while helping stay in shape — but there are plenty of hazards out there for bike commuters.

The Helios Bike Bars ($200) make your two-wheeled transportation safer and smarter, thanks to built-in intelligent LEDs and GPS. The LEDs, including a powerful headlight and rear-facing indicators, light your path and signal to others your intended turning direction and speed. On-board GPS gives you turn-by-turn directions and lets you find your bike if it's lost or stolen. Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity lets you use your phone to control ambient lighting, navigation, and more. Choose from two versions, the bullhorn and the drop bar, both available in black and white.

[MIKA27]

New 2013 iPad Mini: Everything You Need To Know

Apple just announced the next-generation iPad Mini, and it finally has a screen worth staring at. The iPad Mini now has a retina display that will make everything on the 7.9-inch screen look astonishingly clear. Along with the new fantastic screen, Apple has also sped up the internal chips while keeping it all inside the same light and thin body of the original. However, it does cost a lot more.

Design

Just like the rumours suggested, the iPad Mini 2′s design looks strikingly similar to the original iPad Mini. It’s made from the same anodised aluminium and has the same thin bezel. You’d be hard pressed to figure out the difference between the two generations of iPad Mini until you see the screen.

Guts

Like the iPhone 5s and the new iPad Air which packs the 64-bit A7 processor, the iPad Mini with retina display will also be powered by the A7. That new 64-bit chip makes its CPU 4 times as fast and gives the iPad Mini with retina display 8x faster graphics.

The M7 motion coprocessor makes an appearance in the iPad Mini too, but we’ll have to see how useful that is in a tablet (as opposed to a phone you always carry around with you). The new iPad Mini also has 802.11n Wi-Fi with MIMO tech to speed up Wi-Fi to 2x as fast. Apple says the new iPad Mini will have the same 10-hour battery life we’ve grown accustomed to with iPads.

It’s a huuuuge leap in performance from the original iPad Mini which had the A5 chip. Basically, if the original iPad Mini had the performance power of the released in March 2011 iPad 2 (which it did). This new iPad Mini with retina display has the oomph and punch of the 2013-era iPhone 5S and iPad Air. In terms of performance, it’s jumped two generations in one leap.

Screen

After not including a retina display on the original iPad Mini, which only had a resolution of 1024×768 and 163 pixels per inch, the iPad Mini 2 will have a screen with double the resolution at 2048×1536 and 324ppi. That’s a heck of a lot better than before and should have been there from the beginning.

For reference, the 2013 Nexus 7 has a 7-inch screen with 1920×1200 resolution for a pixel density of 323 pixels per inch, while the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX is similarly specced with a 7-inch screen at 1920×1200 resolution and 323ppi.

Accessories

The iPad Mini has new colourful smart covers and smart cases too. $48 for the traditional smart cover and $89 for the full wraparound smart case.

Price and Availability

But to get all the improved guts and fancy new screen, the new iPad Mini with retina display (HD Display) is more expensive! A lot more expensive. It will run you $479 for a 16GB Wi-Fi only model and $629 for the 3G and Wi-Fi model. For storage size, you have the option of 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB for $479, $598, $699 and $99, respectively. Tim Cook said the new iPad Mini will be available sometime “later in November”.

The iPad Mini with retina display will come in two colour options, Apple’s new white and black (silver and ‘space grey’).

The old iPad Mini goes down to $349 for a 16GB Wi-Fi version. When you compare it to devices like the brand new Nexus 7 or the Amazon Kindle Fire HDX, the iPad price drop is a little less exciting. But if you can’t live without iOS, the new price makes things a little less painful.

[MIKA27]

iPad Air: Everything You Need To Know About Apple's Svelte New Tablet

Apple just announced iPad Air, the fifth in its line of (nearly) 10-inch tablets. Last year, Apple’s big boy got a perfunctory upgrade, but the iPad adds a new super-skinny design this time around with a batch of significant improvements that will carry the iPad through the next year. Here’s what you need to know.

Design

The rumours about an iPad redesign were true, but it’s even slicker than we thought. iPad Air features the first significant update to the tablet’s hardware since the iPad 3, which added a retina display and an increase in heft due to a hulking battery.

The new iPad is 44 per cent thinner than its predecessor, with a flat-backed design resembling the iPad Mini. It basically looks like a big iPad Mini. Very handsome. It’s also way lighter, weighing just 453 grams, compared to around 650 grams before. Apple says it’s the lightest full-size tablet in the world.

The iPad’s 9.7-inch screen size and 2048×1536 resolution remain unchanged. It will be available in silver and space grey.

Guts

Inside, the new iPad runs the already burly new A7 system chip in the iPhone 5s. According to Apple, the new chip makes iPad Air up to 8x faster processor performance and 72x faster graphics performance.

The new chip, as we noted before, introduces support for 64-bit architecture — basically future-proofing for higher RAM devices. The CPU features an underlying improvement in architecture (ARMv8 from ARMv7, if you must know), which will greatly improve battery life.

The A7′s new M7 Motion Coprocessor, which manages inputs from the iPads built-in sensors. Although, we’re less sure what we’d use this extra power for given that you’re less likely to go for a run with iPad in tow.

Apple now has Wi-Fi with MIMO that’s two times faster than before.

Camera

The iPad’s camera has always lagged behind the camera on the iPhone, and it won’t catch up this year — not on resolution at least.

It’s not clear if this is the image sensor is the new one that’s on the iPhone 5s or an older model design. The 1.2-megapixel 720p FaceTime camera has been upgraded to a camera that can shoot in Full HD 1920×1080 resolution.

iPad Air will also comes with dual built-in microphones that will help improve the audio quality.

Battery Life

As we noted before, the iPad 3 was big one because it needed a big battery to power that beautiful retina display. Now that the iPad is a a skinny slate, the concern would be that battery life might suffer if Apple used a smaller battery. According to Phil Schiller the iPad Air will get 10 hours, just like before. Impressive.

Smart Cases

Apple will now offer colourful Smart Cover cases that cover the whole iPad. They’ll cost $99 for the iPad Air.

Pricing

The iPad Air will be available on November 1 and starts at $598 in Australia for the Wi-Fi models. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will start at $749 for the 16GB model. There are no pre-orders this time.

The iPad 2 will remain in the line at $449, which is really expensive for what is now an older tablet.

[MIKA27]

Why We Need To Sleep So Much

One of the universal truths for most humans who appreciate things like comfort and relaxation and a collection of soft feathers and enveloping warmth and rejuvenation is that we love our sleep. It makes us feel good! And sure it wastes a lot of time, but we feel like crap when we don’t have enough of it. And, beyond feeling good, we sort of need it. But why do we need it?

Why is it that we can die faster from lack of sleep than lack of food? Scishow explains the science behind sleep

[MIKA27]

Facebook Is Lifting Its Ban On Decapitation Videos

Don’t even think about posting cartoon nipples on Facebook. Decapitations, however? Go right ahead.

Six months after establishing a ban on blatant, gruesome beheadings, Facebook has decided to (once again) keep videos of decapitations available to the masses.

Facebook was first forced to address its decapitation policy back in May, when the Family Online Safety Institute rightfully complained about these gruesome videos being readily available to the (often exceptionally young) members of the Facebook community. While Facebook at first defended the video’s right to a life online, saying that its “approach is designed to preserve people’s rights to describe, depict and comment on the world in which we live”, it quickly caved to pressure and instituted the ban.

Now, however, the BBC reports that a video posted last week under the title “Challenge: Anybody can watch this video?” has been deemed appropriate for Facebook by the powers that be. And they don’t seem like they’ll changing their mind anytime soon. After inquiring to Facebook about the gruesome video, which was believed to have been filmed in Mexico, the BBC received the following confirmation:

Facebook has long been a place where people turn to share their experiences, particularly when they’re connected to controversial events on the ground, such as human rights abuses, acts of terrorism and other violent events. People are sharing this video on Facebook to condemn it. If the video were being celebrated, or the actions in it encouraged, our approach would be different.

However, since some people object to graphic video of this nature, we are working to give people additional control over the content they see. This may include warning them in advance that the image they are about to see contains graphic content.

Phrases like “we are working” and “may include” certainly seem to indicate that the video is here to stay — which has the potential to be highly damaging to some Facebook users, many of whom are very young. As Dr Arthur Cassidy, a former psychologist who runs a branch of the Yellow Ribbon Program in Northern Ireland, told the BBC, “The more graphic and colourful the material is, the more psychologically destructive it becomes.” And it certainly doesn’t help that Facebook’s age restrictions are notoriously easy to circumvent.

We’ve reached out to Facebook for comment and clarification. For now, though, Facebook will continue to determine the extent of an individual’s freedom of speech on a case-by-case basis. Long live the Zuckocracy.

Update: After speaking to a Facebook spokesperson, we were offered the following as further explanation on its stance regarding violent content:

One instance that really brought the point home occurred earlier in the year. It was the Boston marathon bombing, and there was a gentleman whose legs had been blown off. If we’d had a more conservative stance, that image would not have been allowed on the site.

What we want to do is give folks the right balance of being able to control what it is they’re seeing. We’re definitely aware that this is not the perfect policy. We’re always trying to improve it.

The fact that these two instances — a photo of injured victims in the Boston marathon bombing and a video of a woman being decapitated — fall under the same policy highlights a major problem with Facebook’s rules. Its guidelines are nowhere near as nuanced as they need to be to appropriately handle the breadth and diversity of the content posted by its users.

Our Facebook spokesperson assured us that “to enforce that policy we have to look beyond the video or the image itself. We look at what else surrounds that piece of content.” But judging from the nearly 18,000 shares noted in the above screenshot, that’s a nearly impossible task. And, more importantly, the potential for serious emotional damage is going to remain — productive discussion or not.

[MIKA27]

Monster Machines: America's 21st Century Destroyer Sails For First Time

America possesses the most formidable naval fleet in the world. However, the face of oceanic warfare is rapidly evolving and bears little resemblance to 20th century sea battles. Naval dominance is no longer decided in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic, but rather in shallow territorial waters. To meet these new offshore challenges, the US Navy has spent years and billions on a new class of Destroyer.

Dubbed the Zumwalt-class in honour of Admiral Elmo R. “Bud” Zumwalt Jr., Chief of Naval Operations from 1970 to 1974, these ships grew out of the older DD21 “21st Century Destroyer” program when Congress gutted its funding in 2001. The program originally called for more than 300 Zumwalts to be built but cost overruns have seen the program shrink to two dozen, then seven, and now just three ships. However, given the estimated capabilities of these multi-role destroyers, seven should be more than enough to handle most anything foreign powers can throw at them.

The first such vessel, the one that was (Update: supposed to be) christened on October 19, is demarked DD 1000 and is built with surface warfare, anti-aircraft, and naval fire support missions in mind. It features an all-composite superstructure and “tumblehome” hull, in that it slopes inward above the waterline much like the old Civil War Ironclad, that drastically reduces the ship’s radar cross-section (much like the angular form of the F-117 Nighthawk). This means that even though the Zumwalts — at 185m long with a 24m beam and 8.5m draft — are nearly 40 per cent bigger than the previous Arleigh Burke-class, they register about the same size as Lt Dan’s fishing boat on the radar screen and are just slightly louder than a Los Angeles-class submarine. That stealthiness comes at a price though; tumblehome designs are notoriously unstable when quickly turning and when firing ordnance. To counter that effect, Zumwalts can release ballast and sink lower into the ocean when the going gets rough. What’s more, the new hull is designed to cut through the waves, rather than bounce over them, in order to improve stability.

The inside of the ship is divided into a series of 16 Electronic Modular Enclosures (EMEs). These independent boxes shield the boat’s delicate electronics — packed into some 235 electronics cabinets per EME — from electromagnetic interference, shock, and vibration during even the most hectic battles.

The Zumwalt-class’ electronics utilization extends to its power and propulsion systems as well. The ship’s 78 MW Integrated Power System (IPS) employs a pair of Rolls-Royce Marine Trent-30 gas turbines driving two Curtiss-Wright generators that in turn drive the two Advanced Induction Motors (AIM) that turn the propellers. This setup significantly reduces thermal and audible signatures, though it wasn’t the Navy’s first choice. The Zumwalts were originally meant to use Permanent Magnet-Synchronous Motors (PMM), but due to scheduling and reliability concerns, the Navy switched over to AIMs during the construction process. According to Defence Industry Daily:

…The exact choice of engine systems remains somewhat controversial at this point. The concept was originally for an integrated power system (IPS) based on in-hull permanent magnet synchronous motors (PMMs), with Advanced Induction Motors (AIM) as a possible backup solution. The design was shifted to the AIM system in February 2005 in order to meet scheduled milestones; PMM technical issues were subsequently fixed, but the program has moved on. The downside is that AIM technology has a heavier motor, requires more space, requires a “separate controller” to be developed to meet noise requirements, and produces one-third the amount of voltage. On the other hand, these very differences will force time and cost penalties from design and construction changes if the program wishes to “design AIM out”…

Still, these motors are easily capable of moving the 10,886-tonne ship at speeds up to 30 knots.

And it just wouldn’t be a naval destroyer if the Zumwalt didn’t have the ability to lay extreme amounts of waste. These ships are expected to be outfitted with 20 PVLS (peripheral vertical launch system) tubes capable of carrying either a single Tactical Tomahawk (a bigger, meaner version of today’s cruise missile) or a quartet of RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM).

These PVLS ring the outer edge of the deck, which reduces the chances of chain reaction explosions should one missile tube be hit. What’s more, the armour on the outer side of the tube is thinner than the armour on the inner side where it rests against the hull. This incites any explosions that do occur — caused either from enemy fire or an internal misfire — to direct outwards, away from the ship itself. Additionally, the Zumwalt-class will carry a pair of 155mm AGS (Advanced Gun System) cannons, each with a 920-round LRLAP magazine that is automatically loaded by the ship’s automated weapon handling and storage system, as well as two 57mm guns, one MH-60R helicopter forde-mining operations and up to three Firescout drone choppers.

All this automation means that fewer sailors are put in the line of fire. A Zumwalt-class destroyer will accommodate just 142 seamen, compared to the 300 needed to properly run the old WWII Spruance-class destroyers. This reduction in crew also translates into a reduction in needed ammo, food, supplies, and overall operational costs.

The Zumwalt Destroyer was christened in Bath, Maine yesterday (Update: Just kidding folks! Turns out the US Navy delayed the ship’s christening at the very last minute. The DD1000 will be named early next spring.) It is expected to officially join the fleet later next year.