Neil de Grasse Tyson Schools B.o.b. on the shape of the Earth

Since Sunday, hip hop artist B.o.B. (Bobby Ray Simmons, Jr.) has been tweeting about how the Earth is actually flat. Naturally, that drew the attention of renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, who tweeted back at him with a few facts. That soon led B.o.B to write an angry song called “Flatline,” which included such lines as “Indoctrinated in a cult called science/And graduated to a club full of liars/Heliocentrism, you were the sixth victim.” It also had this diss: “Aye, Neil Tyson need to loosen up his vest.”

Flat to Fact.


http://www.cc.com/video-clips/rca4i7/the-nightly-show-with-larry-wilmore-neil-degrasse-tyson-slams-flat-earth-theorist-b-o-b

The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore
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Iran Hackers Get Access to NY Dam

An Iranian hactivist group has claimed responsibility for a cyberattack that gave it access to the control system for a dam in the suburbs of New York — an intrusion that one official said may be "just the tip of the iceberg." The group, SOBH Cyber Jihad, sent a message through another Iran-linked hacker outfit, Parastoo, promising that it would release the technical information that proves it was behind the 2013 breach, according to Flashpoint Intelligence.

The hackers claimed they kept quiet about the attack for two years because of a "state-level" warning not to go public with it "for the greater good." Only after the Wall Street Journal reported on the attacks did SOBH Cyber Jihad decided to take credit for the operation against the Bowman Avenue Dam in Rye Brook, N.Y., just north of New York City. The attacker obtained access to the dam's control system on six different occasions. Leo Taddeo, former special agent in charge of the Cyber Division of the New York FBI, said that even though Bowman Avenue Dam doesn't seem like a prime target, "we would be very, very concerned about any foreign attempt to affect a component of our critical infrastructure. If they could have accessed the Hoover Dam without being detected, I think they would have done that," he said.



Credits:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/iranian-hackers-claim-cyber-attack-new-york-dam-n484611

13 Year Old gets Funding for Lego Braille printer

According to WHO reports, there are estimated 285 million visually impaired people worldwide and 90% of which lives in developing countries. At this moment the cost of a braille printer is more than $2000 for a basic version, thus for many millions of people across the world have limited access. Shubham Banerjee, 13, created a Braille printer out of Lego pieces for a school science project and, with the help of his family, turned his concept into a start-up company that gained financial backing from the tech company Intel Corp.This project uses the Lego Mindstorms EV3 kit costing $349 and some add-ons from Home-depot costing another $5 to prove that its feasible to make a brail printer for education purposes and schools that's much cheaper.

Shubham made a prototype using parts from a desktop printer and an Intel chip with wifi and bluetooth. He showed what he created to Intel. "They were really impressed," Banerjee said. Banerjee helped his son set up a company with Shubham as the founder. Malini Banerjee, Shubham's mother, assumed the role of CEO, and Neil became a member of the board. They called it Braigo Labs, a combination of Braille and Lego. A few months later, Intel announced they would back Shubham's company with an undisclosed amount of money.

https://youtu.be/0YfnKB1zWOU

Don't Miss a Pool Shot with Augmented Reality

ARPool (Augmented Reality Pool) is the next evolution in the game of pool. The system combines advanced computer algorithms, including computer vision, graphics, physics simulation, and artificial intelligence, to enhance a pool player’s experience. In this way, ARPool represents the convergence of traditional games such as pool, with recent advances in computer gaming technology.

Getting into the technical details, ARPool is a “projector-camera” system. A data projector and high resolution video camera are mounted on the ceiling, directly above and pointing down towards the surface of the table. Custom computer vision algorithms have been developed to analyze the balls on the table, determining their position as well as their identity (such as cue ball, eight ball, etc.). When the player lines up to take a shot, the cue position is also recognized in real-time, and the ball trajectories that will result are calculated. Finally, the data projector renders the ball trajectory information directly onto the table surface, giving the player information about the success of the shot. All this happens in realtime, so that the player can adjust his shot according to the system display.



Credits:
http://www.laval-virtual.org/en/

Students Try to Tweet Media into Announcing a Snow Day

In California, we just get rain, and only in extreme cases, is school ever cancelled for this. In other parts of the country where it snows, school calendars include "snow days" because school will be cancelled occasionally. When the weather gets bad, kids hope for a snow day. Sometimes they do more than hope.

While trying to report school closures in Tennessee Wednesday night, a news station says they received several messages from school children, trying to trick them into falsely reporting a snow day. The web director at WTVC NewsChannel 9 in Chattanooga, says one clever kid direct messaged the station on Twitter, posing as a school administrator to try and get Hamilton County Schools closed for Thursday, according to Buzzfeed. But the ploy failed to convince the journalists at the station, who were able to fact check the claim and find out that it was not true.

Credits:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3410377/Clever-Teneessee-school-chTennessee-news-station-sick-kids-trying-prank-announced-schools-closed.html

SpaceX Rocket Lands Upright ... Almost

The latest attempt by SpaceX to recover one of its rockets by landing it on a platform in the ocean failed in a ball of fire on Sunday. Shortly before 11 a.m. on Sunday, SpaceX launched one of its two-stage Falcon 9 rockets from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The second stage of the rocket separated and successfully carried an ocean-monitoring satellite, Jason-3, into low-earth orbit.

The first stage then reversed direction and returned to earth. It appeared to descend on target atop the floating barge in the Pacific, but a problem with one of its four legs sent it toppling over. “Root cause may have been ice buildup due to condensation from heavy fog at liftoff,” Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, said on Instagram.

New Messaging App -- Peach

Something kind of funny happened last week: A wonky little app called Peach emerged out of nowhere and quickly climbed the rankings in Apple's mobile app store. Within a day or so, the gif-centric download went viral, drawing coverage from any media outlet that covers social media. The app was the ninth most popular download from the app store by Monday, according to TechCrunch. By Thursday, the rank dropped out of the top 10 to spot 17. Some declared Peach dead upon its launch, but there’s no stampede of media outlets heralding failure just yet.

What do you do with Peach? A key feature of Peach is its use of “magic words,” or command line prompts. Type “gif” to search gifs. Type “goodmorning” to post the time and weather at your location. Type “rate” to post a rating of up to five stars of whatever is it you want to rate. It’s goofy. You can also share music with Peach and, as with other apps, tag friends.

What makes Peach different? Peach has a few unique features other than command line prompts. Posts are arranged in chronological order with the newest post on the bottom, so that if you scroll to the top of a person’s profile you’ll see their first post rather than their last. Peach has no newsfeed - you have to visit individuals’ profiles to see what they’ve posted. This siloing of profiles gives Peach a more intimate feeling than Facebook or Twitter. At the same time, the app lacks privacy by not offering a direct message option.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Smaug

It’s no secret that Benedict Cumberbatch did some seriously world-class smaugging in “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” a performance only to be potentially topped by his Smaug-tastic scenes in “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.” But now, we’re finally getting the backstory on his audition process, complete with clips of his original audition tapes that make it pretty clear why he scored the role.

The video also shows Cumberbatch doing some cool, creepy/sexy snakey stuff with his neck, heralding the amazing physicality he brought to his motion-capture performance as the dragon. Meanwhile, the monologue is taken straight from the J.R.R. Tolkien source material, but for some reason that lip-smacking bit about eating six ponies didn’t make into the script. Too bad; everyone knows Smaug is a pony-eater.

Credits:
http://www.mtv.com/news/1982650/watch-benedict-cumberbatchs-phenomenal-smaug-audition/

Highly Dexterous Manipulation System

The Highly Dexterous Manipulation System (HDMS) includes dual robotic manipulator arms and a moveable humanoid torso that can be easily mounted onto a robotic platform to efficiently conduct a variety of missions, including explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) operations, manufacturing, healthcare, and others.

RE2’s HDMS product line, which was designed specifically for mobile systems, is extremely flexible and configurable. The HDMS is available in multiple dexterity configurations, including, but not limited to 11, 15 or 16 degrees-of-freedom (DoF). Tele-operated control is achieved using RE2’s Imitative Controller technology. Traditional controller methods (i.e. dials/switches, gaming controllers, etc.) are not practical for effectively and efficiently controlling highly dexterous manipulator arms, especially dual-arm systems. The RE2 Imitative Controller provides highly intuitive control of dexterous dual-arm manipulation systems.



Credits:
http://www.resquared.com/hdms

Four New Elements added to the Periodic Table Complete Row 7

Chemists and physicists have begun 2016 heavy with resolution—superheavy, in fact. Two days before 2015 came to end the guardians of the periodic table of the elements—the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry—announced that it was okay to add four new ones, filling out the seventh row. Atoms of each new element are packed with protons in their nuclei, giving the four atomic numbers of 113, 115, 117 and 118.

The permanent names of the new heavy foursome are as yet unknown. Right now they go by placeholders called ununtrium (113), ununpentium (115), ununseptium (117) and ununoctium (118). Their discoverers, who work at the RIKEN Institute in Japan, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia, and Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge national laboratories in the U.S., are doubtless in deep discussion about how their findings should go down in history.

Didja Get a Real Hoverboard?

Unless you’re Marty McFly, you probably have no hover board riding experience. But, if you’re Canadian inventor Catalin Alexandru Duru, you’ve made it your life’s work. The Romanian-born inventor set a Guinness World Record for longest and furthest hover board flight when he used his homemade invention to fly a distance of 905 feet for a minute and a half — and he did this while floating 16 feet over Lake Ouareau in Quebec, Canada.

Duru started his company, Omni Hoverboards. The 31-year-old engineer is already fielding requests, talking to investors and working on a second-generation model of his patent-pending hover board design. “I saw how technology was evolving, and I was thinking ’This is actually possible,'” Duru said in an interview with CBC News. “So I thought, ’Why not?'”