challenger

Watch this DARPA robot climb, leap, and walk past obstacles

Prepare to witness a tantalizing glimpse at our future robot overlords.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency yesterday released a stunning video showing how an autonomous robot can navigate and jump over obstacles with great ease.

In the clip, the Pet-Proto robot -- a predecessor to DARPA's Atlas robot -- traverses a simulated hallway containing a very tall step and a thin walkway. Pet-Proto easily uses its strong arms to balance itself as it climbs a step, then perfectly leaps down with a thud. The highly agile walker stretches its legs to continue its journey along the thin edges of a gutted hallway floor. … Read more

Facebook and Gates Foundation host education hackathon

Facebook partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today to host an education-centered hackathon called "HackEd."

The goal of "HackEd" is to kick-off the Gates Foundation's new $2.5 million investment fund called the College Knowledge Challenge. The fund is dedicated to getting developers to build apps for students that would assist them in navigating the college process -- this means helping young folks get into school and stay there.

"At Facebook, we believe that a more open and connected world can have a big impact in addressing some of society's biggest … Read more

Neuroscientists develop video game for stroke recovery

After a stroke, it is often possible -- with months of therapy and determination -- for the brain to relearn how to control a weakened limb. Finding the resources (therapist, finances, time) can be the bigger hurdle.

Enter Circus Challenge, the first in a coming suite of action video games designed by Newcastle University stroke experts and the new company Limbs Alive to provide extra in-home therapy.

"Eighty percent of patients do not regain full recovery of arm and hand function and this really limits their independence and ability to return to work," pediatric neuroscience professor Janet Eyre … Read more

Microsoft: 50,000+ iPhones, Androids smoked since CES

Please, toss away your i-feminate iPhones. Dump those dumpy Androids in the garbage. The numbers are in, and they are entirely conclusive: Windows Phones quite simply crush the competition.

Please don't argue. I have the figures in front of me, and they cannot tell a lie. Phones running Microsoft's mobile operating system defeated the competition in 98 percent of all "Smoked By Windows Phone" challenges.

Who says so? Why, Microsoft.

Its very fine Windows Phone evangelist, Ben Rudolph, revealed these startling numbers on the Windows Phone blog.

Thus far, 51,313 owners of non-Windows phones have … Read more

DARPA: Build us robots that drive -- and use power tools

If DARPA gets its way, robots will be able to drive, unlock doors, and fix leaking pipes.

The agency today released details of its Robotics Challenge, an initiative to award up to $34 million in grants to improve robots for disaster response operations. Teams will compete for as much as $2 million for a single entry.

The robots themselves don't need to take a human form, but many of the tasks DARPA's challenge addresses favor robots in humanoid form. The challenge lays out a number of jobs the robot needs to address that would be helpful in the … Read more

DARPA seeks humanoid robots in Grand Challenge

Humanoid-robot soldiers may be getting closer to reality with DARPA's next Grand Challenge, which apparently will involve getting a robot to pull off some pretty impressive handyman skills.

According to robotics Web site Hizook, DARPA's Gill Pratt recently outlined the challenge, which calls for humanoids to be used in industrial disasters and rough terrain.

The ultimate object is to build a robot that can work in a human environment and use human tools. The industrial setting is no surprise in the aftermath of Japan's Fukushima nuclear crisis, in which various robots from the U.S. have lent a helping hand (or manipulator). … Read more

Windows Phone challenge attracts a bad element: Lawyers

Of course, it shouldn't have come to this. But it apparently has.

Microsoft's fine and entertaining "Smoked by Windows Phone Challenge" has caused one man to retain legal representation.

Vivek Viswanathan, a graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Ga., claims he won the challenge not merely once, but twice. Yet still, he says, the folks at the Microsoft store wouldn't give him the prize of a "Hunger Games" Special Edition PC, worth $1,000.

Indeed, he says the manager of the Microsoft store came out and asked him to … Read more

Cameron and Branson race to bring urgent attention to oceans

Did famed filmmaker James Cameron just do for the oceans what scientific experts have struggled to do for decades?

When "Avatar" and "Titanic" director Cameron piloted his custom submersible, the Deepsea Challenger, to the bottom of the Mariana Trench yesterday and became the first person ever to make a solo dive to the world's deepest spot, he shined a crucial spotlight on the field of ocean exploration.

In recent years, scientists have been shouting from rooftops around the world that unless humanity puts more energy into studying our oceans, we are at real risk of … Read more

The 404 1,018: Where we get all our ducks in a row (podcast)

Apple products are mostly used by younger generations, but the company should still recognize the dangers of "high-tech modern architecture." Such is the plea of 83-year-old Evelyn Paswall, a New Yorker taking Apple to court for $1 million after walking face first into the glass door entrance to the Long Island Apple store.

Does her case hold water, and should Apple continue to use ugly white tape to let people know glass is a real thing? We'll talk about this story and more on today's episode of The 404.… Read more