university

The flexible, affordable Raspberry Pi Linux computer system has been hacked, tinkered, and transformed into all sorts of creations since its introduction. There's a Raspberry Pi Apple TV, a Raspberry Pi ocean explorer, and Raspberry Pi smart glasses.

Now there's a Raspberry Pi supercomputer. How do you turn a 700MHz mini system into a supercomputer? You use 64 of them and mount them in a rack made out of Legos.… Read more

I had that dream again the other night. The one where I (oops!) forgot to go to class all semester and it's time for the final, and OMG, but wait, maybe somehow I can fake my way through it?

Apparently, this dream plans to dog me no matter how far away from college I get. I've had it so many times it deserves its own soundtrack. And now, it turns out, it can get one.

Computer scientists from Finland's University of Helsinki have developed software that makes music out of sleep patterns. … Read more

If Borg ships have vermin on them, they look exactly like a project researchers at North Carolina State University are working on.

These intrepid scientists have taken a lightweight chip with a wireless receiver and transmitter and attached it to a cockroach like a little backpack. For the record, large Madagascar hissing cockroaches are the roach of choice. … Read more

It's easy to go over the top when it comes to outfitting your dream home theater system. One minute you're checking out HD projectors, and the next minute you're trying to figure out how to convert your entire basement into a giant subwoofer.

But it never hurts to start with the basics. In this CNET Top 5, I asked CNET Associate Editor Matthew Moskovciak for the essential ingredients in today's modern home theater system.

Gestural interfaces like the Leap promise a world in which we'll all be driving cars and flying planes by waving our hands in the air, "Minority Report"-style.

Pudue University is joining the fun with the Handy-Potter, a design tool that lets you fashion 3D virtual objects with your bare hands.

Recently presented at the ASME 2012 International Design Engineering Technical Conferences and Computers and Information in Engineering Conference in Chicago, the research won the All-Conference Best Paper award.

The Handy-Potter is a departure from traditional computer-aided design. It works with the Microsoft Kinect to track the user's body and hand gestures, modifying 3D shapes according to motions such as waving or pulling. … Read more

Let's face it: Opening up a cookbook, turning the pages, and reading a recipe is hard work. Thankfully, scientists in Japan recognize this and have developed a kitchen that puts recipes right on your food.

Unfortunately, you still have to read, and actually try to cook, by following instructions projected onto your food. But if you go astray a robot called Phyno is there to help out.

Developed by Yu Suzuki and colleagues at Kyoto Sangyo University, the "cooking support system" is being presented next week at the 10th Asia Pacific Conference on Computer Human Interaction (APCHI 2012) in Matsue, Japan.

With a combination of image processing and speech interaction, it's aimed at novice cooks who find recipe jargon confusing.… Read more

Tuesday's tech news roundup honors our future robot overlords:

AT&T is being accused of data-plan discrimination and breaking FCC rules regarding new iPhone FaceTime options. AT&T recently announced that iPhone customers could use FaceTime video chat service over a cellular network if they have the new shared data plan. (Previously, FaceTime was limited to Wi-Fi.) But several groups have spoken out about the limit and questioned if it follows FCC guidelines. AT&T responded saying it does not believe this breaks any FCC rules, since FaceTime was offered to all customers over Wi-Fi and … Read more

If robots could run for president, which would you vote for?

Nobody doubts that machines would make better leaders than meatsack politicians, but there are so many to choose from. Carnegie Mellon University is helping out by letting us humans elect inductees for its Robot Hall of Fame.

The prestige has been awarded to real robots such as Honda's Asimo, as well as characters like C-3P0 and R2-D2 from "Star Wars." The unprecedented public participation in choosing the members follows years of inactivity at the hall, which was created in 2003 but last added new robots in 2008. … Read more

In addition to slithering, crawling, and flying just about anywhere, what if robots could camouflage themselves? This tentacled prototype can be made to look like -- or stand out from -- its background with a simple injection of dyes.

Developed by engineers at Harvard University's Whitesides Research Group, the "soft machine" silicone quadruped crawls along on pressurized gases fed through an umbilical cord.

Users can send different dyes through channels in the robot's body, allowing it to blend in or stand out in startling fashion, such as glowing in the dark. Color changes take about 30 seconds, but don't require further power to sustain the disguise. … Read more