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Submission + - Microsoft to launch Kinect for Windows sensor in 2014 (wordpress.com)

Submitted by awaissoft
awaissoft writes: Microsoft will finally deliver a Kinect sensor for Windows sometime next year.

The company announced Thursday that the Kinect for Windows sensor will use the same set of technologies key to the new Kinect sensor for the Xbox One, both of which will allow people to issue commands using voice and gestures.

The sensor will include a high-definition color camera and a noise-isolating multi-microphone array. Also part of the system will be a technology called Time-of-Flight, which measures how long it takes for photons to bounce off a person or object. Combined, these features promise greater accuracy and precision in detecting your movements and voice commands.

Like its Xbox One counterpart, the Kinect for Windows sensor will be able to pinpoint more parts of the body, opening up more accurate skeletal tracking. The sensor will also use a greater field of view to handle a variety of room sizes. A new infrared feature will help the sensor “see” better, especially in darker conditions.

The launch of the Kinect for Windows sensor and the corresponding software development kit means that developers will be able to create apps that take advantage of the features.

“We’re continuing our commitment to equipping businesses and organizations with the latest natural technology from Microsoft so that they, in turn, can develop and deploy innovative touch-free applications for their businesses and customers,” Microsoft said in a blog post Thursday. “A new Kinect for Windows sensor and software development kit (SDK) are core to that commitment....

Submission + - Robotics Veteran Develops an Open Hardware Robotics Platform (kickstarter.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Paul Sandin, a 20 year veteran of the robotics industry, recently launched a Kickstarter page to develop an open-source open-hardware robotics platform, named Butler, for the researcher and hobbiest market. Butler will leverage existing hobbiest electronics platforms such as Arduino and BeagleBone (and, more importantly, their respective communities) to simplify and accelerate the development process. As someone who has developed several robotics platforms in the past, I can say this has real potential.

From the Kickstarter page:

Today, anyone who wants to develop a mobile robot must either design and build their own mobile base, or pay many thousands of dollars for a research robot before they can start working on their robot concept. There are no inexpensive mobile robot bases big enough to hold widgets sized to do real work.

Butler answers that need. Robot designers will no longer have to keep reinventing the wheel(s).

I have been designing and building robots for 20 years at companies such as RedZone Robotics, iRobot, and Harvest Automation. The idea for Butler came about when I noticed that smartphones with their built-in sensors, and ever more powerful micros like Arduino, Raspberry PI, and the Beaglebone Black, were being used for robot brains for much less cost than it takes to design, build, and test a custom electronics board and integrate sensors. This advantage opens the doors for a much larger community of robot developers because it reduces design effort, risk, and cost. What is missing though, is a low cost robot base big enough to hold large contraptions, robot arms, lift-tables, large monitors, follow-me grocery cart, whatever you want to be mobile.

Submission + - Independent Test of E-Cat Cold Fusion Device Might Show Promise (forbes.com)

Submitted by Agnapot
Agnapot writes: The controversy surrounding Andrea Rossi's E-Cat device has been brewing since it was first introduced in 2011. Since then there have been calls for independent experiments as well as more openness with how the device works. It seems we might have some of the former. Forbes Contributor Mark Gibbs writes:

What everyone wanted was something that Rossi has been promising was about to happen for months: An independent test by third parties who were credible. This report was delayed several times to the point where many were wondering whether it was all nothing [...]. But much to my, and I suspect many other people’s surprise, a report by credible, independent third parties is exactly what we got.

Comment Disturbed by the concept of Advertising? (Score 3, Informative) 146

by Quantus347 (#43406057) Attached to: Why AppGratis Was Pulled From the App Store
Apple was "more than a little troubled that AppGratis was pushing a business model that appeared to favor developers with the financial means to pay for exposure."

In other words they are disturbed by an advertising App whose business model is based on that of every other advertising firm on the planet?

Comment Invented Conenctions (Score 4, Insightful) 1168

by Quantus347 (#42339287) Attached to: School Shooting Prompts Legislation To Study Violent Video Games
Saying this man killed his mother and then a bunch of children and teachers because he played video games is about and logical as saying he did it because he ate fatty foods, so we need shut down all McDonald's. There is no link whatsoever, beyond the fact that somebody wants to milk the events and the heightened emotions it is generating for their own crusades. Tighter gun control would not have stopped a determined and unstable man from stealing guns to go killing. Even if there had been no guns, Im sure he could have found another way. Hell, this was the 2nd deadliest elementary school killing because the deadliest used a bomb.

This really is getting ridiculous. I am getting really tired of all the politicians and lobby groups trying to spin this tragedy to their own agenda.
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook Disables URL Login Shortcut After Google Search Exposes Security Flaw

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: security hole has been discovered that allows anyone to see the email addresses corresponding to certain Facebook accounts. Worse yet, some appear to be accessible without even entering a password. However, a Facebook engineer now says that the company has disabled the feature that created the hole.
Science

Submission + - Crushed Silicon Triples Life of Li-Ion Batteries in the Lab (vice.com)

Submitted by derekmead
derekmead writes: Batteries rule everything around us, which makes breakthroughs a big deal. A research team at Rice says they have produced a nice jump: By using a crushed silicon anode in a lithium-ion battery, they claim to have nearly tripled the energy density of current li-ion designs.

Engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal and research scientist Madhuri Thakur reported in Nature’s Scientific Reports (it has yet to be published online) that by taking porous silicon and crushing it, they were able to dramatically decrease the volume required for anode material. Silicon has long been looked at as an anode material because it holds up to ten times more lithium ions than graphite, which is most commonly used commercially.

But it’s previously been difficult to create a silicon anode with enough surface area to cycle reliably. Silicon also expands when it’s lithiated, making it harder to produce a dense anode material. After previously testing a porous silicon “sponge,” the duo decided to try crushing the sponges to make them more compact. The result is a new battery design that holds a charge of 1,000 milliamp hours per gram through 600 tested charge cycles of two hours charging, two hours discharging. According to the team, current graphite anodes can only handle 350 mAh/g.
Iphone

Submission + - Tinkerer Invents iPhone Interface for Ham Radios (theepochtimes.com)

Submitted by jjp9999
jjp9999 writes: By using the same technology found in older modems, Thomas Tumino, vice president of the Hall of Science Amateur Radio Club, has invented an iPhone interface for ham radios. He told The Epoch Times, 'Today there are iPhone apps where you can use the systems in the phone—and its sound card, which is being used as a modem ... And then you connect that into your radio with an interface like this, that just isolates the telephone from the radio, and then you can do all sorts of things.'
Cloud

Submission + - US Government Says You Don't Own Your Cloud Data so We Can Access It At Any Time (eff.org) 2

Submitted by jest3r
jest3r writes: Yesterday the EFF filed a brief proposing a process for the Court in the Megaupload case to hold the government accountable for the actions it took (and failed to take) when it shut down Megaupload's service and denied third parties access to their property. Many businesses used Megaupload's cloud service to store and share files not related to piracy. The government is calling for a long, drawn-out process that would require individuals or small companies to travel to courts far away and engage in multiple hearings just to get their own property back. The government's argument that you lose all your property rights by storing your data on the cloud could apply to Amazon's S3 or Google Apps or or Apple iCloud services as well.
Censorship

Submission + - Nonpartisan Tax Report Removed After Republican Protest (nytimes.com) 1

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: On September 14th a PDF report titled "Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945" penned by the Library of Congress' nonpartisan Congressional Research Service was released to little fanfare. However the following conclusion of the report has since roiled the GOP enough to have the report removed from the Library of Congress: 'The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities.' From the New York Times article: 'The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical.' It appears to no longer be found on the Library of Congress' website.
Science

Submission + - Video of scientists who developed new transparent solar cell (youtube.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists at UCLA are reporting development of a new transparent solar cell, an advance toward giving windows in homes and other buildings the ability to generate electricity while still allowing people to see outside. Their report appears in the journal ACS Nano http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn3029327. Two of the authors describe the development in a new video http://youtu.be/-gJLetxYm5Q.
Power

Submission + - Solar Panel Breaks "Third of a Sun" Efficiency Barrier (gizmag.com)

Submitted by Zothecula
Zothecula writes: Embattled photovoltaic solar power manufacturer Amonix announced on Tuesday that it has broken the solar module efficiency record, becoming the first manufacturer to convert more than a third of incoming light energy into electricity – a goal once branded "one third of a sun" in a Department of Energy initiative. The Amonix module clocked an efficiency rating of 33.5 percent.

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