Computing

BROOKLYN, N.Y.--Given that Maker Faire is being held next month at a Northern California fairgrounds, it's appropriate that one of the attractions will be a petting zoo.

But this will be unlike any you've seen before. There won't be "animals" on display, and there won't be any fur.

Welcome to the Robot Petting Zoo.

The brainchild of the geeks at MakerBot Industries, the zoo will feature a collection of 3D printed robots, each of which will do something unique. Take "Button bot," for example, a happy-looking android with a head … Read more

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--An MIT Media Lab project called WristQue offers a way to interact with smart buildings and computers in an unobtrusive way.

Researchers at the Media Lab recently completed the first prototype of WristQue wearable sensor and described some of its potential uses yesterday here.

The first application of the wristband device is to automatically set heating and lighting controls to the wearer's preferences. It could also be used as an interface with public displays in buildings, showing the user personal information, such as a daily calendar, according to PhD student Brian Mayton who is working on the … Read more

In a new twist on using waste for energy, Microsoft is designing a data center powered by biogas, the gas given off from landfills and other sources.

The company last week further detailed its Data Plant experiment, an idea to bring more reliability to its data centers and lower pollution from them.

Fuel cells would supply power to the data center and make it independent from the grid, said Christian Belady, general manager of Data Center Services in a blog post last week. In theory, having on-site power allows a data center operator to use the electric grid as bac … Read more

Commentary In its trademark smashmouth style, Greenpeace this week took cloud computing companies to task for using dirty energy -- and then came under fire itself over its methods and assertions.

Whatever Greenpeace's shortcomings, though, its activists have a point.

In the latest event of its "Clean our Cloud" campaign, Greenpeace activists yesterday rappelled off a building near Amazon and Microsoft offices and attached a banner which reads "Amazon, Microsoft: How Clean is Your Cloud?"

Earlier, it released three videos that poke fun at Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft by showing workers shoveling coal into a … Read more

Interactive whiteboards are one of those unsexy business tools that companies everywhere depend on. All told, it's a $1.8 billion market that might seem to some to be one of the stodgiest around.

But a 38-year-old company on the hunt for a new business thinks it has found a way to upend that market. At the Demo conference this week, Interphase is unveiling its Penveu interactive whiteboard device, a tool that gives businesses an inexpensive, easy to use, and portable alternative to options out there today that can cost $2,000 to $7,000.

All that's needed … Read more

If you've seen "Iron Man 2," you've seen 3D printing in action at a very high level.

When director Jon Favreau and Paramount Pictures were making the hit 2010 film, they needed to find the best way to put together a physical Iron Man suit for certain scenes in the movie that couldn't be computer generated.

Rather than build models by hand, as was long the practice in Hollywood, the filmmakers turned to 3D printing, one of the hottest technologies around.

Indeed, in the film's scenes that were done in live-action -- as opposed to CGI (computer-generated imagery) -- its star, Robert Downey, Jr., can be seen wearing a suit that was first digitally modeled, then produced in pieces on a sophisticated 3D printer, and then painted. … Read more

Physicists have long sought to use the bizarre workings of quantum mechanics to make mind-boggling leaps in computing power. And they appear to actually be making progress.

Researchers from Harvard University and the Weizmann Institude of Science in Israel today published a paper describing a technique for two quantum bits, or qubits, to operate in a predictable and coordinated way, a small step toward a working quantum computer.

In a separate effort, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics today claimed to have made a breakthrough by making a prototype of a quantum communications network. Both groups say … Read more

The explosion of digital tools is opening new ways to explore the famous 100-year old Titanic shipwreck.

Mapping software company ESRI today released an interactive map showing the country of origin and ultimate fate of all the passengers on the Titanic. For first-time Titanic followers, the map displays the actual route of the seemingly invincible ship and the location in the North Atlantic where it struck an iceberg and sunk.

The mapping shows that many of the 2,200 passengers came from London and New York, but there were many from Scandinavia, eastern Europe, and Lebanon.

It also clearly shows … Read more

Google's Project Glass demo is certainly the coolest hardware demo so far this year. Behind the scenes is something equally intriguing: artificial-intelligence software.

The augmented-reality glasses, which Google co-founder Sergey Brin was spotted wearing yesterday, created a huge buzz Wednesday when Google released a video showing, from the wearer's perspective, how they could be used.

In the video, the small screen on the glasses flashes information right on cue, allowing the wearer to set up meetings with friends, get directions in the city, find a book in a store, and even videoconference with a friend. The device itself … Read more