12-year-old Lydia Denton was named the winner of CITGO’s Fueling Education Student Challenge and awarded $20,000 after inventing a device to prevent hot car deaths. People writes:

The device works through a pressure pad under the car seat cover, which can sense weight over 5 lbs. When a baby is in the seat, the system starts itself up and monitors the temperature.

If the temperature reaches above 102 degrees, the seat will set off an alarm along with a warning on the LCD display. A text will also be sent to the parent’s phone. If the parent does not reset the button within 60 seconds, a message is sent to 911 with the built-in GPS chip, called an Arduino, sending the car’s location to emergency services.

Wow this is inspiring. You know what I was doing when I was 12? It was less “inventing devices that would save lives” and more “getting my arm stuck in vending machines trying to steal snacks.” Did my efforts help society? Maybe not, but they did result in 911 being called just like Lydia’s device so obviously we’re both equally great people.

Source: Geekologie – 12-year-old girl awarded ,000 for inventing device to prevent hot car deaths

Japan’s FamilyMart chain is planning on introducing robots to its workforce this summer to stock store shelves. According to Time Out:

Instead of being fully automated, FamilyMart’s robots will be operated by store employees via VR terminals at a separate location. The addition of these new robots will hopefully allow people to have a more flexible work schedule and help stores that have limited staff.

The robots will be tested out in selected FamilyMart locations in Tokyo this summer, with an aim to have them installed in at least 20 stores by 2022. If all goes well, these new robots could become as integral to Japan’s konbini as cup noodles and fried chicken.

The robots are designed by Telexistence and are more like robotic drones than actual autonomous robots, so there’s less risk of an I, Robot situation happening here. Smart move, because I find customers usually prefer it when robot employees actually do their job instead of turning on their masters and doing murder instead.

Keep going for a promo video for Telexistence.

Source: Geekologie – FamilyMart to start introducing robot shelf stockers

Announced in 2019, Sony is now selling its Reon Pocket, a personal temperature control unit that sells for about $130 (14,080 Japanese Yen). According to Design Boom:

the reon pocket utilizes thermoelectric cooling but sony says you can also use it as a heater on winter days. it can supposedly cool a user’s body temperature by 13 degrees celsius (23 degrees fahrenheit) and raise your temperature by about 8 degrees celsius (about 14 degrees fahrenheit).

the reon pocket is a bluetooth device about the size of a card wallet that slips into a special undershirt with a pocket at the base of the neck. it connects to an app which gives users control of the temperature via their smartphone.

the wearable air conditioner supports ios and android, has a battery life of 90 minutes and a charge time of 2 hours. it looks a little like an apple mouse, weighs just 85 grams and uses USB-c.

It’s a similar concept as the Embr Wave, which is a wearable bracelet that also heats and cools, but sells for more than double the price at $299. I imagine the Reon Pocket is more effective since it sits at your neck/back versus your wrist, but the problem is you have to wear that stupid undershirt to make it work. Although I suppose you could skip the shirt and just tape it to your back like John McClane in Die Hard. Yippee ki-yay, you poor sweaty bastards. I’ve got a weird device taped to my back and that makes me cooler than you. Literally.

Keep going for the product video or check out the main Japanese site here.

Source: Geekologie – Sony is selling a personal wearable AC unit

Japan recently reopened their theme parks, and in addition to masks, their guidelines include a ban on screaming on roller coasters because it spreads coronavirus. According to The Wall Street Journal:

A video showed the two executives, both clad in masks, sternly riding the coaster in complete silence. It ended with a message: “Please scream inside your heart.”

The ban on screaming, along with a recommendation that visitors wear masks, is included in guidelines released by Japan’s theme-park associations when parks began reopening in May. The guidelines are being followed by most parks in the country, including Disneyland and Universal Studios Japan in Osaka. The associations said they were following the judgment of health officials, who have said actions such as coughing and singing can spread droplets widely.

“Please scream inside your heart.” Yeah, I already do that all day every day, Japan. At first I thought this was an Onion article but the site says The Wall Street Journal so now I’m only 50% sure it’s a joke. Personally I don’t scream on roller coasters anyway because I’m super tough and manly and there’s no time to scream when you’re busy eating steaks and bench pressing things.

Keep going for the full video of the two execs trying reaaally hard to look chill while riding a roller coaster.

Source: Geekologie – Japan reopens theme parks, bans screaming on roller coasters

YouTuber Dutchsteammachine took 16mm NASA footage of the Apollo 16 Lunar Roving Vehicle traversing to Station 4 and increased the framerate from 12fps to 60fps using DAIN-AI. They also color corrected the footage and synchronized audio to create a pretty immersive experience of riding around on the moon. Although I must admit the scenery gets a bit repetitive. I mean, lunar soil as far as the eye can see? Where’s the cheese? Wasn’t there supposed to be some cheese up there?

Keep going for a shot of what the Lunar Roving Vehicle looks like along with the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Interpolated Apollo 16 rover footage creates an immersive moon-driving experience

Gary Larson teased he was working on something new awhile ago, but yesterday he finally posted some of his new work on his site. He writes:

So a few years ago–finally fed up with my once-loyal but now reliably traitorous pen–I decided to try a digital tablet. I knew nothing about these devices but hoped it would just get me through my annual Christmas card ordeal. I got one, fired it up, and lo and behold, something totally unexpected happened: within moments, I was having fun drawing again. I was stunned at all the tools the thing offered, all the creative potential it contained. I simply had no idea how far these things had evolved. Perhaps fittingly, the first thing I drew was a caveman.

The “New Stuff” that you’ll see here is the result of my journey into the world of digital art. Believe me, this has been a bit of a learning curve for me. I hail from a world of pen and ink, and suddenly I was feeling like I was sitting at the controls of a 747. (True, I don’t get out much.) But as overwhelmed as I was, there was still something familiar there–a sense of adventure. That had always been at the core of what I enjoyed most when I was drawing The Far Side, that sense of exploring, reaching for something, taking some risks, sometimes hitting a home run and sometimes coming up with “Cow tools.” (Let’s not get into that.) But as a jazz teacher once said to me about improvisation, “You want to try and take people somewhere where they might not have been before.” I think that my approach to cartooning was similar–I’m just not sure if even I knew where I was going. But I was having fun.

So all it took for Gary Larson to start making strips again was getting his hands on an iPad. Sure, they completely revolutionized smartphones and the way we engage with our digital world, but getting Gary Larson to create new The Far Side strips should be Apple’s crowning achievement. They might as well just shut down the company because this was their endgame all along, right?

You can check out his new strips here.

EDIT: Larson only mentions ‘digital tablet’ so it’s not verified it’s an iPad, but the strips definitely have a Procreate feel to them.

Source: Geekologie – Gary Larson reveals new ‘The Far Side’ comic strips

On June 24, 2020, NASA engineers completed the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket’s structural testing for the Artemis lunar missions by locating the point of failure for the liquid oxygen tank. According to NASA:

For the final test, the liquid oxygen tank test article — measuring 70 feet tall and 28 feet in diameter — was bolted into a massive 185,000-pound steel ring at the base of Marshall’s Test Stand 4697. Hydraulic cylinders were then calibrated and positioned all along the tank to apply millions of pounds of crippling force from all sides while engineers measured and recorded the effects of the launch and flight forces. The liquid oxygen tank circumferentially failed in the weld location as engineers predicted and at the approximate load levels expected, proving flight readiness and providing critical data for the tank’s designers. The test concluded at approximately 9 p.m. CT. This final test on the liquid oxygen structural test article met all the program milestones.

So basically they blew up their own liquid oxygen tank to make sure it would fail where they expected it to fail. Sure, NASA. Sure. That’s the same excuse I gave my girlfriend when I left the stove on and accidentally burned down part of our kitchen. It was just a test, honey, I mean to do it. Now we know the point of failure for our stove. I’m basically a NASA engineer.

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – NASA intentionally destroys SLS rocket propellant tank

This is an extremely charming handmade cardboard Tetris game. I mean, I guess it’s Tetris? The pieces are right and all, but this girl has at least 4 lines that haven’t been cleared so I don’t know what’s up. Me thinks no matter how far she gets she’s going to end up losing. And I guess that’s the real life lesson right there. Just give up, kid. It never gets easier.

Keep going for the full video of the totally unfair cardboard Tetris.

Source: Geekologie – Incredibly charming handmade cardboard Tetris

A Tesla Model 3 owner narrowly avoided an accident when their autopilot warned them of an oncoming tire flying down the freeway. According to the driver:

The Tesla did not dodge the tire, I did. However, the autopilot gave me the time and view which allowed me to see the tire coming from the other side of the freeway. Also, the car stabilized very quickly after swerving to avoid getting hit. The car kept me from flipping over and spinning out into five lanes of traffic.

So technically Autopilot just told the guy there was a tire flying at him and it was up to him to actually dodge it. It’s a cool story, but I need my Autopilot to do all the dodging for me. I can’t be trusted to save my own life. Coordination isn’t one of my strong suits and if it was up to me I’d end up driving straight into the tire, and then into the divider, and then into all the cars in front of me, and then somehow into a gas station that would explode into a giant fireball.

Keep going for the full video of the near miss.

Source: Geekologie – Tesla Model 3 narrowly avoids flying tire

The folks at Disney Research Studios have moved one step closer to replacing human actors by developing this algorithm for high resolution face-swapping in images and videos.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first method capable of rendering photo-realistic and temporally coherent results at megapixel resolution. To this end, we introduce a progressively trained multi-way comb network and a light- and contrast-preserving blending method. We also show that while progressive training enables generation of high-resolution images, extending the architecture and training data beyond two people allows us to achieve higher fidelity in generated expressions. When compositing the generated expression onto the target face, we show how to adapt the blending strategy to preserve contrast and low-frequency lighting. Finally, we incorporate a refinement strategy into the face landmark stabilization algorithm to achieve temporal stability, which is crucial for working with high-resolution videos. We conduct an extensive ablation study to show the influence of our design choices on the quality of the swap and compare our work with popular state-of-the-art methods.

This is basically like supercharged DeepFakes and the results are pretty impressive. Disney Research Studios claims they’re developing this for movies and visual effects, but I can think of some other *ahem* more adult oriented applications as well. Yes, I’m talking about porn. What else would I be talking about? I’m always talking about porn. This is the Internet. Everybody’s always talking about porn. Why is Disney Research Studios even pretending they’re not doing this for porn? I wonder how many more times I can type Disney and porn in the same sentence before I get sued.

Keep going for a video of the face-swapping in action. It’s still not perfect, but it’s significantly better than the alternative methods.

Source: Geekologie – Disney develops high resolution neural face-swapping

A meteor was spotted above Tokyo early Thursday, with many people saying they heard it explode around 2:30 AM. According to The Japan Times:

“I thought a person living (in the condo) above knocked down a shelf,” wrote one Twitter user, while another said, “I thought my child sleeping on the second floor fell out of bed.”

Daichi Fujii, a curator at Hiratsuka City Museum in Kanagawa Prefecture, captured the fireball with a camera installed at his home in Hiratsuka. It crossed the northern sky from west to east, he said.

The National Astronomical Observatory said several fireballs are observed every month on average, but it is rare for people to hear anything.

Yeah, it’s rare for meteors to make noises which is why this clearly isn’t a meteor and is definitely space aliens. It looks like they finally got the letter I wrote them about two decades ago asking them to come visit. I thought one stamp wouldn’t be enough but my mom told me it was fine and turns out she was right. Also, I addressed it to “Outer Space.” Man, the postal service is good.

Keep going for the video of the sky fireball aka my new space friends.

Source: Geekologie – Meteor lights up Tokyo sky

Designer Luca Iaconi-Stewart has been working on this 1:60 scale model of a Boeing 777-300ER since 2008. He’s only using manila folders and the results are absolutely astounding. According to Luca:

This project traces its beginnings to an architecture class in high school where we learned to use manila file folders to roughly model our building ideas. The more I worked with paper, the more I fell in love with its versatility. At some point, I got the idea to make a model of an airplane as a way of challenging myself with an unconventional shape.

Though the project began on a much smaller and simpler scale in mid-2008, it has since evolved through multiple revisions to become a highly detailed, true-to-life representation of a Boeing 777. I originally drew my plans by hand, but my desire to increase the accuracy and amount of detail led me to start using Adobe Illustrator to design and print increasingly intricate parts directly onto the folder.

The attention to detail boggles the mind. Every handle, hydraulic, and cable seems to be recreated using nothing but manila folders. I can barely use manila folders to mail paper and this guy has turned them into a design achievement that might rival some actual aircraft. The project is still ongoing, and I imagine he probably won’t be finished anytime soon judging by his commitment to detail. It takes time to accurately model individual atoms with manila folders so cut the guy some slack.

Keep going for more shots, along with a time-lapse video of one of the most impressive craft projects I’ve ever seen.

Source: Geekologie – 1:60 scale model of a Boeing 777-300ER made entirely from manila folders

Jason Hibbs of Bourbon Moth Woodworking turned his riding mower into a miniature tank. He even included functional treads and put a working potato cannon into the barrel. It’s pretty much the best riding mower mod I’ve ever seen, and I’m not just saying that because it’s the only riding mower mod I’ve seen. The only complaint would be that it no longer actually mows grass. But c’mon, if the choice is between mowing your grass or breaking over your neighbors fence to shoot potatoes through their window there’s an obvious winner every time and it’s not the one that involves cutting little pieces of plant.

Keep going for the full video of the miniature tank in action.

Source: Geekologie – I want one: turning a riding mower into a miniature tank

On June 19, 2020 hang glider Owen Morse set a hang gliding world record by piloting 222.22 miles over California’s Owens Valley. He writes:

This flight was a dream come true for me. For six years I’ve been chasing the out-and-back world record, and this year, all the pieces of the puzzle finally came together beautifully.

My previous attempts had ended prematurely for a number of reasons – thunder storms on course line, a NOTAM due to a nearby forest fire, a harness pitch cord failure, and running out of daylight (another way of saying I had been flying too slowly). It takes a lot of things to go right to have success, and one significant thing going wrong can be the end of it all.

On June 19th, 2020 the winds were forecasted to be light and variable throughout the day at most elevations. Though there were not going to be any clouds along my planned course line, usable lift was expected to be just above 18,000 feet. Only two days before the summer solstice, I knew the number of daylight hours were on my side. The other thing I had going for me this year, was my new wing.

With the bearing tips, I’ve found that I don’t get pushed around anymore and I can put the wing exactly where I want it to be.

This guy was in the air for an insane 9:36 hours over his 222.22 mile journey. I can barely stay awake for that long, let alone do something like pilot a hang glider. If you’re wondering about bathroom breaks, he says he actually peed twice in the air. And since I have no idea if it’s possible to pee off a hang glider without also peeing your pants, I’m just going to assume you can’t because it’s funnier that way. So let’s completely ignore Owen’s incredible achievement and focus on the fact that he peed himself. Yay, now I don’t feel as bad because people who set world records also pee their pants.

Keep going for the video of his takeoff and landing. You can also watch a 3D replay of his flight path here.

Source: Geekologie – Owen Morse sets 222.22 mile hang gliding world record

Turkish YouTuber Hasan Kaval attached a sofa and television to a parachute so that he could maintain his couch potato lifestyle while parasailing. The video is absolutely insane, because I don’t see a harness of any kind. Like he’s literally just sitting on a sofa flying through the air eating potato chips and watching TV. Maybe there’s a secret seat belt somewhere, but if there is it’s extremely well hidden. It’s also possible people in Turkey just don’t care about falling to their death? It really looks like he just gets on a sofa, people push him off a cliff, and then he goes about his life like it’s perfectly normal to be in your pajamas chilling on a sofa while 800 feet off the ground.

Keep going for the full video which also includes them building the rig.

Source: Geekologie – Couch potato goes parasailing with his sofa and TV

Twitter user @TheoShantonas put his quarantine to use by riding on a treadmill at increasing speeds. These are the kinds of sacrifices that must be made in the name of science. It’s just too bad he stopped at 9mph, because I know most of them go up to 12mph and the super elite ones for athletes can go up to 25mph. Is this my roundabout way of saying I really wish I watched a man get launched through a wall at 25mph? Look, it’s for science. Anything is okay for science.

Keep going for the full video.

Source: Geekologie – Guy tests out different treadmill speeds by riding them

Reddit user TheApropalypse modded a Nintendo Switch console to look like a Pip-Boy, the wrist computer your character wears in Fallout. It’s mostly a bunch of 3D printed parts painted and assembled, but the result looks pretty great. And who cares that it essentially triples the size of the Switch. As long as you can carry it it’s still technically portable. Plus if I spend a decade or so working out at the gym and drinking raw eggs I’ll probably eventually get my arm thick enough to actually wear this on my wrist. Right now I get sore if I wear my friendship bracelet for too long. Just kidding, I don’t have any friends.

Keep going for the process video of the build.

Source: Geekologie – ‘Fallout’ themed Nintendo Switch Pip-Boy case

LEGO artist Jason Allemann has built this continuous loop LEGO marble run. It expands on one of his previous designs to include an elevator so that it can run continuously as well as an alternator module, which splits incoming balls in alternating directions. It’s a neat design and very interesting and all that, but I can’t get over his LEGO storage room. That’s the stuff dreams are made of. Six year old me would’ve planned a Mission Impossible style heist just to get in there and steal it. In unrelated news, I need to run to the store to buy a ski mask, a harness, and some rope.

Keep going for the full video, along with his original LEGO marble run design.

Source: Geekologie – LEGO continuous loop marble run

This is a commercial for the Murphy Ladder and it’s perfect. I don’t even care that it’s advertising a product, because it’s so amazingly well done I actually watched the entire thing. That’s three and a half minutes of my life I chose to spend watching a commercial for a ladder. A ladder. And I have zero regrets. I don’t even need a ladder, but I know if I was going to buy one it would be the Murphy Ladder. If it’s even half as good as the commercial it’ll be the best purchase I’ve ever made. Who needs health insurance when I can just spend all my money on ladders?

Keep going for the full video and no, this isn’t a sponsored post. Although I wouldn’t mind seeing some of that sweet Murphy Ladder money. Ya know, so I can buy some more ladders.

Source: Geekologie – Weirdly perfect commercial for the Murphy Ladder

As restrictions begin lifting and people start staying at hotels again, Inside Edition ran an undercover investigation to see just how serious hotels are taking cleanliness in the age of COVID-19. They checked into several New York City hotel rooms and used a harmless, washable spray to apply a logo only visible under UV light to the pillows, bed sheets and bath towels and then re-checked into the room under a different name to see if the rooms had been properly cleaned.

The fact there’s even anything to report should already tell you that the results were horrifying. Spoiler alert: apparently hotels don’t change bed sheets or pillow cases?! Even if we weren’t living with COVID-19 that’s super disgusting. I know what I do in hotel rooms and for them to not sanitize the room afterwards must violate the Geneva Convention. And before you ask what I’m doing in hotel rooms, let’s just say it involves some yogurt and a bag of hot dogs and that’s already saying too much.

Keep going for the full video that should probably make you rethink any travel plans you have for the next, oh, I dunno, forever.

Source: Geekologie – ‘Inside Edition’ discovers sheets weren’t changed at some hotels during COVD-19