New Tech Round-Up: Keyboards, Fake Meat, and Robots
‘Ello ‘ello lords an’ ladies! Act Classy’s p’veyor of tech-knowlogy ’ere once again, fresh off a sabba’ical to jolly ole London town for in depf study of women’s beach volleyball for…um, new techn’logical advances in equipmen’. Let’s jus’ say them ladies know how to do more to balls than jus’ punch ’em as hard as ‘ey can, iffin you know wha’ I mean! HAH, BWAH HA, *COUGH* *HACK*…MMMMM.
I apologize — I picked up a nasty case of Cockney Mouth and I’m still trying to shake it. Anyway, without further ado, NEW TECH ROUND-UP!
“You got your filth on my keyboard!” “You got your keyboard on my filth!”
Admit it, we’ve all been there. It’s 3 am, you’re on your eight straight hour of sitting at your computer playing your brand new copy of Leisure Suit Larry 6(9) and eating powdered donut holes when PLOMP! you drop an entire handful in your keyboard. And then knock over your coffee. And then your tub of lube. Now what!?
“Keyboard covered in lube” is actually the solution to level 4 in Leisure Suit Larry: Two Drink Minimum.
Well, keyboard and mouse manufacturer Logitech has a solution: a $40 washable keyboard. You can submerge it in water, hose it down, and leave it out to dry. This is awesome and it’s actually pretty crazy it’s taken this long to exist.
So CLEAN!
You currently run the risk of destroying your iPhone if you make a call in heavy fog, so it’s great to see a company make a piece of tech that takes into account how it’s used in everyday life.
Some people will get more use out of it than others. The ones who haven’t given up on life.
Printable Meat? Uh, am I supposed to say “Yum” to that?
A few years ago, there was a revolution in printing when a machine was designed that can print actual stuff–objects that you can hold and use–out of powder. If you’ve never seen a 3D printer in action, take a look, it really is amazing:
Neat, huh? The host really says it all with “this changes everything,” because as this tech becomes more affordable, the applications are going to be endless. Like, really endless, as in this kind of printing tech is also being developed to make synthetic tissue for transplants.
No more skin grafts for burn victims; surgeons will be able to grow new skin tissue in a lab so you don’t have to pull it from another part of your body. And now a company called Modern Meadow has been given a grant to develop a method of printing synthetic meat for consumption. As in eating…with your mouth.
Can it really be less appetizing than a Spam Steak?
While this process is fascinating and could solve a whole bunch of problems, I can’t imagine anyone not shopping at Whole Foods would want to buy this, and I can’t imagine Whole Foods actually selling it because it’s made of 100% additives. Oh well, I’m sure somewhere out there there’s a starving vegan. Those exist, right?
Robot News!
It is well known that some of us here at Act Classy (mostly me) are a little obsessed with robots. We alternate between thinking they’re awesome and being pretty sure we will die at their hands/claws/realistic butt cheeks. So now I’m going to incept the NTR and go one level deeper with a New Robot News Round-Up!
Awesome Robot News
Back in the year 2000 the good people at Honda created a robot that could walk and stuff named ASIMO. Since then, ASIMO has been taken around the world to show people how awesome ASIMO is, and people around the world now know ASIMO even though he doesn’t really do much except respond to his name and recognize up to 10 faces. He’s basically the Kim Kardashian of robots.
At least Kim can climb a flight of stairs. (She can, can’t she?)
Anyway, nearly 13 years later, Honda has decided that the time has come to stop basking in the glory of creating a computer that can walk and turn on lights (assuming the switch isn’t too high, or one of the kind that flicks up and down, or is any color other than white), and they have finally created a robot that actually does something useful. BEHOLD: Miimo the lawnmower robot!
Miimo (L), seen here with his idiot brother.
Normally I would be terrified of a robot outfitted with swirling blades with razor sharp edges, but I really hate mowing the lawn. I know that’s how it all starts! First you give them blades, then you give them a flame thrower because you hate raking leaves, then you give them a death ray because you hate dealing with mouse traps, blah blah death to all humans. JUST SHUT UP! Grass makes me sneeze, so I welcome our new friend Miimo the lawn shark.
Terrifying Robot News
Now, part of why I can accept Miimo into my yard with relative ease is that he’s easily spotted and is louder than a jet engine (probably not true). But this son of a bitch, the Crawling Bot, can camouflage itself and it scares the crap out of me:
That thing could take down an entire rave and you’d never see it until it was too late.
This is its glow in the dark mode, but the tubes that you see zig-zagging throughout pump a mix of dye into the thing, allowing it to blend in with any surface. I don’t know why we would give this power to a thing with no conscience or remorse, but then I’m not a Harvard Scientist. Oh, and of course it can crawl. Right down my throat. Great, something else to talk to my therapist about.
Well, that’s it for today, kids. If you find any awesome science-y news you’d like to share, please post it in the comments section below. Also, these news bits all came from C-Net, and if you’d like to read more about them, just click on the links below.
About the Author
Fred Betzner Fred Betzner spends his days silently staring out of windows in his castle, Le Château de Kangourou, and cursing his ill fate in severely broken French. He is considering changing his name to Molly.
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