io9
retro futurism
Posts Tagged “Computers”
mad engineering
Could Penis-Controlled Computers Ever Catch On? [NSFW]
You know you've always wanted to see what would happen if you could control a first-person shooter with your penis — or, if you don't have one of your own, the penis of a friend. Maybe you want to literalize the term "cock block," or maybe you want to leave the mousing to your special down-there places while your hands roam freely across the keyboard. Either way, Kyle "Slashdong" Machulis has the ultimate futuristic, posthuman USB device for you. More »
electrical engineering
Ultrathin, Rubbery Circuits Bring Us One Step Closer to Google Brain Implants
A new kind of computer circuit printed on ultrathin rubber would make the perfect "brain wrapper," says its inventor. Usually computer circuits are etched on rigid, plastic boards, but University of Illinois researcher John Rogers has successfully placed circuits on a rubbery material that can bend and stretch. Many groups have been working on developing this technology, but Rogers is the first to demonstrate that his bendy circuits actually work. Rogers says the circuits could wrap around part or all of the brain, to monitor its electrical activity. Or — in future applications — to interface with your brain, perhaps using antennae to establish a wireless neural link to the internet so you can be Googling with your mind. More »
rebel futurism
Consumer Scandals Of The Future: A Chronology
The next few decades will see miraculous improvements in consumer technology — and new and better rip-offs to go with them. No matter how advanced our science, corporations will still find ways to spam, scam and invade your privacy. Those shiny new toys will break down... or break your neck. Here's our future history of the lawsuits and nightmares you'll be reading about from now until 2038. More »
social control
Emotion-Tracking Wearable Device Lets Your Boss Monitor Your Feelings
So you get a job in customer service, and your boss says your dealings with customers are going to be monitored for "quality." No, you won't be on CCTV — you'll be wearing a watch-sized device on your wrist that tracks your emotions by measuring heart rate, your location, body temperature, and skin moisture levels. This device will be sending your data via bluetooth to a central database. If you get too angry or too sleepy while dealing with a customer, your boss will be alerted with a message. Too much anger, and you might be fired. It sounds like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel, but it's actually a realistic application for a piece of technology called the BT2, released today by Exmocare. More »
advertising
Mind Control Is Just a Click Away
The goal of most advertisers is, frankly, to bypass your rational brain and reach down into the murky depths of your limbic system to control your desires. And the Web has given advertisers powerful new mind-control tools, allowing them to generate fake "buzz" for products by implanting references to, say, Hewlett Packard on YouTube or Cisco on Wikipedia. The idea is to make people think that their "friends" online like a product and artificially jumpstart a word-of-mouth recommendation for the product. At a South by Southwest panel Friday about the worst viral media advertising, several marketers and critics gathered to discuss the most heinous and failed examples of ads that are turning our mediascape into a William Gibson or Philip K. Dick nightmare. Two ad campaigns stood out as the worst. More »
meathaus
Exclusive Scifi Pages From The New Meathaus Comics Anthology
Comics anthology Meathus has been showcasing a slew of talented artists for the past eight years, under the Nerdcore banner. The newest edition, Meathaus S.O.S. comes out this May, and features art from superstars like James Jean, Farel Dalrymple, Brandon Graham, Tomer and Asaf Hanuka, Thomas Herpich, Jim Rugg, Corey Lewis, Matt Furie, D-pi, Ross Campbell, Sheldon Vella and Dave Kiersh. Publisher Jon Gibson was nice enough to pull sixteen of the scifi related pages from the book for us to show off exclusively, and you can check them out inside. More »
triviagasm
Teleport Into The Secret History Of Tron
With Jumper opening today and everyone abuzz about teleportation, it seemed like the perfect time to remind everyone of another movie about teleportation: Tron. The device that zaps Jeff Bridges into the video-game world is actually built to teleport matter from one place to another. Learn the secret history of Tron, after the jump.More »
dystopia
Students at U of Washington Will Be Tagged and Monitored in RFID Experiment
Welcome to the world of A Scanner Darkly — made real. In March, a group of students at the University of Washington will put RFID tags (small radio-frequency emitting computer chips) all over their clothes and belongings. RFID readers that scan and track the tags will be installed throughout the campus' 6-story Paul Allen Building for computer science (pictured here). Every move the students make, and many objects they interact with, will be monitored and logged. Plus, students will test a "friend finding" application called RFIDer that will allow them to monitor their friends' whereabouts at all times. Participants are eager to volunteer, and call the experience a glimpse into the future. What could possibly be motivating them? More »
future war
Can a Robotic Weapon Be Programmed to Have Ethics?
Combat robots and computerized missile launchers may one day be better soldiers than humans because they are programmed with ethical behavior and will never engage in friendly fire. You learn about all this and more from videos just posted from the awesome Technology in Wartime conference, held two weeks ago at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, and organized by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility. (Caveat: I'm the Vice President of CPSR, and helped organize this conference.) More »
information dystopia
Yesterday and today, huge regions in Asia, Africa and the Middle East are suffering internet blackouts after two long, underwater fiber optic cables were severed, probably due to human error. One of the cables was the famous 17,000 mile FLAG cable, whose route from Japan around the Middle East to Europe you can see in the map above (it even goes through the Suez Canal). The worst part? According to Ryan Singel of Threat Level, this kind of outage likely represents the future of the global internet.
More »
Middle-Eastern, Asian Internet Collapse is a Harbinger of Things to Come
Yesterday and today, huge regions in Asia, Africa and the Middle East are suffering internet blackouts after two long, underwater fiber optic cables were severed, probably due to human error. One of the cables was the famous 17,000 mile FLAG cable, whose route from Japan around the Middle East to Europe you can see in the map above (it even goes through the Suez Canal). The worst part? According to Ryan Singel of Threat Level, this kind of outage likely represents the future of the global internet.
More »
hackers
Hacker Movies That Please Hackers
There are a zillion near-future scifi flicks that have hackers in them doing highly technical things like "hacking the planet" or "bringing down the whole system." When filmmakers don't want to sound like total idiots, however, they call a real hacker to consult — a hacker like Fyodor, whose real-life software tool "nmap" was used by uber-hacker Trinity in The Matrix and shows up in a Bourne Identity cameo. Fyodor also consulted on the hacking scenes in Live Free or Die Hard (he's not convinced his input made the movie any more realistic). Though he thinks The Matrix is the best scifi hacking movie out there, Fyodor has a surprising pick for "good geek porn" in a hacker movie. More »
sex with robots
The Sluttiest Bot
A new menace has come to the chat room: CyberLover, a Russian bot who flirts with people in chat rooms, sucks up their personal information, then spits it out for identity thieves. So far, CyberLover only speaks Russian, but the bot's powers are considerable. It can flirt with up to 10 people in 30 minutes, compiling a dossier on each one that includes name, contact information, and photos. See CyberLover hitting on a bunch of ladies after the jump. More »
design
Alex Andromeda calls himself a science fiction artist who wants to connect the far future with the mystical past. He uses recycled computer parts to make lamps, sculptures, eyeglasses, and ancient Inca symbols. Here is just one of his amazing creations, a ceiling lamp made from old hard drive cases, called Spaceship Sirius. Another view after the jump.
More »
Spaceship Lamp Made of Recycled Computers
Alex Andromeda calls himself a science fiction artist who wants to connect the far future with the mystical past. He uses recycled computer parts to make lamps, sculptures, eyeglasses, and ancient Inca symbols. Here is just one of his amazing creations, a ceiling lamp made from old hard drive cases, called Spaceship Sirius. Another view after the jump.
More »
art
This drawing was made in 1968 by a computer called CalComp, and was shown at an exhibition devoted to computer "plotter art." Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Science Service Historical Image Collection.
1960s Psychedelic Computer Art Done By "Plotter"
This drawing was made in 1968 by a computer called CalComp, and was shown at an exhibition devoted to computer "plotter art." Image courtesy of the Smithsonian Science Service Historical Image Collection.
dystopia
The Internet Uses 5% of Global Electricity
Futurist Kevin Kelly has done a back-of-the-napkin calculation showing that the Internet uses about 5% of global electricity. This number doesn't include mobile devices that require charging up. This power-sucker has gone from using a tiny percentage of global electricity just 15 years ago, to using 5%. And as the internet grows, along with server megafarm-based businesses like Google, that number is likely to grow larger very quickly. Whenever I see this kind of data, I always worry about the sum total of world knowledge being dependent on electrical power. If we're not careful, the internet and all its goodies will flame out in a knowledge-apocalypse moment millions of times worse than the one that destroyed the library at Alexandria. AP Photo by Jay LaPrete.How much power does the internet consume? [via The Technium] More »
