3d illusion arts: Walyou

Walyou

Pikachu Café: pokemon themed food for Nintendo geeks
Mininch Tool Pen Multi-tool, an alternative to screwdrivers
Tesla’s Model 3, the ultimate electric car
Phase-Change Material Turns Solid Rock Robots into Squishy Things
Novartis Brings Google’s Smart Contact Lens Closer to Reality

Pikachu Café: pokemon themed food for Nintendo geeks

Posted: 17 Jul 2014 07:00 AM PDT

Residents of Tokyo now get to taste the geekiest dish this side of the planet, as Roppongi sees its first Pikachu Café open.

What you see in this collection of pictures is not just random food with the Pokémon brand slapped in to get a quick buck: this is an actual café’s menu that will be open for a very limited time in Tokyo, in the Roppongi district. It’s called, appropriately so, Pikachu Café, and it will be open between the 19th of July until the 31st of august.

It’s also not only the café that is open, as the Pikachu the Movie XY Exhibit also opens this saturday in Japan with tickets priced at 1,500 yen (US$14.80) for adults. Sounds like a fantastic weekend plan, huh?

Via Nerdgasmo

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Mininch Tool Pen Multi-tool, an alternative to screwdrivers

Posted: 17 Jul 2014 06:00 AM PDT

Screwdrivers are troublesome as they are always either too big and bulky, or too small and useless, but someone came up with a great idea for when you have to work with delicate stuff.

The gadget you’re looking at is the Mininch Tool Pen Multi-tool: a screwdriver with a focus on usability and maneuverability for when you need to work on enclosed surfaces (think a computer). The concept is based off of those pencils where users just pop the lead out, and push a button at the top to get a new point. Mininch might have come with the ultimate alternative for handiwork. The Mininch Tool Pen is shaped like a pen, so it’s ideal for small areas. Instead of writing tips, it uses screwdriver bits, and is made out of solid aluminum. It can hold up to six bits at a time, but allows users to switch between 13 available options.

Users can acquire it by funding their current Kickstarter campaign, with the lower tier that will get you the set being $45(USD).

Via Technabob

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Tesla’s Model 3, the ultimate electric car

Posted: 17 Jul 2014 05:00 AM PDT

Saving the world is a lot of work, but it can be done one step at a time. Electric cars are rapidly improving, and now Tesla’s Model 3 is the one that pushes the envelope the furthest.

Electric cars and hybrids, in a lesser way, are the way of the future if we plan to leave an inhabitable planet for the next generation, but they hadn’t really been viable up until now. Either because they just have short ranges or extremely high entry points, the common user chose to sacrifice the well-being of the planet for usability. This might soon change, though, as Tesla's $35,000 Model 3 is the first of its kind with a long, useful range, and a decent price if you factor that you won’t need gas anymore as you can recharge for free it at any Tesla Supercharger stations. A price of $35.000 is less than half of previous models, which ranged between $100,000 and $70,000 anyways, and factoring in how much this car’s battery lasts (you can actually plan roadtrips!), this is a steal.

Tesla Motors' had their patents go open source recently, which is a great thing for consumers as more companies might opt for alternative energy sources if this model does well, and it should, as the Model 3 is everything an electric car should be.

Via The Mary Sue

Phase-Change Material Turns Solid Rock Robots into Squishy Things

Posted: 16 Jul 2014 01:58 PM PDT

The MIT researchers who worked on this concept must have had octopi in mind, as there are a lot of similarities between the phase-change material and the way these creatures turn from forceful bodies into liquid-like forms.

While some geeks might like octopi, it’s a certainty that a greater number of them liked Terminator 2, where Robert Patrick’s T-1000 changed his appearance from a human form to a liquid-like thing that goes through jail bars. Being able to bend into shape just to regain the strength and tackle a particular situation in the shape couldn’t have been conceived until now, all that being nothing more than special FX. Yet, researchers at MIT mean to prove that creating such a material is possible, and that the resulting robots could have a lot of applications.

In the above image, you can see the material developed by the MIT researchers in both of its solid and soft states. MIT’s Prof. Anette Hosoi explained what would happen if robots maintained their soft state while trying to handle solid objects: “You can’t just create a bowl of Jell-O, because if the Jell-O has to manipulate an object, it would simply deform without applying significant pressure to the thing it was trying to move.”

Hosoi also emphasized the advantages that a malleable robot would have over its ever solid counterparts: “If you’re trying to squeeze under a door, for example, you should opt for a soft state, but if you want to pick up a hammer or open a window, you need at least part of the machine to be rigid.”

Besides Hosoi, others involved in the research included her former graduate student Nadia Cheng, Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, and Stony Brook University in New York. With so many bright minds at work, it’s obvious that things will progress rather quickly.

Carmel Majidi, assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, who wasn’t involved in the research for the phase-change material, pointed out that “But for a lot of robotics tasks, reversibly tuning the mechanical rigidity of a joint can be just as important. This work is a great demonstration of how thermally controlled rigidity-tuning could potentially be used in soft robotics.”

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about the Google Project Tango smartphone that will empower robots aboard the ISS, and Stubby, the Stargate-SG1 inspired hexabot that you can build at home.

Novartis Brings Google’s Smart Contact Lens Closer to Reality

Posted: 16 Jul 2014 01:25 PM PDT

Alcon, the eye-care division of pharmaceutical giant Novartis International AG, will work closely with Google to make the smart lenses that measure glucose levels in diabetics a real thing.

Novartis and Google don’t only wish to create a final form of the smart contact lens, but they also wish to commercialize it. This proves that when the search giant has a great idea, but can’t do everything on its own, it relies on strategic partnerships with companies that have a lot of experience in the field of interest. The collaboration of these two companies was announced on Wednesday, but it’s currently unknown when the final product will hit the market.

Jeff George, division head of Alcon, stated that “We aim to unlock a new frontier to jointly address the unmet medical needs of millions of eye care patients around the world.” Back in January, when I first wrote about Google’s smart contact lenses, the plan was to use these for measuring the glucose levels of diabetics. Now it’s obvious that the number of possible applications has increased.

Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez explained the true potential of the smart contact lenses: “The promise here is the holy grail of vision care, to be able to replicate the natural functioning of the eye. Think about a contact lens that could help the eye autofocus on that newspaper and then when you look up it would autofocus in the distance.”

Jill Weisenberger, a certified diabetes educator, pointed out that “If it is accurate and affordable, it could be an absolute game changer.” These aspects aside, the smart contact lens developed by Google and Novartis could definitely prove convenient, as diabetics wouldn’t have to carry glucose meters with them all the time, nor would they need to prick their fingers on a daily basis in order to assess that vital factor.

It would be great if Google Contact (please, oh, please come up with a better name than this!) got all the functionality of Google Glass. POV videos would really be shot from the perspective of the person wearing the smart contact lens. The problem would be the location where such videos were stored, but I’m sure that Google will find a solution to this.

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