Daily Crunch: Plot Points Edition

CEATEC 2010: Hands-on With Fujitsu’s “Social” Teddy Bear Robots (Video) Is There Room In Your Life For The Awesome Prizm Full-Color Graphing Calculator? Moleskine Celebrates Pac-Man’s 30th Anniversary Limited Edition Notebooks Herman Miller’s Sayl Chair: Live Unframed Wheeled Sequel To Skitterbot Isn’t Nearly As Creepy
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Swarms of flying robots could act as a mobile wireless network

Sometimes the aftermath of a natural disaster is just as bad as the disaster itself, as the rescue teams on the ground can face a stiff challenge when it comes to communicating with the outside world and one another. Of course, our favorite problem solvers are here to help: tiny flying robots.
GUSS, the Robot Mule Helps Marines Haul Loads

What looks like a small off-road vehicle is actually GUSS, an autonomous robot with a number of embedded sensors that will help Marines haul loads and serve a secondary purpose as a counterinsurgency tool. GUSS--which stands for Ground Unmanned Support Surrogate--has GPS sensors, camera sensors, and can be operated in either fully autonomous mode or via a Wii-style remote control steering wheel. The purpose of GUSS? To help Marines ...
The Science That Came From Prohibition [Alcohol]
![The Science That Came From Prohibition [Alcohol]](http://itoptech.com/wp-content/themes/iTopTech/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://itoptech.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/218601eab7booze.jpg.jpg&w=80&h=80&zc=1&q=100)
Pop Sci took a look at its archives back when Prohibition was around and highlighted the kind of science people used to fight it. It includes creative bootlegging methods, smart smuggling strategies, and PopSci's own guide to homebrewing in 1921.
Maybe it's because I just watched Boardwalk Empire but I'm simply fascinated that something like Prohibition really existed. What impresses me even more is the lengths that some people went to get their ...
Chasing the Perfect Cup of Coffee Through Science [Coffee]
![Chasing the Perfect Cup of Coffee Through Science [Coffee]](http://itoptech.com/wp-content/themes/iTopTech/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://itoptech.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/c4282d0cffffeeee.jpg.jpg&w=80&h=80&zc=1&q=100)
This coffee sucks. It's the second cup I've made in a row. It's sour and grassy. It should taste like red grapes and strawberry. I know exactly how bad it is, and I haven't even tasted it yet.
People accept scientific measurements as the truth about a lot of things. Mass. The temperature at which water freezes. The size of the earth. But it's hard to swallow the idea of scientifically measuring how something ...
First biofuel cell successfully implanted into living creature, living creature to be implanted into The Matrix

While miscreants are harvesting organs from unsuspecting tourists, researchers are busy harvesting energy from the human body. One promising tech that could power future generations of implanted medical devices is the Glucose BioFuel Cell (GBFC). In fact, a team of researchers have created the first known GBFC to function inside a living body -- 11 days inside "Ricky" the lab rat's peritoneum, to be exact. The small device produced 2 microwatts of power over several hours, achieving a peak energy density ...
A Rebel Alliance Secret Base, Right Here On Planet Earth [Architecture]
![A Rebel Alliance Secret Base, Right Here On Planet Earth [Architecture]](http://itoptech.com/wp-content/themes/iTopTech/scripts/timthumb.php?src=http://itoptech.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/8038862a38hoth1.jpg.jpg&w=80&h=80&zc=1&q=100)
These aren't film frames from The Empire Strikes Back, even while they look exactly like Rebel Alliance's Echo Base, ion cannon included. They are not on the icy surface of planet Hoth, but much nearer, in the Artic circle.
Photographer Christian Houge took these beautiful pictures of a science research base in the ...
Android’s newest flavour: Tapas

While Google has a history of giving Android tasty names for its version names, it seems that they aren’t the only ones that equate green robots with food. Today, ex-Google China president, Kai-Fu Lee, announced in the Wall Street Journal that he will launch a whole new mobile operating system based on Android, to be known as “ Tapas “. This isn’t the first not-quite-Android OS that China has produced — that credit goes to China Mobile’s OPhone — but Kai-Fu Lee believes that the new modifications ...