| Send Up the Clowns The latest tourist to the International Space Station confirmed, if there was any doubt, that they'll send up any clown with enough money. To be sure, though, Guy Laliberte isn't just any clown; he's the founder of Cirque du Soleil and the first space tourist from Canada. Blasting off a pad in Russia, the Soyuz spacecraft lifted Laliberte, cosmonaut Maxim Suraev, and astronaut Jeffrey Williams smoothly into orbit. Laliberte, who has been known to whip out and wear a red clown nose, said in an interview that he was not afraid of going into space. Relating his experience of watching the first man walk on the moon he was 10 years old and at summer camp Laliberte said that it inspired him not to go into space, but nurtured the understanding and the belief that fairy tales are possible to live. Assuming all goes well, he'll stay aboard the ISS for just nine days, but he has big plans. Ever the performer, Laliberte said that he will oversee a five-continent, 14-city extravaganza to make the world more aware of water as a cultural and environmental issue. He said that we will travel the world, unveiling part of a poetic tale to a voice of international personality and will also be giving artistic presentations linked to water as an inspiration and as a source of life. Celebrities expected to participate include former US vice president Al Gore, U2, Shakira, Peter Gabriel, and Canadian astronaut Julie Payette. Read more about this Building Rome in a Day, Virtually It can be hard to get the sense of a city just from photographs. Ideally, if you can't go there, you'd want to go through a computer simulation to get a feeling for the size of buildings and the way the space is used. A team from the University of Washington discovered that you CAN get the sense of a city from photos if you use enough photos and apply some computerized muscle to the problem. The team came up with a way to create accurate 3D simulations of entire cities using thousands of photos. Fortunately, they had a ready source of photos: photo-sharing web site Flickr. As an example of what can be accomplished when lots of people take photos of the same landmarks, 150,000 images went into the team's simulation of Rome -- which, incidentally, WAS built in a day, at least in this version./p> While 3D models have been created from photos before, it has been difficult to simulate an entire city. Using the existing system it would have taken years to recreate a whole city, notes Sameer Agarwal, head of the team. Their process uses 500 computers working in parallel. They also used the process to create simulations of Venice and Dubrovnik. With the world changing so quickly, the team hopes that their simulations will be seen by future generations so they, too, can appreciate the beauty of today's cities. Read more about this Robo-One Competition in Japan Why is it that the Japanese get all the cool toys? The Robo-One competition, held in Tokyo last week, highlighted this point. Robot makers presented their creations, many of which also fought each other (the robots, not the robot makers). The presentations demonstrated the state of the art for the field of robotics. Notable among the robots was one by Takeshi Maeda. His latest creation is the Omni Zero 9. It is capable of autonomously walking a few steps; when it encounters a ramp, it can kneel down on the floor and roll itself up using the two wheels housed in its shoulders. It can also flip back its head and the front of its chest, revealing a seat for someone brave enough to ride it. Omni Zero 9 was just one of many robots presented at Robo-One. Other builders demonstrated a thought-controlled robot, a robot capable of standing up smoothly after lying flat on its back (and striking some cool samurai poses), and more. The fights between robots met with an enthusiastic crowd, as the little machines shoved, slid, fell over, and sometimes performed victory dances. Read more about this |
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