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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have hooked up one of their flying robots, known as a quadrotor, to Google's Tango smartphone. Google's Project Tango is a 5-inch Android smartphone equipped with the Myriad 1 vision processor, which combines intelligent vision with power efficiency. The phone has a number of capabilities that can benefit the robot, such as a motion tracking camera, depth sensor, and vision processors capable of tracking its position and creating real-time 3-D maps. The device enables the robot to navigate itself autonomously.

In this episode, we interview Brad Burge, marketing and communications director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).

Neurogames on the Way

According to Palmer Luckey, founder of the renowned OculusVR, the future of neurogaming is practically upon us. Neurogames involve a combination of technologies that incorporate the player's nervous system into the game itself. The technology may include items such as EEG headsets, brain wave sensing and eye movement tracking devices and heart rate monitors. Throw virtually augmented reality into the mix, and you have a fully immersive gaming experience previously impossible. Developers of PrioVR just completed a successful Kickstarter campaign to produce a full body tracking suit, which enables a gamer to explore a virtual world.

Sometimes technological innovation is about doing something that has never been done. The Saturn V rocket that carried Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins to the moon certainly was. But other times, maybe even most other times, technological innovation is about tackling the small challenges that amalgamate to produce big changes. Sometimes true innovation is not about creating a product that is outwardly revolutionary, but one that performs a common task significantly better than its predecessor. We see these technologies everywhere – from cardboard boxes to light bulbs to fuel and emissions efficient engine technology.

Wrist Computer Inspired by Video Game

The Pip-Boy 3000 is a wearable wrist computer that looks like it came straight out of a video game, and in fact, it did. The device was inspired by the Fallout series of video games. A team of Reno Hackers—Ashley Hennefer, Colin Loretz, Christopher Baker, Andrew Warren and Ben Hammel—created the cuff device for NASA's space wearables competition, part of the International Space Apps Challenge 48-hour hackathon.

Ayla Networks to Make Internet of Things More User-friendly

Imagine the convenience of being able to measure your household's use of water, find out why your smoke alarm is going off when you’re not home or check your insulin level, all with an app on your smartphone.

With technologies like tablets, touch screens, computers in cars and cloud computing becoming ubiquitous, inventions that were once firmly in the realm of science fiction are becoming a daily reality.

Attention Powered Car

If you have to make long commutes on a regular basis, you know how easy it is to get distracted while on the road, so you may be interested in a new device by Emotiv, designed to avert driver distraction. And what's unique about this solution is that it interacts directly with your brain.

While California may have Silicon Valley, it's New England that's making waves in the angel investment community, and Chris Mirabile is one of the people leading the way. Mirabile is the co-managing director of Launchpad Venture Group, the largest angel group in New England.

HAPTIX Helps Amputees
DARPA recently upgraded its Hand Proprioception and Touch Interfaces (HAPTIX) system in order to provide a range of sensations to amputees, empower them with intuitive control of advanced prosthetic devices and help reduce their incidence of phantom limb pain. HAPTIX aims to develop a system that will measure and decode signals produced by the muscles and peripheral nerves. The prosthetic limb will have built-in sensors to intercept the signals and will use them to provide feedback to the user though stimulation of sensory pathways in the peripheral nerves. As a result, the artificial limb will feel real and the user will have a sense of it being an integral part of their body.
FBI Facial Recognition Database
Concerns about personal privacy are being raised in relation to the FBI's current plans to build a huge facial recognition database. By 2015, the Next Generation Identification (NGI) database will contain around 52 million images, more than double the amount it held in 2013. The database also contains 4.3 million images obtained for "non-criminal purposes," though it is not clear where these images came from.
Although in the FBI's fingerprint database, criminal and civilian data are kept completely separate, in the NGI database, criminal and non-criminal information will be stored together enabling a search to query the entire system. Even individuals who have not committed a crime may have their facial images searched through the new system.
Cow Milking Robot
Already popular in European countries, cow milking robots are now coming to a dairy farm near you. Gone are the days of the milk-hands who used to wash the cow's udders, attach the milking machines and wait for the milking to finish. Now milking robots can take care of the whole process, and even know when the cow is ready to be milked.
The process is simple and effective. When it's time for milking, the cow goes into a specially rigged stall where a laser scans a bar code on a collar around her neck. This enables the robot to know which cows are ready to be milked. Grain is automatically dropped into a trough in front the cow, so that she can eat while she is being milked. A robot arm with attached brushes cleans the udders, and lasers scan them, a milking nozzle is attached to each teatand milking begins. The robot stores all the information pertinent to each cow for future reference. If any problems arise with the cows, the robot can give the farmer a call.