Tag Archives: technology

Simulations – from guns to festivals

Via reBang, here’s an article on the ironically named Zen Technologies, an Indian company that specialises in training simulators that can teach everything from driving a truck to crack-shot sniping with an AK47. When you add this selection to other training devices like the virtual chainsaw, you realise we’re rapidly reaching a point where almost any high-risk activity can be experienced virtually.

But low-risk activities are catching up fast now the technology is more accessible; as soon as people get access to virtual worlds, they start recreating objects and events from the real world (even major festivals, like Burning Man’s SL incarnation), and fabbing technology means that objects that start their life as virtual can be made real and solid in meatspace … so how long before we need the equivalent of Customs and border controls between reality and everywhere else?

When cybermoths attack!

Orange fuzzy moth - cybernetic status uncertainI’ve blogged this here before, but it deserves mentioning once again just for its sheer science fictional majesty – good old DARPA have been implanting minute electro-mechanical devices into moth pupae, so that when the insects hatch they’re fully wired for … well, that’s the thing. They’re still working on a viable application for the idea (which is an odd methodology, but what the hell, they have the budget for it), but the idea of using the bugged bugs as some sort of reconnaissance companion for fighter pilots seems to be the way they want to go. [Gizmodo]

By the way, Wired’s Danger Room blog is on-site covering the current DARPATech convention, should you hunger for more weirdness of a similar ilk. [Image by Jurvetson]