Historians have found the earliest digital computer music recording, which was made in 1951 by the BBC for a musical performance in a children's radio show.
The recording captures one of the earliest computers to use short term random access memory playing God Save the King, Baa Baa Black Sheep and a short piece of Glenn Miller's In The Mood.
The Ferranti Mark 1 computer was built by UK electrical engineering firm Ferranti in collaboration with Manchester University, UK. It was the world's first commercial computer, and nine were sold between 1951 and 1957.
Link to article. Link to mp3 file of recording [via MeFi]
Kasey McMahon has combined nature and technology into one with her Compubeaver creation. The Compubeaver is a fully operational computer housed within a beaver. (You can view the behind-the-scenes 'Making of the Compubeaver' here.)
This beats mounting a deer head on the mantle. At least this is functional.
Dial A Human is a directory of phone numbers from various vendors, which contain directions on how you can skip the automated phone system and speak to an actual person. Try it out!
HUBO-FX1 is the human-riding robot having 12 DOF. The development concept is that the robot can walk naturally with carrying a person or a load of 100kg, so the lower body takes after legs of human and the upper body takes after a chair.
One of the long term plans for the FX1 is to have it carry its power source and be able to climb stairs with its human occupant.
It seems like it could be a pretty empowering technology for the disabled. Heck, I'd feel pretty empowered driving it... especially if it could be painted yellow and equipped with some big fork lift arms, suitable for fighting aliens.
Chat with Robot PaPeRo throughout the day and it will assist you in creating your daily blog:
NEC Corporation announced development of a new system for automatically creating multi-media blogs. The new system has been developed on NEC's prototype robot PaPeRo, and is initialized when a user begins a conversation with PaPeRo about the events of their day, which the system then records and analyzes. Following this, PaPeRo searches for suitable multi-media contents on the internet, including images, illustrations and music, which are automatically uploaded and edited along with the video recording on the user's blog. This new system facilitates ease of multi-media-rich blog creation.The novel system has been realized by integrating (1) large-vocabulary, continuous speech recognition technology, which converts the speech content of the video message into text and extracts important keywords, and (2) natural language, text retrieval technology, which enables searching of contents on the internet.
Learn how to properly clean your LCD screen without having to buy expensive LCD cleaning solutions. The only ingredients you will need to make your own cleaning solution are 70% Isopropyl alcohol and distilled water.
The recipe is easy: Mix the Isopropyl alcohol and distilled water in equal parts (50/50) inside an empty Windex-like bottle. Do not use tap water! Doing so will leave white smears on your screen after cleaning it up because of the dissolved minerals inside the water. When finished mixing, just close the bottle using the "spray" adaptor that comes attached to it.
Next, you will need to find a soft piece of cotton or microfiber cloth to clean your display. Avoid paper tissues at all cost! Using those on your screen would be just like scrubbing sandpaper on it and may scratch it permanently. You wouldn't want to do that right?
Now that we have everything we need, start by turning off your screen. Dampen your piece of soft cloth with your cleaning mixture and then wipe the display gently from top to bottom. Never spray liquid directly onto the LCD. When you're done, wait a few minutes to let your screen dry, and then turn it back on. Voila, you're done! Your screen should now be sparkling clean.
Now you can safely clean off the sneeze juice off of your computer screens.
A Harvard research team has conducted research based on the properties of Bose-Einstein condensate, which could lead to advances in computing and optical communication. The team was able to pass a pulse of light through a cloud of sodium atoms, capture it, and then made the light reappear in a second cloud of sodium atoms. They were able to turn the light into matter.
By combining antique watch parts and electronic components with real insects, Mike Libby has created the unthinkable. He has made science fiction into fact and combined nature with manmade functionality.
You can view Insect Lab's collection here. His collection includes spiders, butterflies, cicadaes, dragonflies, beetles, bees and wasps. The specimens are for sale and Libby does accept custom requests.
Pictured: Cetonidae: Caelorrhina Relucens Black body with iridescent green shell, 2 1/2 cm long. Steel gears and parts, second hand dial, capacitor. Displayed in 4" glass bell jar with black base, $275.
Of the past 3 days since the Wii came out, about 15 hours of it have been spent playing or watching my friend's Nintendo Wii. Of all the systems I've played, it is by far the most innovative, intuitive, fun, and easy to use system by far. The controls are crisp and responsive, the graphics are exactly as I expected, and the functionality of it is tenfold what I thought it'd be. Even the defacto game that comes with it, Wii Sports, is downright addictive. Red Steel, a first person shooter is also hours of fun. But the best experience yet has been the new Legend of Zelda. I just finished the first temple of the game and I had to pry myself out of the chair to leave.
thechoozen over at bit-tech.net forum modded a Gamecube to look like Pixar's Wall-E. I love it. 
Chat with 
A Harvard research team has conducted research based on the properties of 
By combining antique watch parts and electronic components with real insects, 
Of the past 3 days since the Wii came out, about 15 hours of it have been spent playing or watching my friend's Nintendo Wii. Of all the systems I've played, it is by far the most innovative, intuitive, fun, and easy to use system by far. The controls are crisp and responsive, the graphics are exactly as I expected, and the functionality of it is tenfold what I thought it'd be. Even the defacto game that comes with it, Wii Sports, is downright addictive. Red Steel, a first person shooter is also hours of fun. But the best experience yet has been the new Legend of Zelda. I just finished the first temple of the game and I had to pry myself out of the chair to leave.
