Gizmodo: psychic

Psychic Says Steve Jobs Will Be Back, But Not for Long

matt buchanan — Fri, 15 May 2009 16:42:55 EDT

Barbara Courtney—the psychic known as the Seer of Silicon Valley—says Steve'll return next month. So what? Well, this psychic is the only one on record that predicted his return in 1997.

She told Cult of Mac's Leander Kahney, "My feeling is he will come back" but "I think it won't be for very long." She thinks his health issues "aren't all settled" and that's it's "iffy" he'll be CEO in two years. In fact, it seems like she's feeling his return would largely be to handle the transition to a mystery successor (besides work on that damn tablet): "There's some transition, but that won't be announced for a while. I feel that there's another person that won't surface right away." Is it Phil? Tim? Jony?

Turning to a psychic to predict what's really going to happen with Steve might seem silly, but she can't do any worse than some journalists. We really hope she's wrong, though, at least the part about his health issues not getting better. Read her full account here: [Cult of Mac]

Haunted Ouija Board Communicates With The Dead (Your PC)

Elaine Chow — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 22:45:00 EDT

Halloween is fast approaching, so it's time to start outfitting your house with spooky decor! If you're feeling particularly courageous this season, why not try your hand at this really neat DIY haunted Ouija board project. After some wood carving, staining and electrical work, you'll end up with a board that not only moves its planchette independently, but will talk to you (via a remote PC) as well. It's a complicated process, but aren't the best Halloween treats always from the sophisticated tricks? [Instructables]

Psychic Computer Sees Words Inside Your Brain

Wilson Rothman — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:15:00 EDT

Computer science is definitely reaching the danger zone when actual words can be spotted using MRI scans. In the image above, researchers from the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh predict what the words "celery" and "airplane" look like when someone thinks of them, and then they compare the prediction to actual brain scans, with frightening similarity. The study was "calibrated" with nine students, each thinking of 58 different words. Tom Mitchell, one of the lead researchers, told Reuters the goal is to determine how the brain organizes information, but how do we know Dr. Mitchell won't abuse this newfound power by, say, winning a billion dollars on Jeopardy? We don't, is my point. [Reuters]

50 Years of DARPA: 5 Good Inventions, 5 Lousy Ones

Wilson Rothman — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:45:00 EDT

To commemorate the golden jubilee of America's Defense Advance Research Projects Agency—formed these 50 years ago in response to a little traveler called Sputnik—New Scientist has come up with a short list of 10 DARPA inventions: five that changed the world, and five that fell flat:

Five Big Wins

The internet - You know, ARPANET, or a communications network that heals thyself. The whole porn-music-movie triangle trade was not in the original blueprint.

GPS - The idea that satellites up there could tell us where we are down here is as old as Sputnik, and DARPA had an attempt or two before getting it right with GPS. Again, not originally purposed for civilians and their "points of interest"—more about targeting ballistic warheads, but you know, potato, po-tah-to.

Speech translation - Soldiers in Iraq use handheld machine translators to aid in communication with some degree of success, meaning it's only a matter of time before some German tourists ask you to speak into the microphone.

Stealth planes - Stealth airplane technology was so sneaky it even snuck up on Air Force top brass, who were apparently shocked to learn about the prototype for the original F-117.

Gallium arsenide - Yep, some DARPA egghead discovered you can do more with arsenic than poison KGB triple-agents. It's now found in all kinds of everyday electronics. That may not last, though, because environmentally speaking it's still some pretty nasty stuff.

Five That Didn't Quite Make It

Hafnium bombs - DARPA put $7 million into researching a bomb with massive initial devastation but no radioactive fallout, but alas, it didn't ever work. Apparently if you want the good, you gotta take the bad.

The mechanical elephant - Hannibal would have been proud of this one: During the Vietnam War, some dudes at DARPA wanted to take terrain-friendly robot elephants into the jungle. Even DARPA's director was embarrassed.

Telepathic spies - People who claimed psychic powers were on the receiving end of a lot of government funding in the 1970s. Even though the project was a failure, getting rich by pretending to be psychic does seem to suggest a kind of sixth sense.

FutureMap - Apparently a bunch of Dick Cheney's friends betting on terror targets was considered grotesque by some people. I've still got $30K riding on Dubuque.

Project Orion - This is a nerd favorite: it's the spaceship powered by atomic-bomb turds. I think everyone was sad to see that one go.

Check out the New Scientist story for the real deal behind these 10 projects, and a look at some crazy projects that might make the list in the next 50 years. [New Scientist]

Psychic USB Drive From Japan

Jason Chen — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 20:00:08 EST

Japanese company Princeton has deposited some rather anemic 256MB~1GB thumb sticks onto the land of Japan. To make up for the lack of storage, they're branding this with the "Seven Angels" label and including software that's based on the Psychic abilities of Masako Mitaki. This lady's apparently a big psychic over there in Ashcraft land.

I don't think any US company would get away with this here, but I guess the equivalent here would be to feature Miss Cleo on an IOmega Zip Disk. Let's hope this post preempts any companies that were considering it. – Jason Chen

Buy a psychic USB key to discover your future! [Akihabara News]