Gizmodo: simulation

Volunteers Wanted For 520-Day Pretend Trip To Mars

Rosa Golijan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:00:00 EDT

The European Space Agency is looking for volunteers to spend 520 days isolated a Moscow facility where they'd simulate traveling to, living on, and coming back from Mars. Not bad, except the pretend travel lasts 250 days each way.

There are plenty of necessary qualifications to meet including fluency in Russian, background in medicine, various engineering, and for whatever reason you may not be taller than 185cm (that's just under 6'1"). Interested? Apply on the ESA website. [ESA via PhysOrg]

Soyuz Chair Transforms Lay-Z-Boys Into Cosmonauts

Mark Wilson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 11:20:00 EDT

Sitting in the typical recliner has become the weeknight sex of the furniture world—a comfortable task for your body while your mind focuses on TV. The Soyuz Chair hopes to break the mundanity with classic Soviet space craft design.

Intended to "accurately reproduce" the three stages of a Soyuz rocket launch, the you recline, put on eyewear/headphones and input your requested ride into the control panel (should they prefer a single stage or full-out rocket launch). The chair then rattles its way from a mundane home to...well, it doesn't go anywhere. But maybe you won't realize that until you take off the mask and return to Everybody Loves Raymond reruns. [Design Interactions via Core77 via OhGizmo!]

This Is How The Swine Flu Gets Released

Jesus Diaz — Sun, 03 May 2009 15:00:00 EDT

While the effects of the Swine Flu could be lethal, I watch this 3D visualization of the influenza type-a virus' antigenic shift and I can't help but to admire its hideous beauty. [Thanks Carlos]

Volvo Wind Tunnel Has Road Simulator Minus Annoying Backseat Kids

Jesus Diaz — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 20:20:00 EDT

Here's the new Volvo in-house wind tunnel simulator, a 28 million dollar facility that is the first in its class to have a road simulator. In theory, it will allow the Swedish manufacturer to precisely test the effect of road changes and airflows all around the car to make cars more fuel efficient. Strangely enough, Tim Walker, the aerodynamics expert at Volvo Cars, doesn't mention other possible uses, like drying the hair and bodies of a multitude of lusty valkyries and/or vikings just out of the shower:

It's a bit like measuring the aerodynamic properties of a car that is standing still in a car park during a powerful storm. Our new wind tunnel, on the other hand, has been designed to exactly replicate the flow of air around and underneath the car when driving on a real road at speeds of up to 155kph. Our wind tunnel uses sophisticated techniques at the forefront of aerodynamic technology

This means that they have been able to reduce the air resistance in their new Volvo C30 DRIVe by 10%. That's 11.88 gallons of gas per 9,300 miles, an average driving year. Not too shabby. [Gizmag]

200,000 Core Supercomputer to be Built, Still Not As Clever as HAL

Kit Eaton — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 09:15:00 EDT

Recently green-lit to be built at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IBM's future Blue Waters supercomputer is peta'd all over. It'll have up to 2-petaflops processing speed, more than a petabyte of memory and a 10 petabyte disk storage system. It'll also have more than 200,000 processor cores, and cost around $208 million, which is even more 000s. All this power is going to be used for proper hard science like simulating the Sun's coronal mass ejections, studying black holes, and molecular biology. Probably developing on IBM's previous Roadrunner supercomputer power, it should be accessible nationally, at campus-level. And you can bet someone'll program it to sing "Daisy, daisy" pretty soon after it goes online in 2011. [NetworkWorld via Slashdot]

Xdream Fitness Bike: Ride Outdoors Without All of That Pesky Fresh Air

Sean Fallon — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:30:01 EDT

According to the manufacturer, the Xdream is the "first indoor fitness product that accurately simulates the experience of riding outdoors." Basically, the bike thrusts you into a virtual world via the attached computer screen. As you ride, the full experience on the screen is translated to the equipment—right down to the track surfaces and conditions. Plus, it utilizes a full range of muscles in the upper body and lower body, which makes for a more complete workout. Pricing isn't advertised, but expect it to set you back many thousands of dollars. Alternatively, you could grab a bike and actually go outside. [Xdream]

Prince's Wii Sports Tennis Controller

Jason Chen — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:30:33 EDT

Unlike the lousy plastic Wii tennis add-ons we've seen before, this Prince Wii Tennis add-on smells of authenticity. This is partly because Prince is a well known name in the Tennis industry, but it's also partly because they used actual strings to construct the face of the racket. We're not saying this is great or that it's worth $14.99, but if you're going to buy a Tennis racket for your living room reenactments of Prince of Tennis, you might as well buy it from Prince. [Kotaku]

iTheater Head Mount Display

Gizloco — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 14:00:07 EDT

Whoever said that wearing goofy looking, 100 percent gimmicky AV glasses is out of style...well, maybe they're still right, but Japan's Mikimoto Beans is hoping you forget all that and give their iTheather display glasses a shot. Connecting directly to your iPod (or any other device with AV outputs), the iTheater tries to simulate a 50 inch screen with its two inch, 320 x 240 pixel lenses. Ensuring that you don't have to be tethered to the wall whilst experiencing undoubtedly incredible picture and sound, the lithium ion battery can be charged when plugged into a PC's USB port.

We've mentioned similar devices before, but those were a little more expensive, even though they essentially accomplished the same task. The iTheater will set you back $260 when it's released (in Japan, naturally) later this month. Halloween's only a few months from now—why not grab these and go as a Borg? – Nicholas Deleon

iTheater [Mikimoto Beans via Fareastgizmos.com]

Cat Food, Helping Train America's Army

Gizloco — Fri, 16 Jun 2006 15:28:52 EDT

Leave it to the U.S. military to use every possible method to gain the upper hand. This time saw the Army use cat food boxes to create a 1/35th scale model of an Iraqi city in order to run simulations. Now, why would the Army resort to using decidedly low-tech to assist in its training? As gamers know first-hand, video games still haven't quite mastered the integration of realistic physics, leading to instances where Army vehicles would cruise right through walls.

The project started back in 2004 with the goal of better understanding how robots and troops interact on the battlefield. Since modifying computer programs to include all the different participants proved prohibitively expensive, as well as taking into account the aforementioned physics problems, the Army decided to embrace kitty's foodstuffs. The whole setup cost only $5,000 and took six months to build, including the incorporation of all the toy soldiers and miniature flora. – Nicholas Deleon

Cat Food Boxes = Army Training Ground [Defense Tech]

ezVision Video iWear From ezGear

Gizloco — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 14:43:48 EDT

For $400 you can simulate a 50" widescreen TV in the form of glasses that very much resemble those worn by Geordi LaForge. The ezVision Video iWear is compatible with the iPod with Video as well as any other video source that has video outputs. Its powered by a Lithium ion battery that should last eight hours, just enough time to creep everyone out on that cross-country flight you have planned. Just put them on and you'll see a projection of whatever it's plugged into. Integrated headphones let you watch your programs in privacy.

The package includes everything you need to convince yourself that you don't look like a fool while wearing the ezVision Video iWear, including DVD adapters and stylish nose pieces. Dignity not included. – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page [ezGear via iLounge]

DancinDogg Personal Golf Simulator

Charlie White — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 14:45:57 EDT

Now USB peripherals get even more advanced with the DancinDogg Personal Golf Simulator, letting you unleash your game with its 24MHz USB processor that measures every parameter of your stroke with an infrared beam. Its sophisticated sensors can calculate the speed of the clubhead, face angle, club path, ball carried distance, distance off-line and tempo. There's also DancinDogg Practice Area software included that shows you exactly how well or poorly you're swinging the club. You can also get a special net so that you can actually hit real golf balls into it.

Here's the kicker: hook it up to EA Sports Tiger Woods PGA Tour software, and it sends your swing into the game. It's $289.99, and $30 extra for the Tiger Woods 2006 upgrade.

Product page