Cody Sumter and Jason Boggess of the MIT Human Dynamics research group call their creation Minecraft.Print(). It’s a Python script that takes a marked Minecraft creation and outputs an .STL file, which you can then turn into an actual object using a 3D printer. Watch the video below to see how to tag an object for printing and to see a sample print:

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Yeah, it’s not a 1:1 scale model. I’m as disappointed as you are; I was fantasizing being able to walk on the stairs of Escher’s Relativity. Still,  I imagine it would be quite thrilling for many Minecraft users to see their creations actually turned into an object.

Check out the Minecraft.Print() website to download the script and to check out more sample printed objects.

[via MIT Media Lab via Hack N Mod]

The glasses have a small camera in them that reads the face of the other person and looks at 24 different feature points. The points are then fed into a database to determine what the person is thinking or feeling between six states including thinking, agreeing, concentrating, interested, confused, and disagreeing.

The software portion was developed by Rana el Kaliouby. The pair claims that the average person could determine what a real person was thinking by looking at facial expressions 54% of the time and the glasses got it right 64% of the time.

[via CNET]

The only origami I ever made were paper cranes, and they were pretty simple. That’s the opposite of Brian’s Iron Man, which looks insanely complicated. Still, the end result is pretty awesome. Naturally, Brian used the appropriately gold and red paper so that his Iron Man looks the part.

I wonder if he’ll tackle War Machine next. I could see kids playing with these origami, so you could replace some action figures with these ones made out of paper, but good luck trying to fold it the right way. It’s probably going to take some trial and error to get this done…

[via Make:]

You can access the power via the built-in USB ports. The power can be used to light-up the inside of the chair, to give you light while you are reading or browsing when the sun goes down. Created by architecture professor Sheila Kennedy and a team of students at MIT, the SOFT Rocker can also capture the kinetic energy from your rocking motions, to add even more power to the chair.

The SOFT Rockers can be found at Killian Court, at MIT until the end of the week if you want to try them out.

[Arts at MIT via DVice]

The way the system works, you place all of your devices into proximity with one another, then surf to a special website URL, which displays a visual marker on each screen. You then take a photo of the devices relationship, and upload it to the Junkyard Jumbotron web site. Once processed, the system slices up the image and properly aligns the pieces. Once loaded, you can even load up another part of the app to manipulate the image across all displays. It doesn’t matter if you mix smartphones with laptops with tablets with internet TVs. As long as the devices can surf the web, they can participate.

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Borovoy and Knep developed the system while exploring ways to improve interaction and community between device users. I would have liked it just as much if they made it just because it was cool. You can make your own Junkyard Jumbotron now by heading over to the beta site. Feel free to post back any cool displays matrices you manage to create.

[via Colosssal]

The M1 has an omni-directional base, optional heads, hands, and sensors – all designed to help an operator or application remotely manipulate stuff. Later this year, Meka will even release a modular head with a Microsoft Kinect sensor.

M1′s torso is height-adjustable, and the whole robot measures about 50 inches tall but weighs 364 pounds.

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The final price point for M1 will vary, but costs will start out at pricey $340,000 (USD).

[via GetRobo[JP] & IEEE Automaton via PlasticPals]

They used the data points to replicate a rudimentary version of the gesture interfaces seen in Minority Report – sans gloves, of course.The guys used something called the Point Cloud Library from Willow Garage’s open source robotic control package ROS.

Here’s a video of the hack in action:

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One can only hope that some games start to surface that take advantage of individual finger movements. I could see this coming in handy for puzzle games, and maybe something like the part of Bioshock where you hack into the security system – this would be a much cooler way to test your dexterity. Also, for virtual porn.

If you’re interested in giving this a shot for yourself, you’ll need to grab the ROS Kinect code here, and MIT’s code here. I’m not sure exactly what else you need to do to make it all work though, so install at your own risk.

I wonder if it snaps closed on your fingers like a clam when you run out of money completely. These Proverbial Wallet concepts from the team of Henry Holtzman, John Kestner, Daniel Leithinger, Emily Tow, Danny Bankman, Jaekyung Jung at MIT Media Lab actually come in three versions, including “Bumblebee” – that vibrates when your bank processes a transaction, and a “Peacock” one that expands and contracts based on your bank balance – puffing up like a peacock “to attract potential mates.”

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The hard to open design of the Mother Bear wallet can be mapped out to a monthly budget. This would be a great way to let kids know how much they have to spend. Hell, I wish I could remotely lock down my wife’s wallet once she spends too much.

[via designboom]

MIT is a great place for geeks of all kinds, so this Doctor Who tribute should fit right in. That being said, it makes you wonder how they are able to do these crazy pranks between all their educatin’ and learnin’.

It’s just the latest in the great tradition of MIT hacks and pranks. You can see a whole history of other fun pranks on the campus website.

[via Wired]

The beauty of telepresence systems is that they allow people to be in different locations and appear as they are in the same room. Although this would probably work best with holograms, the MeBot is something simpler that uses a small robot to embody the persona of the remote caller.

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The cute robot wears a video screen “head” which displays the face of its operator. There are two small articulating arms and a sort of neck. The robot can also move around on a flat surface.

It’s an interesting idea, but I wonder if the MeBot would ever really catch on. It all seems a little weird to me.

[MIT via Hizook via PlasticPals]

But wait, there’s more! With your iPhone’s Bluetooth you can connect to the wheels sensors with an iPhone app. The App will tell you your speed, direction, and distance traveled and will pull data from the Internet to inform you of traffic conditions, and even the smog levels around you. That’s a big plus if your already an avid biker and like to keep track of your daily trips.

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The Copenhagen Wheel is currently expected to be available some time next year with an estimated price range of $500 and $1,000 (USD).

[via Cnet]

ClearView makes a list of rules based on a program’s “normal” behavior. When something causes the program to deviate from those rules, ClearView “comes up with several potential patches designed to force the software to follow the violated rules… If additional rules are violated, or if a patch causes the system to crash, ClearView rejects it and tries another.” And it does all of that without any human intervention. As a test, ClearView was tasked to babysit Firefox while the browser was attacked via ten different methods. On average, ClearView came up with a patch within 5 minutes of exposure to an attack. How’s that for customer service. If you’re tired of having programs die on you, read the full article at Technology Review. It may just make your day.

[via Slashdot]

You see, it’s relatively easy (for nerds) to build a robot that can find its way to a target outdoors, thanks to the magic of GPS. But what if you want to search inside a building? GPS won’t help you there, believe me. I researched it extensively. If you don’t have a map of the building or whatever structure you’re infiltrating, you’re screwed. But more importantly, GPS receivers need a strong signal to work, something which you’ll have difficulty obtaining inside a building.

So the aforementioned MIT students came up with a laser scanner that sweeps the helicopter’s immediate area, and that along with some algorithm magic (yeah this is where I lose track of definitions) builds a corresponding rough three-dimensional map of the autonomous vehicle’s immediate environment, as shown in the image above. Now I need you to watch the video below and then answer one tiny question for me: when the narrator uses the word “we” and “us”, does he mean that they can control the robot remotely which means they can see the map that the laser sweep generates, or is the robot fully autonomous?

Maybe the chopper is the narrator, and it’s talking using lasers. I don’t know. I’m confused.

[via MIT Tech TV]

As you can see, SixthSense is made up of a camera that tracks the color-marked fingers, and a projector to display whatever relevant information the system digs up. What’s not in the picture is of course the computer itself, in this case a “mobile computing device” installed with software that analyzes the gestures and the objects captured by the camera, so that it can respond and provide the appropriate information. What sort of information? Let’s start with a little trick: if Mistry traces a small circle on his wrist using his index finger, SixthSense will project a watch onto his wrist:

There are many other gestures that the system recognizes – drawing a magnifying glass projects a map application, while drawing the ‘@’ symbol lets the user check his/her email. SixthSense can also interact with everyday objects, like in the image below where it reveals that the flight which the user has a ticket to is delayed.

And here we see SixthSense providing Amazon’s rating for a book on the book’s cover itself:

SixthSense can also pull up video from the internet:

That right there is so awesome. SO AWESOME. As you can see, SixthSense is like a portable, more intuitive, multi-touch version of Google. As Pranav Mistry says on his website: “SixthSense frees information from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer.”

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And the best part? All this automagical stuff we’ve seen was achieved on a prototype that costs only $350 USD to build. There are netbooks that are more expensive than this system. If SixthSense becomes mass-produced or integrated into computing devices, I’d imagine prices will only go south of that figure. SixthSense really has the potential to make digital information as accessible as possible, the same way that cellular phones made communication instant and affordable.

[via Pop Sci]

However, the technology is more like a Room of Silence, in that it requires the room to be shielded to be fitted with speakers, sensors, microphones and circuitry. In other words, the shielding will most likely be ridiculously expensive. Guess the rest of us will have to stick to murmuring by the office cooler.

[via New Scientist via The Raw Feed, image via Would You Believe]