Believe it or not, we don’t cover every piece of tech news here at SnapMunk. In an effort to keep you apprised of all things relevant in the world of technology and startups, here are some noteworthy tech news items that didn’t get a full column this week but certainly deserve a glance.
Hacked Nintendo Power Glove Lets Guy Control A Drone
That waterfally noise you hear is 20 million nerds collectively wetting their pants. Engineer Nolan Moore hacked an old-school Nintendo Power Glove so that it could control a quadcopter with small hand motions. To accomplish this techno-wizardry, Moore fitted the glove with modern control boards, Wi-Fi transmitters, and flex sensors in the fingers. This is the most interesting thing to happen with the Power Glove since that stupid movie The Wizard, which featured a young Fred Savage.
Image via YouTube
Verizon May Spend $3 Billion To Buy Yahoo’s Internet Business
Apparently Verizon is in the business of buying washed up Internet companies. After spending $4 billion last year to purchase AOL (the purchase came with 100 free hours), they are expected to bid $3 billion for Yahoo’s core assets. If things continue like this, Verizon will also purchase MySpace, Friendster, and a box set of Goldie Hawn movies.
Human Drone Taxi To Be Tested In Nevada
Ladies and gentlemen, the future has finally arrived. A drone capable of carrying humans has been approved for test flights in Nevada. The drone, developed by the Chinese company EHang, is over 4 feet tall, weighs 440 pounds, has 8 propellers, and can carry a single passenger for 23 minutes at 60 mph. Why don’t you just go ahead and test it out first. No, really – I insist.
Image via BBC.com
Axl Rose Demands Google Take Down Pictures He Looks Fat In
Apparently Axl Rose doesn’t like memes, especially if they make fun of his weight. Since May 31, Rose has made at least 11 requests to Google to take down unflattering pictures of him, especially those used in the “Fat Axl Rose” meme. Apparently Rose doesn’t understand how the Internet works. The more you don’t like something, the more it shows up. Let it go Axl, let it go. Have a little patience…
Man Lives For An Entire Year With An External Heart
What. The. Heck? An incredible new technology has been devised to sustain people who are waiting for a heart transplant. The SynCardia Freedom Portable Driver is an external heart that can take over pumping blood through the body when the heart shuts down. Stan Larkin survived with one of these machines for the past 17 months, and is just now getting a heart transplant. This is crazy stuff, folks.
Image via CNET.com
Disneyland Testing Interactive Droids For Star Wars-Themed Sections
These ARE the droids you’re looking for! Disneyland is testing out a new interactive droid named “Jake” which will supposedly roam the Star Wars-themed areas of the park and interact with guests. We still don’t know whether the droid will be autonomous or controlled by an operator.
Elon Musk Meets With Pentagon To Discuss…Iron Man Suit?
In the most Elon Musk move ever, the billionaire hinted that his recent secret meeting at the Pentagon had something to do with flying metal suits. While it’s not entirely clear if he was joking, this doesn’t seem outside the realm of possibility for Musk, who’s the closest thing we have to a real-life Tony Stark. Elon, if you read this, forget the flying drones thing; I volunteer to test this suit.
Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments!
Stephen Altrogge is a freelance writer based in Tallahassee, Florida. He writes about tech, marketing, faith, and lots of other things. He’s married to Jen and has three young girls. Every day he consumes more coffee than the entire population of Colombia. He knows more about Star Wars than any respectable man should, and he runs more than any sane man would. He once attempted to eat a 2 pound hamburger in under an hour. He failed.
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My comment for this holiday as I peruse back posts of yours; by the way are you of Armenian descent? No insult, just curious due to your melodic last name.
1. Re: the Disney droid: a) at least you do not have to pay to interact with it YET….but I am sure Disney will find a way. On the economics of Disney, I have noticed a micro-trend in my adult children all deciding not to take their kids there this summer because of the COST. Reinforcing this in my humble micro-observing small sample size view, is that I am hearing this all over the place from workers and even rich colleagues (I work at a large hospital as a psychiatrist). 2. I showed the drone-controlling glove thing to my 16-year-old son and he and his friends all want one NOW. There will be a huge market for these things if it ever comes to market and I can see it paired with virtual reality expensive headwear goggles/visual reality substituters and then the drone thing will really be upon us, especially when school is out and Little League and teen league baseball will DIE. Then there will be even less diversity in the pro leagues in a decade or so. But it will be good news in the NeoCons’ eyes for “national security.” All male teens would love to be spies and would sign up for being a drone surveillance “tailer” of one “alien” each as The Donald would put it. The heck with privacy, our teen so is always barging in my home office or into our bedroom without knocking….3. On Elon Musk or Elan Mush as I call him: I cannot figure out if he is really a prescient futurist (emphasizing electric cars nowadays seems incredibly obvious to me) or somewhat unbalanced. I think as a psychiatrist I need a few sessions of letting him free associate which as narcissistic as he seems to be in his own way, would happen automatically. But my main point is that Mr. Musk’s visit to the Pentagon shows they are in real future weapons development trouble and need some new blood, or a good idea guy as theirs are all tapped out and stuck on the dilemmas of urban warfare. I think it would cheaper just to put out a national RFP to all gamers under 30 years of age, have them ALL come to DC and have a humungous convention for a week, house them ten’s of thousands of them in all the hotels in the greater DC area, leaving the networking comm set-up to them as they do not go anyway without their portable small form factor net gamer boxes, and let them stoke up some new ideas. And be sure to have the name of it include the magic letters/meme “CON.” And give away teeshirts with some “I helped out Nation at GamerWarCon” or something like, have hot modded custom gamer computer rigs by the dozens to give away at the ending banquet of junk food by the ton. It might sound costly but I sure it is cheaper than any big weapons system the Pentagon has under development and over budget at this very moment, likely by a factor of at least 100,000.
I love seeing old technology being hacked for new entertainment. I guess Nintendo is not dead after all.
Verizon just wants the user base so they can sell more stuff to people. What else does Yahoo have to really offer?
An external heart, are you kidding? Why is this the first time I am hearing about this?
Axl is in the public eye, still. He is just paying the price for that.
Human drone. Of course!
Yahoo has been “for sale” for years. I am surprised to see that Verizon would even want anything to do with that mess. However, Yahoo does have a lot of users and news might be what Verizon is after.