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Download url: http://www.itricks.com/upload/WeirdThings091414.mp3

[podcast]http://www.itricks.com/upload/WeirdThings091414.mp3[/podcast]

Picks:

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Cryptomundo

Here in the states we’re all pretty used to Christian Bale as Batman getting in peoples’ faces and barking like he’s trying to carry on a conversation in a dance club.

But what if there was a kinder more approachable version of the Dark Knight who’s only mission was to bring smiles to an area rebuilding from a devastating earthquake.

Well there is such a person.

He’s called Chibatman.

A 41 year-old Chinese welder’s donned Batman’s suit (thankfully not the Clooney one) since 2011 as well as built his own version of the Batpod and taken to the streets to simply make people smile.

“I started doing this around three years ago. As for my reasons, during the great earthquake [the 2011 Fukushima earthquake], people forgot how to smile. I wanted to help bring the smile back, and that’s why I started.”

So while Chibatman rolls around distributing awesomeness and smiles (and the English translator in the video channels his inner Christian Bale producing even more smiles to the rest of us) to an area distraught and repairing itself after a horrific disaster, it’s the little kid in the video that kind of sums up how awkwardly cool this whole thing is…

“I think it’s cool how he goes around town looking like Batman without feeling embarrassed at all.”

We agree.

Might be more superheroes in the world.

[Robot6.com]

Florida rides a double-edged sword.

On one side people proclaim it’s a great place to vacation. On the other side are the people who live there who are completely aware of the fact that it’s just wet sand covering a giant Hellmouth.

Seriously…the sky tries to kill people with bolts of lightning, the ground tries to swallow anything that lives on it whole and the things that crawl around aren’t like things that crawl around anywhere else.

Case in point…

A fisherman off the coast caught the Face-Grabber’s cousin the other day.

It’s called a Mantis Shrimp…and the one that was caught (at night we’d like to add) is bigger than most (and probably a sign that something’s also happening in Florida’s water because…well…it’s Florida).

Imagine if you rolled a predator, one of Ridley Scott’s aliens, a mole person, a little bit of a Grim Reaper and a highly skilled ninja into a living animal and slathered it in ugly.

Ta-Da! Mantis Shrimp.

Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Commission posted a picture of a super-sized one of these nightmares on their Facebook page and it’s gone viral with good reason…it’s terrifying and it lives in the sand…under your feet.

Next time you think about exploring Florida because you’re bored of the theme parks?

Just…here watch this and imagine one of these about 7 times the size of the one in the video…and crawling up your leg.

You’ve been warned.

[FFWC Facebook]

Created as a joint effort between SoftBank and French robotics company Aldebaran, Pepper a preciously adorable robot, was unveiled recently in stores throughout Tokyo.

The humans behind Pepper are hoping that everyone will want him to join their family in the very near future.

Pepper laughs, tells jokes, dances and probably quietly mocks us behind his adorable little face as he and his ilk develop their future plans.

Like a toddler or a pupper looking for a handout, Pepper constantly keeps eye contact with any human that he comes in contact with, can hold discussions about the weather and…stuff…and can do so in about 17 languages.

Determining the emotional status of humans via facial recognition and tone of our voices is another feature of the almost child-like metal man. Using algorithms and collected data from facial recognition studies, Pepper will seek to interact with humans in a way that will begin building the bridge across the vast ‘uncanny valley’ that exists right now between natural human behavior and robotically programmed behavior.
Looking to introduce him as a companion for seniors and as the gateway drug to having family service robots his price tag comes in under an affordable $2,000.
Masayoshi Son, Softbank’s CEO, stated during the press conference surrounding the unveiling of Pepper, “Several thousand Peppers are going to learn at the store (where the unveiling took place). Everything they learned and gained, is going to be accumulated into the cloud-based service. So that can be accelerating the evolution of the collective wisdom.”
Thousands of Peppers…connected in a hive-like mind.
Not too frightening, right?
He’s not even really mobile.
Until son added, “Our vision is to create an affectionate robot that can understand people’s feelings. Then autonomously, it will take action.”
Great.
Like when a bunch of silver, bipedal robots with glowing red eyes in the future autonomously ‘took action’?

[Above Science’s YouTube Channel]