BBC reports:
Kate Bush has announced she is to play a series of concert dates in the UK later this year. An announcement on her official website said she will play 15 shows at London’s Hammersmith Apollo in August and September. The title for the show is Before the Dawn and the first date will be 26 August. The singer, whose hits include Wuthering Heights and Hounds of Love, last toured in 1979.
Tickets go on sale at 9.30am next Friday, March 28.
Joanne O’Riordan’s robot.
The University Times writes:
“The robot, nicknamed “Robbie”, was built for Cork teenager Joanne O’Riordan, who is one of only nine people worldwide living with tetra-amelia, a condition in which the sufferer is born without arms or legs. In April 2012 O’Riordan addressed the UN at the ITU’s “Girls in Technology” conference and offered the challenge for someone to build her a robot.”
“Taking up this challenge is Assistant Professor Kevin Kelly, of Trinity’s School of Engineering, along with a team of young engineers.”
…
“The prototype is a humanoid robot, with features like a head, torso, legs, and arms, and when fully extended stands at 140cm. In order to communicate with people the head has a face on an LED screen, which can display emotions and blink. Instead of hands the machine has flexible grippers, which are balloons filled with coffee granules. Under normal circumstances the coffee particles behave like a liquid, but when the air is removed they jam into place and become rigid. By pressing the balloon against an object and creating a vacuum the robot can use this method to pick objects up, as it will conform to the object’s natural shape when soft and then harden around it.”
Trinity Engineers to Showcase Prototype Robot to United Nations (University Times)
Pic: Will Goodbody
Anne writes:
Blessington Street Basin in Phibsborough, Dublin 7 this morning – where would you get it?
From 1987, an ad for Marathon bar.
In the pre-Snickers era, Terence says he could chew away on one from 11am until lunchtime.
It was that big.
German photographer Elke Vogelsang’s goofy, atmospheric, occasionally raspberry-blowing portraits of her three dogs Noodles, Scout and Loli.
More of her work here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrqZl2QIz0c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xQ3y902DEQ
Google’s new Android Wear operating system for wearables – social media, apps, jellyfish warnings and whatever you’re having yourself sent direct to your wrist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw4ait9UV7A
Hates walking. Likes keenly-priced food products with names and packaging designs similar to those of established brands.
Jammy writes:
Skateboarding bulldog doing the rounds on FB…it’s from Aldi but could be an advert for Greystones [Co Wicklow] Or skateboarding, he makes it look easy.
