Heather Johnson is guest blogging at WhatIs.com this week. Heather is a freelance writer, as well as a monthly contributor for OEDb, a site that helps students select among accredited online schools. She invites comments and freelancing job inquiries at heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com.

There has been a lot of talk about open source hardware lately and its potential effects on research and education. ETech 2008 showcased many examples of open hardware and offered an insightful presentation [PDF] to those who are new to the emerging technology. Likewise, popular sites like Slashdot and bloggers like Scobleizer have been discussing the growing movement.

The increasing popularity of open source software has already had a tremendous influence on education and the world as a whole. Not only are many schools now making the switch to open source programs, leading universities like UC Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon are involved with developing large open source software projects.

However, we have yet to see open hardware really take off. Ryan Singel of Wired feels that 2008 could be the year and I second that opinion. Leading the pack seems to be open source robotics, which has been embraced by several major universities.

Just last month, Willow Garage’s Steve Cousins gave a keynote speech at ETech 2008 about open source personal robots, which has brought more attention to the subject. Willow Garage is a privately funded lab that experiments with various robotics platforms.

This open source robotics movement can be felt on many college campuses as well. Carnegie Mellon, which I previously stated is involved with open source software, is also building OS personal robots. The university has recently formed a joint project called the Institute for Personal Robots in Education (IPRE).

The IPRE is a joint project between Georgia Tech and Bryn Mawr College, with sponsorship provided by Microsoft Research. Its purpose is to help advance robotics research and computer science education. The IPRE is currently selling open source robot kits, which are geared toward educators and can be integrated with computer education curricula.

Instructions can be found RobotEducation.org if you are interested in building your own educational robot.

[Image credit: RobotEducation.org]

Often the title of a video alone raises an eyebrow. Today’s video selection certainly does — it’s a presentation from two tele-immersion labs, one at UC Berkeley’s Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) and the other within the University of Urbana-Champaign Computer Science Department. According to the IEEE Computer Society, tele-immersion is when “collaborators at remote sites share the details of a virtual world that can autonomously control computation, query databases, and gather results.” It might be a stretch but I see tele-immersion used in that was as an advanced version of presence technology, in which an application make it possible to locate and identify a computing device wherever it might be, as soon as the user connects to the network.

As it’s a dance performance, both labs worked in close collaboration with the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, and the Dance Department and Intermedia Program at Mills College. The video quality admittedly isn’t great — and you may want to skip ahead to 11:30, when the actual performance begins, or to 20:00, when the dancing starts — but the concept itself is noteworthy for its aspiration to bridge the gap between real and virtual environments.

The Resonance Project Dance Group performed for a very large crowd in the Hearst Memorial Mining Building at UC Berkeley. The performance was a blend of live, modern dance with live tele-immersed dancers from University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, Illinois. Using a large network of cameras and computers the dancers were able to span the geographic distance and mingle in cyberspace. The computers merged three-dimensional video images of the dancers onto a single projection, which was broadcast alongside live dancers.

The Resonance Project is a team of choreographers, dancers, computer engineers, and visual and sound artists who are investigating concepts of presence/remote presence and corporeal and code interactivity within live and media based performance. Unique to the project is the use of a “performance as research” model, within which scientists and artists collaborate to explore a re-visioning of cyber culture and corporeal presence.

The nature of the performance has a close conceptual relationship with CAVE, a tele-immersive environment used for learning in a wide variety of disciplines, and the CAVEman, the first 4-D human atlas.

There are certainly programmers, mathematicians and assorted savants out there who can write and translate directly to and from binary code.

I am not one of them.

If you, too, need to occasionally convert binary to ASCII text or, alternately, amuse yourself by converting especially colorful jokes into safe-for-works form… well, you too might just find this binary to text translation tool useful.

Now you, too, can tell ask your friends to
01110011011101000110111101110000001000
00011100110110010101101110011001000110
10010110111001100111001000000110110101
10010100100000011100110110100101101100
01101100011110010010000001000110011000
010110001101100101011000100110111101101
111011010110010000001110001011101010110
10010111101001111010011001010111001100101110.

[Image source: ThinkGeek]

Now is your chance to join Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.

In 2008, April Fools’ Day Jokes are everywhere. Here’s a roundup list of some of the best/worst of the lot.

Gday, MATE, from Google Australia. Future search! A great follow-up from the company that has brought us Google MentalPlex and PigeonRank technologies, along with openings for Googlelunaplex on the moon and a smart-drink called GoogleGulp! MATE™ stands for Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation.

Google’s prank in the US, Google Custom Time, involves messing about with time as well, utilizing “an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality (see Grandfather Paradox).” Send your emails back in time! Amaze your friends!

YouTube links will RickRoll you. All of the featured videos for YouTube UK and YouTube Australia link to aRick Astley video. If you aren’t familiar with RickRolling - it’s when someone puts a link on website to something, but it actually takes you to a music video of Rick Astley’s ‘ Never Gonna Give You Up.’

TechCrunch sues Facebook for $25 million in Statutory Damages. You have to get to the end before the jokiness shows up. Can you tell Michael is a lawyer?

Shakespeare Ghost Writer. Because everyone needs the bard.

Pay Per Tweet from Problogger. This one spawned some pretty funny reactions on Twitter when it was announc

Even our friends over at CNET are getting into the fun, reporting that TechCrunch has acquired TigerBeat and renamed it CrunchKids.

Watch out, however, as there’s a major backlash brewing in the blogosphere. ValleyWag’s Paul Boutin captured the zeitgeist quite succintly in Your April Fools’ Prank Sucks:

April Fools’ Day in tech has devolved over the past two decades into lazy online hoaxes… Worse, the goal is no longer in-house camaraderie, but Internet publicity. Some companies notify the press of their hoaxes a week early, in hopes of securing coverage. We thought about running their emails as they came in, just to pop their bubbles. But there’s no laugh in giving away an unfunny joke. Look, if you want attention, why not ship a real product? That seems easier.

Anil Dash elaborated further, stating that Your April Fools’ Day Joke Continues to Suck.

Ouch. Ok, guys. We get it. But I’m still laughing. I’ve even posted a prank played upon me from last year on the right, a well-implemented foiling of my desk and everything on it.

If you’re hungry for more, there are some hoary classics out there, like John C. Dvorak’s Drunk Modeming and April Fools’ Phone from Penn & Teller. WhatIs.com’s joke for the day was Electricity over IP , if you missed it. Michael Morisey had some fun at Cisco’s expense over at SearchNetworking.com, too. Make sure to read Cisco re-thinks Layer 8 networking with green components to learn about The Human-Like Network.

Slashdot is having a merry time with an April Fools’ Day Prank Roundup thread that includes a five pranks you can build in the office, Wired’s top 10 practical jokes for nerds, Lifehacker’s Top 10 harmless geek pranks and Jack Shafer’s guide over at Slate.com on how to protect yourself from the media’s prankish habits. Jack linked to the Top 100 April Fools’ Day Hoaxes Of All Time, which shouldn’t be missed.

The folks over at /. did miss a few, however.

• ReadWriteWeb posted 10 Places to Get Fooled on April 1st
• Ask Metafilter is collecting suggestions for great office pranks
• PCWorld has a list of the 10 Ten April Fools’ Day websites, many of which you’ll see above

Unfortunately, I have work to do (a host of new definitions, naturally) but Patrick Altoft is liveblogging April Fools’ Day 2008. Just check in with him to see what’s new. April Fools’ Day on the Web is doing a great job of cataloging new pranks as well.

***
UPDATE: I couldn’t resist. Thanks to a tweet from Dan Sandler, I learned about the announcement of a Legend of Zelda movie.

UPDATE: I think this one takes the cake for most chutzpah, given that both parties are publicly traded: Infoworld announces that Microsoft and Yahoo! have agreed on a buyout price.

UPDATE: And as the day comes to a close, Wikipedia’s entry for April 1, 2008 has over 158 different hoaxes and jokes that were made in the news media, in sports, in video games, on websites, on television, in podcasts, and on the radio.

I bet my friend Brian’s favorite is the report from Chicago Public Radio that “Major League Baseball has retroactively awarded the 1945 World Series title to the Chicago Cubs, due to an alleged ineligible playere appearing on the roster of the Detroit Tigers.”

Personally, I can’t wait to get my hands on some Spazztroids to munch on while I queue up my Betamax to HD-DVD Converter to watch old episodes of the Muppet Show. (Thanks, Thinkgeek!) I hope they can distract me from the USB Pregnancy Test I’m giving my PC.

Linking to ITKnowledgeExchange.com could be music to your ears.

Over the course of April, our sister site will be running a promotion whereby anyone that links to them or adds them to a blogroll will be eligible to win an iPod Shuffle.

All you have to do is add ITKE and then send Brent Sheets an email to let him know about it.

Good luck!

Our sister site, Bitpipe.com, just sent me an email informing me that I could view a video of John Cleese offering advice on data distribution systems. (You’ll need to register but, IMHO, it’s worth it. Cleese in a unitard is a sight to behold.)

The video is the next in a series of dependably droll, frequently hilarious spots that follow Cleese’s work as “Dr. Harold Trainwreck” in  The Institute for Backup Trauma  and as the host at the Friendly Advice Machine.

Here’s Dr. Trainwreck on “Rule 26,” wherein he provides advice for corporate counsels and IT managers:

And more of the good doctor, this time providing a (mock) tutorial on how to botch data management.

Captains of Industry created the campaign for Iron Mountain.

Yes, today is March 14, 2008, abbreviated as 3.14. Mathematicians everywhere celebrate today as Pi Day.

You can join the fun over at PiDay.org.

Two weeks and less than 10,000 lines of code result in this demonstration of a starfighter action game on an iPhone that takes advantage of the device’s accelerometer, touch screen and high contrast display. This is a great use of the interface and should inspire some creative thinking the software development community.

My immediate thought upon seeing Steve Forstall’s demo is that there could be a lot of flying iPhones, similar to the stories we’ve heard about the Wiimote. Remember those videos of plasma screens when the Wii debuted?

Now just imagine it’s a device that costs more than $500 direct from Apple in the U.S. and often much more than that in Europe.

That being said, I’m excited to see how software designers take advantage of that new Apple iPhone SDK.

That and Spore. Given more than two weeks to work on this game, I think this could be a killer gaming app for the device.

Joe Tucci (Chairman of the Board at EMC) tells Bob and Joe to get rid of some tapes.

Who knew storage guys were so much fun?

Many people derisively refer to Valentine’s Day as a “Hallmark” holiday, invented and popularized by commercialized interests in the greeting card, floral and chocolate industries.

Not so!

Valentine’s Day was named after two Christian martyrs named (wait for it) “Valentine.” According to Wikipedia, Valentine’s Day became associated with romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the Middle Ages. Lovers have been expressing their love for one another on that day ever since.

Geeks can have special challenges, of course. Bonding with your laptop or server cluster can be a little lonely. Your iTouch is sexy… just not in that way. What to do? If you’re feeling lonely, stressed out over expressing your love or have an unrequited geeky crush, fear not! The interwebs are your friend! [Tetris Heart from Mitch at 4colorrebellion.com]

If the target of your affections has a sense of humor, fill out this “Declaration of Romantic Intent.”

If you have a crush on a fellow photographer, follow this helpful howto from Wired and turn your flickr crush into real romance.

The Road to Know Where has a ton of templates you can use to put together an electronic Valentine Day card, including a Silverlight “Share the Love” ecard builder.

Your Mom’s Basement gets pretty specific about how to meet a girl and navigate the pitfalls of romance. If you’re spending time in your mom’s basement, can we assume you need the advice?

If you’re trying to decide what to get a geek for Valentine’s Day, there’s a Slashdot thread to help you with a last-minute purchase, along with a gazillion other shopping guides.

Finally, if you just need a laugh, Josh Frolinger put together a hilarious list of geek Valentine’s Day videos. My favorites?

Computer Camp Love:

Internet Love Song:

Finite Simple Group (of Order Two)

(This last betrays my own geeky love for collegiate acappella, bringing me back to the glory days of singing under the arches and then networking some PCs together to play Marathon. Nothing says loving like a good fragging. )

Hey Sweetie! I got you a little something for Valentine’s Day:

Yes, February 14th has rolled around again and if you’ve got (or want) a sweetie, you’d be well advised to show you care. And I found the perfect thing: Ironicsans.com has a lovely selection of valentines featuring our real heart-throbs: Scientists! In addition to the dreamy Carl Sagan *sigh!* there’s Darwin: “I select you, naturally!” Lots more on the blog as well as some excellent reader suggestions in the comments (e.g. Charles Richter: “I’m all shook up over you!”)

Ironic Sans began life as an idea for a font name. Until that dream is realized, photographer David Friedman is using it as the name for his blog.

Oooooh… New ones include Pavlov and Stephen Hawking. Decisions, decisions…

~ Ivy Wigmore

There’s no question that living in Cambridge and writing about technology has its benefits. The city is swimming in startups, geeky events and plugged-in discussions.

Last month, I was lucky enough to score an invitation to a Q&A session with two distinguished MIT physicists focused upon the theoretical underpinnings of teleportation , followed by a roundtable discussion that brought in with “Jumper” director Doug Liman and Anakin Skywalker himself, Hayden Christiansen. The movie will be in wide release tomorrow, so I thought it would be timely to offer a comment or two concerning this confluence of fact and fiction.

You know you’re in a special place when professors receive enthusiastic applause comparable to the reception given to a Hollywood director and bonafide heart throb movie star. That being said, Hayden was clearly the focus of considerable adoration, expressed at his entrance and in more than one invitation to dates and afterparties.

Serious students of quantum physics are going have to employ the classic “willing suspension of disbelief” to fully embrace this picture. In other words, when questioned, both Dr. Edward Farhi and Dr. Max Tegmark kindly but firmly ruled out the possibility of human teleportation any time in the near future. The current state of this branch of science is exciting, however, given that experiments have successfully teleported the properties of photons over a distance. This sort of quantum teleportation relies on “quantum entanglement“, whereby the properties of two particles can be tied together even when they are far apart, a phenomenon Einstein called “spooky action at a distance.”

I managed to capture the presentations of Professor Tegmark and Farhi on the physics of teleportation on my webcam and stream it on uStream. My apologies: The quality of both the audio and video is regrettably poor. Still, I’m happy to share. Jumper’s plot relies on a staple of science fiction, however, not fact: genetic mutation. In other words, some evolved version of CERN’s large hadron collider or a hitherto undiscovered means of stabilizing worm holes powered by cold fusion is not at at the heart of the film. Some people are born with the ability to teleport from one place to another. Off to the races.

Mr. Liman’s direction of Swingers, Go and the Bourne Identity , however, recommends taking a chance on his vision of the moral and ethical challenges presented to someone with the power to teleport at will. I found his willingness to research what the event would actually look and sound like was impressive, particularly the collapse of air into the vacuum left by the removal of a body. He said he fell in love with the script when he read that the first action of the character upon discovering his power was to rob a bank.

For more coverage of the event, check out:

• Doug Overbye’s “Quantum Teleporting, Yes; The Rest is Movie Magic” in the New York Times
• Jess K’s hilarious blog post, Hayden Christensen Comes to MIT, Looks Pretty, for some perspective from a current MIT student
• Sharon Gaudin’s “Teleportation: The leap from fact to fiction in new movie Jumper“
• Jim Rapoza’s “Hollywood Jumps to MIT” at Emerging Tech

Following is the trailer, if you’ve somehow missed it theaters, on TV or elsewhere on the Web.

UPDATE: I’ve gotten some anecdotal feedback that “Jumper” isn’t exactly Citizen Kane. RottenTomatoes.com has delivered a dire rating of 15% while imdb.com users are being considerably kinder with a rating of 6.4/10.  That being said, the film raking in $27.2 million at the box office this past weekend, so tastes may be for forgiving out and about.