You know ferrofluid? That awesome black liquid that takes on a variety of crazy shapes when in the presence of a magnetic field? It was originally designed by a NASA engineer as a special type of liquid rocket fuel that could be drawn toward a pump inlet in a weightless environment by applying a magnetic field — but due to the fact that it looks so damn cool, its most common application nowadays is geeky desk toys and weird art projects.
The latest ferrofluid creation comes from Dutch designer Zelf Koelman. His project, dubbed Ferrolic, is a mesmerizing new clock that uses a unique ferrofluid screen to display the time. Normally, watching a clock tick out minutes is about as entertaining as watching paint dry, but I could look at this thing all day.
“Ferrolic was designed from a strong fascination for the magical material Ferro Fluid,” Koelman explains on his website. “… this display bridges the gap between everyday digital screens and tangible reality. Because the fluid behaves in an unpredictable way, it is possible to give the bodies, perceived in the Ferrolic display, a strong reference to living creatures. It is this lively[ness] that enables Ferrolic to show a meaningful narrative such as having the creatures play tag. In addition to the natural flow of the material, Ferrolic can be used to form recognisable shapes and written characters.”
Contrary to what it looks like, the clock doesn’t actually have any moving parts. The display creates numbers by switching magnetic fields on or off behind the screen. When these electromagnetic zones are selectively switched on to form the clock’s individual digits, the ferrofluid follows and settles into pools wherever the magnetic field is strongest. However, because gravity tends to pull the fluid down toward the bottom of the display over time, the magnetic fields must occasionally start at the bottom of the clock and “dance” their way back into position.
Pretty nifty, right? Well the good news is that if you really, really want one for your nightstand, you can pre-order a Ferrolic clock on Zelf’s website. They don’t come cheap though. The clocks are still a “work in progress” according to Zelf, and since he hasn’t worked out the manufacturing process quite yet, he’s only got plans to build 24 of them in a super limited production run. As such, each clock will cost just over $8,300.
That’s definitely pretty steep, but I’d take this over a Rolex any day of the week.
AI companies spend enormous amounts of time convincing us their technology is safe and secure. But what happens when those same companies become targets of increasingly sophisticated AI-powered attacks? Anthropic, the company behind Claude, is now facing that question. According to a Washington Post report, cybersecurity startup Cathedral discovered vulnerabilities that let its researchers access sensitive information in Anthropic's internal systems.
The researchers used AI agents to identify potential entry points in less than 12 hours. Interestingly, they didn't need to crack Claude itself. Instead, they exploited weaknesses in third-party business applications that Anthropic uses for everyday operations. Anthropic's security testing program disclosed the findings, which allows outside researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.
Military working dogs charge into places the rest of us would flee. So, I understand why anyone would want to breed tougher, healthier dogs for the job.
Warhound, a new startup from Colossal Biosciences co-founder Ben Lamm and Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey, has stepped out of stealth with $200 million to clone and gene-edit working dogs for American troops, police departments, and emergency services (via TechCrunch).
AI can describe a picture, identify objects, and answer questions about what a camera sees. But when a blind user needs a quick answer, getting an entire spoken essay about the scene isn't exactly helpful. Researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have found that AI-powered visual assistance can leave blind users doing too much work to get the information they actually need.
The study, titled Say It My Way: Exploring Control in Conversational Visual Question Answering with Blind Users, examined how people interact with Be My AI, an AI-powered feature of the Be My Eyes app. The researchers found that users often received lengthy descriptions that didn't adequately address their immediate goals, forcing them to ask follow-up questions or find ways to steer the AI towards a more useful answer.