Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Wed, 1 Aug 2012 17:00:00 PDT Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100826/03313210783/dailydirt-olympic-trivia.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100826/03313210783/dailydirt-olympic-trivia.shtml a robot on Mars.) But if you're looking for some bits of Olympic trivia, here are just a few examples.

• The oldest athlete at the 2012 Olympics is Hiroshi Hoketsu at age 71. He competes as an equestrian rider, but isn't the oldest Olympian ever. Oscar Swahn from Sweden won a medal in shooting at the 1920 games at the age of 72. [url]
• The shuttlecocks in Badminton can reach speeds of over 300 miles per hour. Strangely, the best shuttlecocks are made from goose feathers -- plucked only from the left wing of the bird, for no particular good reason. [url]
• Guor Marial competes in the Olympics ... as an independent (representing no country). Wouldn't it be interesting if all the athletes were given the option to compete without representing a nation? Marial's unique status comes from being a South Sudan native, but not wanting to represent the nation that killed his family. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

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]]> urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100826/03313210783 Wed, 29 Dec 2010 17:00:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101208/12202412196/dailydirt-cool-robot-videos.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101208/12202412196/dailydirt-cool-robot-videos.shtml

Don't taunt robots that handle knives and de-bone hams for a living. The HAMDAS-R ham de-boning robot makes an excellent gift for the holidays -- if you happen to be friends with an industrial ham processing plant owner. [url]

Smarter cars could play follow-the-leader on highways. Relying on a robot driver, even if it's following a human driver, seems a bit too risky still. [url]

A bipedal robot, that runs like people do, uses "pneumatic muscles" which mimic human legs. This robot looks like it still needs to learn how to walk first. [url]

The world's first badminton robot doesn't seem to want to show off its moves too much. Its shyness is probably due to the fact that it's literally a one-dimensional player -- it can only move back and forth along a line. [url]

Playing air hockey against a robot arm looks like more fun. But after a while, it probably isn't much fun to play against a "perfect" air hockey defense. [url]

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