I’ve heard he’ll be making the rounds of the talk show circuit to promote the movie. He should also be making appearances in Disney theme parks no doubt giving Push a run for his money.

It was initially thought that the hard drive did not survive the reentry, but when it was discovered to be largely intact albeit severely damaged, the project team sent it to a data recovery service. The contents of the drive came back about 99% complete, but it still took several years to analyze the data. The results were published just last month and confirmed that xenon experiences a sudden change in viscosity known as shear thinning when it is stirred vigorously. This effect is what allows whipped cream and ketchup to from flowing smoothly like a liquid to holding their shape like a solid.

While this wasn’t necessarily an earth-shattering experiment, it was fortunate that it could be completed as the lead investigator, Robert Berg, expressed in this Scientific American article:

He notes that the experiment could have only worked in microgravity, to prevent the xenon from settling under its feather-light weight. With NASA’s priorities shifting away from basic research, he says, “this is the sort of experiment that won’t be duplicated for a long time, if ever.”

Computer World has a more technical explanation of the data recovery process.

Engadget also had a story from Maker Faire about Ultimate Wall-E that included a video (from Techie Diva, embedded below). This video better showcases Wall-E’s range of motion, including his head, arms, and eyes. The rep also demonstrates his collision avoidance and directional sound sensors. And while not implemented in that prototype, the rep explained that he’ll also respond to small number of voice commands.

After seeing this new video, I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these.

Update: A friend pointed out that video changed at some point. It would appear that the embed code I got from Engadget points to the most recent Techie Diva video instead of this particular one. (Incidentally, the original Techie Diva story is showing the same incorrect video) You can find the original video at Blip.tv.

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For example, some friends have a voice activated R2-D2—a Wall-E version of that seems like a no-brainer. Well, last night I came across this Gearlog story (by way of Engadget) that would appear to be just that.

Ultimate Wall-E is a programmable robot with 10 separate motors and sensors that will let him react to his surroundings. He’ll be out sometime this summer for $190 but will be introduced to the public at Maker Faire this weekend (not the 29th as mentioned in the Engadget story).

Thursday, Joystiq noted that the video of Will Wright‘s presentation at last year’s GDC (which included a demo of Spore) is now available on Google Video.

I’ve watched it three times. It blew me away. I hope he can pull this off.

“The suggestion is that if we don’t do this, it will stifle creativity. Well…we have now an unprecedented wave of creativity and product and content development…new business models, and new methodologies for distributing this content. The history of government mandates is that it always restricts innovation…why would we think that this one special time, we’re going to impose a statutory government mandate on technology, and it will actually encourage innovation?”

Later, Stevens revealed that his daughter has recently bought him an iPod and had a question about how these proposals would affect his use of the device:

And when Stevens asked whether with the audio flag in place he would be able to record from the radio and put the shows onto his iPod: that’s when the RIAA’s Mitch Bainwol really began to sweat.

With that simple question, the octogenarian Senator encapsulated arguments about place-shifting, interoperability, and fair use that would have taken whole federal dockets to explain a few years ago.

Even more damning was Senator Sununu’s follow-up question, in which he asked if, post-flag, the Senator might record three songs from the radio today, and listen to only one of them again tomorrow. Of course, under the RIAA’s proposed controls, you may not: this is “disaggregation” in their language. This flag, which was sold to Congress to impede piracy, appeared to be designed primarily to control and inconvenience law-abiding, ripping, mixing, modern-day Senators.

It’s kind of sad that they only understand the problems with legislation like this when they themselves will be affected by it, but at least now they’re starting to see through the weak claims made by those that believe we desparately need this technology.