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Robo-Arm Signatures Are Legal, Gov't Buys One
AndreV writes "It's endlessly comforting to know a recently designed and implemented long-distance robotic signing arm can produce signatures legal in both the US and Canada. The aptly named LongPen replicates the handwriting from a person writing in a remote location — with the unique speed, cadence and pressure of a human pen-stroke. It started as an idea from author Margaret Atwood to help free her from grueling, multi-city, multi-country book tours, but the hard stuff was done by a bunch of Canadian haptic gurus, whose design took into consideration many factors of the human arm and how we write. How it works: from the author-end, data protocols are set up, and the pen pressure is measured on a special tablet. The data streams to the robot, while algorithms smooth out all the missed points. Complex math operations were used to help the mechatronic limb repeat the hand's motions without unnecessary jerking, and programmers had to 'scale time' or 'stretch time' by breaking down the movements, essentially tricking the eyes into thinking the robot is writing fast. It was recently adopted by the Ontario Government to sign official documents. It helps criminals sign books, too."
But where else can I post a question about slashdot? What's up with those scripts on slashdot? Even with a fast and modern PC, I have to put this filter in adblock to make the slashdot pages load decently fast: *fsdn*js* To disable slashdot scripts. Either make the scripts load faster, or more efficient, or remove unneeded ones? They all render wrong in mozilla based browsers anyway! HTML forms are much better for tags.
Were taken ov3r but now they're