1
For more technology stories, visit newscientist.com/technology 10 November 2012 | NewScientist | 23 of David, they discovered, are looking in different directions. Michelangelo had likely done this deliberately, to optimise the statue’s appearance from multiple angles. 3D scanning is not just for buildings or statues. The technology can reconstruct entire natural environments that no longer exist. Digital reconstruction, for example, could put fallen rocks back into – Dolores, virtually immortal– place, says John Meneely of Queens University in Belfast, UK, recreating what our ancestors would have seen from their cave doors 300,000 years ago. This is also where the technology will offer benefits to people other than historians and archivists: eventually, it could lead to digital museums of exact replicas. Mission Dolores is one of 500 historic sites that CyArk hopes to scan as a sort of virtual reality space for visitors, long after the structures are gone. The church’s image is already available online, complete with high-definition photographs that add a layer of realism. Visitors can fly around the outside of the church and zoom in to its ornate altar. Think of it as a museum in The Matrix. It’s too late for the Buddhas, but digital preservation is already bearing fruit elsewhere. In 2010, the tombs of the Bugandan kings at Kasubi, Uganda, were burned down by arsonists. In this case CyArk had already scanned them. When the caretakers phoned the organisation to ask if the tombs could be reconstructed, founder Ben Kacyra “was delighted to say yes.” n Three-dimensional laser scanners can produce perfect replicas of delicate archaeological structures (see main story). However, many of them are expensive, time-consuming to use and are limited to easily accessible environments that don’t have nooks and crannies the scanner can’t reach. Soon all that could change, thanks to a portable device developed by researchers in Brisbane, Australia, that lets you scan almost any environment you can walk around. The handheld device, called Zebedee, wobbles on a spring, sweeping up information about its environment on the fly. Between each sweep, the proprietary software compares successive maps, identifies previously observed surfaces and figures out the user’s movements. “It’s groundbreaking,” says Shane Rolton of Wysiwyg 3D , a scanning company in Sydney, Australia. The Zebedee, he says, can be squeezed into any area you can reach with your hand or with an extension pole and has even been used while abseiling down a cliff. This extreme portability has allowed Zebedee to map the Jenolan Caves in the Blue Mountains of Australia. Later this year the team will use Zebedee to map more Australian caves in the Nullarbor Plain to help study ancient art in one of the world’s oldest mines. ONE PER CENT MITCHELL FUNK/GETTY For breaking tech news go to: newscientist.com/onepercent The world in your pocket Virtual traffic lights keep roads clear If you commute to work by car you probably spend a week each year stuck in traffic. To help cars get around faster, Ozan Tonguz at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh wants to emulate the way ants and bees communicate in busy colonies and hives. In simulations, the system reduced commute time by 40 to 60 per cent during rush hour. As cars approach an intersection they exchange information on how many are in the group and their direction of travel. The largest number of vehicles in one direction is given an in-car green light. Cars in the other cluster see a red light and have to wait . Large-scale testing is due to begin next year. If your face could vote... The result of the US presidential election will now be known but right up until the final day polls were unable to separate the two candidates. Face-reading software promises to give a better clue as to who is impressing the public. We tested the software, developed by Affectiva of Waltham, Massachusetts, during the final debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. About 80 New Scientist readers watched clips of the debate as the software recorded subtle emotional cues – such as smiles or looks of confusion –via webcams. For an interactive graph of readers’ reactions check out bit.ly/affectiva. Go underground to sidestep Sandy Calls for the north-eastern US electricity grid to be moved underground have followed the major outages caused by superstorm Sandy last week. For instance, Maryland senator Nathaniel McFadden says that he will now promote legislation to bury all power lines so they can cope “no matter what nature hurls at us”. Meanwhile, Amazon Web Services told New Scientist that it anticipated loss of power as Sandy approached and set up emergency power supplies for its Virginia cloud data centres, which host Reddit, Quora, Pinterest and other major sites.
