Touted as the first fully autonomous restaurant in the world, CaliExpress by Flippy will soon be launching in Pasadena, California. Although other restaurants may have had robot helpers or AI working along with the staff, at CaliExpress, all the essential processes from ordering to cooking will be handled by machines.

It's not 100% foolproof which is why there will still be a crew of human staff working at the burger bar next to the kitchen, but the size of the crew is much smaller and their purpose, merely to clean up any mistakes that Flippy makes.

As the promotional video shows, the robot hand slides across different sections of the kitchen to flip some burger patties, fry some fries, and place them on the side to keep warm, although the last part shows a man putting the fries in the box and bringing them to customers.

I'm not sure whether this will actually be good for business, for consumers, and most especially, for the labor force, but it might be a start of a more widespread AI revolution, and I don't really know how to feel about that.

For now, at least, the technology is not sophisticated enough to completely eliminate the need for humans in the fast food service industry. But if this proof of concept succeeds, that may be the trajectory we're heading.

(Video credit: Miso Robotics/Youtube)

Automatons or mechanical dolls have been around since the 16th century, with the oldest functional automaton being kept at the Smithsonian. If other accounts are to be believed, much older automatons have existed as far back as the ancient Greeks. But there are only a few surviving operational automatons today, and those include Pierre Jaquet-Droz's three automatons.

Constructed around the late 1760s and early 1770s, these automatons are considered by some to be one of the earliest computers with their capability to be programmed. Jaquet-Droz's automatons are intricate works of engineering containing 6,000 movable parts that enable the dolls to blink their eyes, hold a pen, and write or draw on paper.

Jaquet-Droz's automatons include "The Writer", "The Draughtsman", and "The Musician" named after their respective functions. Both "The Writer" and "The Draughtsman" are built on similar parts, with "The Writer" having more versatility as its program allows it to write any 40 letters in any combination, making it customizable.

"The Draughtsman", on the other hand, can only draw four different images, which makes more sense as drawing requires more technical skill than writing. However, the level at which "The Draughtsman" draws is beyond making basic shapes or lines. Out of the four drawings, perhaps the portrait of Louis XV may be the most complex one it can do.

Finally, "The Musician" can make real music by tapping the keys of a custom-built organ with two sticks. All three of the automatons are currently being held at the Muse d'Art et d'Histoire at Neuchtel in Switzerland.

(Image credit: Link2Universe)

Titled "When We All Have Pocket Telephones", this Daily Mirror comic strip was drawn by the artist William Kerridge Haselden and envisioned a world where "pocket telephones" as he called them dominated every aspect of our lives. True enough that has been the case for our world today.

However, no matter how prophetic it might look, the artist wasn't exactly keen on how such "pocket telephones" would look like as a few of the illustrations only hinted at a telephone ringing in somebody's coat or inside pocket. The others depicted what looks like the receiver end of a handset telephone.

This wasn't the first time cellphones had been imagined as people had already been talking about a 'pocket phone' as early as 1906, with Charles E. Alden claiming that he had created a device considered a precursor to the cellphone. However, it wasn't until 1973, when the first ever cellphone will actually reach the market, with Motorola's DynaTAC 8000X.

Who knows? We already have talking robots and self-driving cars, so perhaps, teleportation and long-distance space travel, ones that go beyond our galaxy, may become possible in the next 50 years? I just hope I'll still be alive to witness it.

(Image credit: W. K. Haselden)

It's a bird. It's a plane. No, it's Superman dressed up as other popular characters, as shown in the series of illustrations created by Los Angeles-based artist Mike Mitchell.

Taking the original Superman illustration from the Superman #6 comic, Mitchell redraws the man of steel as other characters like Mickey Mouse, Wonder Woman, Mr. Spock, and others which just goes to show the versatility of the red-caped wonder.

He also created a gif showing all the variations of Superman on his Instagram, where he also posts his other artwork. Apart from this, he also sells some of his art as prints and toys on his personal website. -via Moss and Fog

(Image credit: Mike Mitchell)

Emma Van Carlen, a fasting coach, shared her experience of going on a water-only fast for 18 days on TikTok. Apart from water, herbal tea, and electrolytes, she had consumed nothing else. After the long fast, she felt that the experience had been "truly transformative", despite the struggles she encountered along the way. Many experts, however, advise against such an extreme form of fasting.

For many who want to get in shape or lose a bit of weight here and there, perhaps some might suggest going on an intermittent fasting schedule instead, which involves a regular interval of eating and fasting. Usually, people will fast for 16 hours and then do all their eating within an 8-hour period. Others may have several approaches, but with the same idea of setting a time for fasting and eating.

Doctors say that if anyone were to go on a fast, the maximum number of consecutive days should be three, as going beyond 72 hours is very risky and can result in complications since the body will go through physiological changes that may adversely impact a person's health such as developing an eating disorder or nutrient deficiencies.

Van Carlen, however, has found that her fasting helped reduce inflammation in her body, clearing away her cystic acne, as well as losing 17 pounds. However, she still urges people to consult their doctor first before going on an extended fast.

Obviously, people with underlying conditions like diabetes or have a predisposition toward developing eating disorders should check with their doctor to determine whether it is safe for them to fast, and if they were to go on a fast, what the safest approach would be to do it.

Although fasting may have some benefits such as a decrease in blood pressure and LDL cholesterol levels, researchers have found that prolonged fasting also involves a significant loss of lean mass, which may be concerning as lean mass helps promote a better metabolism.

(Image credit: Emma Van Carlen/TikTok; Newsweek)

Core77 introduces us to the Defender 250, a e-bike developed by the German manufacturer Dolas. What makes this design unusual is that there's a third wheel in line with the other two. All three are powered by hub-mounted motors juiced by a 48 volt battery. The rear wheels have independent suspension to allow for a smooth ride.

It's Friday night and the many hours that you have spent developing your online dating profile and combing through others have finally paid off. You have a first and hopefully not last date. Naturally, you want to impress your evening companion, so you take them to the fine dining establishment of McDonald's. You don't need a reservation, but do need to dress to impress.

That's why it's great news that McDonald's and the Crocs brand of footwear are offering a line of four different limited edition croc designs inspired by the fast food's iconic images and characters.

Dr. Varsha Jain of the University of Edinburgh is a space gynecologist. This means that she is a gynecologist who specializes in medical care for astronauts. Science Focus, an online magazine that is part of BBC News, interviewed her about what we humans can expect when and if humans begin procreating in space.

Menstruation among female astronauts is fairly normal, so, hypothetically, fertilization should be possible. It's hypothetical because we know of no attempts to complete the process in space. That said, pregnancy is very risky because of the high levels of background radiation that astronauts experience. An unborn child's DNA is especially vulnerable to radiation damage.* Gravitational load when leaving or entering a planet's gravity well can lead to serious complications. Dr. Vain advises that we humans conduct more research about how to make interplanetary pregnancy safer.

-via Dave Barry | Image: Dung_Dang

*Translation: super powers.

That waters that surround Antarctica are trapped in place by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which encircles that continent and keep marine life inside isolated from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans. Marine life in those waters are unable to interbreed with outsiders and have developed evolutionary advantages particular to this environment. These adaptations include fish with translucent blood and the ability to absorb oxygen through their skin, starfish and sponges with extreme longevity, and, in general, colossal size in comparison to their counterparts elsewhere on the planet.

Minute Earth, a YouTube channel that educates people about science, worked with the National Science Foundation and the marine ecology-focused Bik Lab at the University of Georgia to create this video.

-via Laughing Squid

We are lurching toward the end of 2023, and it's time for all the retrospectives to come out, summing up with the year was all about. Every December, Louis Plamondon, also known as Sleepy Skunk, edits together clips from the trailers of the movies we watched over the previous year. The video for 2023 is presented in three stages. You could term the first as "leaving," followed by "shocking," and then by "beautiful." It's a masterful edit, and left me with the realization that I went the entire year without seeing one current film. This video contains NSFW language. -via Laughing Squid

See Sleepy Skunk's mashups from previous years as well.

In the 1890s, James B. Shaw of Atlantic City, New Jersey, developed a technique for taking one picture of a person and getting an image that showed that person from five angles. These came to be known as photo multigraphs. Since these five images were usually all facing each other, the effect was that of a group having a conversation. The secret behind these photo-multigraphs was simple: the subject was set in front of two mirrors set at a 75° angle.

The novelty of this setup lent itself to photo booths set up to take pictures of tourists at seaside resorts and amusement parks. The fact that it was developed in Atlantic City probably also had something to do with that. People could pay a dollar or two and have several copies of postcards made of themselves to send to friends back home. Photo-multigraphs were popular for decades, but faded in the 1950s when more tourists began carrying their own cameras. But it's not completely gone. In 2018, Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard used the technique in an art project. See a gallery of a couple of dozen whimsical photo-multigraphs at Gods and Foolish Grandeur.  -via Messy Nessy Chic

You know how every year, as soon as Halloween is over, it seems that Mariah Carey takes over all the music speakers in the world, and her 1994 song "All I Want for Christmas is You" plays nonstop wherever you go? Carey herself has noticed and capitalized on the phenomenon. But after thirty years, too much of a good thing is still too much. When you get down to the last week before Christmas, you just want to get away from that song. The Carey takeover is like a horror story, in which you cannot escape no matter what you do. Fabrice Mathieu made it so, by mixing Carey's music video with clips from more than 40 movies of all kinds. He calls this mashup "All I want for Christmas is... Silence!" You can see the wide-screen version at YouTube. You can also click "more" in the description and see a list of the movies used.   -Thanks, Fabrice!

It takes mere seconds for us to capture a moment in time with our phones. But the history of photography took painstakingly long to reach this point. One of the few surviving early photographs is the "View from the Window at Le Gras" which was taken by Joseph Nicephore Niépce in 1826.

It underwent a process called heliography, taken from the words helios, meaning 'sun' and graphein, meaning 'writing', as it involved capturing an image with the use of light.

This process involved placing a plate inside a camera obscura, which will then develop the image projected through a small hole. It took hours, if not days, of exposure for the image to set. With the help of Louis Daguerre, Niépce contributed greatly to the development of photography.

Unfortunately, Niépce died in 1833, but Daguerre continued improving the process of heliography and incorporating it into the camera obscura design until he was able to develop the daguerreotype. And as the story goes, Daguerre patented and sold the process to the French government in exchange for a lifetime pension, not just for himself, but also for Niépce's son, Isidore. The rest is history.

(Image credit: Jonnychiwa/Wikimedia Commons)

We have recently posted about some of the more obscure Christmas characters. Of course, most of those were either human or humanoid (in the case of elves) figures, but there's another subset of Christmas characters that we have yet to tackle, and those are the holiday beasts or Christmas creatures.

Leah Schnelbach of TOR makes a list of all the Christmas creatures she could find, and ranks them based on her subjective judgment. She does have a few caveats about the creatures on her list: they are not mythological and by no means does she imply that they aren't real.

Needless to say, the one to top the list would be everybody's favorite reindeer, Rudolph. And who wouldn't have the red-nosed reindeer as their favorite Christmas creature? He's so lovable that he not only has one but two animated features, the one from Rankin-Bass, and the one by Max Fleischer.

Other creatures on the list include the Abominable Snowbeast from the 1964 stop motion Rudolph film, Krampus, and the lioness Shiegra from The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. Check out the rest of the list on TOR.

(Image credit: Rankin-Bass/Wikimedia Commons)

Many children will probably be expecting gifts this coming Christmas, and parents, or even relatives, might be wondering what presents to give them.

For younger children, toys might be a more common choice, and scientists even recommend giving them certain toys because they help with children's brain development.

Sarah Gerson, a psychologist from the University of Cardiff in the UK, suggests three different types of toys constructive for children's mental, social, and emotional development.

The first category of toys are the building or constructing types of toys like the cone of stacking doughnuts, building blocks, and LEGOs because they help develop spatial reasoning as well as reading and math skills.

The second category are toys that develop a child's social processing skills which include dolls, figurines, and action figures. Whether they play with these on their own or with others, Gerson says they are great for enhancing storytelling, empathy, consideration for others, and perspective-taking.

Finally, there are crayons, coloring books, and clay which help with hand-eye coordination, color and spatial perception, as well as free play.

Gerson generally avoids recommending electronic toys except for those which can be categorized in one of the three like sequencing or memory games with the use of sound and light. Still, each child is unique and it's best to understand which toys fit the child's preferences and interests best.

(Image credit: Hannah Rodrigo/Unsplash)