Prankophone ushers in age of robo-prank calls (Tomorrow Daily 273)

[MUSIC] Greetings, citizens of the Internet. This is Tomorrow Daily, the best geek talk show in the known universe. I'm Jeff Cannata, and you are watching one of our shorter episodes. Every Thursday, we have a longer episode, where we deep dive into the stories of the week. And maybe a friend of the show will stop by, but until then, right now, let's jump into the headlines. [MUSIC] We love talking about inventions that will change people's lives on Tomorrow Daily, but sometimes we just have to talk about things that make no sense. This is one of those times. This is the Prank-o-Phone. Russian artist Dimitry Morozov is the mind behind this little contraption, which is a hybrid phone slash synth device meant to confuse call recipients. He hacked together a phone, a logic module, and a synthesizer to create this odd little bit of tech. Four different modes allow a person to choose a number to call, or let the Prankophone dial randomly, and decide whether or not to let the device use an algorithm to create sound, or create it manually. When a person on the other end of the call picks up The Prank-O-Phone plays a synthesizer song based on the tones of the phone number it dialed. Morozov says the sound message is unique for every number it reaches so if you ever get a phone call that sounds a little like this it's the Prank-O-Phone. Is prank calling still a thing? I guess it's still a thing. You know, if you ever get called by prank-a-phone, you might be annoyed, but your also pretty lucky, it's a random number. Hey you've probably heard of grapheme at this point But check out this graphine that can move. Chinese researchers published a report in Science Advances this week about a graphine oxide based paper that can change its shape when exposed to infrared lasers. Applying heat Causes the graphine to contract, while shutting the light off allows it to expand again. In the video you can see one tiny scrap of paper inching around like a worm, and another folding up it's sides like origami. There's a lot of possibilities in research like this. In the future, autonomous paper might be used for making inexpensive sensors that can track changes in humidity, temperature, and more. This graphing can also be used to create artificial robot muscles. So we're getting closer to Terminator. Robot muscles, finally we have the muscles. So we have the robot. We have the robot muscles. You get the picture. Hey, speaking of China, check out this robot that just set a world record. Walker number one just set the Guinness world record for furthest distance covered. By a four-legged robot on a single charge. How far did he get? 83 miles! 83.28 miles, to be exact, or 134.03 kilometers. The little robot walked around an indoor track over 1400 times. And his feet took 54 hours And 34 minutes to complete. The previous robot record holder only walked 40.5 miles in 2011. So this is over double that. It took about a year to build the robot and researchers want to put what they learned to use in areas like energy efficiency, reliability and durability. They feel like what they've learned. Will help robotics at large, and we think it will, considering how little energy this robot actually used over the entirety of walking journey. These researchers think that this walking robot can be deployed in places that are too dangerous for humans. So, you know, like Wal Mart on Black Friday. Hey, it's Tuesday. And it's one of the biggest New Release Tuesday's of the year. Let's get to New Releases. [MUSIC] If you are a video gamer, this week there's almost too much to play all coming out on one day. Everybody knows Fallout 4 is here. Oh my gosh, I've been playing it. I got an early release copy. I've already put 40 hours into it and that's just a drop in the bucket for this game. It's gonna be hundreds of hours of content in this post apocalyptic world. It's out on XBox One, PlayStation 4 and PC. But if that's not enough game for you How about Rise of the Tomb Raider, the sequel to one of my favorite reboots ever which was the tomb raider reboot that came out a couple of years ago. This one is a timed exclusive on Xbox one. And follows Lara Croft's journey to the wilderness and become a more of that tomb raider character that we know and love. But if big action and big role playing isn't enough for you, maybe you wanna jump into real-time strategy. Blizzard has got you covered because, also on this release Tuesday, Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void hits. Which is the final chapter of the Starcraft II trilogy. This one focusing on the [UNKNOWN]. This is exclusive to PCs There's just too much to play this Tuesday. Too much to play. All right, let's get to your pictures. [MUSIC] Today's phonetographer of the day is Adam who sends us a photo he took on his iPhone 5S. Adam writes Hey guys, I'm gonna miss your daily long episodes. It was a great show to watch while ironing for work, but I'll enjoy all the Tomorrow Daily I can get. Anyhow, we had a visitor from one of the local critters. I live in Australia, and this guy is a python. They're harmless, he says. Even if he does scare the life. He doesn't wanna move. I spend ages shaking the tree. Oh well, he'll move tonight. I used my iPhone 5S with no filters, and you may use it on the show, if it's worthy. Adam you're a braver man than I serve. It is a known fact that everything in Australia is trying to kill you. And just living there is taking your life in your own hands. So many creatures, atmosphere, everything wants to kill you in Australia. But thanks for sending your picture in of that terrifying python. If you want to send your picture to us, you can do it. All you gotta do is send it to tomorrow@cnet.com. Make sure to tell us what device you used to take the photo and give us Permission to use it on the show. That's gonna do it for today's episode of Tomorrow Daily. You can always keep in contact with us. Follow us on Twitter @TomorrowDaily or follow us individually. I'm @jeffcannata or @AshleyEsqueda @LoganMoy, we love hearing your feedback, please do. We'll see you next time. [MUSIC]