Keep in touch: a tactile-vision intimate interface
“Keep in Touch designed by Nima Motamedi at Simon Fraser University, Canada, is a networked fabric touchscreen designed to support and maintain intimacy for couples in long distance relationships. To achieve this she created a novel sensorial interface by combining the visual and tactile senses together. Each partner is presented with a blurred digital projection of their lover. When they touch their partner’s body, the image comes into focus revealing their features.”
Architectradure
Phone charger incorporates automatic data back-up
“The aptly named “Data-backup mobile phone charger” automatically performs the task of backing-up your contacts whilst your phone is charging, and not only that, the multi-talented device also acts as a portable power supply in case you run out of juice away from mains power, as well as a SD/MMC card reader.”
Gizmag
busting out
“Active Disassembly is a promising technique for recycling electronics that relies on shape-memory connectors inside devices to pop apart under heat, separating valuable components without any manual labor required. Screws have been prototyped that lose their threads, as well as screen housings for laptops that pop apart to separate glass from LCD substrate. A typical cell phone can be broken down in seconds without any need to handle the toxic components”
hyperexperience
Last.fm + YouTube = music tv goodness
“Just enter a last.fm username or music artist you like at the top of this page and hit the ‘Ok’ button. A few seconds and some funky coding later you will be watching your own personalized music channel. Now ain’t that sweet?”
Last.fm + YouTube
Researchers develop copper nanowires for field-emission displays
“the copper nanowires developed by Kyekyoon Kim and Hyungsoo Choi are between 70 nanometers and 250 nanometers wide, and can be “grown” on various surfaces including silicon, glass, metal, and plastic. As Technology Review reports, in the case of field-emission displays, the nanowires would be used to fire electrons at phosphor particles on a screen to light them up. That process would result in displays that are not only thinner than traditional flat-panel displays, but brighter and more energy-efficient as well — assuming they ever find their way out of the lab, that is.”
Engadget
Multitouch Crayon Physics: An Interactive Drawing Board
“Multitouch Crayon Physics”, a table which users can ‘draw’ on with their fingers, creating multi-colored, movable objects. MERB reports that an open-source beta version will be released on May 18.”
PSFK
Verb For Shoe “smart shoe” finally goes on sale for $700
“an embedded computer automatically adjusts the shoe to your feet, syncs with your PC, and communicates with the shoes of others to exchange contact information. We’re not sure why you’d want to drop seven Bens on this functionality (we’d rather carry a cell phone and laptop and wear non-ridiculous shoes, you know?) but hey, if you’re going to be a fashion disaster, you might as well do it with wireless capabilities.”
Engadget
Better Reading on the Small Screen
“In a recent demonstration, researchers showed how the technology, called Seamless Documents, could store a scanned document in a database and analyze its structure and content. The analysis identifies sections and paragraphs, and automatically extracts key phrases that summarize the sections. So when a person pulls up the document on a phone, she can jump to a section labeled with a keyword, or just skip to the last paragraph on a page. In addition, as the user scrolls through the document, software on the phone automatically resizes images, section headers, and plain text, as different elements of the layout come into view.”
Technology Review
Xerox shows off “erasable paper,” hopes to make it available next year
“The text can then be erased on command by feeding it through a special printer, or left to disappear on its own over a period of 24 hours. On the downside, the paper is apparently useless if it’s been folded or wrinkled, or written on with a pen. No word on an expected price for the paper or printer just yet, unfortunately, but Xerox seems to be betting that the savings in paper (and consequential environmental benefits) will be enough to offset whatever premium they’ll likely cost.”
Engadget
average American consumer spending
“an interactive infographic treemap representing how much the average American citizen spends on 84,000 products in about 200 categories, including fast food, car insurance, rent, electricity, garbage collection & so on. larger shapes make up a larger part of spending. individual shapes can be selected & the treemap can be zoomed in & out.”
information aesthetics
