High Tech Phone Books, Finally (maybe). “Upcodes of the smart phone book can be read with a mobile phone camera. The user is automatically directed to the Internet pages indicated by the Upcodes.”
Gizmodo
New digital camera chip slashes power consumption 50x. “They’re only in the design prototype phase right yet, but a couple of dudes by the names of Mark Bocko and Zeljko Ignjatovic at the University of Rochester have apparently worked out a way to digitize photography at each pixel of a CMOS sensor, the results of which are actually nothing less than fifty times less power consumption in taking a shot, and ten times the dynamic range of light captured — on chips expected to be smaller and less expensive than current devices.”
Engadget
soundtransit :: book. “SoundTransit is a collaborative, online community dedicated to field recording and phonography.
In the “Book” section of this site, you can plan a sonic journey through various locations recorded around the world. And in the “Search” section, you can search the database for specific sounds by member artists from many different places.
If you are a phonographer, you can also contribute your recordings for others to enjoy.”
soundtransit
Get the Kids Started Early with Teddyphone. “Excited about your little toddler eventually becoming a cell phoning, surly teenager? Why wait 15 years when you can get them wasting your plan minutes now. The Teddyphone is the ideal phone for small children. Actually this thing does have some useful parent features such as reverse listening, an SOS button, speed dial and even an optional tracking feature. “
Gizmodo
Ogre to Slay? Outsource It to Chinese. “For 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, my colleagues and I are killing monsters,” said a 23-year-old gamer who works here in this makeshift factory and goes by the online code name Wandering. “I make about $250 a month, which is pretty good compared with the other jobs I’ve had. And I can play games all day.” He and his comrades have created yet another new business out of cheap Chinese labor. They are tapping into the fast-growing world of “massively multiplayer online games,” which involve role playing and often revolve around fantasy or warfare in medieval kingdoms or distant galaxies.”
New York Times
RFID turns you into a real-life action hero. “You’ve been sent to a 31st-century prison, where puzzles will help you crack the security system and escape. There are ventilation shafts to crawl down, secret doors, ladders, dead ends and hidden bonuses. This games is not on your PC or PlayStation but in a three-storey building in Madrid. In Negone, created by Differend Games, each player has a wrist console displaying your score, your character’s health and tools obtained in the game. You select your mission (they range from “inoculate the virus” to “steal the secret weapon”) and difficulty level. Security guards then escort you to your cell.”
we make money not art
JotSpot Tracker Furthers Office Online Experiment. “As more office applications move online, JotSpot Tracker joins NumSum and the open-source TrimSpreadsheet in the spreadsheet space. While Jotspot Tracker is clearly the most polished of the three, funcionality is very limited and the small visable area leaves a lot to be desired. Nonetheless, this is an excellent way to collaborate on simpler, smaller spreadsheets and bypass the hassle of email and chaotic version numbers. And the inport function was flawless. “
TechCrunch
How’d I Get Here (Firefox extension). “Use this extension to go to the page on which you first clicked a link to the current page. For example: Go “back” even after opening a link in a new tab and closing the original tab. Remember how you found a site you bookmarked yesterday. When you are sent a link you have already seen, astound the sender by responding with a statement more precise than “I saw that on some blog a few days ago”. “
How’d I Get Here
CoverFlow. “CoverFlow aims to bring that aesthetic appeal to your mp3 collection. It allows you to browse your albums complete with beautiful artwork pulled from any sources it can find, whether that’s buried in your song tags, collected via Synergy, or looked up on Amazon.”
Lifehacker
“Godcasts” becoming more popular. “I would say probably anywhere from 10 percent to 20 percent of the podcasts available online have some dimension of religion or spiritual life to them,” estimates Lee Ranie of the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Godcasts are created by houses of worship from every denomination, and from around the world. The wide selection is good news for web worshippers.”
Smart Mobs
Plush Toy Interacts with DVD Movie – Supposedly Supports Child Development. “This interactive plush toys are aimed at babies to become more active when watching TV. The plush toy are synchronized with scenes shown on a DVD movie. A signal triggers the plush toy to start giggling, singing, and flashing its integrated light. The DVD plush toy comes as lamb, dog or cow. The plush animal have a somewhat weird look, a hint of Teletubby.”
I4U News
What Did He Say? – A Cockney gangster film becomes a DVD phenomenon.. “Layer Cake is a phenomenon that we’re likely to see more of in the future, the word-of-mouth DVD hit. As such, it raises interesting questions about the future of movies in a business increasingly dominated by the home-video market—not just whether movies can perform markedly better in home video than in theaters, but what kind of movies are likely to do so.”
Slate
Ask questions, get Yahoo! Answers. “Yahoo! launches a question and answer service called, surprisingly, Yahoo! Answers. Submit a question about anything for free and other Yahoo! users will post answers. Two questions posted now include “What are the best windsurfing locations around SF Bay area?” and “Can you recommend a book for a 70-something conservative man?” Users vote on how good each answer is, and questions can be “resolved” when the asker determines the best answer to the question.”
Lifehacker
US warns of fake net domain data. “More than 5% of the net’s most popular domains have been registered using “patently false” data, research shows. A US congressional report into who owns .com, .net and .org domains found that many owners were hiding their true identity. The findings could mean that many websites are fronts for spammers, phishing gangs and other net criminals. The report also found that measures to improve information about domain owners were not proving effective. “
BBC NEWS
NEC’s paper thin, rapid recharge batteries, “ORB”. “NEC has debuted some ultra-thin and flexible quick charging batteries named ORB, for Organic Radical Battery. We’re having a hard time deciding what is the coolest part about these; their 0.3mm thickness that allows them to be flexible, or the fact that they can be recharged in about 30 seconds.”
Engadget
RSStroom Reader concept prints up toilet paper news. “We can’t quite tell if it’s outputting some two-ply quilted feeds, or if it plans to keep us up to date with that generic single-ply brand, but with wireless connectivity, RSS 2.0/Atom compatibility, and a browser based control panel, it should get the job done. Sure, this gag isn’t for reals, but c’mon, you know you want one.”
Engadget
Pertelian’s External LCD Display keeps fraggers informed. “It can display e-mail headers, IM messages, the weather, RSS feeds (like ours), CPU stats, media player data, and more. You can even set up hotkeys to control all this info without ever leaving the game, including quick responses to IMs and skipping through and searching your songs to keep the tunes pumpin’.”
Engadget
IntelliScaner Kitchen Companion 100 keeps track of groceries. “The Kitchen Companion 100 is the same basic scanner, but adds a database of over 300,000 grocery items, along with nutrition data from the USDA. Scanned info can be downloaded to a PC, Mac, PDA or cellphone, letting you compile detailed grocery lists.”
Engadget
Tele-Praying. “Kin, by cshool canade, is a system that allows people to give a prayer over the Internet. At Ryokusen Temple in Asakusa, Tokyo, a network computer that controls Kin, a bowl-shaped sacred artifact (kind of like an upside-down bell that can be hit by a stick) is installed in the main building. One can connect to this computer from “anywhere” and hit the kin using a GUI slider.”
we make money not art
‘Talking’ internet worm wins victims’ trust
. “Worms that target IM services have been seen before. However, the latest, dubbed “IM.MySpace04.AIM” by IMlogic, the internet security company that discovered it, is the first known to chat with computer users in a bid to dupe them into downloading its malicious program.”
Times Online
Satellites bring broadband to world. “Internet-bereft travellers in some of the world’s furthest-flung corners could soon be able to log on thanks to a new satellite broadband offering. The BGAN service, which is being offered by satellite communications firm Inmarsat, could help bring the internet to some of the world’s most remote areas. The company claims that it will be able to deliver satellite broadband connections to 98% of the planet’s population by using two of its hi-tech communications satellites.”
Guardian
Create a personalized homepage with Protopage. “Protopage is an Ajax-built web app designed to bring your RSS feeds, sticky notes, and bookmarks into one pretty package.”
Lifehacker
DVD sales likely nearing global peak: report. “Movie sales on DVD are likely nearing their peak worldwide as more people look to computer downloads and video-on-demand to watch their favorite programming, according to a report released on Wednesday. [...] DVD sales growth is slowing, according to several recent reports. A study released by Adams Media Research in October forecast DVD sales of about $17.3 billion this year, a 12 percent rise from 2004. Adams forecast a 9 percent rise to $18.9 billion in 2006.”
Reuters.com
Smart Jigsaw Puzzle Assistant. “First, we describe several advantages of employing RFID technology for the development of gaming applications. Then we present the Smart Jigsaw Puzzle Assistant, a fully operational augmented jigsaw puzzle game which we have developed and prototypically implemented using miniature RFID tags and a palm-sized RFID scanner.”
networked_performance
Finding a needle in a haystack of data. “Finding useful information in oceans of data is an increasingly complex problem in many scientific areas. This is why researchers from Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) have created new statistical techniques to isolate useful signals buried in large datasets coming from particle physics experiments, such as the ones run in a particle collider. But their method could also be applied to a broad range of applications, like discovering a new galaxy, monitoring transactions for fraud or identifying the carrier of a virulent disease among millions of people.”
ZDNet.com
Y!Q context search meets Greasemonkey. “After installing the script, all you have to do is highlight text, then click on the little Y!Q icon that pops up, and… tada! Contextual search results!”
Lifehacker
Brits Get Satellite on their PCs. “Called skybybroadband, the service promises a good mix of films, including Hollywood blockbusters and classic movie titles, as long as they’re available on its Sky Movies channels. All you need is a PC running Windows XP and a broadband connection. And all this is being done through third-party software by Kontiki, so it looks like you won’t be able to then download any of the content to any other PMPs you may have handy.”
Gizmodo
LG 42″ Xcanvas With 160GB Of PR()|\|. “The TV can do 13 hours of HD recording, 63 hours of SD recording, and you can even pull in pics through the built-in 9 in 1 card reader. This of course means you can do your photo viewing, movie viewing, MP3 playing, etc. through the same TV interface.”
Gizmodo
Explore Lenses. “Everyone’s an expert at something. Spread your ideas, make yourself known, and earn a royalty. What’s your topic?”
Squidoo
PlayLimit token-based video game and TV viewing timer. “..they’ve hardly had to bother begging quarters off of mom and pops to hit the arcades ever since they got that fancy “Nintendo” hooked up to the tube. Well, now they can know your pain with the PlayLimit, a token-based system that locks up their system’s composite connector and sets a timer to playtime. It comes with 40 tokens that each represent 15 minutes of play, so after 10 solid hours of Halo 2 vegging, Junior is going to finally know how it feels to be all out of change.”
Engadget
E-Paper Display In Tokyo Station. “Six A4 sheets of e-paper are on display for commuters in a snazzy transparent blue housing — allowing them to see how thin the e-paper is. The sheets of e-paper are being fed with the latest news stories via a wireless Internet connection and are updated with new content every five minutes.”
Gizmodo
Lenovo wins design awards for concept PCs. “The first award is “Best of the Best for Highest Design Quality,” and it was won by the company’s “Yoga” concept, which consists of a laptop with an LCD that can be twisted all the way around such that the notebook stands up like an a-frame. The other award for “High Design Quality” was won by their “Sundial” concept, involving a slimline all-in-one PC on a stick that has some kind of whacky 3D scroller interface.”
Engadget
Games website to educate parents. “It is a response to controversy over the type of content children may be exposed to in games. A recent survey found that parents often let children play games, even though they knew they were 18-rated. “
BBC NEWS
Watch HBO in Europe on Vodafone global Mobile TV. “Vodafone announces a global Mobile TV service enabling for instance Europeans to watch HBO on their 3G mobile phone. Hit series Sex and the City, Six Feet Under or Curb Your Enthusiasm will be available on Vodafone Live! globally.”
I4U News
New Scarf. “According to Nikkei, a group of researchers at Keio University has made a scarf that changes color to match that of the wearer’s clothing by using 100 optical fibers, light-emitting diodes and a color sensor.”
we make money not art
Tyco designer track for bored execs. “Showing how far executive toys have come from Newton’s swinging balls (what?), we bring you the $1,500 Designer Tyco Track for bored-rooms everywhere.”
Engadget
Fido’s First Cell Phone. “The ability to track a lost pet has most dog lovers excited. The PetCell has a “call owner” button in case Rover strays. It also includes assisted GPS, or A-GPS, which works indoors, allowing dog owners to map their pup’s coordinates from any web-enabled device or by dialing a voice-enabled call center.”
Wired News
Wikitravel. “Wikitravel is a project to create a free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide. So far we have 6150 destination guides and other articles written and edited by Wikitravellers from around the globe.”
Wikitravel
Maloo Laptop Cases. “Their first product descends from the Kimono laptop case, but replaces the material with 100% wool felt (pictured above). Called m-1, they’re like security blankets, using velcro to snugly envelop either Macs or 15″ Vaios. Unfolded, the m-1 makes a protective mat and a convenient mousepad, which (as nomadic computer-users know) beats awkwardly balancing on other sleeve-type cases.”
Cool Hunting
Do Not Forget doorhanger. “The Do Not Forget doorhanger, a lined notepad that hooks onto your your doorknob, reminds you of stuff you need on the way out the house or office.”
Lifehacker
Al-Qaeda probes enemy on Google Earth. “Amid all the kerfuffle of late regarding Google Earth and its possible threat to the national security of several jittery nations comes an interesting snippet from an email purporting to be from a US Marine who served in Iraq. In it, he suggests that al-Qaeda is using Google Earth as a intelligence tool in its fight against the US military.”
The Register
Shake it like a Polaroid cameraphone picture. “Images of a “Polaroid Camera Phone” have surfaced on Mobile Korea, and the device looks more like a “hey, wouldn’t this be cool?” type concept than anything, so we’re not expecting to be popping a SIM card into one anytime soon.”
Engadget
Mobile is the Key. “Auto-Txt have launched a new car security system, which uses your mobile a supplementary key. The car won’t start unless the owner’s mobile phone is also present – identified by Bluetooth. “
MobHappy
F.O.S.K. your PSP. “Requiring only two keystrokes to enter in any given character, this definitely looks like it could help out in bringing you that much closer to a dedicated attachable keyboard, minus the attachable part. Divided up into seven blocks, each block holds nine characters (3×3).”
PSP Fanboy
Plastic Active-Matrix SVGA flexible e-paper Display. “Plastic electronics developer Plastic Logic has developed the world’s largest flexible organic active matrix display. The display consists of a flexible, high resolution, printed active-matrix backplane driving an electronic paper frontplane from E Ink Corporation. The display will be publicly shown at the 12th International Displays Workshop in Takamatsu, Japan tomorrow. The displays are 10″ diagonal SVGA (600 by 800) with 100ppi resolution and 4 levels of greyscale. The thickness of the display when laminated with E Ink Imaging Film is less than 0.4mm.”
gizmag
Wikipedia Tightens the Reins. “Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows anyone to contribute articles, is tightening its rules for submitting entries following the disclosure that it ran a piece falsely implicating a man in the Kennedy assassinations. Wikipedia will now require users to register before they can create articles, Jimmy Wales, founder of the St. Petersburg, Florida-based website, said Monday.”
Wired News
RGBy, the One-Pixel Camera. “Shinya Matsuyama and Makoto Hirahara have designed a cube-shaped lamp that can sense color and then recreate that color. It is technically not a camera, but it is being described as a simple one-pixel camera anyway. “
Gizmodo
GAP – Global Attention Profiles. “The map above shows what countries CNN is paying the most attention to today. Countries in deep red are experiencing the most attention, yielding more than 3.2% of the stories detected by GAP scrapers. As the red fades and blues deepen, countries are experiencing less and less media attention.”
Harvard
Poll: Should I use my new blink card?. “There have been reports of problems in the testing of contactless RFID credit cards, however, that lead to additional security concerns. In some cases, if two or more terminals were close together, not only did both terminals read the card, but the read range of each terminal increased to as much as 30 feet (9 m). “
Engadget
Designer USB. “Essentially, if you’re going to have to use USB peripherals, you may as well make sure they’re not horrifically ugly right? That’s what Boynq thinks, and has brought out a nice selection of attractive designer gadgets in time for the holidays.”
Gizmodo
Girls Ambient Room. “data is gathered from different chat services, email & comment entries to their personal online journals. when the user (the Taiwan teenager) is in her room & receives a message on MSN chat, she hears audio signals that are in tune with one another, & sees bubble-like visual animations are created on the wall. Email traffic is represented by lines on the screen which start to animate & vibrate. the more email the more vigerous the animations.”
networked_performance
SenToy. “In this paper, we describe a way of controlling the emotional states of a synthetic character in a game (FantasyA) through a tangible interface named SenToy. SenToy is a doll with sensors in the arms, legs and body, allowing the user to influence the emotions of her character in the game. The user performs gestures and movements with SenToy, which are picked up by the sensors and interpreted according to a scheme found through an intial Wizard of Oz study. Different gestures are used to express each of the following emotions: anger, fear, happiness, surprise, sadness and gloating. Depending on the expressed emotion, the synthetic character in FantasyA will, in turn, perform different actions.”
networked_performance
Guncam offers accountability and understanding. “…weapon mounted camera records video in firefights, grants accountability, helps training and avoids risky body exposure of the user. One of the main problems in the use of firearms, in firefight incidents, is not knowing how they were used and how the missions were executed, which generates a problem in terms of accountability of actions. That is why it is fundamental for officers in command to easily retrieve as much accurate information as is available in order to analyze the events.”
gizmag
Snared in the Web of a Wikipedia Liar. “Mr. Seigenthaler recently read about himself on Wikipedia and was shocked to learn that he “was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John and his brother Bobby.” “Nothing was ever proven,” the biography added. Mr. Seigenthaler discovered that the false information had been on the site for several months and that an unknown number of people had read it, and possibly posted it on or linked it to other sites.”
New York Times
Ericsson, NRK launch interactive mobile TV. “Swedish telecoms supplier Ericsson and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) are conducting the world’s first live trial of interactive mobile TV. The trial demonstrates a way of using mobile TV which allows mobile phone users to vote, chat and communicate with a television presenter while watching a TV show simultaneously on their handsets. “
Digital Media Europe
The Rheo Knee from MIT adjusts and learns on the go. “Hugh Herr, a researcher at MIT, has developed a computer controlled artificial knee that learns your walking style over time and can adapt to short term terrain changes. It’s called the “Rheo Knee,” and the prosthetic works to provide resistance and walking control by stiffening and relaxing a magnetic fluid in the joint.”
Engadget
Wired’s page count as Nasdaq tracker. “You’ll note that the Nasdaq (red) lags Wired’s page count (blue) by a few months. I’m not suggesting you go an buy technology shares, but gee, I’m thinking the reports of money pumping back into technology companies might just be true given the big up-tick in this months page count (294).”
Boing Boing
Philips’ Q-CPR talking defibrillator. “The device keeps track of the patient’s vitals, displaying the stats on a large screen, and offering up out loud suggestions for better chest thumping action. Luckily it keeps quiet if you’re on track, and though it isn’t designed for a first timer, it should be quite the aid to paramedics who often become distracted with other CPR duties, neglecting the stopped-up ticker that brought them there in the first place.”
Engadget
WirePlus Broadband uses phone lines to extend WiFi range. “Florida-based SercoNet has developed a system it calls WirePlus Broadband, which recruits your phone lines to act as super-antennas, carrying your signal from one access point to the next. It may sound like the powerline-based HomePlug, but SercoNet insists the technology is completely different. “It is strictly RF, physical layer,” the company’s Mike Harnack told WiFi Planet. “It’s like an extension of the antenna… the copper is the medium that the shifted signal flies on.”
Engadget
Search Terms Are a Witness for the Prosecution. “Petrick used Google to search the Internet for references to “body decomposition,” “rigor mortis,” “neck” and “break” in the days before and after he murdered his wife, Janine Sutphen, then dumped her body in a lake, said Durham County assistant prosecutor Mitchell Garrell. By “Googling” his wife’s murder, Petrick was inadvertently supporting the prosecutor’s time line of events. For instance, the jury learned that Petrick searched for and downloaded a topical map of a lake bed in the days before he dumped the woman’s remains in the same body of water. “
EWeek
Printing a Book with CSS: Boom!. “Can CSS be used for serious print jobs? To find out, we decided to take the ultimate challenge: to produce the next edition of our book directly from HTML and CSS files. In this article we sketch our solution and quote from the style sheet used. Towards the end we describe the book microformat (boom!) we developed in the process.”
A List Apart
Weather Underground and Google Maps. “Weather Underground has a neat use of Google Maps. They’ve got maps that show where their stations are and by clicking on them you can get all kinds of weather information about that local area.”
Lifehacker
Get out of your cellphone contract by “sub-leasing”. “A company called CellTradeUSA thinks they have the solution to this problem, in the form of a website where people post their remaining contract obligations to be “leased” by someone else (they will also begin offering advertiser-sponsored contests wherein they will buyout your contract for you). Usually the person pawning off the contract will throw in a free phone as well as some accessories to sweeten the deal, although most carriers require a credit check before this type of switch is allowed, so not all bidders will end up being eligible.”
Engadget
Pretty up del.icio.us with Delancey. “Delancey is an online bookmark manager that enhances the popular del.icio.us social bookmarking application. Delancey keeps track of how frequently you click on each of your bookmarks and presents them to you in order. The interface is nice, and content load-times (after an initial cache of your bookmarks) are decent. Also, sorting bookmarks by popularity is a cool idea. If you’re one of those people who loves del.icio.us but hates the way it looks, try making it all purdy with Delancey.”
Lifehacker
Edit photos online with PXN8. “PXN8 is a free online image-editor. And while we’ve mentioned online image-editing tools before, PXN8 has a lot to offer. Along with a slew of nice editing features, PXN8 also integrates with Flickr, allowing you to edit your Flickr photos with the click of a bookmarklet, then save the edits back in Flickr.
For the Flickr-addicted, PXN8 gives you the opportunity to tweak your photos anytime you’re bored and at a browser.”
Lifehacker
TuneBooks™ Digital Liner Notes and Interactive Booklets. “TuneBooks provide the visual content fans crave by bundling online albums with a collection of unique and innovative media highlighting the band and their visual sensibility. TuneBooks combines traditional visual elements – liner notes, cover art and band collateral – with custom-designed interactive art and media to create a new visual experience. And each TuneBook integrates artist discography and label catalog browsing, creating a natural means for fans to sample, explore, and buy new music.”
TuneBooks
ZoomInfo people search. “Directory and search engine ZoomInfo aggregates information about individuals for companies to research potential job candidates. ZoomInfo’s information listings on people, culled from the Web, are not particularly mind-blowing. However, you can “claim your name” and create a personal profile with info you want to share. ZoomInfo publishes your page for other search engines to find as well as potential employers.”
Lifehacker
Virtual Air Guitar. “Using a computer to monitor the hand movements of a “player”, the system adds riffs and licks to match frantic mid-air finger work. By responding instantly to a wide variety of gestures it promises to turn even the least musically gifted air guitarist to a virtual fret board virtuoso.”
networked_performance
lipii Beam Station turns mobile phone into mouse. “For 1,980 yen (about $16), you can pick up their “lipii Beam Station,” a small USB device that accepts infrared signals from your mobile phone. Using a special iAppli on the phone, which is currently supported by pretty much all FOMA handsets, you’re able to control various functions of your PC by using only the phone’s keypad.”
Engadget
Energy diary helps correct bad habits. “BY OFFERING consumers instant feedback on the amount of energy they are using, a system trialled in Japan is helping people cut their fuel bills and carbon emissions. The Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry in Tokyo set up monitors in 10 houses in Kyoto and Osaka to gauge electric power use and check on room temperature every 30 minutes. Residents were able to monitor their overall consumption of electricity, gas and in some cases kerosene for heaters, via a linked PC. The computer also displayed the power consumption of individual appliances.
“We wanted to see if the installation of such a system would have an influence on the energy saving awareness of the householders,” says Ueno Tsuyoshi, who led the project. And as they had hoped, residents quickly became accustomed to checking on their consumption and regulating their energy use accordingly. “
New Scientist
The MySpace Generation. “Although networks are still in their infancy, experts think they’re already creating new forms of social behavior that blur the distinctions between online and real-world interactions. In fact, today’s young generation largely ignores the difference. Most adults see the Web as a supplement to their daily lives. They tap into information, buy books or send flowers, exchange apartments, or link up with others who share passions for dogs, say, or opera. But for the most part, their social lives remain rooted in the traditional phone call and face-to-face interaction. The MySpace generation, by contrast, lives comfortably in both worlds at once. Increasingly, America’s middle- and upper-class youth use social networks as virtual community centers, a place to go and sit for a while (sometimes hours). While older folks come and go for a task, Adams and her social circle are just as likely to socialize online as off. This is partly a function of how much more comfortable young people are on the Web: Fully 87% of 12- to 17-year-olds use the Internet, vs. two-thirds of adults, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.”
Business Week
Access and sync your data from anywhere. “But for consumers who open their laptop on the road only to find that a critical file is back at home – or who are frustrated by having different sets of contacts and browser bookmarks on every computer they use – there are some simple alternatives. They take somewhat different approaches to the job, but all use the Internet to some degree, and are best put to use with a high-speed connection.”
Lifehacker
NEC introduces “PC Parafield” hard disk-less notebook. “NEC has announced what they claim is the world’s first commercial hard drive-less laptop, the 12.1-inch (1024 x 768), 1.73 GHz “PC Parafield.” Targeted almost exclusively at corporate customers, the Parafield aims to combine the security of network-dependant thin-client systems with the flexibility of regular notebooks by including 3GB of flash ROM for Windows XP Pro and application storage along with 512MB of RAM. This 2.8-pound road warrior’s delight can be had immediately (in Japan, that is) for $3742.”
Engadget
Flying Cars Can’t Be Far Behind. “Austrian scientists have created the world’s first quantum byte! Yes, you read right. The byte, which is comprised of 8 calcium ions, is said to be a first step to creating the elusive quantum computer, a sort of holy grail in computing. These quantum computers are supposed to solve a litany of computer problems in addition to being, you know, really fast. (They’re quantum!) “
Gizmodo
E-Paper Bendie Watch From Seiko. “The braclet-wristwatch features a thin, bendable e-paper trimmed in stainless steel which makes it a high-tech accessory without the geeky look. A black-and-white pattern of stripes on the watch changes every hour.””
Gizmodo
Cuckoo IP. “Cuckoo IP is a voice messaging system. The clock’s answer phone can be dialled from mobile or landline. Leave a voice message, select a time for the delivery of it. At that time, the cuckoo will emerge from the clock and broadcast your message. “
we make money not art
Neon Racer. “Neon Racer is a multi-user Augmented Reality racing game on an AR tabletop setting. The game displays only the players’ racing vehicles and the checkpoints. The active setting for the game is provided by the physical world, and all its parts can influence gameplay. Physical objects act as collision obstacles and influence the course of the race itself. Participants have to interact with both the virtual and real objects to succeed.”
we make money not art
BBC study reveals the facts about gamers. “Most people play games. (59% of 6-65 year olds). All kids play games. (100% of 6-10 year olds). The average age of all gamers is 28. Older gamers outnumber non-gamers. (51% of 31-50 year olds play games.). Gender gap? What gender gap? (48% of gamers are female.). Consoles pwn PCs. (21.4 million console gamers versus 19.9m PC gamers.). People actually play interactive TV games. (8.1 million of them.). Puzzles and quizzes are the most popular game type. (63% of gamers love them.) “
Joystiq
Power-aware devices. “The Interactive Institute has unveiled new STATIC! prototypes that explore how everyday products might be designed to better express – and stimulate reflection on – energy use. Power-Aware Cord displays the energy consumption of the appliances that are connected to it. The blue light in the cord displays the intensity relative to the watts. In a primary stage, the cord can be used as an experimental tool to examine household products and in the long run it turns into an ambient display of everyday energy consumption. The cord has been patentent and they are now looking to take it into production.”
we make money not art
Hooked on the Web: Help Is on the Way. “The patients, including Mike, 34, are what Dr. Cash and other mental health professionals call onlineaholics. They even have a diagnosis: Internet addiction disorder. These specialists estimate that 6 percent to 10 percent of the approximately 189 million Internet users in this country have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction, and they are rushing to treat it. Yet some in the field remain skeptical that heavy use of the Internet qualifies as a legitimate addiction, and one academic expert called it a fad illness. “
New York Times
What’s the Buzz? Rowdy Teenagers Don’t Want to Hear It. “The device, called the Mosquito (“It’s small and annoying,” Mr. Stapleton said), emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that, he says, can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away. “
New York Times
Nokia defines The Mobile Web. ”
Nokia’s new browser sets a high bar for the mobile web with an astonishingly smart use of the zoom and fish eye UIs. These screenshots demonstrate what Nokia accomplished through cooperation with Apple and using WebCore and JavascriptCore components which form the basis of Apple’s Safari browser. First here’s the zoom UI example.”
mobile jones
Loc8tor lojacks your life. “Lost your keys or wallet again? Tag them to work with the Loc8tor, and the radar-like device will track them down in no time, within a 500-foot range. Tags can even be attached to children and pets, in case you’re too lazy to give a yell or check their known hiding places. “
Engadget
BookCrossing. “Morgwn emailed in to tell us about a community service that lets folk swap books. Once you’ve read the book version of the film Jarhead, for example, simply tell the site where you’re going to leave it. Then another user looking for the war-story book can search the site and find that it’s available on a bench or in an office on Broadway, NYC. BookCrossing has 422,443 members since it launched in 2001.”
PSFK
Cyclops cam can distinguish between humans and blow-up dolls. “In an effort to thwart drivers from using mannequins and blow-up dolls to pay cheaper fares when crossing the UK’s Forth Road Bridge, officials are testing a new system that can detect the number of passengers in a car from up to 160-feet away. The Cyclops is based on technology developed at Loughborough University, and employs the fact that human skin contains a unique and measurable amount of water. In field tests the infrared Cyclops camera was able to measure vehicle occupancy with 95% accuracy, compared to 65% for human observers.”
Engadget
Better visual working memory stems from ignoring stuff. “People who have better “visual working memory” (correlated with performing well on many cognitive tests) aren’t better at remembering things — they’re better at ignoring unimportant things. Researchers at the University of Oregon used new brain-measurement techniques to determine that high scorers for visual working memory tests aren’t cramming more material into their brains, but rather are ignoring lots of items.”
Boing Boing
The 360 degree LED television. “The first time you see one of the screens you’ll understand what the fuss is about – the quality, colour, contrast and definition is extraordinary and the screen is absolutely huge – the third generation of the new LED screens is being introduced at present with the largest being a 2.5 metre high, 5.46 metre circumference screen and capable of being viewed clearly from 30 metres away. Interestingly, the screens can actually display one image around the full 360 degrees, so it would be possible to use them as output for a 360 degree camera.”
gizmag
Connecting New Orleans. “To help get everyone communicating again, the ravaged city is starting up the country’s first municipally-owned wireless Internet system that will, thankfully, be free for everyone. Obviously a great perk for those living and trying to come back to their homes in the city, the hope is that this system will make business more attractive and, of course, help city government officials.”
Gizmodo
Cars to predict their own breakdown. “The researchers’ test car sat on top of an automatic shaker that simulates the bumps and jolts of a car ride. They attached sensors that measure vibrations to the bottom of the car’s strut, steering knuckle-control arm connection, and at other places within the suspension. Then they introduced “damage” into the system by loosening a bolt that connects the steering knuckle to the control arm. The vibration data was analysed by a software that identified the damage and quantified it. The vibrations are almost like human heartbeats, in that a specialist can detect what sounds healthy or not. Any change can be used to determine which part is not working properly, as well as revealing the extent of the damage. In two to three years, Adams believes the technology could be integrated into a car’s design.”
we make money not art
The Cyberhand bionic hand feels and flexes. “The bionic hand not only has individually functioning digits, including an opposing thumb for the multitude of actions that require one, but those fingers should be able to feel, yet still only take a relatively small number of nerves to control. It works in much the same way as a real hand; by using synthetic tendons that run through each finger, the artificial hand only needs 6 motors to control motion. So far they’ve created a touch sensitive prototype, and now it looks like their next task is to attach the hand and fire it up. Though what’s really got us excited is the wireless communication between the nerve endings and the hand, opening up a whole realm of possibilities for hot-swapping arm attachments.”
Engadget
Hitachi Vein-Recognition Laptop. “The FLORA Se210 Finger Vein-Recognition Internal Equipment model, a recent addition to its notebook line, features a security measure that recognizes the specific veins in somebody’s finger. This, they believe, is harder to falsify than a thumbprint. Using a finger vein recognition pattern to verify the owner’s ID, the pattern is read by an LED sensor that diffuses light through the veins of the user’s finger. The user’s vein pattern is stored on a “KeyMobile’ USB key—in order to verify that person’s ID, the vein pattern on the USB key must match what is being read in the sensor.”
Gizmodo
Company Takes Internet Address Names Beyond Dot-Com. “Technology provider UnifiedRoot, based in Amsterdam, has begun leasing Internet addresses that can end in any word, rather than in .com, .org, .net or other top-level domains.
For instance, Brinks Home Security could replace its collection of different Web addresses with just one: home.brinks, according to an example the company cites on its Web site. “
EWeek
Man gets 5,000 channels on 12 dishes. “Al Jessup of Beckley, West Virginia, has 12 cheap satellite dishes stuck to his house, which pull in over 5,000 free-to-air channels from satellites all over the sky. He is retired, and delights in odd and foreign programming. Because the programming is free, it changes regularly, he noted. Sometimes, a program he likes will disappear and something he dislikes will be put in its place, or vice versa. For example, he once had three ABC stations from Wyoming only to have it reduced to one. “
Boing Boing
Walking from Thoughts: Not the Muscles Are Crucial, but the Brain Waves!. “Researchers from Graz University of Technology in Austria, University College of London in England, Guger Technologies OEG in Austria and the University of Graz in Austria have expanded the amount of control available via external electrodes with a means of detecting changes in brain signals when users imagine moving their feet and translating the effect into walking motion within a virtual reality environment.”
networked_performance
? Spray-on computers. “Last week, the Discovery Channel gave us an update on this project of the Speckled Computing consortium, a collaboration between researchers from several universities in the U.K. They are building the Specknet, a network of small computers (5 x 5 x 5 mm), which also contain sensors and can communicate wirelessly with the other specks. But it will probably take ten years before such dynamic sensors can be used in real applications, like detecting structural failures in aircraft wings or helping victims from strokes.”
ZDNet.com
Young ‘prefer illegal song swaps’. “Jupiter analyst Mark Mulligan said: “The digital youth of today are being brought up on a near limitless diet of free and disposable music from file-sharing networks.
“When these consumers age and increase spending power they should become key music buying consumers. He added: “Unless the music industry can transition these consumers whilst they are young away from free consumption to paid music formats, be they digital or CDs, they may never develop music purchasing behaviour and the recording industry could suffer long-term harm.” “
BBC NEWS
Tags Sort Out Music Mess. “Tags that are complete and well-organized make it possible to find the perfect song to fit the mood of your intimate dinner party or Dionysian rager. Anything short of that and your guests will long have departed by the time you’ve located the tune. Soon enough, my hobby as a music collector morphed into one of a librarian. Fixing faulty tags requires what’s known as a tag editor. One of my favorites is MP3 Tag Studio, a free program with many powerful features. The application allows you to select an unlimited number of MP3 files and manipulate them in any number of ways.”
Wired News
Wishyouwerehere.com: Blogs From the Road. “”My friends and family would write e-mails back commenting on my adventures,” said Mr. Watters, who was interviewed by e-mail from an Internet cafe in Koh Samui, Thailand. “Like two-way electronic postcards, but with as many images as I could post and no limit on the amount of words – plus no two-week wait.” That was the beginning of TravelBlog.org, a site that is host to travel journals, allows users to post text and photos and even offers maps that show where users are writing from and where they have been. TravelBlog is one of numerous sites that offer – many at no charge – travelers the ability to share a journal of their journeys and allows readers to leave comments.
“
New York Times
Washington Post asks readers to remix it. “The Washington Post has created a blog for highlighting mash-ups of Post content. Current remixes include: a news keyword cloud viewer, a world map interface to Post stories, and a dynamic news quiz. Although a bit skimpy on implementation details (or implementations, for that matter), the idea’s surprisingly hip.”
Boing Boing
Foolproof iris recognition technology?. “For almost twenty years, the iris recognition research field has been hampered because of a broad patent covering it. As this patent recently expired, many teams around the world are again working on new technologies in this field. Iris recognition is in fact seen as the most accurate biometric recognition technology because no two irises are identical. And researchers at the University of Bath in England have developed new computer algorithms which are 100 per cent accurate in initial trials. Now the researchers are putting online a database of 16,000 iris images collected mainly from students. The source code is also available if you want to further improve the algorithms. Read more for other details and references.”
Primidi
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