Archive for October, 2007
Team Nice: Do a Good Deed and Get Rewarded
“Imagine if every time you did something kind, somebody took notice and rewarded you for it. Would that compel you to perform more good deeds? Maybe be a nicer person all together? Londoner Liz Akers is optimistic that it might – and has set up a system to find out. Akers has started a “benevolence movement” in her city through a simple good deeds and rewards system: see a stranger do a kind thing and hand him a “niceties token” with a URL on it where he can register himself and his good deed. Everyone who receives a token and signs up becomes a member of Team Nice, a group of – you guessed it – really nice people.”
PSFK
Please ignore the start-up stealing the OS from Microsoft
“With Splashtop, you hit the power button and gain almost immediate access to things such as browser (Firefox), VoIP software (Skype), DVD player, music and photos. The applications for this type of software stretch across a wide range of consumers. You can see someone checking their web mail via Splashtop, firing up a movie on a plane or dumping their latest set of photos onto a machine without wanting to bother with the tortuous Windows boot experience and its associated power suck. (And, of course, Mac and Linux users can benefit as well, although they’re less plagued than Camp Bill.)”
The Register
Adobe develops 3D camera technology, dubs it computational photography
“At a recent event in France, Adobe showcased a prototype 3D lens that could essentially capture a scene from 19 slightly different angles simultaneously, giving photographers a lot more to work with when they return home for post-processing. Essentially, the firm boasted that by using this lens along with software designed to understand the 3D nature of the image, individuals could utilize newfangled tools such as a “3D healing brush” and make perspective shifts based on the different viewpoints originally captured.”
Engadget
Chi Lin Technology successfully develops 20-inch high-end medical monitor
“Benefiting from LCD panel support from Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO), Chi Lin Technology, an affiliate of the Chi Mei Group, has successfully developed an high-end 5-megapixel resolution medical monitor and expects shipments of the product to reach over a thousand units each month in 2008. The newly developed 20-inch monitor, which has a resolution of 2048×2560, targets mostly the medical center niche market and has a projected price ranging from NT$700,000-800,000 (US$21,500-24,600).”
DigiTimes
Via’s vm7700 bolt-on VESA PC: the modern Prometheus
“VIA’s VESA mounted vm7700 PC in fact, which converts any standard VESA display into a make-shift all-in-one PC. Completely fanless, the PC sports your choice of VIA C7 1GHz or Eden ULV 1.5GHz processors, up to 1GB of memory, optional 802.11b/g WiFi, and choice of standard 2.5-inch SATA disk or DOM (Disk on Module) supporting Linux or WinXP/XPe pre-loads.”
Engadget
Remote Control: Hitachi’s Concept Remote Looks Minimalistic, Comes in Leopard Print
“The main focus of this one, like the other one, is the gigantic trackball in the middle, with the “back” button being the only other button on the device. The concept puts most of the power in the UI, instead of the controller, and probably won’t work very well for no-look volume and channel changing while eating”
Gizmodo
Weaving Batteries into Clothes
“A novel machine that makes nanostructured fibers could be the key to a new generation of military uniforms that take on active functions such as generating and storing energy. [...] Among the machine’s many potential uses is assembling fibers that act as rechargeable batteries. Angela Belcher, a professor of biological and chemical engineering at MIT, says that some of the sample structures the device has made could be useful for combining positive and negative battery electrodes and electrolytes into individual threads. Such threads could be woven into uniforms and paired with threads that act as fuel cells or photovoltaics. “
Technology Review
The Mall + FaceBook? Try that on!
“In-store experience: A paneled interactive mirror provides on the spot feedback and ambient aura animation while beaming the experience across the Websphere via live video feed. The interaction: At kiosks, teens can make buying decisions together, see what others have purchased, as well as purchase items that are not in stock in the store. The technology in the store also explores the concept of user generated content. Via live video feed, customers can see what others are trying on and give them feedback. “
IconNicholson
Clips: Total Immersion D’Fusion, Realtime Dynamic 3D Awesomeness
“this semi-new D’Fusion software from Total Immersion takes graphical video layovers to the next level—meaning that 3D graphics can be manipulated in real space…and like we said in the headline, real time. This is some crazy cool stuff.”
Gizmodo
Displays: Trigon Pyramid Touchscreen, Display Threesome
“Apparently this ultrasonic three-sided display requires very little processing power to operate, and is currently showing its technological prowess by running three interactive quizzes at once (though we’re not sure the necessary processing power should the quizzes be from, say, Cosmo). We personally love the idea for airport terminals where a two-sided kiosk could efficiently handle an extra customer.”
Gizmodo
Real Hope in a Virtual World
“After suffering a devastating stroke four years ago, Susan Brown was left in a wheelchair with little hope of walking again. Today, the 57-year-old Richmond woman has regained use of her legs and has begun to reclaim her life, thanks in part to encouragement she says she gets from an online “virtual world” where she can walk, run and even dance. Roberto Salvatierra, long imprisoned in his home by his terror over going outdoors, has started venturing outside more after gaining confidence by first tentatively exploring the three-dimensional, interactive world on the Internet. The virtual worlds of Second Life are helping people with diseases and disabilities live better lives through the creation of online alter egos. John Dawley III, who has a form of autism that makes it hard to read social cues, learned how to talk with people more easily by using his computer-generated alter ego to practice with other cyber-personas.”
washingtonpost.com
Air Joystick: Sensoring Converts Hand into Magic Wiimote Measuring the Body’s Electric Charge
“In this video, the user waves his hand in the air—without any kind of motion detection markers or cameras—to fly a 3D helicopter on the screen a la Luke Skywalker. The sensor measures the distance and angle of the hand’s electric field, capturing the motion and sending it to the computer.”
Gizmodo
Electricity-Generating Paint
“The material is literally sprayed on to any surface that is hot, and it absorbs the heat, converting a percentage of it to electricity. As long as there is a difference in temperature between the stuff it’s touching and the air around it, it will generate power. The most obvious applications, of course, are the inner workings of powerplants and heating pipes. But there’s a lot of heat energy lost in a lot of places, so applications could abound (think about your laptop, for example.)”
EcoGeek
A plastic as solid as steel
“Interestingly, this 300-layer plastic has been built with ‘strong’ nanosheets of clay and a ‘fragile’ polymer called polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), commonly used in paints and glue, which acts as ‘Velcro’ to envelop the nanoparticles. This new plastic could soon be used to design light but strong armors for soldiers or police officers. The researchers also think this material could be used in biomedical sensors and unmanned aircraft.”
Primidi
Forget municipal Wi-Fi, welcome to Zigbee City
“Utility company Göteborg Energi AB has selected NURI Telecom to provide Zigbee-enabled electricity meters to every home in the Swedish city of Gothenburg. The meters will then link themselves together to allow remote meter reading without infrastructure costs. The self-forming mesh network won’t actually be a single network, but will automatically route data to various kerb-side concentrators which then use GPRS, or cable technologies if available, to send the data back to the office.”
The Register
Design Concept: Art.Lebedev Shows Pultius, the Crazy Zillion-Button Remote
“Named Pultius, this 20-inch-long clicker solves a problem of designing “a remote control with as many buttons as there are channels on TV.” We weren’t aware that was an actual problem, but if such a solution were actually needed, this is about the most beautiful way to accomplish that we can imagine”
Gizmodo
Scalar: Teleglass T4-N Video Glasses Designed with Normal People in Mind
“If you are looking for a wearable monitor but don’t want to look like a myopic cyborg (those of you who already do, please accept my deepest sympathies) then you could do worse than Teleglass’s limited edition T4-N video glasses. Its titanium frames were designed by spectacle designer Kazuo Kawasaki and the rig, which is iPod-compatible, weighs just 30 grams.”
Gizmodo
Rohm’s miniscule OLED shown at CEATEC
“According to a company spokesperson, the 320 x 240 resolution display measures around four- by three-millimeters, is “embedded in a prototype chip and is designed for use in a video-camera viewfinder.” Notably, the unit actually requires humans to view it under a microscope in order for it to be clearly seen, and although nothing was said about a commercialization date, it was suggested that Rohm is already working up a similar version with twice the pixels.”
Engadget
IBM visualization software uses 3D avatar to display human health records
“The Anatomic and Symbolic Mapper Engine (ASME) provides an interactive 3D model of the human body that displays health information at a glance so doctors can visualize the medical histories of their patients and thereby improve care. With a click of the mouse a doctor can view a particular part of the avatar “body” to trigger a search of medical records and retrieve relevant information.”
gizmag Article
Bendable Plasma Tube based Display by Shinoda Plasma
“The new bendable display is made of plasma tubes between film-form electrodes. A plasma tube is a glass tube 1mm in diameter that seals discharge gas and RGB fluorescent materials inside.
The current prototype screen is about the size of a 43 inch screen.
The screen is only 1mm thick and very light. One of the advantages is that the Plasma Tube display material can be seamlessly put together. “
I4U News
Pick a pattern, not a PIN
“Users create a simple pattern by choosing a set number of squares on a grid, in a shape of their choice — such as an ‘L’ or a ‘tick’. Because the grid is then filled with random numbers at authentication time, new ‘PIN’ or pass codes are created each time. Best of all, GrIDsure can work without the need for extra hardware such as tokens, generating one-time codes that are more secure and resilient to spyware threats.”
Guardian Unlimited
Euri’s multimedia ring box — for nerds who want wives
“This ring holder sports a two-inch LCD internally, along with a clock, calender and alarm, and is available in a number of hues. There’s even an unspecified amount of internal storage included, and you can upload your favorite pre-engagement photos via USB and have them displayed on the big day.”
Engadget
Making Your Phone Smarter
“When a customer downloads a Skyward Mobile application, what she’s actually downloading is a thin client layer–the file is 60 kilobytes for a java-enabled phone–which compensates for a few of the issues on the device but, most important, forms a real-time link to the company’s server. The intelligent server communicates with the client while the application runs, compensating for the rest of the device’s issues. The server might compensate for ongoing issues, such as providing information on how to play video on a device that doesn’t have a built-in system, or it might adjust for dynamic issues, such as fluctuations in available bandwidth.”
Technology Review
The Entitlement Generation
“The Boston Globe writes about yet another term which has been invented to describe today’s generation. The key characteristic of “the entitlement generation” is a commanding sense of entitlement. Apparently, a study conducted by Twenge found that 24 percent of college students in 2006 showed elevated levels of narcissism compared to 15 percent in the 90’s.”
PSFK
Prototype mobile showcases e-ink keypad
“The benefits are pretty obvious — different keypad configurations can be shown in different phone modes, a tactic that’s been explored before — but unlike phones that use OLED or LCD displays, e-ink only requires power when it’s being changed, so you get the combined benefit of configurable keys while consuming virtually no additional energy over a standard layout. Combine the concept with physical ridges between keys and we figure this could be a pretty killer setup since you wouldn’t be losing tactile feedback, either.”
Engadget
Hitachi’s new CP-A100J short-throw LCD projector
“The new CP-A100J doesn’t really have mind blowing specs (XGA resolution, 2500cd/m2 brightness, and VGA, S-Video, component, and composite ins), but the fact that it can throw up a 48-inch picture standing just 0.5cm back from the wall, and a 200-inch picture from 3-feet 9-inches back certainly isn’t anything to snub your nose at”
Engadget
SMS smoke signals
“Avant-garde architecture and design group Minimaforms created a system to project SMS messages on plumes of smoke. Installed in two Bristol locations last month for the OFFLOAD festival in Bristol, UK, the “ephemeral speaking cloud structures” meld smoke signals with text messaging. The result, as least judging by photos posted to the Creative Review blog, is a stunningly surreal wordscape.”
Boing Boing
CEATEC2007: DocoMo Shows off a Halitosis- and Fat-Detecting Concept Cell
“A concept that DoCoMo has been only too happy to show off at CEATEC this week, the cell measures how bad your breath is on a scale of 1 to 10 — zero presumably means you’re dead — and how overweight you are. There are other health-related features as well, such as a calorie counter and pedometer.”
Gizmodo
Toshiba demonstrates hand motion controls at CEATEC
“Just as expected, Toshiba is busy wowing onlookers at CEATEC with new applications that run on the firm’s SpursEngine chip, including one that enables couch potatoes to “control a DVD player with hand motions.” The chip is reportedly able to “process motion detected by a camera and turn it into commands,” and the camera can “recognize hand motions from 10 feet away.”
Engadget
Phones: Priestman Goode Post a Phone Landline Ringer Is Flatter Than 10-Year-Old Coke
“UK industrial designers Priestman Goode breathed new life into using landlines (so 20th century) by stripping a phone down to its bare essentials—literally. The Post a Phone is 4mm thick, fashioned from either recyclable cardboard or plastic, pops out of an A5 envelope and is ready to be jacked in. The design and product’s definitely solid, but the marketing drivel about it being a “wireless phone backup” strikes us as a little wonky, at least the way it’s phrased in the press release”
Gizmodo
Virtual Travel: Indian Guy Sells Flights in Plane that Never Takes off
“An Indian entrepreneur has come up with the ultimate low-cost airline: one that doesn’t fly anywhere. Bahadur Chand Gupta, a retired Indian Airlines engineer, bought an old Airbus 300 from an insurance company in 2003, rebuilt it, and it now sits in a Delhi suburb where people pay $4 per “trip” so they can experience what it must be like to fly.”
Gizmodo
Purdue’s carbon nanotubes could trump heat sinks
“engineers have purportedly figured out how to “grow forests of carbon nanotubes onto the surfaces of computer chips to enhance the flow of heat at a critical point where the chips connect to heat sinks.” The nanotubes have outperformed “conventional thermal interface materials” in testing, and being that they don’t require “elaborate clean-room environments” to produce, manufacturing them should prove much cheaper to boot.”
Engadget
World’s most boring TV show to measure energy use
“TV broadcasters and manufacturers edited together a mix of different genres spanning soap operas, nature programs and sports, and assessed the proportion of broadcasting for each type of genre in the world, it said. This is because the power needed by a television for the images varies according to the type of program broadcast. But the 10-minute program is an incoherent compilation and lacks drama. It can be compared with the test patterns or test cards that used to be broadcast to allow viewers to tune their sets, IEC spokesman Dennis Brougham said.”
Reuters.com
Power Breakthrough: Betavoltaic Battery Could Power Your Laptop for Thirty Years
“Made from semiconductor materials, the betavoltaic battery uses radioisotopes as its energy source. The beta particles that come from the decaying radioactive material are transformed into electric power that can power devices, such as a laptop, for up to three decades. Before you all run for the tinfoil, the batteries don’t use fission or fusion, nor are there any chemical processes to produce energy, which means no radioactive or hazardous waste.”
Gizmodo
CEATEC2007: Mitsubishi to Give you Public Transport Information, Real Excuses to Arrive Late to Work
“Mitsubishi is developing a system that will automatically download real-time information about train and subway delays as well as estimated time of arrival whenever you wave your cellphone in front of it. Apparently, this system—which will be installed by the train car doors—is also capable of uploading a “delay certificate” to the phone. Then you will be able show it at work when you arrive late, instead of just saying that your grandfather died again, as usual.”
Gizmodo
New Fingerprint Tech Could Mean Never Losing Your Keys Again
“University of Warwick researchers have unveiled a new fingerprint recognition technology, which allows them to “unwarp” distorted prints. The technology could prove especially important in mass-market biometric access systems, which have remained elusive because of small but significant rates of false positives and negatives. “
Wired
Gibson’s Self-Tuning Guitar
“As the strings are played, the Powertune processor compares their actual frequencies with the desired notes and sends instructions–tighten the string this much, loosen the string by that much–to tuning pegs equipped with strong, tiny servo motors mounted on the back of the guitar’s head. Because onstage interference could potentially degrade a wireless signal, the system uses the strings themselves to send the signal.”
Technology Review
mobility infographics installation
“an interactive installation consisting of 3 touch-sensitive screens controlling a large wall-mounted display, showing several interactive data visualisations of “automobility”. the “mobiglobe” visualizations show in encyclopaedic breadth topics that define contemporary mobility.”
information aesthetics
Radiohead lets fans pick price for new album
“They’re only selling it through their website (at least for now), and for the digital download version, they’re letting listeners pick their own price for the album – it’s literally a donation-based product.”
Boing Boing
Taylor & Wood – Frames
“Artists Taylor and Wood, designed Frames. It’s a completely interactive wallpaper – you decide what you want it to be – whether you want to put up your youngsters art, paint directly in to a frame, or put up family photos – it’s up to you!”
Graham & Brown
Self-powered nanowires
“researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have shown that a single nanowire can produce power by harvesting mechanical energy from its environment. ‘Made of piezoelectric material, the nanowire generates a voltage when mechanically deformed.’ But don’t think that this nanowire, made of an oxide of barium and titanium, and measuring approximately 280 nanometers in diameter and 15 microns long, will be able to power anything more than a nanoscale sensor. It was able to generate an electrical energy of about 0.3 attojoules — less than one quintillionth of a joule or about 2.8E-25 kilowatt-hour.”
Primidi
Mowgli the amazing Robot Frog
“Mowgli can jump about 50cm in the air and land for instance on an office chair. Looks like the Japanese robot researchers are looking for new challenges now that walking is solved. I still remember seeing the early bipedal robot projects about 20 years ago on TV. Mowgli is also still early stage, but in a couple of years we might be seeing robots jumping around. “
I4U News
