Archive for December, 2007
Wireless: Scientists Serve Up Bluetooth Replacement in the Form of Inkjet-Printed Plastic Sheets
“Scientists at the University of Tokyo have developed a new 1mm thick plastic sheet inkjet-printed with various nanoparticles and insulating and semiconducting polymers that enables electronic devices placed on it to communicate with one another. A technology like this would have advantages over other means of short-range wireless communication (like Bluetooth) because it is inherently more secure and power efficient.”
Gizmodo
ITRI showcases a 10.4-inch flexible color LCD
“The display is being developed by Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), and features two plastic substrate elements instead of a traditional glass one. ITRI says the display can reproduce 57 percent of the NTSC color gamut, but there’s no word on when we might ever see these in production”
Engadget
Green Tech: Green Plug Is Promiscuous and Energy Efficient Like a Lady of the Night
“Green plug hubs—which can have multiple gadgets jacked into it—have a microcontroller chip that chats up devices with the green talk protocol to intelligently deliver juice so none’s wasted. It turns off gear that’s good to go and supposedly does AC to DC power version like a Russian chess prodigy. Supposedly we’ll see some green plug-compliant gear at CES, so you can be sure we’ll check it out.”
Gizmodo
O’Neill’s GPS NavJacket with integrated display and audio
“The GPS equipped jacket from O’Neill is the result of a partnership with MyGuide. The Gore-Tex jacket features integrated audio in the hood and a display in the sleeve which shows your speed, updated weather forecasts, and time and distance to après-ski. A “friend finder” function helps track your new “friends” long after the slobbering begins.”
Engadget
You Won’t Find Me in My Office, I’m Working
“Mr. Judkins spends his day moving around the agency’s offices, which are in a converted elementary school. The former gym, now filled with couches and tables, is a good place for creative thought, he said. The “rocket sculpture,” an abstract piece in a central hallway that has a bench inside it, is a favored spot when he doesn’t mind colleagues stopping to chat. There are hidden corners and crannies where no one can interrupt (best for writing). What Mr. Judkins is doing is looking for “white space,” a term creeping into the language of work to describe a place where the actual work gets done. Desks suffice for answering phones and filing forms, but when it comes to the creative or introspective aspects of a job, desks can be uninspiring at best, or formidable obstacles at worst.”
New York Times
Desktop in real life
“Ola Pehrson’s “Desktop” consists of a blue wall with Windows 95 icons hung vertically on the left side, and a camera pointing at the wall. On the desk is a monitor displaying the feed from the camera on its screen so it looks like an actual desktop. Pretty brilliant and simple way of materializing a Windows display.”
MAKE
Expandable Silicon
“The chips, built by researchers at Stanford University, consist of free-floating islands of silicon surrounded by coils of silicon wire. Each island can be processed to include transistors, sensors, or materials for tiny solar cells. When the corners of the chip are pulled on, the coils around the silicon islands unwind. As they do, the islands, which start out nearly touching each other, spread apart. The end result is a netlike array of silicon devices.”
Technology Review
“Pop-up Card Designer is a Windows application, which generates unfolded pattern of Pop Up Cards. With simple interface, you can get unfolded pattern of your original Pop Up Cards.”
Pop-Up Card Designer
Portable PC Theatersign
“In lieu of a display, it has a built it projector which can be removed to better positioning. Don’t worry about sound because flanking the projection lens are stereo speakers. What about messy cords? All cords retract into the unit when not in use and because it is a computer, there’s a collapsible keyboard.”
PYanko Design
Nokia to turn cameraphones into foreign food finders
“Nokia’s also designing the concept to translate foreign menus too. So if you’re struck dumb by a French menu offering “Le steak and chips”, you can just snap a picture of the text and it’ll translate it into your native language. Nokia claims its prototype application can currently scan and translate 9000 Chinese words and 600 Japanese words.”
Reg Hardware
Sony’s ODO Twirl N’ Take: a wind-up camera concept
“Give that wheel a spin for about 15 seconds and the device has enough juice to power its way through a single photograph. The camera is installed in the handle. To see your snaps, you have to connect the cam to a computer since the camera itself lacks a display. How analog of you Sony.”
Engadget
Chocolate Portable HDD
“This portable hard drive looks like a chocolate bar but thats where the similarities end. Each piece is made of a modular flash drive. The central hub is a touchscreen to help you view and organize your collective files. In theory it sounds clever and usable but would this really work in the real world?”
Yanko Design
Virtual Cable Turns Windshield into Navigation Display
“A small laser works through a series of mirrors and lenses to project the path onto the windshield, as on a head-up display, although to the driver it appears to hover over the road. What Zamojdo showed at the Telematics Update Navigation & Location 2007 forum in San Jose was an inventor’s prototype that needs further development, downsizing, and cost-reduction. Zamojdo says he’d like to see the cost at $400 and even that may be high, were this to become a product. I was impressed by the accurate placement of the navigation cable in a canned video demo; it would be hard to make a wrong turn at a complex intersection, or fail to navigate a winding road on a dark night.”
TechnoRide
Bill Me Later Is Getting Big Now
“When Amazon.com today announced that it would start to accept the Bill Me Later payment services, there was no small sense of satisfaction for Gary Marino. He founded Bill Me Later after a discussion with Mark Britto, a friend who was then an Amazon executive. The service integrates with online stores. After customers enter their shipping address they are offered a choice of how to pay. If they select “Bill Me Later” it asks for their birth dates and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. That is enough to look up customers’ information at credit bureaus and make a decision on whether to approve them. Customers receive a bill in the mail. They can pay in full, or pay over time with interest, just as with any credit card. Indeed, if customers use Bill Me Later on other sites, their purchases are all listed on one bill. “
New York Times
Memory: M++CARD Combines a Business Card With USB Storage
“Basically a flap on the rear of the card can be used to attach different memory sizes, and a pair of slits can be used for the USB adapter. To be honest, it doesn’t amount to much more than taping a USB drive to an existing card. Still, it is a fairly elegant approach to the problem —but it might make more sense to develop a thin all-in-one usb drive that is specifically designed to hold business cards.”
Gizmodo
Higher-Density Data Storage
“A laser that focuses light into a 30-nanometer-wide spot could be an important advance toward ultra-high-density hard disks. Researchers at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), and at the University of Houston, in Texas, who have developed the nanolaser, say that it could lead to hard disks with 10 terabits of data packed into a square inch.”
Technology Review
Heading To A Club Near You: New Material Provides Constant Light For 12 Years Without a Power Source
“MPK, a company that has made a name producing glow-in-the-dark paint, has developed self-luminous micro particles called Litrospheres. The new material is said to be inexpensive (35 cents to light up a 8 ½ x 11 piece of plastic that is 1/8″ thick), non-toxic, and capable of staying constantly lit for over 12 years thanks to a betavoltaic technology that uses a radioactive gas. [...] The Litrospheres, which can be injected molded or added to paint, are not affected by the heat or cold and they can withstand up to 5000 pounds of pressure. They can also give off light that is equivalent of a 20-watt incandescent bulb in almost any color imaginable. As you might expect, the first applications of the technology will most likely involve safety equipment—or the clothing and accessories of frequent clubgoers.”
Gizmodo
Robots: Smarter Honda ASIMO Can Self-Charge, Avoid People, Work In Groups
“Working together – This involves constant sharing of relevant data between networked ASIMOs, and a survey of which robot is closest to the most pressing task, and what his battery life status is. Among them, they “decide” which one is best suited to go in and do the job.”
Gizmodo
Toshiba launching SCiB batteries in March: 5 min charge, 10 year lifespan
“How does this sound: a battery capable of recharging to 90% in under 5 minutes while remaining useful (i.e., 5,000+ recharges) for 10 years or more?”
Engadget
H A P P Y – F E E D B A C K – M A C H I N E
“To create an interaction/ device that explores peoples’ natural instinct to push buttons. Regardless of age, gender or cultural background, I have noticed that humans are naturally attracted to pushing and playing with buttons and switches . What is this universal attraction? Why do humans derive pleasure from pushing buttons? The Happy Feedback Machine aims to explore this innate desire among humans.”
H A P P Y – F E E D B A C K – M A C H I N E
Video scenarios of tech-enabled behaviors
“In looking at Intel’s next-generation products, IDEO had a clear sense of the emphasis on mobility. From a design perspective, the offerings were each exciting, offering new ways for people to live and work, but lacked the cohesion of a system. To integrate the platforms, IDEO developed user scenarios that merged product, interaction, and experience as they related to such behaviors as hands-free communication, social networking, and purchasing. These user scenarios were then fully storyboarded and scripted for video production.”
Architectradure
The Whale Hunt
“In an attempt to mimic the same automated data collection and visualization usually executed by computer scripts for his projects such as We Feel Fine, Harris documents the adventure by taking photos every five minutes (even using a chronometer while sleeping) and in times of high adrenaline, increasing the pace to match his heartbeat. Starting at the Newark airport and ending with the butchering of the second whale, Harris took a total of 3,124 photographs over the course of nine days.”
Cool Hunting
Spokeo 2.0: A Feed Reader For Your Friends
“What makes Spokeo compelling, at least initially, is that it is dead-simple to set up. In one fell swoop Spokeo can ingest all of your contacts from Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail, and then go out to the 30+ sites it monitors and bring back any new content from people in your address book. I tried this with my Gmail account, and it built up a friend reader with more than 500 contacts in less than three minutes. Before, this was a laborious process on Spokeo. You had to add each friend’s blog or feed one by one.”
TechCrunch
Solid State Drives: Toshiba Introduces 3 New SSD Flavors, 128GB is the Tastiest
“Toshiba is throwing its hat into the SSD business with a new line of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND SSDs in three distinct flavors: 32GB, 64GB and 128GB. They will also be available in three distinct form factors: embedded module, 1.8-inch and 2.5-inch drive enclosures. Expect 100MB/s peak read speed, 40MB/s peak write speed, a SATA II interface, and a lifespan of 1,000,000 hours.”
Gizmodo
Wiimote repurposed for multi-point interactive whiteboard
“There’s a bit more involved with this one than just a Wiimote, however — namely, an IR-emitting pen (or two), which the Wiimote tracks while relaying all the necessary information back to a PC. That, as the video after the break shows, allows you to turn any surface into a multi-point whiteboard with the use of a projector, or turn any LCD screen into a touchscreen, of sorts. Best of all, Johnny has kindly provided the necessary software free of charge, so hit up the read link below if you want to give it a shot.”
Engadget
DisplayLink and Alereon Announce Wireless USB Graphics Adapter
“The reference design uses Alereon’s AL5000 chipset and DisplayLink’s network display technology using USB to deliver ultra-wideband speeds using standard wireless USB input ad output. Resolutions of up to 1680 x 1050 are possible with 16.7 million colors and smooth DVD playback”
I4U News
Moshi Monsters
“Adding yet another realm to social networking online, UK-based gaming company Mind Candy combines the Tamagotchi virtual pet concept with web 2.0 to create Moshi Monster, a social networking site aimed at kids. Instead of creating profiles users adopt monsters, which they can nurture and play with, interacting with other kids and monsters in the process”
Cool Hunting
Health Search + Patient Social Network = iMedix
“So as you search, you not only find links to health articles and other information on the Web, you also find other people you can talk to about that health topic. The idea, says co-founder Iri Amirav, is not only “to change the way patients make health-related decisions, but we also want those patients to connect together with other patients. So that with one click, they can connect with others who suffer the same disease.” Each member creates a profile with as much or little information as they like, including tags indicating what health categories, diseases, and medical conditions they are interested in. These tags are informed by the same auto-complete database used for search terms so that both people and search terms can be matched more easily.”
TechCrunch
Cellphones: DoCoMo’s Child-Friendly 3G Phone Comes With RC Bracelet
“As well as having many safety features and a keyboard designed for small fingers, the F801i, which goes on sale in Japan December 20, comes with a bright yellow “amulet.” Not to ward off evil phone spirits, but as a remote control and lost phone locator you wear round the wrist. [...] When the alarm is activated, all sorts of things happen: A piercing 100-decibel alarm goes off, dazzling LED lights and the cell calls up to three pre-programmed emergency numbers of the parents’ choosing. The child’s location can also be sent via SMS to registered individuals.”
Gizmodo
Cellphones: Nokia Eco Sensor Concept It’s all Shiny Glass, Environment and Techno-Lust
“Here is Nokia Research Center’s new cellphone: the Eco Sensor, a shiny concept which includes the phone itself and a “wearable sensors” that “monitor your health, environment and local weather” to “increase your global environmental awareness” with technologies like Near Field Communication and Radio Frequency Identification.”
Gizmodo
Get Wood: Acorn-Shaped DAP from EverGreen is Small and Woody
“Monday morning, and contemplating the excesses of the weekend, I wonder where we would all be without wood. And then I see EverGreen’s MP3 player, with its 28 x 35 mm acorn form, its 1GB flash memory, its MP3, WMA and OGG compatibility, and I think to myself, “Well, I’m glad I’ve got a 60GB iPod.”"
Gizmodo
3D barcodes to identify stolen valuables
“DIAMONDS and valuable works of art could be protected against theft using a microscopic barcode that stores encrypted information about the provenance of the items, making ownership easy to prove if they are stolen. The barcode, which takes the form of a cube 30 micrometres across, is being developed by a team at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) at Teddington, near London. The cube is made of silicon coated with a 100-nanometre-thick layer of polymethyl methacrylate, a transparent plastic. It can be attached to hard surfaces using adhesive, or woven into the canvas of paintings. To create the barcode an electron-beam lithograph drills 90,000 small squares into the plastic coat of each face at five different depths. The position and depth of each square is unique, so data can be encrypted using a key-based code and stored digitally. The cube is scanned line by line using an electron force microscope, which can detect differences in the depth of the squares.”
New Scientist
New 3D chip transistor may reach 50GHz
“The companies claim processor clockspeeds could reach between 20GHz and 50GHz by using a 3-D structure that arranges components vertically, as opposed to the horizontal design of our forefathers. The device is dubbed the Surrounding Gate Transistor.”
The Register
Microfinancing With QR-code
“Current TV has a great pod showing how cell phones that read QR-code are modernizing microfinancing institutions in India and making it possible for them quantify their credit and help put them on the same level as larger banks.”
PSFK
LtWV Wrist Vmote Lightglove is one funky input device
“the device uses light to scan your palm and sense wrist, hand and finger motion to simulate cursor movement and key presses accordingly. The goal is to act as an input device for computers, PDAs, phones, video games, TV and pretty much anything else that can benefit from such input. Lightglove integrates with an onscreen keyboard for “hunt and peck” and touch typing, and should be a help to those suffering from carpal tunnel or other hand challenges.”
Engadget
Write On: Writeable, Color e-paper ReKindles Our Interest
“Still flexible, the display can recognize “optical” writing, though probably not quickly. An eyes-on report mentions that the refresh rate is under a second, which while probably fast enough for quick marks, is not what you want to be handwriting a letter on.”
Gizmodo
Gadgets: PHS300 Turns Your 3G Cellphone into a Personal Hot Spot
“Connect your 3G mobile or USB modem to the PHS300 and you can share the connection with any Wi-Fi device. As well as the Li-Ion battery, you can run it off the mains, both of which give you enough juice for a USB modem.”
Gizmodo
Tourist Remover
“The only thing you need to do is take 3-10 pictures of the subject (by hand, no tripod required), and then Tourist Remover averages the pictures and removes anything that only appears in one of the shots (such as moving people and cars). The tool will not remove anything that appears in two of the shots, such as a parked car.”
Cool Tools
From Spark to Pixel (Part 2)
“Visp, a continuously changing shape made of 5 light-wires, 30 feet long, spinning like skipping-ropes, two revolutions per second. A computer, which also revolves, switches the LEDs on and off to create animated patterns on the revolving surface. Bitmap pictures, text etc. can be sent to the sculpture via radio link.”
We Make Money Not Art
Google new chart API
“a new API from Google that generates information charts in a dynamic way. its usage is quite straightforward: you link to an image in the form of a parameterized URL, such as http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=
p3&chd=t:90,49&chs=400×200&chl=data|bling. cht=p3″ is the chart type, in this case, a pie chart. “chd=t:90,49″ are the chart values, text-encoded, and separated by a comma. “chs=400×200″ is the custom chart size, 400 by 200 pixels. “chl=Data|Bling” are the different labels for the pie chart sections, separated via the pipe character. chart types include: line charts, bar charts, pie charts, Venn diagrams & scatterplots.”
information aesthetics
Bendy Displays: CeeLite Flat Lighting Panels Are OLED for Giants
“CeeLites are just 1/8″ thick and use up just 4 watts of power per square foot, but can be made into banners 12 feet long and 30 inches high. Rather than OLEDs, they use light-emitting capacitors that emit electricity into a phosphorescent substrate. They may not have all the magical properties of OLEDs, and they won’t be made into high-def TVs anytime soon, but they can be contained in simple plastic, which makes them more easy to bring to market than OLEDs. You might start seeing illuminated wall panels in restaurants and or self-lighting ads on the sides of buses.”
Gizmodo
Video: RGBY LED Tabletop Changes Color Like a Chameleon
“What makes the RGBY so great is the fact that it can change colors to match the object resting on it—an effect achieved using small clusters of photo sensors and multi-colored LEDs.”
Gizmodo
Shrinking supercomputers: IBM optical modulator promises processing breakthrough
”
The paper, published in the journal Optics Express, concerns the silicon Mach-Zehnder electro-optic modulator – a device which converts electrical signals into pulses of light and promises to significantly reduce cost, energy and heat while increasing communications bandwidth between the cores by a factor of more than 100 over wired chips. The new modulator, which according to IBM is 100 to 1,000 times smaller in size compared to previously demonstrated devices of its kind, acts as a very fast “shutter” to modulate the intensity of the input laser beam and converts a stream of digital bits (“1”s and “0”s) from electrical signals into light pulses.”
gizmag Article
Online note swapping for college students
“Students at Cornell, USC, Princeton and a handful of other US universities now can pool their resources in a handy online forum at TheCollegeFreeWay—a network for sharing notes, outlines, essays, problem sets, study guides and more. Users can search by university, course or type of document needed. While anyone can view the materials, students must register to upload or download documents, rate them or make comments. Students can register directly through the site or can sign in via their Facebook accounts.”
Springwise
Cellphones: Paperless Boarding Passes Coming To Cellphones
“You load your boarding pass onto your phone’s screen with 2D barcode exposed, then let the TSA and airline ticket checkers scan away. Of course, you can imagine the litany of potential problems: Screens too glossy; poor on-screen rendering; boarding pass vanishes when call comes in; software and/or browser incompatibility; etc. Still, we are happy that airlines are doing something to solve the problem, now that e-ticket check-in has caught on and become nearly as congested and nightmarish as its human-powered predecessor.”
Gizmodo
Buffalo: Buffalo’s Kid-Friendly USB Memory Sticks Stop Your Little Treasures Getting their Hands on your Porn Files
“Available in four designs (Mickey Mouse, Winnie the Pooh, Doraemon and — aargh! — Tamagotchi, the sticks contain a secure internet browser (Yahoo! Kids), a couple of games, and you can even limit the amount of time your little darlings spend attached to their computer.”
Gizmodo
At this lab, everyone is required to maintain a science blog.
“…it turns out that Rosie makes it a requirement for her lab members to maintain a blog. This was primarily to act as an appendum lab book, and a place to reflect on the experiments carried out recently. [...] 1. It allows her, as a supervisor, to remotely keep track on what’s going on. Think of it as preface material before the lab meeting, or the one on ones. 2. She’s convinced that with the public facade to the posting, folks in her lab tend to conceptualize more fully what the experiments and data could signify. In doing so, there’s a great opportunity for blogging to help clarify the experiments necessary to move the research projects forward. 3. Scientists are not necessarily noted for their writing skills. Which is too bad, because that ability tends to come in very handy in the fine art of preparing grants. Here, you have a platform where you can work the “practice makes perfect” angle. 4. Depending on the tact of the blogger, you may inadvertently end up with a significant amount of draft material for that thesis or paper you going to have to write later.”
The World’s Fair
Cameraphone remotely activates cameraphone in DIY venture
“Utilizing a couple of cameraphones, a microcontroller, solenoid relays, a photoresistor, wires galore, a soldering iron and a robust picture messaging plan, this cameraphone activated cameraphone can be used to snap pictures of a pre-defined location whenever you get curious.”
Engadget
Can’t find your car? DON’T WORRY, HERE I AM!
“K.I.T.T.Y (Key Innovation That Talks to You) is a handy handbag-sized remote-controlled talking alert, which enables the car to shout a personalized message to its owner, thereby making it easier to locate their misplaced vehicle. The device has a range of 183 meters and will be trialed in a number of cars over the Christmas shopping period to help put an end to drivers’ wayward car park wanderings.”
gizmag Article
interknit
“netGranny is a revolutionary service where consumers directly commission grandmothers in switzerland to custom-knit socks for them. it has the spirit of transparency of programs like dole’s organic labels, with the mass customization you would expect from local experts, all the while supporting elderly people to make an independent income.”
hyperexperience
Intelligent coasters create new wave of drinking games
“Reportedly, the gizmos can be programmed to understand when a drink is on it and when a refill is needed, theoretically enabling a bartender or server to be alerted of one’s drink status without even going over to check. Additionally, a set of coasters can be used to replicate a memory game much like “Simon,” which could undoubtedly create a room full of laughs in the right circumstances.”
Engadget
NANOSOLAR: Solar-cell Coating
“The PowerSheet is made from a layer of solar-absorbing nano-ink that is printed onto a foil-thin metal sheet. According to the company, this technology has several key advantages. It is cheaper to make, as the process can produce several hundred feet of solar panels per minute, making it viable to generate a watt of electricity for less than $1, almost cheaper than what it would cost to produce by burning coal.”
Inhabitat
Paypal Launches Storefront Widget
“Users can set the widget to “sold out” or “sorry we’re closed” from the central control panel, and comes standard with a sharing option; visitors are able to grab the html for the widget from the widget and display it on their own site should they so desire.”
TechCrunch
Drive Safely: Toyota’s New Driving Simulator Looks Like Fairground Attraction
“The movement on the dome is incredible thanks to its tilting and vibration devices: slam on the brakes and the dome moves forward; slew the steering wheel to the left and the dome lurches sideways. There’s a range of 115 feet for forward and backward movement, and 65 feet if the dome is moving sideways. Computer graphics are projected onto the walls of the dome giving you the real-deal view if the car were driving along a road in Japan. You even get to hear proper sound effects if you pop a handbrake turn at 100 mph.”
Gizmodo
Laptop power cranks up a gear
“The Polytechnic of Madrid’s design means a cycling action by the user is turned into electricity, which powers the laptop via a voltage convertor. The designers claim that the rig lets the laptop user cyclist adopt a flexible rhythm, hopefully without having to pedal too hard.”
Reg Hardware
In Japan Half The Top Selling Books Are Written On Mobile Phones
“In Japan, half of the top ten selling works of fiction in the first six months of 2007 were composed on mobile phones.”
TechCrunch
Bic Wants to Flick Your Cell Phone
“It’s designing disposable cartridges for fuel cells, a kind of power supply that could someday eliminate the need to constantly recharge mobile phones or laptop computers. Electronics makers are drawn to fuel cells because today’s rechargeable batteries can’t keep up with the demands users place on portable gadgets. If you spend any time surfing the Web from your phone and e-mailing your friends, as well as making calls, you probably have to recharge at least once a day. With a fuel cell, you’d never have to look for an outlet; You’d just pop out a spent fuel cartridge and insert a new one.”
Business Week
The sound of one cat purring: purrcast.com
“Purrcast is a soothing little podcast that consists solely of the sound of cats purring. The website includes biographical information on each feline purr-former.”
Boing Boing
Bluetooth Wristband: Better Than the BlueQ?
“According to the product site, the LM957 will not only discreetly alert you to an incoming call, it will also let you know when you have wandered more than 15 feet away from your phone.”
Gizmodo
NEC develops real-time Japanese-to-English mobile translation software
“Reportedly, the firm has developed a system that can understand around 50,000 Japanese words and translate them to English text on the mobile’s display in just a second or two. The software was made compact enough to “operate on a small microchip mounted in a cellphone,” and was designed especially to help users convert common travel phrases.”
Engadget
Objet Geometries set to unveil multi-material 3D printer
“The device, known as the Connex500, utilizes the company’s “PolyJet Matrix,” which can create 21 composite materials and seven separate model materials. “The Connex500 opens a new chapter for the 3-D printing and rapid prototyping industry,” said Adina Shorr, CEO of Objet. The machine is capable of producing both rigid and flexible material, and can create polypropylene-like surfaces.”
Engadget
u-blox kicks out 50-channel LEA-5 GPS module
“It’s been a hot minute since we’ve heard from u-blox, but the outfit definitely caught our attention thanks to a new 50-channel GPS receiver that “boasts an acquisition performance of less than one second” when combined with its AssistNow A-GPS service. These fifth-generation devices have been stuffed into the industry standard LEA form factor, which should make embedding them into a wide range of automotive, consumer and industrial applications a breeze”
Engadget
Phot0Baby Customizes Ultrasound Videos for Parents to Be
“Phot0Baby allows parents to choose customization right at the time the video is shot. The ultrasound can be customized with theme music, border art and the baby’s name and sex. The manufacturer of the application says this is in part to encourage parents not to use the strip mall type ultrasound facilities to get custom ultrasound video.”
I4U News
Black Hole Phone Bag
“When you don’t want to receive phone calls or be triangulated by Jack Bauer, just put your phone in this phone bag.
The case has two slots, one of which shields your phone. If you carry your cell phone in the other slot you still can receive calls.”
I4U News
Harnessing Kinetic Energy
“M2E Power, a biomechanics startup based in Boise, ID, has developed a microgenerator that is designed to replace the 10 to 30 pounds (4.5 to 13.6 kilograms) of batteries that the company says troops carry to power devices such as radios, night-vision goggles, and mine detectors. [...] The wearer’s walking or shaking moves magnets in the device. Those magnets infuse the wire coils with energy that can be used to power mobile devices. It isn’t a new technology: the device uses the same technical principle that operates a self-winding watch or a “shake and shine” battery-free flashlight. But those watches and flashlights aren’t highly efficient at generating power. [...] According to M2E Power’s website, its system is five to seven times more powerful than existing applications of the technology. So soldiers using the M2E microgenerator should have an easily renewable source of power. “
Technology Review
Energy Consciousness
“It’s a simple device that gives you up to the minute stats on your energy usage and calculates your current electric bill. Designer Delroy Dennisur could have stopped right there but he decided to take it a step further and give you a purdy visual cue. The front panel is laden with LEDs forming a floral pattern. The more energy you use, the more light is emitted as if the florals are growing. Personally I think the opposite should happen. The florals begin to recede the more energy you use. A visual reminder to conserve.”
Yanko Design
Zipcar Gets Mobile (even more)
“The best feature they have introduced is a mobile tracking system. Instead of logging into the website via a computer and searching for cars by neighborhood, members with GPS enables mobiles can now simply access the Zipcar site through their phone – where ever they are – and will automatically get directed to the nearest vehicle.”
PSFK
Simroid robot lets dental students know what hurts
“If things go as planned, future dentists in Japan could soon be practicing on Simroid, a humanoid that resembles a young woman and can talk back when students hit a nerve. Reportedly, the bot can exclaim “it hurts” and move her eyes / hands whenever discomfort is felt, but best of all, engineers included a “breast sensor” to determine if that area has been touched inappropriately during training.”
Engadget
