Archive for October, 2008
The Paperless Office
“The sheet-fed scanner has three slots: one for business cards, one for cash register tapes or credit-card receipts, and one for sheets up to standard business size. You can put as many as 10 documents in any of the slots at once. Hit the scan button, and the documents shoot through the system and are parsed by the NeatReceipts software, which runs on Microsoft Windows and on the Mac OS. I was especially impressed by the system’s ability to handle cash-register receipt tapes. These are generally produced by low-quality thermal printers and can be quite difficult to read, even for humans. The software tries to figure out the vendor, the date, the total purchase price, and the sales tax. If it can’t read the vendor’s name, you can type it in by hand, and chances are good the system will recognize the name the next time it appears on a receipt. I found that the software also excelled at reading larger receipts, such as hotel bills, fed through the document slot.”
BusinessWeek
air interaction
“It’s called BYU-BYU-View and it basically adds air to the interaction between a user and a virtual environment, and communication through a network, by integrating the graphics presentation with wind inputs and outputs on a special screen”
Pasta&Vinegar
Oled: Flexible OLED Display is .05mm Thick, Flaps Around in the Wind
“Samsung has unveiled an ultra-thin ‘flapping’ OLED screen at FPD International 2008, demonstrating the flexibility of the display by letting it bend and flutter in the wind. At a paper-thin .05mm, the 4-inch screen is still able to create an image of 480×272 pixels, with a 100,000:1 contrast ratio and 100% reproduction of the NTSC color gamut, which is in line with most new flat panel screens on the market.”
Gizmodo
E Ink: E Ink’s AM300 Dev Kit Capable of Quick Animations and Touch Input
“Cambridge-based E Ink is turning some heads with it’s AM300 Developer Kit, which promises refresh rates fast enough to support animations (think dynamic ads), interactive touch input, and 16 unadulterated, detailed shades of grey (!). Developed in conjunction with Epson, the kit uses the New York Times as an example, which makes sense, as those enamored with E Ink technology have long fantasized about its use with newspapers and magazines.”
Gizmodo
NEC tiling e-ink displays for massive coverage
“What’s better than a single low-power e-ink display? How about eight of them stuck together to form one massive sheet? NEC is indicating it can now tile up to eight displays together to achieve maximum reflective real estate, composed of digital sheets matching standard A4 (8.3- x 11.7-inches) and A3 (11.5- × 16.5-inches) sizes, the latter having only a 1mm border. Eight of those stitched in two rows of four could make a display nearly two feet tall and over five feet wide.”
Engadget
Gardening: EasyBloom Makes Gardening Plug-and-Play Compatible
“You put the EasyBloom in the ground wherever you’d like to track light, temperature, humidity and soil moisture patterns over 24 hours. Once said time has passed, you pull the EasyBloom from the ground, wipe it off (our tip, not theirs) and stick it in your computer. The data then syncs with EasyBloom’s web database, where it digs through 5,000 different plant species to either find plants that would do well in your conditions or diagnose why the plants you have aren’t growing better.”
Gizmodo
Ultimate Perv Tech Creates Model of Your Naked Body Using Photo of You Fully Clothed
“Have you ever wondered what somebody looks like under their clothes? I’m guessing you have! Well, so have researchers at Brown University. That’s why they’ve developed some fancy software that creates models of what people look like naked based only on pictures of them in their clothes.”
Gizmodo
Biometric identification by body language
“The goal of the project is to train a computer to recognize a person based on his or her motions, and to identify the person’s emotional state, cultural background, and other attributes. [...] The current focus is the analysis of national and international public figures while they are giving speeches, with future plans to investigate many other domains. The research team is building a large database of people’s motions, using cable television recordings and web video downloads. Through techniques similar to those used in speech recognition, this project applies machine learning (an Artificial Intelligence technique) to train a computer system to compare the detected body language of an individual in a video, to that of a database of other subjects.”
Boing Boing
You May Soon Know if You’re Hogging the Discussion
“With the array of sensors, the badges can detect what Dr. Pentland calls “honest signals, unconscious face-to-face signaling behavior” that suggest, for example, when people are active, energetic followers of what other people are saying, and when they are not. He argues that these underlying signals are often as important in communication as words and logic. For example, the badges register when listeners respond with regular nods or short acknowledgments like, “Right.” Such responses, he argues, are a kind of mirroring behavior that may help build empathy between speaker and listener. He also examines patterns of turn-taking in conversations, as well as gestures and other, often unconscious signals.”
NYTimes.com
Typewriter stays relevant in technology-saturated world
“But the typewriter part of Flores’ business never went away. In some ways, it’s even made a small resurgence. The simplicity of the typewriter is alluring to writers who may be overwhelmed (or underwhelmed) by increasingly elaborate technology. A typewriter is also appealing in its transparency — whack a key, and watch the typebar smack a letter onto a piece of paper. Try figuring that out with a laser printer. Many people also find typewriters charming ambassadors of a bygone era. One recent customer asked Flores to fix her mother’s college typewriter so she could type letters home when she went off to college.”
Los Angeles Times
tuttuki bako: stick your finger in the hole
“this new interactive toy from japan involves sticking your finger in a hole on the side of the box tointeract with a virtual environment. bandai’s new tuttuki bako handheld interactive plaything requires you to twiddle your finger around inside the orifice to play with a variety of virtual characters on an LCD screen on the front of the device.”
DesignBoom
Transparent Windows by Mac Funamizu
“Sure, there are companies working on “3D-ish” screens but the technology is ridiculously expensive. Why not take a more literal approach and layer two glass LCDs together. This creates a sense of depth when graphics are overlayed. The technology could be expanded to other devices too like interactive maps and slider mobile phones.”
Yanko Design
‘Father of the MP3′ Teaches Machines to Parse Music
“Mufin’s audio analysis engine finds music’s sonic siblings based on 40 attributes per song including percussion, style, speech, sound density, vocals, tempo, sound color, instruments, volume, dynamics and loudness. Other attributes are at play here too, but Djekic says they cannot be expressed as mathematical manifestations of musical concepts because they consist of statistical elements gleaned from humans’ reactions to certain music.”
Wired.com
Remote Impact – Shadowboxing over a distance
“A life-sized silhouette of the remote participant is projected on the interface, which resembles a mattress standing against a wall. A unique sensing system measures the location and intensity of each impact. Players can punch, kick, or throw their entire bodies against their projected opponent, and the system recognizes when there has been a hit or a miss. Players can dodge hits by ducking or moving out of the way, just as in real sports. More points are scored by hitting your opponent harder.”
MAKE
Electronic labels will remember your stuff so you don’t have to
“TouchCounters are interactive electronic labels consisting of modular electronic devices with an integrated communication and sensing system. They are attached to physical storage containers in order for someone to get a better idea of what is inside these objects. The project also has a Java component that will relay a container’s status and contents to remote users over the Internet.”
MAKE
Virtuo Yana Klimava
“Virtuo includes an art pallet, a charger, 5 different art tools and works by electromagnetism so no worry about quick battery loss. Even though it was designed with the inexperienced artist in mind, Virtuo can also be used by the more professional digital artists who are also experienced in the traditional forms of creating art.”
Virtuo Yana Klimava
Exchanging pictures to generate passwords?
“She is using biometrics to protect confidential information when it is exchanged between two mobile devices. This is a very innovative approach to security. Buhan’s biometric application will generate almost unbreakable passwords from photos taken by the connected users. Here is how it works. ‘To do this, two users need to save their own photos on their PDAs. They then take photos of each other. The PDA compares the two photos and generates a security code for making a safe connection.”
primidi
Paying to break stuff at Sarah’s Smash Shack
“Customers in San Diego can choose fragile tableware from the Smash Shack Menu—for example a set of three glass flowers for USD 10, or the House Special, which consists of 15 plates at a cost of USD 45. They’re also welcome to bring in their own breakables to pulverise for a ‘corkage fee’ that starts at USD 20. After donning protective gear, smashers are escorted to one of the break rooms, where they stand behind a waist-high barrier and hurl their arsenal at a stainless steel wall. To make the process more personalised, customers are encouraged to bring their own soundtrack on MP3, and to write messages on whatever they’re about to throw. There’s also the option of flinging objects at a photo or mantra of choice. A VIP room is available for group smashes.”
Springwise
Japanese Weight Loss: Japanese Weight Loss Service Gives You Virtual Nags From a Virtual Wife
“Metaboinfo.com allows you to set up a weight loss plan, then assign one of four “wives” (aid, businesswoman, nurse or salon worker) to email you on a daily basis. Depending on whether you’re ahead or behind the curve, you’ll get nice or super annoying email customized for your current status.”
Gizmodo
Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby
“A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband’s digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday. The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game “Maple Story” to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy. “I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry,” the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.”
Yahoo! News
What Facebook and Steroid Use Have in Common
“Using the current election as a model, Krebs says that the internet does not bring people with different ideas together. Instead, people seek out groups with similar ideologies, which makes them less prone to objective, flexible thinking. And no matter how extreme the idea, there’s someone out there on the web who will build a forum around it. Psychological research has shown that when people find their “political mirrors,” they immediately build clusters around their ideas. This is why politicians’ use of confrontational language like, “You’re either with us, or with the terrorists,” seems to work. But Krebs sees the positive side of social networks as well. He believes that serious analysis of networks can be used constructively from the outside. The key, he says, is identifying the strong individuals or groups that can lead to group-thinking shifts.”
Wired
Chips: Scientist’s Flying Plasmonic Lens Could Make Chips Ten Times Denser
“It basically combines a hard-disk-alike spinning platter and scanning head with a metal lens to focus UV light onto smaller spots: by rotating a chemically treated silicon wafer beneath the head, you can achieve far more precise chips than using a photo mask. The metal lens is the key: it’s in fact a plasmonic lens, that achieves a smaller “focussed” spot of UV light than is possible with the diffraction limits of normal optics. The photoresist surface of the chip needs to be very close beneath the lens to work, hence the choice of the “flying head” arm—much like that in a conventional hard drive. This keeps the lens around 20nm above the silicon wafer, using aerodynamic forces between the spinning wafer and the head.”
Gizmodo
Social Desktop Aggregator Sobees Launches Public Beta
“While many startups are heading in the opposite direction by trying to take the best of the desktop experience inside the browser, Sobees’ goal is to aggregate various web applications and services into a customized desktop environment instead, including search, weather updates, RSS feeds, YouTube videos, social networking sites, etc. The bootstrapped startup wants to provide a seamless user experience fit for a mainstream audience when it comes to accessing online content or handling repetitive internet tasks, without the need to constantly switch between browser windows, tabs and multiple desktop apps.”
TechCrunch
Ewww, “I just stepped in a puddle of Wi-Fi”…
“The ASRD™ sneaker is equipped with an integrated wireless internet detection unit embedded under the flap of the left shoe. Once the pressure sensitive insole is activated, the unit scans the surrounding area for Wi-Fi signals and displays the result through LEDs. The three LEDs on the flap enclosure represent the signal strength of any wireless internet signals within a 50 meter area. A blinking LED represents no signal, while a solid LED shows that there is a signal present.”
MAKE
Multitouch: SMART Table for Kids is Like a Cheaper, Funner-er Microsoft Surface
“it looks as if the SMART Table has a nearly identical — if not better — set of capabilities to the Surface: multitouch, gesture support, a 27in screen and a super-simple SDK. Details are slim at the moment, but the price is a comparatively low $7000, so expect to see the SMART Table popping up in more affluent school districts as early as Spring 2009.”
Gizmodo
Nike Hindsight by Billy May
“They work similar to bifocals except for your peripheral vision. By using fresnel lenses on both sides of the glasses, riders can detect motion in a field of view beyond the normal human limit of 180º. If you want to get technical about it; high power, diverging fresnel zones aligned vertically distort into view an extra 25º on both sides. Vision is radically distorted in the periphery, but as the eye detects only motion in that area, little clarity is lost in the process.”
Yanko Design
Selectively Deleting Memories
“Amping up a chemical in the mouse brain and then triggering the animal’s recall can cause erasure of those, and only those, specific memories, according to research in the most recent issue of the journal Neuron. While the study was done in mice that were genetically modified to react to the chemical, the results suggest that it might one day be possible to develop a drug for eliminating specific, long-term memories, something that could be a boon for those suffering from debilitating phobias or post-traumatic stress disorder.”
Technology Review
Medical Gadgets: Implanted Microchip Will Monitor Your Health, Deliver Drugs From Under Your Skin
“The chip is much more precise than the finger pricking method for monitoring blood, and in diabetes sufferers, can minimize the risk of complications like blindness and kidney failure. The first glucose-monitoring and osteoporosis drug-releasing chips will begin human clinical trials next year. MicroCHIPS is looking into developing more advanced versions that can predict heart or kidney failure, biodegrade in the body, and release multiple vaccine or drug doses over time.”
Gizmodo
Oled: Super Skinny OLED Display Is Thinner Than a Sheet of Paper
“The ultra-thin metal foil screen is less than 50 micrometers thin, which means it’s even thinner than a sheet of A4 paper. The UDC folks also claimed that their new invention exceeds the industrial target of 1,000 hours and the lifetime of conventionally sealed glass packaged OLEDs.”
Gizmodo
GPS: NYC Buses Testing Digital Ads That Change Depending on Location
“Creative marketing minds have developed a plan to use GPS to deliver neighborhood-specific digital advertising on the side of buses in NYC. Apparently, the ads run like TV commercials and they have begun airing on a single Manhattan route with expansion to 200 buses planned for Q1 of next year. Obviously, targeted advertising is the name of the game, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find GPS systems like this one popping up in major cities across the country in the very near future.”
Gizmodo
RSS Adoption at 11% and it May Be Peaking, Forrester Says
“On a positive note, the resarch entitled What’s Holding RSS Back?, says that nearly half of marketers have moved to add feeds to their web sites. Further, RSS adoption among consumers is at 11% up from just 2% of users three years ago. RSS feeds usage is more dominant among men. Here’s the kicker, though. That might be all she wrote for RSS’ growth track. According to the research, of the 89% of those who don’t use feeds only 17% say they’re interested in using them. In fact Forrester spends much of the report helping marketers better explain the benefits of RSS to their customers. “Unless marketers make a move to hook them — and try to convert their apathetic counterparts — RSS will never be more than a niche technology,” the analysts (who include Jeremiah Owyang) wrote.”
Micro Persuasion
Lala May Have Just Built The Next Revolution In Digital Music
“The limitation sounds restrictive at first, but it costs only 10 cents to buy a “web song” – giving you the ability to stream that song as many times as you’d like in the future. And if you decide to buy the normal MP3 later, that 10 cents will go towards your purchase.”
TechCrunch
Photoswap Review
“What you do is you take a picture and it sends it off to whoever. Then it shows you a picture that another user has taken. You can then reply to that specific picture with another picture, or just send out a random picture again and see what you get in response.
The app doesn’t allow you to use exisiting pictures or save those pictures that you’ve taken with this app for use in other places. That means that you may have to sacrafice a really nice picture to send to some random stranger instead of just saving that picture in on your phone.”
AppVee
Project Management: Co-op Helps Small Groups Stay Updated on Projects
“Kind of like a private Twitter for small organizations, you post to Co-op what you’re working on and see everyone else’s updates in a news stream down the page. Made by the same folks who built the Harvest time tracker (our review), Co-op can also calculate how many person hours were spent on a particular project. Co-op also lists what was worked on yesterday, and what’s currently being worked on today.”
Lifehacker
Keyboard “eavesdropping” just got way easier, thanks to electromagnetic emanations
“They’ve found four different ways to listen in, including one previously-published general vulnerability, on eleven keyboard models ranging from 2001 to 2008, with PS/2, USB and laptop keyboards all falling to at least one of the four attacks. The attack works through walls, as far as 65 feet away, and analyzes a wide swath of electromagnetic spectrum to get its results.”
Engadget
E-paper: Samsung Demos Carbon Nanotube-Based Color E-paper
“The color carbon nanotube active matrix electrophoretic display (say that after a few pints of beer) works by rearranging charged pigment particles with an electric field, and is one of the first large-scale color displays of its type. Plus it has the advantage of being flexible as well as demanding low power. And since Samsung’s display is 14.3-inches across, it’s making our dreams of next-gen e-books even more tantalizing.”
Gizmodo
E-paper: Color E-Paper Debuts on Waterproof MP3 Player
“Qualcomm have come up with the paper, and it works by having multiple layers in the display: light is partially reflected at each layer, and due to wavelength filtering and interference between the light the colors are generated. Choice of color is achieved by varying the distance between the layers electrostatically.”
Gizmodo
Planter will find the sun for its plants
“This chair-like robot consists of a planter with robotic legs and some circuitry to detect sunlight levels in the room. When the robot finds the brightest spot it scurries on its legs over in that direction in order to give the plant the most exposure.”
MAKE
New Solar Material Captures Entire Spectrum of the Rainbow
“Whereas most photovoltaics are limited to collecting energy from a small range of frequencies, the new material is able to absorb energy from all spectrums of visible light at once. The breakthrough development heralds a new breed of extremely efficient solar panels on the horizon.”
Inhabitat
Mourning becomes mobile
“In Japan, Reuters reports, they’re putting barcodes on tombstones so bereaved family members can keep in virtual touch with their loved ones beyond the grave. Scan the code, placed behind lockable stone doors on the tomb, and photos and other information about the deceased appear on your cellphone. The tombs went on sale on April 1 for 1 million yen ($9,818).”
USATODAY.com
Software blocks car phone users
“A safety device which prevents drivers using mobile phones by automatically intercepting calls and text messages when they are moving has been unveiled. The software tells callers the person they are trying to reach is driving and asks them to leave a message. Canadian firm Aegis Mobility hopes its system will become available via a monthly subscription fee.”
BBC NEWS
Liquavista Introduces Next Generation Displays
“The company claims that the displays are functional in dark and direct lighting situations, can be viewed at any angle and that they provide “TV-like picture quality” while consuming much less power than traditional LCDs. The technology is currently targeted for use in watches and cell phones, but there are plans for larger video displays as well.”
EcoGeek
Concepts: Wrap-Around Screen Phone Concept Don’t Need No Bezels
“This concept from Mac Funamizu is designed to show how truly badass a phone with an OLED-wrap display could look. The most important advance? No more bezels or borders of any kind.”
Gizmodo
Mask tells others which subway stop you need to get off and prompts them to wake you up
“This “Noriko-San” sleep mask was developed for “drowsy train commuters” afraid of sleeping past their stop and consists of a scrolling LED display that communicates the wearer’s destination to other passengers in the train. Of course, this relies on other people actually caring enough to wake you up in time, which its developer, Pyocotan, found not to be the case when other passengers felt more uncomfortable with the mask than helpful.”
MAKE
Future planes, cars may be made of `buckypaper’
“Buckypaper is 10 times lighter but potentially 500 times stronger than steel when sheets of it are stacked and pressed together to form a composite. Unlike conventional composite materials, though, it conducts electricity like copper or silicon and disperses heat like steel or brass. “All those things are what a lot of people in nanotechnology have been working toward as sort of Holy Grails,” said Wade Adams, a scientist at Rice University. [...] Buckypaper is made from tube-shaped carbon molecules 50,000 times thinner than a human hair. Due to its unique properties, it is envisioned as a wondrous new material for light, energy-efficient aircraft and automobiles, more powerful computers, improved TV screens and many other products.So far, buckypaper can be made at only a fraction of its potential strength, in small quantities and at a high price.”
Wired News
Qwitter is about to break up a lot of twitter ‘friends’
“It basically sends you an email telling you when someone unfollows you on Twitter and includes your last twitter update in that message. Whether they unfollow you for that last tweet or not, who knows, but it may have some relation to why someone unfollowed you.”
TechCrunch
Video Games: Bandai RPG Pedometers, Like Nike+ for the Extra Masochistic
“Space Cruiser Yamato and 3000 Leagues in Search of Mother are two game/pedometers that Bandai will release in time for this holiday season. As users walk, their characters will both level up and reach new destinations on the map, unlocking new chapters in a story that unfolds over 90 days of exercise.”
Gizmodo
Tiny: Atomic Pen Writes World’s Smallest Possible Letters
“The resulting letters, the words “Si” for silicon or “Yes” in Spanish, measure only 2 x 2 nanometers, roughly 40,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair. According to Masayuki Abe, one of the project scientists, they have reached a limit impossible to surpass: It’s not possible to write any smaller than this.”
Gizmodo
Best Screensaver Ever: Multi-Computer F1 Racing Screensaver Wins Office Coolness Pole Position
“Intel Brazil has created what’s probably the best office screensaver in the history of office screensavers: a Formula 1 racing course that spans across multiple computers and monitors to offer one seamless view competition all across the office. Once you start them up, the Formula 1 car will go from one computer to the other, following a circuit that has the same topology as the distribution of computers in the office, going through curves, chicanes, and straight lines as needed.”
Gizmodo
The Minoru 3D Webcam reveals new dimensions to awkward conversations
“Featuring dual cameras spaced about a face-width apart, Minoru creates a stereoscopic effect for viewing with old-school red and blue 3D glasses. The camera supports all sorts of video chat services, or you can shoot 3D video and shuffle it up to YouTube, and 2D is also available for all the squares out there.”
Engadget
Featured Desktop: BumpTop Beta in Action
“BumpTop is a fresh and engaging new way to interact with your computer desktop. You can pile and toss documents like on a real desk. Break free from the rigid and mechanical style of standard point-and-click desktops. Interact by pushing, pulling and piling documents with elegant, self revealing gestures. BumpTop’s stunning interface makes clever use of 3D presentation and smooth physics-based animations for an engaging, vivid user experience.”
Lifehacker
Battleship, Sunk!: LG Shows Off Ultra-Thin Double Sided LCDs
“This is not two screens strapped together, and it’s not even two separate display signals being shown back to back — this incredibly thin screen displays the same image in two directions, all the time. The concept is fundamentally interesting, but with one side of the panel always displaying a mirror of the other, I’m really having trouble imagining how to use it. Advertising? Two-sided home theaters? The least private laptop ever? You’ve got plenty of time to think about it, as LG is giving no indication of when — of even if — this tech will make it to market.”
Gizmodo
‘le cube’ by yves behar and canal +
“‘le cube’ can provide services such as video on demand, catch up tv and an advanced electronic program guide that will automatically match viewer preferences. the black square interactive area is a lcd display allowing animations and automatic brightness adjustment to the environment. the sleek design gives new meaning to the old tv reciever box.”
DesignBoom
A Finger Phone by Zinc Chan
“The handset is divided into two parts, earphone and microphone. This invites the user to use the iconic gesture when using the phone. When the user dials the numbers, an animated path is shown on the touch screen. Therefore, people start to remember the person by their unique pattern rather than the numbers. This, together with the two-piece handset creates a more emotional interaction between the phone and the user”
Core77
Gadgets: NTT Shoe Powers Your iPod, Makes You Look Like a Robodork
“Right now, it can generate three watts, which is enough to keep an iPod playing, but still not enough to power up your cellphone. This is not just a concept project, however: The company is looking to have a working pair available for the masses by 2010. How you are going to connect your phone with your shoe, unless you are Maxwell Smart, it’s a completely different matter.”
Gizmodo
Siemens shows slim, sexy solar-powered cordless concept
“There’s no calculator-style tiny solar panel on top of the phone – instead, it’s entire face is one big panel from top to bottom. The keypad is transparent and touch-sensitive, and the display is a see-through OLED screen.”
Register Hardware
Have It Your Way: MyWonderfulLife Helps You Plan Your Own Funeral
“You’re first asked to create profile detailing many of your last wishes, including the type of burial you’d like, who’d you’d like to have as speakers, and any music you’d like to have played. You can also upload a photoalbum that you’d like to have projected during the ceremony. If you’d like to get a bit more creative, the site features a listing of some of the more unique ceremonies users have submitted to give you some ideas.”
TechCrunch
Sound Is An Integral Part Of Products, Industrial Designer Says
“The auditory experience of product users is not just “a sensory response to an acoustical stimulus.” In fact, users contribute characteristics, such as trustworthiness or a high standard of quality, to products on the basis of the sounds they produce. Özcan Vieira, who received her PhD degree from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands on 2 October 2008, researched the relationship between sounds and the associations they elicit. On the basis of this research she developed guidelines for industrial designers on how to sound-design their products.”
Science daily
Students Watch Lecture Videos in Fast Forward
“Some professors report that when their students are reviewing class materials, the students speed up online recordings of lectures and zip through hour-long presentations in as little as 30 minutes. Sure, their professors sound like chipmunks. But the students say they can absorb the information faster than the professors deliver it.”
Wired Campus
RFID: GE’s Battery-Free Sensor is a Breakthrough in RFID Technology
“The platform uses a conventional RFID tag coated with a chemically or biologically sensitive film that draws power wirelessly from a handheld reading device. Naturally, eliminating on-board batteries means that manufacturers can make smaller sensors (as you can see in the image above) at a lower cost. So, with any luck, this technology will lead to new tracking and info-swapping applications across a wider range of industries.”
Gizmodo
Direct Brain-to-Muscle Electrical Circuit Helps Paralyzed Monkeys Move
“An external electrical circuit connecting the brain directly to a muscle allowed paralyzed monkeys to move their arms, an advance that could lead to neuroprosthetics for humans with spinal cord injuries. The monkeys were only temporarily paralyzed, and much work remains before the technique could be used in humans — but as an alternative technological approach to paralysis, it’s a powerful proof-of-principle.”
Wired.com
Interactive Infrared – Tracking Dance Platform
“A Danish dance group has been exploring the boundaries of contemporary dance, using digital technology as an “equal and interacting partner to the performing artist.” The Recoil Performance Group’s ‘Labyrint’ installation takes place on an interactive floor projection using infrared technology to digitally ‘blobtrack’ the dancer’s movements.”
PSFK
VJ Captures the Moment With Live Illustration
“Trained as an illustrator in the UK, she moved to Tokyo in 2004 and started drawing at live events. Initially, she was drawing on paper and having those images projected onto the wall – but when a club asked if she could draw at one of their parties, she started experimenting with drawing on a Wacom Tablet. She has since evolved into using a wireless tablet slung from her shoulder, so she can wonder through the crowd and illustrate the scene – each line drawn to the beat and simultaneously projected onto the walls, the crowd, or even the main act. Her style is so entertaining, it often steals the show.”
PSFK
Fun camera by Jian Guan
“This “Fun” camera by Jian Guan comes equipped with a 16 mm lens, also mirrored for those great shots of yourself while holding the camera as far away as possible. Taking formal cues from a magnifying glass may seem unnecessary, but I think it does a great job of connecting the function to the shape.”
Yanko Design
Internet use ‘good for the brain’
“A University of California Los Angeles team found searching the web stimulated centres in the brain that controlled decision-making and complex reasoning. The researchers say this might even help to counteract the age-related physiological changes that cause the brain to slow down. The study features in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.”
BBC NEWS
Innovative phone design for the visually impaired
“For ease of use, all of the keys on the keypad are different to each other to touch, whilst keeping visual uniformity in order to reduce unnecessary finger movements to locate where the finger is. This decision was the result of feedback from the user group revealing that the “blind man’s dimple” on the number five key on regular phones is of little or no use. To improve interaction between the user and the phone, [SÉNS] combines touch sensors and regular mechanical keys to provide real-time audio feedback. When the user touches a key, the phone tells them what key has been touched without actually registering it as an input. The user may hoverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hover across the keys to gain feedback on which key they are touching. Once the user is sure their finger is on the correct key, they can then press it just like on any other standard handset; a click sound is then fed back to confirm the input.”
Gizmag
When Your Kid Won’t “Friend” You
“Glenn, whose son is in high school with mine, wrote: “My son will not accept me as a friend on his Facebook. When I asked him why, he said, ‘Do you hang out with me and my friends when we sit in the living room? Not that I am hiding anything from you, it’s just awkward having you hang out on my Facebook with all of my friends.’ Enough said — I will make my own friends on Facebook.” Lara wondered: “What about stepmothers? My 15-year-old stepdaughter friended me…but won’t friend her father. Awkward!”
NYTimes.com
KDDI shows off cellphone-linked e-paper display
“KDDI (smartly) doesn’t seem to be ready to go all Foleo / Redfly-like, but it apparently does see some benefit in a cellphone companion of sorts, and it’s now showing off a considerably different spin on the idea that relies simply on a stripped-down e-paper display. Even more unconventionally, the setup makes use of good old IrDA to transfer images from the phone to the display (a 13.1-incher built by Bridgestone) which, when combined with the inherent slowness of the display itself, adds up to a page refresh time of 12 seconds.”
Engadget
Movable Braille timepiece by David Chavez wins Spark Design Award
“Industrial designer David Chavez picked up a Spark Award for his movable Braille timepiece Haptica which displays a real-time readout in Braille using a military time format.”
Core77
LeapFrog’s Crammer makes flash cards antiquated, is perfectly named
“LeapFrog has concocted a perfectly named study aid dubbed the Crammer ($59.99; available now), which enables kids to “quickly navigate more than 16,000 mathematics, social studies and science quiz questions based on leading school textbooks.” Additionally, students can create customized digital flash cards for on-the-go cramming, and the built-in Spanish translator even gives you an edge in the foreign language department.”
Engadget
KidZui Starts Youth Off Early on Social Networking
“There are obvious safety concerns when developing a product that helps kids communicate with others online, especially since it’s nearly impossible to ensure that their online buddies are indeed kids with benign intentions themselves. So, unlike Facebook – which lets its users share extensive personal details, write on each others’ walls, and send free-form messages – KidZui doesn’t enable explicit forms of communication at all. Rather, KidZui’s social networking features mainly allow users to share their surfing behavior with friends passively. Each user has an event feed that shows when friends sign on and off, visit each others’ profiles, tag content on the web, create content channels, and friend each other. Users can also “ping” each other and post status messages, but they must be selected from a premade list of options.”
TechCrunch
Listen to the money talk…
“So, my boy Mike Nathanson and I wore our brains on our sleeves at Flashcamp this weekend. We dreamed up a sweet idea of listening to stock prices, which we dubbed MoneyTalks. It uses the new SampleDataEvent in Flash Player 10 to create sounds dynamically, which we map onto the value of a stock.”
MAKE
Kenya’s elephants send text messages to rangers
“The Kenya Wildlife Service had already reluctantly shot five elephants from the conservancy who refused to stop crop-raiding, and Kimani was the last of the regular raiders. The Save the Elephants group wanted to see if he could break the habit. So they placed a mobile phone SIM card in Kimani’s collar, then set up a virtual “geofence” using a global positioning system that mirrored the conservatory’s boundaries. Whenever Kimani approaches the virtual fence, his collar texts rangers. They have intercepted Kimani 15 times since the project began. Once almost a nightly raider, he last went near a farmer’s field four months ago.”
Wired News
CatCam documents pet adventures
“The CatCam system includes a modified digital camera with an in-built controller. It requires only a battery to be operational and is configured to capture a still photo every couple of minutes. The camera comes with protective housing which is attachable to your pet’s collar so that images are taken from the cat’s perspective. The shots are saved to an SD flash memory card (purchased separately) for you to review at your leisure.”
Gizmag
Photography: ALIPR Learns How to Auto-Tag Photos
“Upload an image to ALIPR or hand it a URL of an image already online, and the engine will suggest tags, and ask you to add to its list. Some of ALIPR’s suggestions are spot-on, but others are way off. You can confirm the hits and suggest other tags to help the engine learn.”
LifeHacker
GE builds an OLED printer, hopes to challenge light bulbs in 2010
“GE R&D guys have produced a machine that prints OLED materials newspaper-style onto 8-inch sheets of metal foil in hopes that the sheets — which can be pinned to just about any surface — will start the process of home lighting biz regime change in 2010. Picture, if you will, wallpaper or window blinds that provide soft, diffused lighting for the living room after dark — no need for special fixtures, just a wall plug.”
Engadget
Multitouch: CityWall Interactive Multitouch Display Now Has a Glorious 3D Interface
“While not actually 3D in the physical sense, the UI is fully rendered in 3D. As the video below shows, groups of files are represented as spheres, which can be manipulated in every which way. You can even look at the photo thumbnails inside the sphere “from behind.” Though the demo is thin, it shows some really interesting ideas at play.”
Gizmodo
New spintronics effect could lead to magnetic batteries
“Physicists have recently discovered that heating one side of a magnetized nickel-iron rod causes electrons to rearrange themselves according to their spins. This so-called “spin Seebeck effect” could lead to batteries that generate magnetic currents, rather than electric currents. A source of magnetic currents could be especially useful for the development of spintronics devices, which use magnetic currents in order to reduce overheating in computer chips, since, unlike electric currents, magnetic currents don´t generate heat.”
Physorg
Parallel Kingdom Set To Launch One Of First iPhone/Android MMOs
“The game uses your phone’s GPS to detect your movement across the map, and each change in physical location corresponds to a change in the game’s location. For example, our local Starbucks might be shown to be infested with monsters, but a drive down the street may reveal an area loaded with riches and friendly characters. And while the game uses physical location to determine your in-game location on a macro-level, you’re still allowed to move within a designated area without having to leave your seat (you could explore a few blocks around your workplace without having to leave the office).”
TechCrunch
Temperature Sweater by pixelpeppy
“A snug, fleece sweater sports a radiant yet discreet temperature-display on each sleeve (one in Fº and one in Cº).”
Generate Design
Music: Direct Note Access Music Software Now Even More Revolutionary
“It allows recording engineers to isolate and manipulate individual notes (as opposed to an entire chord) from a performance (no matter how lame) and turn it into a flawless piece of music. Celemony has revealed new details about DNA that claim the program will be able to handle “complete mixes (rather than a simple piano progression, for example),” but stresses that the more complex the job, the less likely you are to isolate individual notes.”
Gizmodo
Shade Pixel turns spandex into display
“The prototype display is 11 x 7 pixels large and is made up of a skeleton of 77 solenoids with frame holes. A layer of Spandex forms the surface of the display and through the use of iron cores, each solenoid can be triggered to pull down each core to form a concave dip in the Spandex skin, causing “shades”. These shades are what forms the image. Similarly, the solenoids can release the iron cores, returning the skin to its “flat” surface.”
MAKE
Energy Seed by Sungwoo Park & Sunhee Kim
“The idea is to encourage people to throw their batteries away into the Energy Seed. There’s a slot for nearly every size battery. The unit combines any left over juice from all the batteries to power a super efficient LED ring.”
Yanko Design
Twinned MP3 Players by Liberty Fearns
“Twinned MP3 players which will play exactly the same music at any time. The unit must first be snapped in half in order to become functional, creating a formal ritual shared between two people. Music is uploaded to a shared online play list, which will only download new music when both MP3 players are in their docks, so that audio content always remains the same. Users build a soundtrack to their relationship, like a growing mixtape.”
Yanko Design
Who’s the Fairest One of All? This Computer Knows.
“The developers polled 68 men and women in Israel and Germany, who were asked to look at photos of white male and female faces and indicate which were the most attractive. They then developed an algorithm to determine the most attractive feature sizes and distances between features for each individual facial type. The program does not take into account hair color, wrinkles, blemishes, or other similar identifying characteristics, and sticks just to feature sizes and distances.”
PSFK
We (heart) “I (heart) Sketch”
“Click the above video, and watch probably the smoothest, best-realized attempt at a 3D sketch-driven interface currently out there. Most of the video is filmed in real time, so the speed with which the demonstrator is able to navigate, sketch and modify is extra impressive. Curve editing has received some special attention too: trimming, deleting and tweaking curves are all gesture-driven, and some nice touches like auto-merging of tangent sketch lines make it obvious the developers at University of Toronto understand the sketch process at least as well as they understand interface design”
Core77
Healthy snacks, delivered by mail in serving sizes
“Customers then indicate how often they’d like to receive their boxes, on which days of the week, and in what sizes. Following that schedule, Graze will send a rotating selection of snacks designed for variety and good health. All food offered by Graze is hand-picked from the finest producers, the company says, and free of artificial colourings, flavourings and preservatives. Boxes are available for delivery within the UK and are designed to fit into a standard-sized letterbox, which means deliveries don’t need to be signed for. Pricing begins at GBP 1.99 per grazemini—now 99p through a limited introductory offer.”
Springwise
Carcade lets you play your seedy neighborhood
“Using a webcam, the landscape is captured and incorporated into the game itself, letting you navigate the hellish urban environment that you call home with a little spacecraft just like you’ve always wanted to. The faster and more erratically your friend drives, the more difficult game play becomes — we just wish we could play it on the window itself instead of a laptop. This would be just the thing for those cross-country road trips, though it might get a little dull while passing through the vast alkali plains of The Great American Desert.”
Engadget
System lets your plants blog their daily existence
“the Midori-San uses surface potential sensors to read the bioelectric current flowing across the surface of the leaves. As the current fluctuates in response to environmental factors such as temperature changes, humidity, vibration, electromagnetic waves and nearby human activity an algorithm translates the data into sentences which are posted to the plant’s blog. Owners can subscribe to the plant’s blog to follow it’s story, and even earn the plant some cash by clicking it’s Google Adsense Ads.”
MAKE
Augmented Reality Gaming, With Real Airplanes
“Sky Challenge is working on a new sport that will mix real life planes with computer obstacles and competitors. Players at home would be able to compete with real life pilots, flying through a virtual obstacle course that is overlaid on top of real world terrain. The real world pilots would also be able to see their virtual challengers and the computer generated obstacles. Sky Challenge hopes to make this a world-wide event, where anyone could compete from home via their computers.”
PSFK
Video Game Helps Math Students Vanquish an Archfiend – Algebra
“This fall, New York City is rolling out Dimension M — M stands for math — in 109 middle schools across the five boroughs after trying the game out in two dozen schools, including I.S. 30, last year. Like a modern twist on “Jeopardy!,” the fast-paced video game quizzes students on prealgebra and algebra topics ranging from prime numbers to fractions and complex equations. A correct answer brings 500 or more points, a wrong one as few as 25; the player with the most points wins. (No prizes, just glory.)”
NYTimes.com
London restaurant claims fame with touch-sensitive tables, colorful menu projectors
“A chic London restaurant and bar called Inamo is making patrons’ dining experiences digital by projecting colorful menus and aesthetic patterns onto touch-sensitive tabletops. When browsing, patrons can preview the food as if it were on the plate in front of them — only flatter, we suppose. They can also order their meals, look up neighborhood services, and select one of seven visual vibes without ever interacting with carbon-based lifeforms.”
Engadget
Better Solar for Big Buildings
“Unlike conventional solar panels, which are made of flat solar cells, the new panels comprise rows of cylindrical solar cells made of a thin film of semiconductor material. The material is made of copper, indium, gallium, and selenium. To make the cells, the company deposits the semiconductor material on a glass tube. That’s then encapsulated within another glass tube with electrical connections that resemble those on fluorescent lightbulbs. The new shape allows the system to absorb more light over the course of a day than conventional solar panels do, and therefore generate more power. What’s more, arrays of these tubes offer less wind resistance than conventional flat solar panels, which makes them easier and cheaper to mount on roofs, the company says.”
Technology Review
Led: The World’s Largest LED Screen Is, Of Course, In Dubai
“It’s not built quite yet, but Tameer Holding is constructing the world’s largest LED screen in Dubai for a commercial office building named The Podium. The gigantic display will be implemented as the building’s facade, reaching 33 stories into the sky and maintaining visibility up to a mile away.”
Gizmodo
World Golf Tour Hits Hole-In-One With Rich Multiplayer Flash Game
“To create the game’s graphics, the WGT team went to the famed Kiawah Island Golf Resort, where it took geo-tagged photographs spanning the entire course. The team then went through and mapped the photos to a 3D model, which makes the world seem three dimensional while telling the physics engine how each part of the photograph should affect the ball. Using technology similar to Google Earth, WGT allows users to move through the course by seamlessly displaying photographs that are adjacent to each other. The result isn’t as immersive as the 3D worlds crafted by EA’s huge dev team, but it’s very impressive.”
TechCrunch
Carbon footprints on the run
“The GPS measures the speed and pattern at which the phone’s owner is moving, and then an algorithm automatically works out which mode of transport is being used and, thus, what the carbon footprint is. The system’s inventor, says the Guardian, “claims that in tests over the past year, the software was almost 100% accurate in working out when people were on airplanes or trains; it was between 65-75% accurate at guessing when people travelled on buses.”
Economist.com
Software Randomizes Airport Patrols
“The data points considered by the algorithm include site configuration, patrol locations, staffing levels, and threat information. ARMOR’s user interface features a simple Microsoft Excel-style schedule, with shaded fields representing suggested sites for motor vehicle checkpoints and explosives detection canine patrols. Tambe emphasizes that ARMOR is intended to act as an assistant that recommends scheduling and locations. It is not intended to dictate patrol scheduling.”
Security Management
Obesity System Influence Diagram
“The 108 variables shown on the map – the drivers of obesity – were compiled by shiftN, from the 38 science reviews produced for the project and then vetted by the project’s science team. The drivers are woven into systemic picture by the positive and negative influence arrows that link the variables into a web of causal relationships.”
visualcomplexity.com
maeve
“The installation consists of an interactive surface and a large projection area. While users are interacting with the contents of the installation on the interactive surface, the network and the media files are displayed on the large projection. The ten winning projects from the Everyville student competition are represented as physical cards. If a card is placed on the interactive surface, a contextual space is opened around the project. Within this space, media files, related projects and keywords are visualized. When a second card is placed on the surface, the space turns into a network displaying similarities between the projects.”
visualcomplexity.com
Pioneer 3D Floating Vision: Half Wii, Half Surface, All 3D
“It’s a system of layers: first, an LCD with built-in computer, then an array of 3D lenses, and finally the “space sensor,” or virtual screen, where you can wave your fingers around and watch the 3D animations react accordingly. But the space sensor can also distinguish between and interact with different objects, like the Microsoft Surface: hold your phone under a falling object, say, and it’ll appear on your phone’s screen with a coupon for that item.”
Gizmodo
