Archive for July, 2010
3D-printed clothing
“Designer-researchers like Freedom of Creation in Amsterdam and Philip Delamore at the London College of Fashion are cranking out seamless, flexible textile structures using software that converts three-dimensional body data into skin-conforming fabric structures. The potential for bespoke clothing, tailored to the specific individual, are as abundant as the patterns that can be created, from interlocking Mobius motifs to tightly woven meshes.”
Boing Boing
A Location Based Service With Discretion
“Face2face will only notify users when a contact is nearby, and it does not give out that contact’s exact location. Aims to avoid oversharing by looking only at what’s within walking distance, and only letting you know who’s nearby (vs. where all your contacts are). Privacy settings let users decide if they want to be invisible to others, and who they want to share their information with. ”
PSF
Sparks for Your Stride: Kinetic Energy Conversion News
“The US National Science Foundation has offered a $350,000 grant to researchers at the University of California-Berkeley, who are developing microscopic piezoelectric fibers that could be woven into any garment. The research team claims that a million fibers spun into a shirt would generate enough current to power an iPod. So far the team, led by Professor Liwei Lin, has succeeded in converting energy from small finger movements using fibers attached to a glove (see a video demonstration of this in Smart Planet’s “Future of Cloth” report here). The Pentagon is also backing the project, in the hope that it will put an end to heavy battery packs for soldiers.”
Worldchanging
Monitoring Elderly Parents
“All was normal — meaning all was well. “Right now she’s not home,” Mr. Murdock said. That he deduced because the sensors he had installed throughout his mother’s home told him that the kitchen door — which leads outside — had not been reopened since 1:36, more than an hour earlier. The opening of the medicine cabinet midday confirmed to him that his mother had taken her medicine. And he was satisfied that she had eaten lunch because the refrigerator door was open more than just a few seconds. ”
NYTimes.com
The Proverbial Wallet: A Wallet Revealing your Financial Situation
“The design concept consists of electronically augmenting an everyday wallet to make it capable of providing subtle haptic and visual feedback based on the personal financial metrics of the wearer. The Peacock wallet prototype appears to physically grow and shrink to reflect the user’s current account balance. Wearers will feel a subtle tightness or looseness in their pocket that persists until their account balance changes. In addition, an unusually high balance will result in a wallet large enough to be clearly visible to potential “mates”. The Mother Bear wallet contains a resistant hinge to protect the money within it, making it difficult to open when people need to be thrifty. The Bumblebee wallet prototype vibrates whenever the bank processes a personal transaction, alerting people to potential fraud in real-time.”
information aesthetics
Postcards Go Virtual With SwingVine Gallery For The iPhone
“Using your iPhone’s camera and GPS, the SwingVine Gallery app allows you to send a photo to a friend “secretly,” a photo that they are unable to see unless they also participate by sending a photo back, sort of like a mobile game of photo tag. While both the idea and the app interface are simple, SwingVine gallery does have its appeal, as it’s pretty hard to resist wanting to see whatever photo postcard is under wraps. I genuinely felt a level of excitement as I waited for my “secret” postcard to be revealed (It was, of course, a photo of the Eiffel Tower).”
TechCrunch
App lets consumers open and pay a bar tab by phone
“They begin by downloading and setting up the application, including entering account information for one or more credit or debit cards; once stored, those accounts are displayed only via the last four digits. Next, when they’re ready to visit a bar, they can use the app to see which ones near them are linked with TabbedOut. The software is integrated directly with participating restaurants and bars so as to allow consumers to open and view a tab directly from the point-of-sale system. Opening a tab with TabbedOut essentially provides the bar with the consumer’s stored payment information up front; in return, he or she is given a code that the bartender uses to keep track of each drink.”
Springwise
Online tool helps families begin planning a funeral
“The Virtual Arrangement Conference’s interactive presentation is designed to walk families through the key points of what they should expect during a meeting at the funeral home. In addition to explaining the process step by step, the interactive tool can also facilitate the collection of information required by the funeral home, using integrated forms to transmit information such as data for the death certificate or facts to be included in the obituary. No information is required to be submitted using the tool, but hundreds of families have already used it to begin the funeral planning process for themselves, the Louisiana company says, cutting down significantly on the in-person meeting time required.”
Springwise
Collaborative photo books help groups tell stories
“group members upload and tag photos to a shared workspace. Each member then uses these pooled images to create pages of photos. Users can select single or multi-photo layouts, change the background colour and add text to their pages. Group members then pick and choose from other members’ pages to assemble their own unique photo book. Online photo books can be created free of charge, and sharing will be available soon with Facebook integration for inviting group members. Printed photo books can be ordered for USD 12.99 for 20 pages in softcover format, and USD 24.99 for hardcover.”
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Springwise
Solar Sail Proves Photon Acceleration Works, as it Twists and Turns Under the Sun
“Measuring 20m diagonally, the solar sail is made from aluminized plastic, which is as thin as the diameter of a red blood cell. 0.0003-inches thin, in fact. The material it’s made from reflects the solar radiation back towards the sun, which is how it propelled itself through space. The liquid crystal lining the outside of the solar sail reflects different volumes of sunlight, and is responsible for steering it through space, with the Aerospace Exploration Agency back in Japan controlling the angles”
Gizmodo
Panasonic announces world’s first 3D interchangeable lens
“Currently, 3D shooting with an interchangeable lens camera is possible only by combining two lenses and two CCDS or using panorama systems like that offered in Sony’s NEX digital cameras. However, Panasonic points out these systems are not ideal and have difficulty capturing moving objects. Panasonic’s new 3D lens for the LUMIX G Micro System (a system based on the Micro Four Thirds System standard) features two optical systems installed within the diameter of the lens mount, creating stereo images from the left and right lenses that are then processed with a 3D image processing system.”
Gizmag
Mapping Social Networks In A 3-D Environment
“Invisible Cities is an application that visualizes real-time and aggregate data culled from Twitter and Flickr, and maps it in a three-dimensional environment. It provides an alternate perspective towards the geographical relationships and intensity of social network connectivity within an urban landscape. Real-time updates are shown as nodes which materialize when tweets or images are posted, and aggregate data are displayed through the layout of the terrain.”
PSFK
Of two minds: Listener brain patterns mirror those of the speaker
“The researchers found that when the two people communicate, neural activity over wide regions of their brains becomes almost synchronous, with the listener’s brain activity patterns mirroring those sweeping through the speaker’s brain, albeit with a short lag of about one second. If the listener, however, fails to comprehend what the speaker is trying to communicate, their brain patterns decouple.”
Scientific American
Concept Camera Tells You How Much You Suck At Taking Pictures
“Andrew Kupresanin‘s Nadia camera concept checks the images you take against the ACQUINE quality inference engine and rates your picture on a visual prettiness percentage scale (because computers know what looks good!).”
Gizmodo
Tactile display for light and shadow
“Touch Light Through the Leaves consists of a camera and 85 vibration units. The camera detects light and shadow, and the vibration units, controlled via image processing and vibration motors, change those inputs into tactile sensations. The display is palm-sized, so it can be used anywhere under various conditions. People who have experienced this display report weird, new sensations. In their daily lives, light and shadow are perfectly ordinary, but when they feel light and shadow directly on their palms, they are “touched” by light for the first time. ”
Make
Life Microscope Bracelet Monitors The Minute Details Of Your Life
“once on your wrist, will be capable to record every single movement you will produce, and once these data collected and sent to a dedicated software, Hitachi is capable to display how long you walk or rest, but also capable to differentiate each of these 2 major actives like being example capable to know the difference between your sleeping time, working time (seated on a chair at your desk), as well as the difference between let’s say playing video games or eating for example.”
PSFK
3D-Camera-Equipped Mars Curiosity Rover Takes First Steps
“The rover, which is much bigger than I was expecting it to be, rolled a few feet surrounded by engineers and technicians in “bunny suits” on the clean room floor. All went according to plan, and everything is still on track for next fall’s launch. As previously reported, Curiosity is going to be headed up to Mars equipped with a pretty sweet 3D camera thanks to James Cameron, which should send back some of the most striking images of the planet’s surface ever captured. Godspeed, Curiosity.”
Gizmodo
Motion capture, digitization, immortality, and video chatting
“The most interesting manifestation of this is in the new Tron movie, where Jeff Bridges will play the same character (Clu) he played in the 25-year-old original. The twist is that modern-day Jeff Bridges’ actions will be digitized into younger Jeff Bridges on-screen! […] This is kind of mind-blowing if you think about it. With this technology, inter-quels (i.e. movies between sequels) become possible: Bruce Willis could go back and do Die Hard 1.5 with his 1989 physique and hair, for instance. It’s also disturbingly possible that Hollywood could use archival footage to digitize, say, Cary Grant’s face, body and voice, and have George Clooney play Cary Grant playing a movie character. Which is to say, George Clooney in the studio does a take, and the audience sees and hears Cary Grant doing the same take on-screen. Thus you could have long-dead film stars more or less “starring” in completely new movies.”
Core77
katrin baumgarten: the disgusted object
“the first object simulates the pilomotor reflex or goosebumps on skin. while holding the object the user will slowly begin to feel little bumps on the underside. the other object begins to squirm while it is being held. it is static when not held but when grasped, it tries to escape the hand as if it were a living creature.”
DesignBoom
Fujitsu’s new resistive multi-touch panel detects finger and stylus input simultaneously
“Fujitsu’s panels can handle both single-tap and multi-touch gestures, and of varying pressure and varying materials (gloves, pens, light finger touch). In the press release Fujitsu points to a growing use of touch panels, not just in the smartphone industry, but also in POS facilities, kiosk, and banking systems.”
Gizmag
greg saul: sketch chair
“new zealand designer greg saul is working on software that easily allows users to design and build their own products using rapid manufacturing. sketch chair is the first iteration of this project. the software is based on processing and enables users to design objects using 2-D sketching techniques. the software translates the 2-D drawings into a 3-D form which can be printed out or laser cut. the user then simply punches out the pieces and assembles their designs.”
DesignBoom
Consumed – Digital Tools for Making Brilliant Mistakes
“IZotope Vinyl recording software lets users “create authentic ‘vinyl’ simulation,” right down to filters to suggest the amount of dust on a record and the degree of warping. Digital typefaces ape handwriting, including idiosyncratic jots or messy scrawls in dashed-off marker or childlike crayon; others strive to capture the quirks of the hand-painted signage at a small business. Even crudely amateur Web design can now be recreated in a click with the Geocities-izer, which instantly reworks any slick contemporary site into a jarring mess of loud colors and pointless animation reminiscent of an earlier and more individualized version of the Internet — as if it were “made by a 13-year-old in 1996.”
NYTimes.com
hitachi: emiew 2
“…‘emiew 2′ (excellent mobility and interactive existence as work-mate) has received some new upgrades. two major updates amongst many is its voice recognition capability and its adaptive suspension control technology which allows ‘emiew 2′ to have greater stability during motion. this helps to facilitate actions such as going through the door, or walking over cables. currently used for carrying documents between departments at the hitachi research center, ‘emiew 2′ travels at the maximum speed of 6km/h in order to match the walking speed of humans.”
DesignBoom
India unveils prototype for $35 touch-screen computer
“Mr Sibal said the Indian tablet, said to run the Linux operating system, was expected to be introduced to higher education institutions next year. The plan was to drop the price eventually to $20 and ultimately to $10, he added. Unveiling the gadget, the human resource development minister told the Economic Times newspaper it was India’s answer to the “$100 laptops” developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.”
BBC News
iDJ Music Mixing Station for iPad by Psychic Factory
“become the next big name with the iDJ Music Mixing Station for iPad. A powerpacked DJ performance device with a dual-deck layout. Bringing down the neighborhood with your houseband mixing finesse or polishing your skills in piano drums and guitar, this is the device that helps you with both.”
Yanko Design
Tiny Surveillance Aircraft Can Charge Itself By Landing On Power Lines
“The trick to making this possible, it turns out, is making them perform a controlled stall, like what birds do when landing on wires. When they approach the wire, they point their nose up at the right trajectory to slow them down and let them hook right onto the wire. This keeps them from landing too hard on the wire or overshooting it.”
Gizmodo
Inspirataur
“Mashing up ideas drawn from a database of user-submitted videos, photos and text that have been entered either online or through the app, the upshot is like a multimedia version of one of Brian Eno’s “Oblique Strategy” cards—dressed up in retro ’80s graphics.(Co-creator Jessica Aceti, of Cap-sac fame, says, “I love anything with a Tron-like grid.”) Once users create their randomly-generated “inspirataur,” they have the option of sharing their finished works on Facebook with the aim of stimulating people around the world and sharing ideas collectively.”
CoolHunting
singing fingers ipad app
“‘singing fingers’ has a dead simple interface that is just a blank screen. users run their fingers over the screen drawing forms as they make noise. the application records the noise and associates each noise with the form that was drawn while it was recorded. by simply touching the painting, the user can then play back the noises they made in any sequence they choose.”
DesignBoom
Online Flight Data Recorder: Best Idea In a Long Time
“The mobile satellite communications company is working on that, using a two kilobyte-per-second data link between airplanes and its global network of satellites. The system has been already demonstrated in flights over the Atlantic, using Airbus and Boeing planes.”
Gizmodo
Researchers working on an invisibility cloak made of glass
“Semouchkina and colleagues at the Pennsylvania State University, where she is also an adjunct professor, describe developing a nonmetallic cloak that uses identical glass resonators made of chalcogenide glass, a type of dielectric material (one that does not conduct electricity). In computer simulations, the cloak made objects hit by infrared waves – approximately one micron or one-millionth of a meter long – disappear from view.”
Gizmag
Fits.me virtual fitting room: say goodbye to clothing size mishaps
“So you’ll understand my interest in the Fits.me virtual fitting room. It’s an online changing room where you simply enter your sizing statistics and a robotic mannequin models how various sizes will look on your torso – all from the comfort of your own home. The Fits.me is a sizing solution developed for online retailers. By providing an online dressing room, it aims to help customers make more informed decisions about their online purchases, increase customer satisfaction and maybe reduce purchase returns due to incorrect sizing.”
Gizmag
Two Driverless Cars Have Begun 8,000-Mile Journey from Italy to China
“Each van will work in tandem with a manned leader van that will drive ahead and give its driverless counterpart cues on where it’s going next. But the driverless vehicle will be responsible for negotiating traffic and responding to the environment and obstacles around it. Only one driverless van and leader vehicle will operate at a time; the other pair will be hauled behind on a truck. The vans require an eight-hour charge after every few hours on the road, so even traveling at speeds between 30-37 miles per hour — not very fast but not a crawl either — the going will be very slow.”
Gizmodo
Tate Offers Kids A Chance To Help Make A Film
“In an attempt to engage children with creative skills early on, the Tate museum recently unveiled its film project that will air on the BBC next year. Children aged 5-13 are asked to contribute designs for animations and illustrations through the film’s website: ‘The site will be constantly updated in order to try and keep the kids interested during the year-long production period. There will also be a truck, rigged up to look like the studio on the website, that will travel around schools and to festivals and other events to try and encourage children to get involved.”
PSF
Location-based classifieds in 140 characters or less
“Using a free iPhone application, Anttenna enables real-time, location-based, person-to-person exchanges by turning traditional classified listings into geo-tagged, Twitter-sized “microlistings,” as it calls them. With a platform that’s actually built on top of Twitter, Anttenna lets users quickly connect with people nearby to buy things, sell things or just reach out. Things for sale get posted to the site’s “supply chain,” while wanted goods go to its demand side; either way, posting takes less than a minute, the company says.”
Springwise
Flipboard, an iPad Magazine About Nothing
“Flipboard is new iPad app that aggregates all your social networking activities, presenting them in a nicely animated magazine format. Because magazines aren’t dead, they’re just free now. And all about you.”
Gizmodo
On-demand rubbish collection – by robot
“You’ve had a party and your garbage bin is overflowing but the regular collection is still several days away. Imagine being able to make a call and have your rubbish collected at a time that suits you. For 100 households in Peccioli, Italy it’s a reality. They are part of a two month trial of DustCart, a robot that provides an on-demand garbage collection service – just make a call and DustCart will soon arrive at your door to take away the trash. Most of us curse the garbage collection service, especially when we’re woken early in the morning by noisy lorries and their waste-crushing machinery. However, the residents of many historical towns and cities in Europe have to deal with their own rubbish because streets are pedestrianized or too narrow for vehicular access. The EU-funded DustBot project may be the solution with its on-call robot, DustCart. DustCart is about the size of a person, and thanks to high-tech sense and control technologies it can navigate narrow streets and obstacles.”
Gizmag
Semi-autonomous, Multi-Operated All-Terrain Vehicle to lighten soldiers’ loads
“As well as being driven like an ordinary vehicle, the MOATV can be tele-operated by a remote control or instructed to semi-autonomously follow or go directly to a soldier operating a PDA. The company says the technology on the MOATV, which includes collision detection and avoidance systems that allow it to negotiate around objects that lie in its path while operating autonomously, can be applied to any vehicle.”
Gizmag
Pilot Handwriting: Break out that pen to create your Self-Font
“How it works: You download a template from Pilot Handwriting, fill in the appropriate letters, then scan it into your machine using your webcam. Their website then turns your chicken scratch into a cohesive, readable font that you can use to type missives in”
Core77
Vibration packs aim to replace batteries for gadgets
“The mechanism works similarly to that of a bicycle light dynamo, only in this instance movement from a few shakes provides the energy to power. “Our Vibration Energy Cells generate electricity using a coil, a magnet, and condenser that charges electricity. These are all embedded in the battery,” a Brother spokesman told BBC News. “Because of its low output this type of cell is designed to be used for things such as TV remote controls and LED devices, which consume low power and do not consume electrical power continuously.”"
BBC News
ToneCheck Stops You from Sending Passive Aggressive (or Plain Aggressive) Emails
“After installing the plug-in (available for Outlook only for now, but it looks like versions for Gmail, Thunderbird, and Mail.app are in the works), you’ll get a new Run ToneCheck button right next to Spellcheck in Outlook. Click it to see an analysis of the tone of your email (like the one in the screenshot above). From that point, you can edit out the offending language, or you may want to adjust your settings to change the tolerance threshold for both negative and positive language.”
LifeHacker
HULC exoskeleton system ready for soldier tests
“The HULC (Human Universal Load Carrier) allows soldiers to carry weights of up to 200lbs (91kg) with little effort and is designed to reduce the strain of carrying heavy equipment. It works by transferring the load to the ground through the exoskeleton’s titanium legs and uses an onboard computer to sense and mimic the user’s movements. The battery powered device, which can fit different body sizes, also allow for jumps, squats, crawling and slow-speed running.”
BBC
marilena skavara: adaptive fa[ca]de
“adaptive fa[ca]de is an interactive installation by designer marilena skavara which responds to the lighting of its environment. the project builds upon the patterns of cellular automata, using these forms to provide the optimal light intensity in a space through its living skin façade. the project uses an artificial neural network and is continually adapting and training itself based on its history. sensors measure the light in the space and the system then adjusts the façade to balance any shifts using patterns of cellular automata.”
DesignBoom
Project Explores Truly Personal Electronics Design
“These products include the Gesundheit Radio, which sneezes periodically to expel potentially damaging dust, Floppy Legs – the portable floppy disk drive which stands up if it detects liquid nearby, and the AntiTouch Lamp, which sways away from you if you get too close to it’s sensitive halogen bulb.”
PSFK
First Self-Sustaining Biomass Bot Eats, Excretes, Runs for a Week
“So what exactly does it eat? Why, partially processed sewage of course! It navigates toward a trough and “eats” what it needs, generating electricity by metabolizing its, err, meal with bacteria in the fuel cells. Any undigested matter gets pumped back up into the bot’s gut to maximize its energy use. The waste is, shall we say, “purged” every 24 hours with a colon-like pump that uses pressure waves to expel it into a litter tray. Chris Melhuish, director of the lab, said the robot was called Ecobot III, but admitted “diarrhea-bot would be more appropriate, as it’s not exactly knocking out rabbit pellets.” Well, as they say: garbage in, garbage out. “
Inhabitat
I (Almost) Live in the Cloud
“Recent photos are stored on Facebook, Flickr and Picasa. I only have one album stored on my computer, an Al Green compilation a friend gave me as a gift on iTunes. For everything else, I listen to tunes on music-streaming services like Hype Machine and Last.FM and the latest listings on a few music blogs, such as Gorilla vs Bear. I watch movies and television shows on Hulu and Netflix, with the occasional scrounging around on sites like SideReel or Surf The Channel for more obscure or harder-to-find broadcasts. I save articles and Web sites I want to return to for future reference as favorites on Twitter, bookmarked on Instapaper and cataloged on Delicious. In short, there isn’t much lingering on the hard drive of my computer, save for an old copy of “The Secret of Monkey Island” and a couple of Web browsers. “
NYTimes.com
RO – Printing System Based On Nano Robots by Daniel Kussmaul
“Envisage a future where printers are microscopic and an army of robots print anything you want. It’s called RO. At least 100 nanobots are stored in four base stations which also serve as ink cartridges for each of the four printing colors (CMYK). The base stations adhere to every surface. By relocating the stations, the printing area can be set and scaled to size. When the printing system ist activated the print job is projected onto the designated area by a laser beamer. During the printing process the nanobots merge together and form printing grids.”
Yanko Design
Social Networking for Cars
“The car that could Twitter is AJ, a 2011 Ford Fiesta that’s a test bed for company engineers exploring the boundaries of what’s possible when an automobile is connected to the Internet and all of its concomitant services. In May, a team of Ford engineers drove AJ from Ann Arbor, Mich., to San Mateo, Calif., to participate in the Maker Faire. Along they way, AJ sent out Twitter messages. “It’s getting pretty dark; time to put the headlights on,” was a typical entry, but followers also learned when AJ’s mood was “joyful.” But how could a car be joyful? “There’s no traffic, and it’s not raining and it’s enjoying a winding road,” said Joe Rork, an information technology architect with Ford’s in-vehicle research and strategy team. Mr. Rork recalled the journey recently during a presentation in Manhattan. He explained that AJ was indeed sending the messages on its own.”
NYTimes.com
‘Terahertz’ speed signal processor an important step for optical computing
“The new discovery, made by researchers at Oregon State University (OSU), the University of Iowa and Philipps University in Germany, has identified a way in which nanoscale devices based on gallium arsenide can respond to strong terahertz pulses for an extremely short period, controlling the electrical signal in a semiconductor. The devices can be used as optical switches, replacing wires with emitters and detectors that can function at terahertz speeds.”
Gizmag
The Blekko Search Engine Prepares To Launch
“…the differentiating feature are the query refinement tools they call Slashtags. These tools, like /news or /date or /amazon or /blogs, or any combination, make it very simple to quickly filter results to what you are looking for. Users can create their own slashtags based on a group of URLs. I’ve created one that lists all TechCrunch sites to do easy site search. Others have created slashtags for conservative or liberal blogs, top tech sites, etc. If they make those slashtags public, others can use them, too. ”
TechCrunch
Samsung Creating Unbreakable AMOLED Screens
“Samsung’s process in making the indestructible screen is to put a thin film transistor (TFT) on the plastic panel and to replace the vinyl protection sheet with polyimide film. Of course, if you drop your phone the glass will still break, but at least you’ll have a working touchscreen underneath the shards.”
Gizmodo
Locations That Are Aware: Making The Check-In Obsolete
“According to Cuban, the next extension is to install the software in places where facial recognition software can be added. What this means for both individuals and brick and mortar businesses like restaurants, lounges and retailers is that – rather than having to use you a location based app to check-in – the business would already know you’re there. The store/host recognizes you are there and rewards you for allowing your identity and information to be captured and linked.”
PSFK
Sony Offers Tiny 3-D Cameras
“Sony calls these cameras the “world’s smallest” in the 3-D space and says they can take three-dimensional panoramic images with a new technology, Sweep Panorama. This allows camera owners to press the shutter button on the camera and move across a panoramic scene to create extensive, captivating photos, Sony says. But there’s a catch with these cameras; although all the photos can be viewed as normal 2-D images on any traditional surface, you need a 3-D television and the appropriate 3-D glasses to see the images pop off the screen.”
NYTimes.com
Budget Tool by Hampus Edström
“The reality is people live beyond their means because they don’t have an understanding of where their money goes. In this day in age, digital money is hard to keep track of and much easier to spend. The budget tool consists of a touchscreen PDA (haven’t seen that word in awhile) and customized software to register your expenses. A physical bar diagram then dynamically changes to show income vs. expenditures – in a very minimal but typically Scandinavian way.”
Yanko Design
Nokia Kinetic Concept Declines Calls Using Playful Flicks
“Don’t want to answer? Screen that call with a simple flick. The Kinect will then bounces down to the table. After that, thanks to an electromagnet in the base, it rights itself for the next caller. Functional and stress relieving, all in one.”
Gizmodo
The Humane Reader: A $20 ‘computer’
“The Humane Reader is a low-cost device which can bring a five thousand book library into a home or school which has no other access to internet content. The Reader can be produced in quantity for approximately $20 per unit, and uses any existing television set as a display device for Wikipedia or other content. It is available to NGOs, educators, non-profits or other aid agencies.”
Make
Bye-Bye, Batteries – Radio Waves as a Low-Power Source
“These days, his interest is in a real hat now in prototype: a hard hat with a tiny microprocessor and beeper that sound a warning when dangerous equipment is nearby on a construction site. What’s unusual, however, is that the hat’s beeper and microprocessor work without batteries. They use so little power that they can harvest all they need from radio waves in the air. The waves come from wireless network transmitters on backhoes and bulldozers, installed to keep track of their locations. The microprocessor monitors the strength and direction of the radio signal from the construction equipment to determine if the hat’s wearer is too close. ”
NYTimes.com
Real Time Farms is a User-Supported, Local Farmers Market Guide
“We’ve featured one local food guide on the web, but Real Time Farms takes it a step further. You can not only view local market listings, but also a list of what’s available from a given vendor and photos of available produce.”
LifeHacker
Google’s Do-It-Yourself App Tool
“The Google application tool for Android enables people to drag and drop blocks of code — shown as graphic images and representing different smartphone capabilities— and put them together, similar to snapping together Lego blocks. The result is an application on that person’s smartphone. For example, one student made a program to inform a selected list of friends, with a short text message, where he was every 15 minutes. The program was created by putting three graphic code blocks together: one block showed the phone’s location sensor, another showed a clock (which he set for 15-minute intervals), and third linked to a simple database on a Web site, listing the selected friends. ”
NYTimes.com
Tokyo trials digital billboards that scan passers-by
“The camera can distinguish a person’s sex and approximate age, even if the person only walks by in front of the display, at least if he or she looks at the screen for a second,” said a spokesman for the project. If data for different locations is analysed, companies can provide interactive advertisements “which meet the interest of people who use the station at a certain time,” the project said in a statement.”
PhysOrg
A Venting Room At The Mall
“A mall in Shenyang China opened a store where its customers pay to vent frustrations by breaking, smashing, and vandalizing all kinds of domestic objects. Interestingly, the store is for women exclusively, giving a strong clue to its larger social purpose, and it contains several rooms (i.e. living room, bedroom, and the kitchen space is coming soon). The manager was quoted in saying, “women can come here to feel like they are in their own homes but without any limitations, and they can break anything here”.”
PSFK
Wi-Fi Without a Base Station
“The recently-announced Ozmo2000 chip is the first device that purports to support the not-yet finalized WiFi Direct standard. WiFi Direct promises to end the dependence of WiFi devices on nearby base stations: instead, they’ll communicate directly with each other, advertising their presence, setting up ad-hoc networks and even hooking up with old school WiFi enabled devices. WiFi Direct and chips like the Ozmo2000 will end the conundrum of why an iPhone (for example) can’t wirelessly connect directly to a nearby laptop when both aren’t in range of a base station.”
Technology Review
richard harvey: floating forecaster
“floating forecaster’ is a interactive display by richard harvey that uses floating ping-pong balls to represent various pieces of information. the project interprets information sent for an iphone to a physical display and represents it through different hovering patterns and movements.”
DesignBoom
Clock that knits a scarf
“Industrial designer Siren Elise Wilhelmsen created this knitting clock that cranks out a two-meter scarf every year. It’s called “365.”"
Boing Boing
(Pic) NYC Billboard Is A Giant QR Code
“A Calvin Klein ad above a Houston Street intersection in New York City is marked by giant red-and-white QR code. Unknown content beckons smartphone owners to scan the code to see an “uncensored” video advertisement.”
PSFK
Half of New Energy Produced in the US Last Year Was Green
“A UN-backed study has reported that the building of new renewable energy plants has overtaken fossil fuel power plants in Europe and the US. The report charts construction from last year and states that renewables accounted for 60 percent of new electricity generation capacity in Europe. In the US, green power accounted for more than half of new generation capacity that was constructed in 2009.”
Inhabitat
Taking a journey back in time
“His “time machine” is, at its simplest level, a website powered by a massive database. Users can search for objects, places or people and use that as their entry point into history, he said. Results can be displayed in various ways, such as on a map or as a collage of pictures and videos. These collages are arranged in concentric rings with more relevant results at the centre. A time line stretches into the screen allowing people to go back in time, like flicking through pages in a Rolodex.”
BBC News
Nanogenerators Can Create Electricity From Blood Flow
“The minute generators were made from placing several piezoelectric nanofibers, that are microscopic wires capable of using mechanical energy from nearby and converting it into electrical energy, on a piece of silicon. Dr. Shi’s team was able to generate a small amount of power from the generators in their experiments and hope to use them in biosensors and in powering implantable medical devices in the future.”
PSFK
Rex Bionics Has The Technology
“This is Rex. Not the man, he’s called Hayden—Rex is short for Robotic Exoskeleton, and it’s the name of the robotic pants Hayden’s wearing. Robotic pants that let him walk for the first time in five years. There are a couple of minor issues with Rex in its current form—it moves very, very slowly, with the robotic legs taking an age to trundle slowly forward, plus there’s the awkward $150,000 price tag it’ll have when it launches internationally in 2011. But apart from that… it’s robot legs! Working robot legs! ”
Gizmodo
Global search engine for items lost and found, rewards included
“Built on a Google Maps foundation, Finderbase lets users post a listing for an item they have lost or found and geo-tag it to a specific location. Listings include the date an item was lost or found, a description and a photograph if available. Listings for lost items can also include a reward for the finder. The site uses a credits system to reward object finders and manage payments from object seekers. Finders can post found object listings for free and receive 5 FinderBase credits for every found item. Seekers pay 1 euro (20 credits) to place a lost item listing. Upon registering, all new users are given 20 credits, making their first lost item listing free.”
Springwise
In a First, Full-Sized Robo-Copter Flies With No Human Help
“Unmanned smart choppers could help the military better handle dangerous territory and low-visibility conditions to evacuate wounded soldiers or bring supplies to the front lines. In areas with bad or non existent roads (like Afghanistan), helicopters are sometimes the only mode of transport. Finding a place to safely land in a dust storm, on rugged terrain, or with bullets flying at you presents a major challenge for pilots. Artificially intelligent helicopters could help pilots stake out good landing spots, or perhaps even allow them to stay safely behind at base.” 
Gizmodo
Sony unveils world’s first consumer HD camcorder with interchangeable lens system
“Calling the NEX-VG10 the world’s first consumer HD camcorder with an interchangeable lens system, Sony says it enables users to capture images and videos with background defocus effects and shallow depth of field.”
Gizmag
Food on the Table Builds Menus and Grocery Lists Based on Your Family’s Preferences
“After you sign up for the site, you’ll walk through a little setup in which you identify your main grocery store and check off the foods your family likes to eat (namely meats-it’d be nice to have more fruit and vegetable choices). Later, you can pick another nearby store if you want to compare prices. Next, you’re presented with a list of items (based on your preferences) and asked: “What are you in the mood for this week?” Make your choices, select the number of meals you’re ready to plan, and choose what you care about most now: Saving time, money, health, or variety. At this point, the site searches through recipes that match your needs, prices out the cost of the meal for you, and lets you print out your shopping list.”
LifeHacker
jinha lee: beyond
“the small pen-like tool collapses into the digital world when pressed against the screen, giving the illusion that it is inside the virtual space. by moving the pen around the screen and adjusting its height, users can draw objects in three dimensions. by adding an interactive glove element, the system can even be used to draw cubes, cylinders and other three-dimensional objects.”
DesignBoom
MIT Creates New Multifunctional Fibers with Piezoelectric Sensitivity
“Led by Professor of Materials Science and Engineering Yoel Fink, the team achieved their previous success with heat and light-sensitive fibers by devising a method of layering them into a thick “perform” cylinder, and then heating and stretching them into a long, thin strand. Keep in mind that in order to do that, all of the materials involved have to melt and stretch at similar temperatures – including the new piezoelectric layer. The team was finally able to combine their earlier materials with the new piezoelectric layer, creating a fiber that carries both light and electricity. The new multifunctional material has far-reaching applications from making miniscule biosensors to tiny ultrasound imagers. We’re particularly interested in the fibers’ ability to “feel” feather-pressure stresses and what that could mean for monitoring earthquakes and other structural instabilities.”
Inhabitat
GE Mood Cam App Helps You Pick the Perfect Light Bulb
“Just snap a picture of a room with your iPhone, and GE’s Moodometer (do you suppose that’s pronounced Mood-ometer or Mood-o-meter?) will show you how various types of lighting could affect its vibe. Depending on whether you want things to be intimate or extremely intimate, the app will suggest a bulb best suited for your mood (and compatible with your light fixture).”
Gizmodo
Far From Home – Navigation Concept by Paolo Buatti & Alessandro Palombarini
“We’ve all done it – count the minutes, miles and blocks before reaching home. Temporary respite from a long, hard day is one of the first things I look forward to as the sun goes down. Far From Home is a GPS enabled bracelet that gleefully (been dying to use that word) displays iconoglyphs denoting the distance to home. Oh and yea, it’s a watch too. Hey it glows! Mmm, pretty.”
Yanko Design
eToro: Who Doesn’t Want A little Social Mixed With Commodities Trading?
“The company announced its new OpenBook platform today – think Twitter or Foursquare for trades. Users publish their real world commodities trades on the platform. Other users can view their trading history and then choose to follow those users. Or, with the click of a button, duplicate the trade. […] eToro is a good way for people to learn about the commodities trading business, starting off with fake cash or with very small trades. And it’s also clearly attracting higher profile traders who want to talk about what they do, and share with others.”
TechCrunch
mouseless project
“MIT researchers including pranav mistry has developed a computer control system that works just like a mouse, without a physical mouse being present. users place their hand on a flat surface and move it around as they would with a mouse, clicking the table and scrolling. the mouseless system tracks the user’s hand with an infrared laser beam and an infrared camera. customized software tracks the user’s movements and interacts digitally as if a mouse were present.”
DesignBoom
Multiuser Sketchpad Networks Cyber-Artists
“Similar to how chat-roulette randomly connected anonymous people together through video feeds, Multiuser Sketchpad is an outlet for artists to visually share their ideas through sketching. When users access the site, they are assigned a handle and begin to interact and express their thoughts with others using their digital pencil. Users can then click on “save sketch” to access a png copy of the multi-collaborative drawing, and perhaps print and frame it to create a gallery of anonymously-generated digital art.”
PSFK
Sound not as memory but experience
“Take a Closer Listen is a project by the talented Dutch graphic designer Rutger Zuydervelt in which a variety of people have been asked to describe their favorite sound. The results—which range from quick, five-word responses to entire short narratives about found sounds—were collected into an eponymous booklet, Take a Closer Listen, this past winter. Flipping through the pamphlet is like reading a silent soundtrack to a landscape you will never see in full.”
BLDGBLOG
Telescope Eye Implants Receive FDA Approval
“The US Food and Drug Administration has approved miniature telescope eye implants for people who have eye defects which cause blind spots in their central vision. The device is made by VisionCare and is surgically implanted after removing the eye’s lens. The Implantable Miniature Telescope magnifies the central part of what a person can see onto a healthy portion of the retina, thereby improving their vision.”
PSFK
alex dodge: generative
“the device monitors the user’s brainwaves, heartbeat and environmental audio. once connected to a PC the ‘sleep talker’ client software identifies the user’s dormant state using the electrodes embedded in the sleep cap. when the software detects synchronous or compatible dream sleep it attempts to pair with either a predesignated user over the internet or automatically to an available user with the sleep talker social network. in group mode, multiple users can form dream clusters defined by specific criteria or a single user can designate their feed as broadcast-only for others to listen to. the various data feeds, including EEG, pulse, galvanic skin response and audio (in the form of actual ‘sleep talking’ or environmental sound) are modulated into a real time audio visual feed and played back via the integrated headphones and sleep mask, forming a reciprocal link or ‘dialog’ between the users.”
Design Boom
Going with your Flow(ella)
“Tim Brooke at Nokia Design has public launched his tool Flowella for non-coders to explore simple interactions and flows on the phone. It’s beautifully easy, and speeds up the ability to evaluate ideas. These kinds of things are so valuable in getting ideas out faster, and I believe it is being sucked up by anyone who has a use for it. Which is nice.”
Plot
Birdcamera by Thomas Valcke
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Scary! Amazing! And oh my goodness, how it could work! You’ve got these birds on the wire, taking photos or video of people committing traffic crimes and wow, the crimes that will be caught. And then, as designer Thomas Valcke notes, there’ll be a collection of people who know that these birds are watching them. Paranoia sets in, as it always does, and these people begin to fear every bird watching them! Big Brother? No way. Big Bird.”
Yanko Design
Wired City: Josh Harris’ Plan To Make Us All Live In Public (Video)
“Wired City is Chatroulette on steroids. It starts with video chat rooms where the audience comes and watches each other. Since anyone can set up a home studio with a webcam, anyon can become a “ChatStar.” These chat rooms are organized in what Harris calls “Net bandstands,” which are divided into different categories such as music, gaming, fashion, news, lifestyle. The Chat rooms are organized in a hierarchy and linked together. A video DJ or director controls what is seen in each chat room, and when something interesting is happening in his chat room, he can signal up the chain to get his live video into more popular chat rooms. Some combination of eyeballs and money will determine which videos get promoted.”
TechCrunch
The Idea Behind Stanford’s New Library: Remove All the Books
“It’s not hard to see the trend: students are checking out fewer books than ever before. When the Stanford staff looked into the Engineering Library’s records, they found that a great number of books hadn’t been checked out in five years. So instead of carrying the physical volumes, the library will offer access to searchable, digitized versions of books and periodicals—especially useful for engineers who often only need to consult the book for a formula or two in the first place. The new library will still hold 10,000 real deal paper books, but that’s compared to the 60,000 that sat on the shelves in the old library.”
Gizmodo
Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality
“Economists are trying to measure a home computer’s educational impact on schoolchildren in low-income households. Taking widely varying routes, they are arriving at similar conclusions: little or no educational benefit is found. Worse, computers seem to have further separated children in low-income households, whose test scores often decline after the machine arrives, from their more privileged counterparts.”
NYTimes.com
Tiny light mill could have big applications in nanotech
“The nano light mill rotates when exposed to laser light, and the speed and direction of the rotation can be changed by manipulating the frequency of that light. Most intriguingly, the mill can generate enough torque to drive a micrometer-sized silica disk, 4,000 times larger in volume than the mill itself. This means that the nano mill could conceivably be put to use, in things such as nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), nanoscale solar light harvesters, and nanobots that could perform actions such as unwinding and rewinding DNA double helixes.”
Gizmag
To-Do App Shows How Feedback Loops Are Critical To Motivation
“Epic Win is a app-based task manager that brings elements from the role-playing game world to the daily to-do list. As items are marked off as done, experience points are collected to improve a player’s avatar, turning slow-developing long-term tasks (say the task of working out every day) into discrete and immediate forms of feedback. The user’s selectable character moves along a quest map towards new locations, unlocking items that are sharable on Facebook and Twitter for instant social feedback as well.”
PSFK
Virgin Media’s ‘10 Things Project’ Makes The Consumer The Curator
“Visitors are invited to create a personalized timeline displaying their ten favorite (digital) things from the last ten years, such as favorite song, image and YouTube video. The site automatically navigates through content-sharing sites like YouTube and Flickr to help users locate images and videos.”
PSFK
Philip Beesley – Reflexive Forests, Fields and Reefs
“Philip Beesley’s sculpture and installation works utilise automated geotextiles, lattices of acrylic tiles, and reflexive materials to create artificial plants, reefs and cybernetic forests. Incorporating an array of sensors (whiskers) and actuators, these ecosystems interact with the environments and anyone wishing to wander through its digital/mechanised undergrowth. Hylozoic Soil, an immense chandelier of intricate forest-like material contains branches holding feathers and fur, which reach out to stroke or be stroked. ”
dataisnature
Bicycle Charges USB Devices When Pedaled
“Instructables user dbc1218 has posted a tutorial on creating the USB Bike Generator, which places a small generator onto a bicycle to charge USB devices while pedaling. The invention uses a stepper motor to generate the electricity, and a voltage regulator to maintain a constant 5 volts required for USB ports.”
PSFK
Solar energy fuels experimental airplane all day, and all night
“12,000 solar cells lined the aircraft’s 207-foot wingspan. Cruising at 75 miles per hour, the mechanism actually collected more energy than it used during the full-day flight – and 20 percent more than expected. This means the plane could, theoretically, fly forever.”
CSMonitor.com
Tecnomatix Jack: Like “The Sims,” but for design
“The Tecnomatix product called Jack isn’t just a single virtual guy; it’s a software package of, giggles aside, anatomically correct and scalable human figures that can be dropped into virtual environments for “human prototyping.” The software is smart enough that you can assign Jack a task, whether it’s driving a forklift, stacking tires or moving boxes around inside a space capsule filled with other bodies, and assess his performance to hammer out the human factors issues of your designs. Can he reach the far side of the dashboard? Will he keep bumping into that thing at the end of the counter? Can he see past the C-pillar?”
Core77
GPS Drawing: Tracing the Environment at Scale 1:1 Completely on Foot
“Traverse Me [gpsdrawing.com] is a complete map of the campus of the University of Warwick, drawn on foot at scale 1:1. It required over 238 miles of GPS tracks which were walked over 17 days. The author, Jeremy Wood, responded to the structure of each location by avoiding walking along roads and paths whenever possible. The route was recorded with GPS technology and was traversed in different stages over the 300 hectare site.”
information aesthetics
Ridley Scott Wants Your YouTube Moments
“To participate in “Life in a Day,” people must film a snippet of their daily routine — 10 minutes max, please — on July 24. Video uploaded onto a special YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/lifeinaday) will be scrutinized by a team of editors. Mr. Macdonald, serving as director, and Mr. Scott, in a producer role, will bring together the most compelling film. “When structured in the right way these very specific things from ordinary life, which you could see as being very banal, become beautiful and rather communicative,” Mr. Macdonald said. He envisions, perhaps, a “beautiful collage” of 15 people around the world brushing their teeth.”
NYTimes.com
olars
“the project consists of a variety of colourful components that link together in different formations. however the project is more than a set of simple building blocks, each component has a different mechanical behaviour and can be fully animated. the set has thousands of movement options resulting in both familiar and strange motion patterns.”
DesignBoom
Objects’ stories, trackable & brought to life online
“Minnesota-based Itizen aims to let anyone associated with a particular keepsake, gift or interesting thing tell, share and follow its life story. Those interested in beginning a story for a particular good start by affixing an Itizen TRACKit tag to it—both stick-on and sew-on versions are available. Then, they can either type in the tag’s alphanumeric code or scan its QR code for automatic connection with its record. There, they can share the item’s story—where it came from, how they got it, what made them want it, and whatever other details seem relevant. Such stories can be made either private or public; either way, subsequent owners or borrowers of the product can add to it later and those with its code can see where it’s been.”
Springwise
Proverbial Wallet Uses Technology To Encourage Smart Spending
“Peacock: The wallet appears to grow and shrink using a servo to reflect the balance in your accounts. Your assets will be on display to attract potential mates. Mother Bear: The wallet protects the money within it when you need to be thrifty with a shorted motor in the hinge that resists opening. It promotes saving to weather out financial winters. Bumblebee: The wallet buzzes through a vibrator motor whenever your bank processes a transaction. This encourages a conscious connection between handing over your credit card and your hard-earned money being harvested from the bank, and alerts you to fraud when you get a buzz without making a purchase.”
PSFK
