Archive for May, 2011
Future OceanExplorer
“Catch me, I’m an information” communicate the floating words. With his hands the visitors of the table touches the glass surface and grabs the typographical swarm who has just awakened his interest. Aligned with white lines that look like delicate probe of marine animals, spread of secondary information will be visible. Text, images and films on various subjects can be detected by the visitor. The Ocean Explorer is an interactive table projection. Up to twelve visitors can view texts, films and animation on different topics. With headphones, visitors can also listen to the scientists under discussion. The five meters long and 120 centimeters wide, multi-touch table allows visitors to fish out information such as from a virtual pool of water and even go on an expedition themselves.”
Michel Magens
Welcome To The Future: Polymer Vision Demos SVGA Rollable Screen
“This 6-inch screen displays black and white e-ink text and images at 800×600 pixels and can roll around a tube the circumference of a dime. If this isn’t the future of print, I don’t know what is.”
TechCrunch
An iPad App That Helps You Overhaul Your Business Model
“Not surprisingly, the Business Model Canvas is the center of the iPad app. Here, the canvas is used as a way to prototype and illustrate business models. The focus tends to be on disruptive models, but it can also be used to describe and develop less radical changes. In the app, the canvas supplies the main interface, and the user can apply digital sticky notes to its different elements, just as they can on the analog version. The big enhancement over the book lies in the underlying modeling tools. By specifying customer types, revenue sources, and costs, users can sketch a quick overview of the viability of a business. While it took me a few tries to understand how it all worked (the interface is not exactly intuitive), it functions well, and the analytic tools make it a powerful resource in the right hands.”
Co.Design
Videoconferencing games help remote families stay connected
“To use Chicago-based Let’s Play Please, family members need only have high-speed internet access and a webcam. Then, once they register with the site and join each other’s contact lists, they’re ready to connect. When they want to play a game, they simply choose a family member or friend from their list of contacts, call that person through the site’s system and select an activity to play. Current choices include “Let’s Make a Story,” “Let’s Cook Together” and “Let’s Take Care of the Water,” for example. Newly launched Let’s Play Please plans to remain free for users thanks to its sponsorship model; each activity on the site will also be associated with a particular charity, it says.”
Springwise
A Different Song Every Time: The New Bronze Music Format
“Musician Gwilym Gold and producer Lexxx have come up with the concept for a new music format called Bronze. Gold’s first solo single Flesh Freeze has been the first song available to download in this new format. According to the website, Bronze is: A new non-interactive format in which recorded material is transformed in real time, generating a unique and constantly evolving interpretation of the song on each listen. It alters the musical components of a track so that each time you listen to it, it sounds different. Each play is unique; the lyrics may be changed around, certain instruments may be taken out or enhanced, and it may start and finish at a different point.”
PSFK
Disney Researchers Create Sensory Illusions For Video Games, Movies And Theme Park Rides
“Researchers at Disney’s Pittsburgh research facility have created a system that can make people feel like rain is dripping down their back or insects are crawling along their body. The “Tactile Brush” uses vibrating coils embedded into a chair to give the user sensory illusions via a series of motions and vibrations. The software can create a range of realistic effects, as the team showed at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems last week in Vancouver, Canada. They demonstrated the “Tactile Brush” using a driving game and users experienced forces that mimic the experience of cornering and and accelerating, as the coils were activated in sequence to sweep across the back.”
PSFK
Breakthrough in development of bio-batteries
“Scientists have determined the molecular structure of proteins that allow bacteria cells to transfer electrical charge, which could be a big step towards more efficient microbial fuel cells”
Gizmag
Korg iElectribe Gorillaz Edition iPad App features Sounds from latest Album “The Fall”
“Korg announces a new iPad App in collaboration with the cool band Gorillaz (Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett). The group’s latest LP, The Fall, is particularly notable for being recorded entirely on Albarn’s Apple iPad. Among the apps used was Korg’s best-selling iElectribe, and to commemorate the album’s release, Korg and Gorillaz have teamed up to offer the special iElectribe Gorillaz Edition.”
I4U News
Military tested, ultra rugged wearable computer system gets commercial release
“Worn as a vest, its rear plate carrier holds that processing platform, peripheral controller and power manager while a flip down 6.5-inch, sunlight-viewable, night vision goggle-compatible Universal Tactical Display (UTD) sits at the front and a GPS unit sits at the shoulder. In night-vision mode the UTD produces no detectable light beyond 33-feet and it can be worn at chest or lower torso height. Cables are routed through a cummerbund that integrates body armor and I/O ports while the computer itself has a 1.6 GHz Atom processor, 2 GB RAM, 128 GB SSD, and an SD card slot.”
Gizmag
Annika Syrjamaki Weaves Data Into Textiles
“Using the designer-friendly visual programming language Processing, Annika can collect and manipulate data about stock markets, newspapers, and weather — and then literally weave it to life in fabric in what David Report calls “content-based textile design.”"
Co.Design
Nike +1 Concept Helps You Find A Running Partner
“Turn on the Nike +1 app before you set out on your run, and a Bluetooth chip in your shoe will alert you to other runners nearby. Choose between the ‘Push’ option, which will pair you with faster runners, and the ‘Steady’ option, which will pair you with runners of a similar speed. You will then be alerted if a match is found and you can invite the person to join you. If they accept, you can sync your playlists so you listen to the same tunes while running together.”
PSFK
Software Transforms Photos Into 3-D Models
“We can automatically generate a 3-D mesh at extreme detail from a set of photos—we’re talking the kind of density captured by a laser scanner,” says Brian Mathews, who leads a group at the company known as Autodesk Labs. Unlike a laser scanner, though, the equipment needed to capture the 3-D rendering doesn’t cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. An overlapping set of around 40 photos is enough to capture a person’s head and shoulders in detailed 3-D, he says.”
Technology Review
US Intelligence Crunches Metaphors to Understand Foreign Language
“In the first phase of the IARPA program, the researchers would simply try to map from the metaphors a language used to the general affect associated with a concept like “journey” or “struggle.” These metaphors would then be stored in the metaphor repository. In a later stage, the Metaphor Program scientists will be expected to help answer questions like, “What are the perspectives of Pakistan and India with respect to Kashmir?” by using their metaphorical probes into the cultures. Perhaps, a slide from IARPA suggests, metaphors can tell us something about the way Indians and Pakistanis view the role of Britain or the concept of the “nation” or “government.”"
Gizmodo
WeTransfer
“I have a mesmerizing user experience crush on WeTransfer right now. If i’m going to have to wait for ages to download files ~ it might as well be fun. There is an awesomely playful and elegant experience when i land on WeTransfer, and i actually love watching it download and excitedly await the next AD coming up… in full screen mode behind the little download progress card. It’s just gorgeous. A breath of fresh air versus the ones that have the pop ups and the speedier download if you sign up and pay, etc ones with creepy text ads trying to hide themselves as useful calls to action, and the actual download link is hidden looking like a tiny google adsense text link.”
NOTCOT
Pioneer AppRadio: Imagine Your Entire Car Stereo System, Powered By a Smartphone
“Eseentially, the AppRadio head unit lends it’s 800×480, 6.1-inch capacitive touch panel, custom UI and audio amplification powers to the iPhone, which becomes the brains of the stereo system. You can access music apps and stream audio, make calls, play songs from your library, or access your favorite GPS app. You don’t have to reach for your phone or use a crappy FM transmitter. And hopefully, this means the days of accessing your iPhone music via janky manufacturer UIs are over. HOPEFULLY.”
Gizmodo
Infographic Of The Day: Which Country Could Make You Happiest?
“Each flower represents an OECD member country and each petal represents how it scores — out of 10 — on each of the 11 indices, including jobs, work-life balance, and community. You can rank the countries based on what issues you care about most. For instance, let’s imagine you care a lot about work-life balance and income, but don’t care at all about safety or the environment”
Co.Design
Live virtual attendance and shopping at Asian fashion events
“Toward that end, members can use the site’s live streaming service to watch exclusive fashion shows from the comfort of their own homes. Then, with e-commerce capabilities arriving later this year, they’ll even be able to select merchandise they like, buy it off the runway, pay for it and check out, all in real time. Pre and post-event coverage including behind-the-scenes footage, meanwhile, offers deeper insight and an insider’s view of what fashion shows are all about.”
Springwise
Tracks Is Sort Of Like Color For Normal People
“The examples the team gives for uses range from a pub crawl with friends to a family vacation. You and the people with you (who have to be explicitly invited into a group, rather than Color’s automatic method) create picture albums on the fly. These are called Tracks. And these tracks are then viewable both in the app and on the web in a beautiful, optimized experience.”
TechCrunch
ShakeCall Answers and Disconnects Calls on Your Android with the Flick of Your Wrist
“The free app uses your phone’s accelerometer and proximity sensor to help you answer incoming calls or end a call by shaking the phone. You can fine-tune how much shaking is needed and also test out the settings via the Sensor Virtual Call Test option.”
LifeHacker
Dumpster Drive: file-sharing application that recycles digital files
“Using dumpster diving as a model for recirculating unwanted objects, Dumpster Drive allows others to dig through files that you delete on your computer in a passive file-sharing network. Instead of simply erasing data from your computer, the software allows users to extend the lifecycle of their unwanted files and pass them on to others.”
Boing Boing
Depixelizing Pixel Art: Upscaling Retro 8-bit Games
“The algorithm identifies pixel-level details to accurately shade the new image — but more importantly, the algorithm can create smooth, curved contour lines from only-connected-on-the-diagonal single pixels. Look at the Super Mario World dolphin below, and compare it to the original source sprite below that: the results speak for themselves.”
ExtremeTech
Would You Like A $49 Electronic College Textbook With Lifetime Updates?
“Perhaps most notable in this era of constant upgrades and in-app purchases is that this text will be continually updated with top-notch content from Nature’s editing team at no additional cost to anyone who has purchased a copy. “Our interactive textbooks, since they are “born digital”, are designed to capitalize to the maximum degree on the progressive possibilities which digital media opens up for the education space: new distribution models, new learning models, new pricing models. Our textbooks are designed to make students active rather than passive learners throughout the learning process,” says Vikram Savkar, SVP & Publishing Director at Nature Publishing Group.”
TechCrunch
Use Your Name as a Credit Card, Thanks to Twitter’s Inventor
“Known as Card Case (see a video), it makes it possible to walk into a coffee shop and tell the cashier your name instead of handing over cash or your credit card. It works because the app enables you to open “tabs” with participating businesses so that they have your name and payment details on file. After that, any time you are within two blocks of the business the location-aware app allows you to signal that you’re about to visit. When you reach the cashier you just tell them your name and they tap a photo of your face to debit your account.”
Technology Review
Crowdsourcing Platform Helps To Find And Identify Lost Films
“The archive currently contains over 3500 lost films. By using this portal, it is hoped that many films can be identified by the public through crowdsourcing. Members can submit film titles, video clips and images from unknown movies, or add and update information to ones already uploaded. The site estimates that between 80 and 90% of all silent films, as well as a number of sound films, are irretrievably lost.”
PSFK
Shoot 360 Degree Panorama Video on Your iPhone 4
“They’ve shrunk their Lucy camera technology down to fit on the back of an iPhone 4. The product, called Dot, produces still imagery and video that can be panned around in 360 degrees, allowing a greater number of people to share the world around them.”
Make
The Return Of Vinyl
“An unyielding preference towards digital music formats has ushered in a subtle re-appreciation for the tangible qualities of hard copy. Following its boom years and subsequent depreciation until 2007, vinyl is projected to represent 1.6% of all physical record sales in 2011. Though still pale in comparison to its digital and CD counterparts, that figure marks a 25% increase from 2010. Is vinyl solidifying a return or just enjoying another ephemeral surge?”
PSFK
Insono – MP3 Player by Josh Liandu
“The device uses GPS and track-tagging technology to broadcast local musician’s songs specific to each neighborhood, creating a “soundtrack to life” in each area the user visits. To find out more information about a song, the user simply presses the “info” button to receive the artist’s name, track titles, as well as where and when the artist will be performing. A great way for local artists to expand their fan-base while providing the listener with a deeper appreciation of the newfound environment.”
Yanko Design
Build Your World and Play In It: Interacting with Surface Particles on Complex Objects
“We present a novel way of interacting with everyday objects by representing content as interactive surface particles. Users can build their own physical world, map virtual content onto their physical construction and play directly with the surface using a stylus. A surface particle representation allows programmed content to be created independent of the display object and to be reused on many surfaces. We demonstrated this idea through a projector-camera system that acquires the object geometry and enables direct interaction through an IR tracked stylus.”
Augmented Engineering
Keep Track of What You’re Eating with Foodish
“Foodish is attractively simple, there’s your pictures of what you ate casually displayed as if it was on a board, an option to add more photos and a chart to see your happiness (or health meter). You can swipe up and down the screen to see what you’ve eaten for the day, swipe across the screen to move from day to day, or fast forward a week with onscreen buttons. It doesn’t pay much mind to exact caloric intake but it allows you to give happy face ratings to the overall ‘healthiness’ of a meal.”
Gizmodo
“What if we could listen to our cities?” SoundAffects
“On Fifth Avenue, a listening wall has jacks built in, so passersby can plug in earphones and listen to street activity translated into music. Sensors built into the wall detect movement, proximity, temperature, weather, cell phone activity, noise, color and light. Online and at night, a data visualizer translates the street activity and plays along with the music. The music, and the corresponding visuals and video, are available in near real-time through the browser or on your phone. The composition is navigable using the timeline, which is marked with the “experiments” scheduled throughout the week.”
CreativeApplications.Net
Do@ Bridges The Divide Between Search And Mobile Apps
“Instead of having to open up a thousand different apps depending on what you want to do, Do@ allows you to do a general search, and then brings up the appropriate app as the answer. What’s more, it can do this whether or not you have those apps already installed on your iPhone. Do@ is actually serving up HTML5 apps in a browser. You can think of it as a bunch of mobile vertical search engines all in one. It brings up different apps for shopping searches than it does for movie, music, or food searches. In this way, it also serves a sa great way to discover and experience new apps without downloading them first.”
TechCrunch
Oki-Ni: Fully Shoppable Video
“The Game is a “fully-shoppable” fashion short allowing the viewer to click on models and clothing, profile the garms and then click to buy. At time of writing the film was as yet not embeddable so the link above is what you need. After Wednesday apparently it will be. The video is a collaboration between oki-ni, director Anthony Cook and Ridley Scott’s RSA/Black Dog production house; utilising the retail technology pioneered by wireWAX. Also the clobbers tight, which i guess is the point really.”
PSFK
26Tbps Transmitted with a Single Laser, Could Supercharge Internet Backbone
“Blasting away all previous records, a data rate of 26Tbps over a single optical fiber with just one laser has been achieved by researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. At a rate of 26Tbps, 3.3 terabytes — 3,328 gigabytes — can be transferred in a single second. If you had a system capable of writing that much data to storage, the entire Library of Congress could be transferred in just 3 seconds.”
ExtremeTech
Eightfold Logic Launches InboundWriter, A Social Writing App, And Raises $2 Million
“InboundWriter indexes the social web in real-time to see what target audiences are reading, sharing and discussing online. It then streams this ‘social intelligence’ into a Web-based document editor, providing recommendations about the best words and phrases to use to create compelling content for said audiences. Writers can measure and optimize their content through interactive feedback mechanisms.”
TechCrunch
Ring enhances user experience of touchscreen devices
“Ringbow is a device that hopes to streamline a number of functions performed when using touchscreen navigation. By using the ring in conjunction with a thumb, the device can reduce the need for on-screen menus, enabling users to control on-screen elements and their properties remotely without touching the screen. For example, brushing the ring with a thumb can perform a scroll function, and a double tap of the ring can perform a double click — whether the finger is in contact with the touch screen or not. By using multiple rings of different colors, a touchscreen device can also identify which finger is being used for navigation, and can be set to perform different tasks depending on which finger is being used to navigate or tap the screen.”
Springwise
Onavo Compresses Mobile Data, Avoids Data Overage Fees
“If you find yourself hitting your wireless carrier’s data cap on a regular basis, Onavo will compress your mobile data and help you avoid unnecessary overage charges. The app does the data compression automatically, and will also show you a report of how much data you’ve used this month. The app runs in the background on your iPhone, will turn itself off when you’re using Wi-Fi instead of 3G, and lets you turn it on or off as you see fit. Onavo only works with download data, not streaming data, so watching movies or streaming music to your iPhone will remain uncompressed. Viewing web sites and downloading video will all be streamlined, however.”
LifeHacker
Joinable Gives The Homeless A Foot In The Door With Free Voicemail, E-mail, and Texting
“The homeless shelter designates an administrator, who then adds accounts for each person they wish to provide with a toll-free 800 number connected to a voicemail box. That number can also receive text messages, and each user is given a unique e-mail inbox. From the administration page, admins can view how many messages each user has received (to see how well their job hunt is going), how recently each user has checked their voicemail inbox (are they still out there searching?), view text messages and transcripts of voicemail messages (are they using the box for its intended purpose?), as well as send out mass message “blasts” to all users under their management (like job hunting tips, or news alerts).”
TechCrunch
Augmented Reality: NuFormer with Kinect projection-mapping
“During the interactive projection test the spectators became the controller and interacted realtime with the building by using gesture based tracking (Kinect). People could influence the content by using an iPad, iPhone or webbased application made available for both mobile phone and computer use. For this test Facebook interactivity was used but any type of social media can be incorporated into the projection.””
Beyond The Beyond
Blipboard at Maker Faire
“Blipboard is a geo-location social app. The Blipboard team has developed a nifty custom Blipboard sub-domain for Maker Faire. It’s a wonderful way of finding events and people at the Faire, based on your tagged interests and areas of the Faire where you’ve “checked in.” There’s also a schedule of events in the app and a map of the Faire.”
Make
A Modern-Day Invisibility Cloak (Er, Necklace)
“Embedded in the jewelry are high-output infrared LEDs, which cause massive lens flare in surveillance cameras—particularly the kind designed to see at night. The result is that your face is effectively obscured from most angles on security cameras. You’re still totally visible to the human eye though, since the light doesn’t really affect our field vision.”
Gizmodo
Searchscapes
“Each person constructs his/her image of the city. This image is made out of facts, memories, experiences, stories, news – mostly invisible data, and not only of buildings and streets. “SEARCHSCAPES: MANHATTAN” is an attempt to create a tridimensional map of Manhattan, using existing data from the web. The objective is to compare the city’s “physical spaces” and “information spaces” (search results). This is an attempt to materialize information: to give it dimension and physicality.”
Vimeo
Autodesk Releases Free App That Brings 3-D Printing To The Masses
“123D differs from other free 3-D modeling software like Google Sketchup in that it’s designed to let you easily fabricate objects, not just visualize them. The software’s “Make It” link will let you push your 3-D file to fabricating partners like 3-D Systems, Ponoko, and TechShop, or to your own MakerBot (if you have one). Because 123D has physical output in mind, it includes ingenious features like a “shell” command that turns any solid digital model hollow, which makes it much faster and cheaper print. But high-end precision solid modeling is possible as well, thanks to the “perfect stereolithography files” that 123D creates.”
Co.Design
Fingerprints Scanned From Two Meters Away
“It detects fingerprints by shining polarized light onto a person’s hand and analyzing the reflection using two cameras configured to detect different polarizations. Joel Burcham, director for projects at the Huntsville, Alabama-based company, says AIRprint could help make authorization more efficient in lots of settings. Instead of punching a keypad code or pressing fingers to a scanner, individuals could simply hold up a hand and walk toward a security door while the device checks their identity.”
Make
Diesel Brings Facebook ‘Likes’ To Real-World Products
“Diesel clothing stores in Madrid have launched a pilot program which brings Facebook likes to real-world products. At clothing displays, mobile tags will be available for customers to scan and see similar items in the collections, as well as a Facebook like button that lets the shopper to share the item on their wall.”
PSFK
Purina Makes Touchscreen Apps For Cats
“Purina’s Friskies has developed three apps built to be played on the iPad and on Android tablets, drawing upon research on how cats react to moving stimuli. Each game features fish and cat treats that move about the screen in motions that draw the cat’s attention, that are digitally ‘caught’ when the cat’s paws hit them on the screen.”
PSFK
Dutch site negotiates energy supply for 10,000 households at a time
“Once the site has registered 10,000 households, it will approach energy companies including Nuon, Eneco, Dutch energy company, Dong, RWE, Electrabel, E. ON, Oxxio, Direct Energy and Essent and ask them for their best offer. Those companies will then compete to provide energy for Met de Stroom Mee’s considerable block of consumers at the best prices they can offer. Participating consumers, in turn, will receive an email with the details; they then have 30 days to decide whether they want to agree to the offer”
Springwise
The Snowboard with an E-Ink Screen
“While you are flying down the mountain, you can keep track of your orientation using the built-in compass and altimeter. The display also crams in a clock, weather icon and even email alert for when you really need to check you messages. Sadly, it’s a concept to showcase e-ink and not available for retail sale.”
Gizmodo
The Burger King Status Trader: Social Media Space For Sale
“The Burger King Status Trader offers a physical reward in exchange for virtual advertising space. It would work by simply downloading an app to your smartphone and signing in to your Facebook or Twitter account. Checking in via the app would let Burger King post content on your wall and generate a code for you to show at their restaurant to receive a free promotion. You would be able to use the Status Trader once a day, with a new promotion introduced at Burger King each week.”
PSFK
‘tray’ by robert + matthew swinton
“tray’ is a simple personal computer that contains a wireless keyboard and flash memory, along with a touchpad. a slot in the base allows for multiple screens and devices to be used and synced together in an understandable way. the base is embedded with magnets that hold the wireless screen in place during transport and aligns the other devices for a user’s optimum ergonomic configuration. using wood is a means of recognizing our society’s preference to use naturally renewable resources when possible.’”
DesignBoom
Trimensional app turns the iPhone into a 3D scanner
“To use Trimensional, you go into a room and turn out the lights (the darker, the better), turn the brightness all the way up on the phone’s screen, put the phone within 20 centimeters (8 inches) of the object you wish to scan, then hit “capture.” The phone will proceed to take four photos, each one lit from a different angle – even though the phone itself is held still. The software will then combine those four photos into one 3D image.”
Gizmag
New Nanolens Breaks Resolution Record
“A new kind of lens reaches an unprecedentedly sharp focus by giving up on being perfect. The lens is the first ever to help take visual light images of structures smaller than 100 nanometers (four one-millionths of inch), which could make it useful for nanotechnology and probing the insides of cells.”
Wired.com
HomeRoutines Is a To-Do App That Helps You Clean Your House
“Each day you’ll come to the app’s main screen and tap Morning or Evening (depending on the time of day) and you’ll be presented with the cleaning tasks you need to carry out. When you finish a task, you give it a star. During a task, you can also easily start a timer by tapping the bottom left corner of the screen. (By default, it says “15 minutes.”) As you complete tasks, they’ll show up in your accomplishments so you can see what you’ve done. For bigger cleaning tasks, HomeRoutines let you view tasks by zone so you can focus on particular areas and really take care of business.”
Lifehacker
Pair of mobile robots invent their own spoken language
“If one of the robots finds itself in an unfamiliar area, it’ll make up a word to describe it, choosing a random combination from a set of syllables. It then communicates that word to other robots that it meets, thereby defining the name of a place. From this fundamental base, the robots can play games with each other to reinforce the language. For example, one robot might tell the other robot “kuzo,” and then both robots will race to where they think “kuzo” is. When they meet at or close to the same place, that reinforces the connection between a word and a location. And from “kuzo,” one robot can ask the other about the place they just came from, resulting in words for more abstract concepts like direction and distance.”
Boing Boing
The Internet of Things moves a step closer with open source, ultra-low-power JenNet-IP
“Earlier this week, Dutch-based NXP Semiconductors announced its GreenChip, which for the cost of about US$1.00, enables every light bulb to have its own wireless IP address. NXP has subsequently announced it is to make its JenNet-IP, ultra-low-power, IEEE 802.15.4-based, wireless network layer software available under an Open Source license in Q4, 2011. This development is very significant as it reduces the cost and greatly simplifies adding “smart” connectivity and two-way communication into a wide range of devices, and might well establish a cross-application standard for wireless connectivity in both residential and industrial environments.”
Gizmag
The Kindle Should Use Ricoh’s New Color E-Ink Screen
“It’s supposed to offer 4x the color range of whatever’s available now and give 2.5x the brightness (which’ll allow for cleaner images and text). The display uses a “simple laminating element structure, forming three electrochromic layers between two substrates”. Like e-ink displays before it, the new Ricoh screen doesn’t require any backlighting and uses very little power.”
Gizmodo
Business cards for kids
“Red Balloon, an English School for kids, asked its students what they wanted to be when they grow up. Based on their answers, Ogilvy Brazil designed personalised Kids Business Cards. “Result: more kids believe in their dreams and more parents believe in the importance of English for their kids’ future,” say the agency.”
Creative Review
SMIT Tensile Solar: lightweight, modular, solar power
“Designing with adaptation in mind, each photovoltaic module is an interchangeable part of the membrane structure; modules can easily be replaced without affecting the entire system.”
Core77
Decim8 iPhone App Turns Photos Into Futuristic Glitch-Art
“The Flickr pool dedicated to Decim8-ed photography is — tellingly — called “Photographic Destruction.” That’s because Decim8′s filters and algorithms don’t exactly telegraph what they’re going to do to your photo ahead of time: your photo could come out looking like heaven or hell. The only way to find out is to try it and see what happens. Ironically, until the advent of instantly viewable digital pics, all photography was like this. In that way, Decim8 is truer to the medium’s roots than the latest faux-’70s filter ever will be.”
Co.Design
Zaarly Launches Realtime, Local Marketplace To The Public
“On the site or via the startup’s mobile apps, you post what you’re looking for (i.e. cupcakes), how much you’re willing to pay for it and how soon you need it. Zaarly will then share your request in the local community through the platform, and also allows you also post your request to Twitter and Facebook. People or businesses nearby can access and see your request and then anonymously message each other to complete the transaction of delivering the cupcakes you want. Sellers bid for the tasks, and the buyer chooses the best one, with Zaarly connecting the two via an anonymous Twilio-powered phone number.”
TechCrunch
Autonomous robots could collaborate on mapping hazardous environments
“A video camera on each robot identified doorways and windows, while a laser scanner measured walls. An onboard inertial measurement unit let them keep track of their movement, and aided in stability. A graph-based system called SLAM (simultaneous localization and mapping) allowed each robot to build a local area map using its sensory data, while also keeping track of its own location within that map. The robots worked entirely without human input, communicating with one another to coordinate their movements – if two robots were to arrive at an intersection, for instance, they could decide which one would go left and which would go right. Although there was no “lead robot,” individual units could recruit others to explore areas as needed.”
Gizmag
Acoustic Poetry by Michail Vanis
“Acoustic Poetry is an exploration in the design of products for deaf culture that focus not only on simple functionality but also offer an emotional connection to the acoustic environment that would otherwise be limited. Through the device, the user broadcasts the sounds of the environment that has sparked their curiosity to an interpreter who then responds with a brief verse describing the atmospheric noises. The result is an enriched connection to both everyday experiences and special occasions.”
Yanko Design
BMW’s left turn assistant puts the brakes on creeping drivers
“When the “left hand drive assistant” detects that the driver intends to turn left, three laser scanners in the front end of the car kick in to map the area up to 100 meters (328 ft) ahead. If the system detects oncoming vehicles and the driver continues to move into the intersection, it will sound a warning and automatically activate the brakes to prevent a collision.”
Gizmag
Zoomy lets kids take digital photos of microscopic details
“The egg-shaped Zoomy magnifies items by 35 to 53x, and captures 640 x 480 images via a VGA CMOS sensor. Four LED lights provide illumination, and a hand-twistable section on top of the device controls the focus. Power is delivered through its USB cable from the user’s computer, so no batteries are necessary. Two interchangeable head adapters are included in the package, which keep the Zoomy a set distance above its target – the adapters are different lengths, and are used for different-sized objects.”
Gizmag
New pressure sensor can stretch to twice its size
“The Fraunhofer-developed sensors work in a similar way to conventional strain gauges – measuring the change in electrical capacitance as the sensor is stretched – but they are made of a highly stretchable elastomeric polymer film that is coated on both sides with flexible electrodes. By controlling the degree of chemical bonding within the elastomer film, the researchers are also able to tailor the sensors for specific applications.”
Gizmag
Morpho DJ Is the DJ App You Wouldn’t Expect
“The way the apps works is you mount your iDevice onto the platter of your turntable, fire up the apps, and start scratching. The program reads the audio track you’re mixing while also receiving accelerometer and gyro data from the iDevice to give really precise control of the music. It even show the waveform data on your iPhone or iPod so you can cue your mix up to the beat your need.”
Gizmodo
‘Sighted’ wheelchair taken for first successful test drive
“An electric wheelchair has been fitted with a navigational laser scanner which provides virtual 3D maps of the surroundings, and sends feedback about any obstructions to the user via a haptic interface. Using the time of flight technique, a pioneering navigational laser scanner developed by professor Kalevi Hyyppä of the University’s EISLAB sweeps the area around the wheelchair to produce a virtual 3D map of the surroundings. This information is sent to a haptic interface, which allows the user to “see or feel” obstacles such as open doors, or pedestrians, and use the joystick to navigate past them without so much as a bump.”
Gizmag
Swiss Inventors Create Blood Powered Turbine
“Don’t worry, the Swiss have not created some freakish power system that is powered by the blood of the dead or something equally morbid, but instead they’ve built an innovative device that could save lives. The invention is designed to work like a pacemaker, but instead of being battery-powered it powers itself from blood flowing in one’s arteries. The inventors say that the mini turbines can produce 800 microwatts of energy, which is far greater than the ten microwatts used by a pacemaker”
Inhabitat
New earphone technology could be the answer to ‘listener fatigue’
“Based on physical and computational models used by the researchers, it was found that sound waves create an oscillating pressure chamber, when entering an ear canal sealed with an in-ear device. This triggers a defense mechanism in the ear, in which tiny muscles work to dampen the transfer of sound energy from the eardrum to the cochlea – this does not protect the eardrum from excessive shaking, however. Because the reaction lowers sound levels reaching the cochlea by as much as 50 decibels, it can cause listeners to compensate by turning up the volume even higher, thereby subjecting their ear drums to even more shaking. […] The device is inflated via a built-in Asius Diaphonic Pump, which creates air pressure by forcing sound waves through a tiny opening. “As sound waves pass through any given small hole, the alternating pulses emerge and retract through the orifice like a small air-piston, hitting and knocking the surrounding air molecules forward like billiard balls,” said Ambrose. “Other molecules join in the stream from the sides due to the low pressure created by the flow. This results in a sustained jet of air.”"
Gizmag
GoFlex Satellite is your iPad’s portable, wireless hard drive
“The external hard drive includes an iOS app for the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch that lets you browse and view multimedia files stored on the drive. Different than most external drives, the GoFlex uses Wi-Fi to share its data with up to three Wi-Fi enabled devices at the same time. If you need faster transfers, an included cable lets you connect the drive to any USB 3.0 port. The battery-powered drive delivers 5 hours of continuous usage and 25 hours in standby mode.”
TUAW
Real-Time Spectrum Visualization of a Mashup Music Song
“This website attempts to visualize the complex process of music mashups, in an aim to allow the general public to understand the nuances that go into constructing a complex but enjoyable blend from tiny pieces of songs, including the cutting, layering, levels and equalization. Based on the latest HTML5 and CSS3 technology, each separate song is represented by a unique color, resulting in a real-time visualization of the song’s waveform and spectrum. Accordingly, by dividing up the sound data for each song and computing its appearance in real-time, the resulting visualization provides an understanding of the unique anatomy of music mashups.”
information aesthetics
Hold a building in your hand: augmented reality on a postage stamp
“The postage-stamp-size exhibit consists of five buildings. As a bonus, if you hold up a whole sheet to the camera, you see an image of the NAI itself. Moreover, the stamps are paired with an Augmented Reality App called UAR (Urban Augmented Reality) that lets you place this and other unbuilt structures in meatspace by holding your iPhone up to the site.”
Colossal
Cardiovascular Data Companions
“Extrapolating from Nike+ data, each object provides a simulation of its user’s cardiovascular function during exercise, allowing the user to replay his/her body’s response to a workout. The object materializes and embodies the user’s cardiovascular function under exercise stress – providing biofeedback to the user in sensorily rich and empathetic ways. When an object is picked up by its user, it mimics the prominent human physiological response to physical stress – increased heart rate and force of contraction and increased depth and rate of breathing. The visceral interaction is meant to induce something like a meditate state, where users re-engage with the often invisible, autonomic rhythms of their bodies.”
Vimeo
Tron-Esque Curtains Not Only Cancel Out Noise, They Sample it in Cool Music Mixes For Your Speakers
“FutureAcoustic, the designers behind the “adaptive acoustic architecture” use sensors to detect the ambient noise filling the room, and then actually turn them into music that you’d actually want to listen to. It’s done in real-time, and can be played through speakers or even headphones if you so desire. So far, the technology is available in iPhone app form, as a “Sonic Cube” which can be connected to speakers, or in the far-more-awesome “Sonic Curtain.” The latter actually has the speakers and circuitry woven into the fabric, and while the prototypes won’t match your decor—unless you live in a nightclub, in which I say kudos to you!—it’s the best way to rid yourself of all that outside noise.”
Gizmodo
Students Speak Up in Class, Silently, via Social Media
“Last Friday, as some of her 11th graders read aloud from a poem called “To the Lady,” which ponders why bystanders do not intervene to stop injustice, others kept up a running commentary on their laptops. The poet “says that people cried out and tried but nothing was done,” one student typed, her words posted in cyberspace. “She is giving raw proof,” another student offered, “that we are slaves to our society.” Instead of being a distraction — an electronic version of note-passing — the chatter echoed and fed into the main discourse, said Mrs. Olson, who monitored the stream and tried to absorb it into the lesson. She and others say social media, once kept outside the school door, can entice students who rarely raise a hand to express themselves via a medium they find as natural as breathing. ”
NYTimes.com
The World’s First Wi-Fi Mouse’s Battery Lasts for Nine Months
“You are going to run out of USB ports on your computer. It’s inevitable. And sucky! But HP’s new Wi-Fi Mobile Mouse helps you conserve those ports by connecting wirelessly—not with Bluetooth, though. Wi-Fi. This rodent’s battery life can last up to nine months before it drains out—supposedly more than twice the lifespan of other Bluetooth mice. You can also stray as far as 30 feet from your monitor and still be able to control it with five customizable buttons, which you can assign shortcuts to (like cut, paste, undo and redo).”
Gizmodo
Samsung’s Foldable Display Will Let You Stuff Giant Tablets in Your Pants
“The AMOLED displays are mounted seamlessly next to each other on a flat piece of silicone rubber, two glass panels are placed on top of the AMOLED panels, both to protect the displays and let you use them as touchscreens. This rubber sandwich is then mounted in a case and folded in half. The magic in this equation lies in the silicone rubber which is hyper-elastic and lets you fold it 180 degrees with a hinge less than 1mm. The researchers were able to fold the display over 100,000 times with minimal effect on the optical quality of the AMOLED (just a 6 percent brightness loss at the crease) or the elasticity of the rubber. This system is better than other foldable OLED technologies as it uses components that are readily available and relatively inexpensive. Though I can’t see this technology adding much to smartphones, who wouldn’t want a foldable tablet?”
Gizmodo
3D Printed Ceramics on Shapeways
“Custom tableware is just an upload away.”
materialicious
B-Squares: Lego for electronics
“The squares can be joined side-to-side, top-to-bottom, or stacked, staying in place and transmitting electrical signals to one another via magnetic contacts at each corner. Presently, there are six different types of squares. These include a Solar-Square, that incorporates a 0.25-watt polycrystalline solar cell that can stick to windows; a Battery-Square that contains three AAA rechargeable NiMH batteries; a three-bulb multi-color LED-Square; an iPhone-Square, with an iPhone/iPod dock, USB port and stereo outputs; an Arduino-Square, that contains an Arduino micro-computer; and, a Proto-Square that consists of a perfboard area upon which electronically-gifted users can create their own type of square.”
Gizmag
Social Memories: an Infographic Book of your Facebook Activity
“The book is automatically generated from your Facebook data, and includes, next to the obvious photos and status updates, various infographic illustrations of the meaning, relations and priorities in your online social behavior. The printed images are selected by unique data trends (e.g. most popular or biggest photo album, friends most tagged with your name, who you photographed the most, and so on). The graphs include a timeline of photo submissions, status versus response ratio, the star sign distribution of friends, most active friends, most popular tags, friend gender distribution, an activity distribution, the events you attended, weekly activity statistics, friend home towns, and so on.”
information aesthetics
Hey, You, Get Into My Cloud
“Most of my old games are now eBay-bound — eBound, if you will — as are most of my old books. I don’t think of it as getting rid of them. I still have them, right on my phone. And if I want them in physical form? Well, I’ve stopped thinking of eBay as an auction site. Now I think of it more as cloud storage for things with measurable volume. I’m putting my possessions into the cloud, and if I want them again I can retrieve them from the cloud for a small fee. Sure, they won’t be the exact original items I once owned, but that doesn’t bother me any more than it bothers me that the 1s and 0s I retrieve from Evernote aren’t the same electrons I originally stored.”
Wired.com
Day Maker – Bedside Phone Charger and Alarm Hub
“Set your phone alarm. Insert phone into one of Day Maker’s cradles and push down to charge and set unit . When the phone alarm goes off, the spring-loaded cradle will ‘pop’ the phone up. Either remove the phone from Day Maker, or activate sleep by pushing the phone back down. Repeat until ready”
Yanko Design
Hexagrama explores the geometrical properties of sacred geometry
“Created by Lasal, graphic programmer, designer, VJ and computer artist based in Berlin, Hexagrama explores the quality of time and how the geometrical coincidences change our perception of the musical composition. Running in realtime, Hexagrama was created using vvvv with midi data send to Usine. All geometrical occurrences are preprogrammed.”
CreativeApplications.Net
Screw MTV. YouTube 100 Makes Music Videos Relevant Again
“YouTube 100 not only lists the Top 100 vids, but lets you play them back to back automatically. (Roku and AppleTV need to get this on their boxes). YouTube 100 returns us to an era when finding and watching music videos isn’t an arbitrary, single-serve experience. It makes watching vids less about personal discovery and more about the shared experience. And it’s as populist as the MTV of yore: our clicks determine what hits the top of the list. It will make music videos relevant again, which they haven’t been for quite some time.”
Gizmodo
Cobra Phonetag
“A Cobra Tag sensor is attached to your keys, purse, computer bag, or any other item you want to protect from loss. The sensor communicates with the phone’s free app and will remind you if you leave your phone or valuables behind. The Cobra Tag is also a 2 way finder. Tap the button on the Cobra Tag tag to ring your Smartphone.”
materialicious
Augmented reality app helps libraries keep track of books
“Staffers simply launch the software on an Android tablet or phone and then point the device’s camera at a section of shelf. Tags placed on books’ spines ahead of time are encoded with each book’s call number, allowing ShelvAR to recognize multiple books individually and “see” if they’re in the right place. A green check mark appears over the tag of books that were shelved correctly while a red “x” flags those that weren’t. When the user zooms in on those problematic books, a large green arrow appears to indicate where the book should go. ShelvAR can also be used for inventory purposes by generating a list of the books it has scanned so far.”
Springwise
Azuro, the First Typeface That’s Perfect for Reading on Screens
“What differentiates this font family from other high-quality screen typefaces like Arial, Verdana or Lucida Grande is that Azuro has more character. This however is less for aesthetic reasons than for increasing legibility. The letter forms are based on the humanist shapes which serve as skeleton for serif faces, as well as on handwriting when this benefits the distinction between different characters – for example the double-storey ‘g’, the cursive ‘k’, the long tail on the ‘Q’, cap height smaller than ascenders, and so on; see the illustration below.”"
Gizmodo
New Samsung 10.1-inch 2,560 x 1,600px PenTile has iPad Fans excited
“Samsung announced today the first 10.1-inch WQXGA (2560 x 1600px) format PenTile RGBW tablet display. The 10.1-inch 300 dpi display is ideal for applications that require extraordinary image and text clarity such as browsing the web and viewing high-definition movies, or reading books and spreadsheets.”
I4U News
Twitter sparklines
“Last year Alex Kerin built an Excel-to-Twitter sparkline generator that uses Unicode block elements for the tiny charts and now media outlets like the WSJ are using it to publish data to Twitter:”
Kottke
Moby Launches New Album Using Soundcloud & Instagram
“Mashable broke the news that musician Moby is launching and streaming his new album Destroyed via a microsite that employs Soundcloud and Instagram. Destroyed is visualized as an album/photo book, featuring photos from Moby’s tours (on which he wrote the album). Tracks from the album play upon your arrival at the site, with the full album available for streaming via Soundcloud‘s API. There’s also a participatory story-telling angle: a map is ‘pinned’ with Moby’s photos across various locations, while fans can add their own via Instagram and a #destroyed tag.”
PSFK
The Touchscreen With No Screen
“Can you touch what’s not there? That’s what some students have explored in this ZeroTouch project, which has dozens of infrared sensors and LEDs around what appears to be an empty photo-frame. Connected to a computer, it translates the gestures. Depending on how the ZeroTouch is used, it can be used for different things—as a drawing board when flat on a table; as a canvas when hanging in the air, and if it’s rested against a computer monitor, it can be used as a touchscreen for controlling programs. ”
Gizmodo
Project by Michael Knuepfel to improve or supplement the functionality of capacitance touchscreens
“Touchscreens like those found on smartphones and tablets have enabled a new generation of versatile user interfaces. My thesis project, Extending the Touchscreen, aims to further this versatility by using conductive materials to construct a series of physical, mechanical, and electrical devices that touch, interact and communicate directly through the touchscreen interface. My goal in constructing these external devices is to make touchscreen interactions more tactile, physical and potentially more expressive and fun.”
CreativeApplications.Net
iPhly lets users fly RC airplanes using their iPhone
“It consists of an open-source app, which is already available on iTunes, and an injection-moulded case that the phone slides into. Pretty much any common brand of frequency module, which hobbyists will already have in their conventional controller, plugs into the back of that case (frequency modules can also be purchased on their own, from hobby stores). Electronics in the case receive signals from the phone, via its headphone jack, and relay them to the module – it, in turn, sends them on up to the plane.”
Gizmag
Defaceable Lets You Comment Anonymously On Facebook Comments
“Defaceable allows trolls commenters to leave and see anonymous comments by other Defaceable users, both on the Facebook platform and on sites that use Facebook Comments like TechCrunch or the LA Times. Defaceable works by parsing the html code and extracting the ID of the comments you’re looking at, checking against the Defaceable database for defacements it can show you.”
TechCrunch
Why We’ll Wear Watches Again
“Ding. Text message. Dong. New email. Ding. An appointment. Dong. The weather sucks. Ding. Tweet. Normally, these things, or blind notifications of these things, would prompt you to pull your phone out of your pocket. If you were wearing a Meta Watch, though, you’d just casually peek at your wrist as your smartphone beams all of the most urgent updates, the stuff you really need to know, directly to it via Bluetooth. Live, glanceable info.”
Gizmodo
It’s Official- Cell Phones are Killing Bees
“Research conducted in Lausanne, Switzerland has shown that the signal from cell phones not only confuses bees, but also leads to their death. Over 83 experiments have yielded the same results. With virtually most of the population of the United States (and the rest of the world) owning cell phones, the impact has been greatly noticeable.”
Inhabitat
In Universe Sandbox, You Learn Astronomy By Playing God
“But of course, all that diabolically destructive fun is grounded in a rock-solid scientific fact. Yes, you can break the rules of how the universe actually looks in real life, but not how it fundamentally functions. Which means that when you bash the Milky Way into the Andromeda Galaxy, the resulting spray of star-stuff is a faithful representation of what such a cosmic apocalypse would actually look like. And when you’re done being a merely vengeful god and want to get more creative, Universe Sandbox is packed with geektacular features that let you visualize gravity wells, chart the paths of moons, rings, and comets, and even generate infographics like the one [below[, which shows the 100 largest objects in the Solar System, lined up and to scale.”
Co.Design
Ford Demos a Car that Learns
“Ford’s prototype makes use of a Google service called the Prediction API to create, store, and query that model. When data is uploaded to the service, machine-learning algorithms build a model that can be used to predict future additions to the data set. In the case of the Ford prototype, the car uses a wireless Internet connection to supply the prediction service with the vehicle’s current location and the time. It receives back a ranked list of likely trips. Based on that list, the software can inform the car to change the way its engine management software juggles gas and electric power consumption over the trip. “It might use electric energy earlier in the trip, or save it for the end,” based on rules set by the driver, or derived by the car’s software from past experience, says McGee.”
Technology Review
Blu Develops a Social Networking Device for Smokers
“Blu, the maker of electronic cigarettes that release a nicotine-laden vapor instead of smoke, has developed packs of e-cigarettes with sensors that will let users know when other e-smokers are nearby. Think of it as social smoking for the social networking era. “You’ll meet more people than ever, just because of the wow factor,” said Jason Healy, the founder of Blu, who did not appear to be making friends as he exhaled the odorless vapor of an e-cigarette at a coffee shop in Midtown Manhattan recently. “It’s like with any new technology.””
NYTimes.com
Race to save digital art from the rapid pace of technological change
“The fast pace by which technology changes means that many of the earliest works of art created on computer are in danger of being lost, or are already impossible to read, while new interactive digital artworks, such as 3D visualisations and video games, are so complex that scientists are not yet capable of faithfully preserving them. “Digital preservation is desperately important,” said Anderson. “In technology little things change all the time. Over the course of a 20- or 30-year working life, the software we use is updated or made obsolete all the time, but most of us aren’t really bothered by the changes. But in terms of science and art, digital preservation is increasingly important.”"
The Observer
These Are the Android @ Home Light Bulbs You’ll Be Able to Switch On With Your Android Device
“The 60-watt bulbs can be dimmed or brightened with a touch of an Android device. It’s part of Google’s Android @ Home initiative, which developers will be able to use to create home automation apps. Not only will we be able to alter lightbulb brightness (or even turn them on/off) using an Android device, but there’ll be a bunch of other cool tricks coming out once developers get the open source keys.”
Gizmodo
