Archive for July, 2011
Representing Long-Distance SMS Messages as Paper Planes
"SMS to Paper Airplanes [christiangross.info] presents a quite charming way of showing the message exchange in a long-distance relationship: each text message exchanged by the couple is translated into a unique paper plane, of which the physical dimensions depend on the content, style, and length of the actual message. Together, the planes form a physical exhibit, representing 369 messages between the author and his partner between September 2010 until April 2011."
information aesthetics
Transparent lithium-ion batteries make sci-fi gadgets a reality
"The batteries are created by first etching very narrow channels, in a grid pattern, into a silicon wafer using standard lithographic processes. Liquid PDMS (a transparent silicone polymer) is then poured over the silicon wafer mold and cured. The electrode chemicals are dripped into the molded narrow channels and capillary action draws the chemicals into long, thin ridges. One piece of polymer is covered in positive electrodes and the other is covered in negative electrodes, and they’re perfectly aligned so that light passes through the gaps in the grids. The package is then filled with a clear gel electrolyte, wires are attached, and voila: a transparent battery!"
ExtremeTech
Secondary Growth: A Computer Plant Hybrid
“The Israeli designer Omer Deutsch created the Secondary Growth, a computer cooled by the water and soil needed to grow an ivy plant. Combination of electronics and Mother Nature Omer manages to provide homes and offices with a touch of nature. Giving a new meaning to ‘hybrid’ Secondary Growth imagines a computer cooled by the water and soil needed to grow a plant that the user prefer. The soil and moisture from the plant keeps the hard drive from overheating and the computer serves as a pot for the plant. ”
Gizfactory
Tattoo Tracks Sodium and Glucose via an iPhone
“Using a nanosensor “tattoo” and a modified iPhone, cyclists could closely monitor sodium levels to prevent dehydration, and anemic patients could track their blood oxygen levels. […] The team begins by injecting a solution containing carefully chosen nanoparticles into the skin. This leaves no visible mark, but the nanoparticles will fluoresce when exposed to a target molecule, such as sodium or glucose. A modified iPhone then tracks changes in the level of fluorescence, which indicates the amount of sodium or glucose present.”
Technology Review
Intel details new high-speed CPU-powered anti-aliasing
“Instead of rendering a larger image and downsizing, MLAA is basically a filter that is applied to every frame created by the game or application. In a similar way to the depixelizing pixel art algorithm, MLAA blends edge pixels with their surrounding areas. To do this, the MLAA algorithm looks for Z- and U-shaped edges, and then breaks them down into L-shapes, blending the pixels between the resultant L shapes.”
ExtremeTech
Toyota Imagines What It Could Be Like In The Backseat
“Toyota Europe has launched a concept video that imagines the back seat window in a car as a touch screen that interacts with passing scenery. The video shows a young girl looking out of a back seat window during a drive out to the country. She suddenly starts to draw and trace objects on the window with her finger. She’s also able to zoom in on distant subjects and tap the screen to hear a voice that tells her what she’s pointing at, much like a parent would do for a child while reading a picture book.”
PSFK
iPerform3D online guitar lessons with an all-round twist
“Around 100 motion sensors and cameras capture the full performance from all angles and the information is used to create a virtual 3D model of a guitar instructor. The result has the look and feel – and doubtless a similar addictive quality – of popular console games like Guitar Hero, but offers users the chance to actually learn to play a real instrument. It’s said to put the user in total control of the learning environment – a student can slow down the sequence while keeping the pitch, adjust the camera angle to whatever suits best (from a player’s eye view to dropping behind and looking through the neck of the guitar), zooming back and forth from the onscreen avatar, and looping bite-sized sections before moving on and nailing the next segment.”
Gizmag
With RFID wristbands, park guests instantly share photos on Facebook
“Guests at Great Wolf Lodge resorts already use RFID wristbands as room keys and in-house charge accounts. Now, beginning at the chain’s property in Grand Mound, Washington, its new Great Wolf Connect service allows guests to register their wristbands at a dedicated kiosk and link them directly to their Facebook account as well. Then, when they stop to pose for a photo at any of the park’s five camera-equipped “Paw Posts,” guests simply scan their wristband and their photo can be automatically posted to their Facebook wall. Launched in late June, the Great Wolf Connect service was built by Fish Technologies.”
Springwise
Future Computer by Jakub Záhoř
“This concept computer-of-the-future by designer Jakub Záhoř allows the user to operate the device anywhere they can find a glass surface. The user simply attaches the central unit to any glass surface like a window or coffee table, switches on the power, and watches their system light up before their eyes. The display appears as an interactive hologram on the glass that the user merely has to touch to operate. It also makes for an easy, take-anywhere way to project photos and presentations or stream movies. Windex not included.”
Yanko Design
Air guitarists rejoice and make some noise with Air Picks
“Rather than just play the tune for you when you switch it on, the Air Pick requires a flick of the wrist to produce a guitar note from the device’s tiny speaker. Each song has a specific rhythm made up of long and short notes, so you’ll have to really strut your air guitar stuff and get your timing right if you don’t want to look and sound like a complete fool. Near the speaker vent at the back is a button to add some whammy bar wobble to your riff, and a screw to open the battery compartment to swap out fading AG13 cell batteries so that the music can go on and on. Each Air Pick also includes a carabiner clip to help with transport between performances.”
Gizmag
Objects From Another Age by Eva Rielland
“Demand simplicity! Objects From Another Age rethinks high tech tools to make them easily understood by all, and particularly by the elderly. The prototype system, comprising four objects, focuses on basic computer communications: email, video chat, exchanging images, and printing. To reduce learning curve anxiety and the risk of errors, object design is based on observation of real world habits and needs; a clear and obvious gesture for each object minimizes the use of a GUI.”
Mocoloco
iCam Bypasses Clunky Factory-Installed Camera Interfaces with an iPhone
“He proposes we do it with iCam, a camera with a dock in the back that syncs up with an iPhone courtesy the 22 pin connector. The concept won a Red Dot Design Concept award this year, based on what I assume is the design’s incredibly broad potential. Strapping a powerful, portable touchscreen computer to the back of a custom-built camera can do that for you. Plus, wireless connectivity. Cannot understimate the convenience of that.”
Gizmodo
Ben the Bodyguard Creates an Encrypted, Private Data Safe on Your iPhone
“Ben the Bodyguard definitely comes with its (very polished) charm, and that’s part of what you’re paying for. While there’s something to be said for fun, it’s a solid app in its functionality, too, so you’re not out $5 for a graphic novel-esque security app. It stores pretty much any kind of information you’d need in your phone, uses 256-bit encryption to keep it safe, and notifies you discreetly when it needs to. Basically, Ben gives you a private bucket on your iPhone so you don’t have to worry about friends, family, or complete strangers learning your secrets.”
LifeHacker
Not-At-All Creepy Background Check App Hits Android and iPhone
“When I ran the check on myself it found my previous address, but not my very new one, discovered an alarming number of my relatives, and failed to find my criminal history (a DUI that is now nearly 20 years old). It found my photos on Flickr, my Amazon wishlist, my public Foursquare records, Vimeo, Picassa, and Stumbleupon accounts. It even found hoary old accounts I don’t really use much anymore, or at all, like iLike, Pandora, Bebo, and MySpace. It grabbed approximately twelve bajillion photos of me (with many, many false positives) and even more web links. In short, it was amazingly comprehensive.”
Gizmodo
One Coffee Cup a Day | 30 Days 30 Cups
“One Cup a Day project is an experiment on creativity and rapid manufacturing, by ideating, designing, modeling and making available for production and purchase a coffee cup within 24 hours, everyday during one month. By the end of each day, a new espresso coffee cup will be available for sale here. The cups will be printed in Glazed Ceramics by Shapeways.”
cunicode
Cane monitors users’ health as they walk
“As well as acting as an aid to walking, the cane, which recently won the grand prize in Fujitsu’s 2011 design award, also monitors the users’ pulse, blood pressure and body temperature. As their wrist comes into contact with the sensors, this data is displayed on the LCD screen on the cane’s clasp. Furthermore, the cane comes with a built-in navigator, which provides a help center with the user’s location when the cane’s SOS button is pressed.”
Springwise
Digital Tool Allows Users To Create Online Moodboards
“Corporate America used to be littered with oversized mood boards showcasing the creative route of infinite ideas. Now Moodshare have designed a digital alternative that not only encourages virtual collaboration but can be considered sustainable. Currently running in Beta, the website provides a three step process: Search, Create and Share. Share allows you to gather data from your main resource pools including Flickr, Bing, Google and Twitter. Create adopts a drag and drop functionality to create a multi-media brainstorm. Share provides the online ability for teams to finalize ideas virtually but in real time.”
PSFK
Hexagonal plate skin gives robots sense of touch
“The artificial skin isn’t flexible like some previous robotic skin technologies we’ve seen, but is made up of rigid, five-centimeter square (0.77 sq in), hexagonal circuit board plates. Each small circuit board contains four infrared sensors that detect anything that comes closer than a centimeter (0.39 in) to effectively simulate light touch. Thus, the robot can detect when it runs into an object, and either spontaneously retreat or direct its eyes to examine the object. But with human skin also conveying other information, such as temperature, shear forces and vibrations, the TUM researchers have also embedded the plates with six temperature sensors and an accelerometer. The researchers say these will give a robot self-perception by allowing it to accurately register the movement of individual limbs to learn which body parts it has moved.”
Gizmag
News From The Future: States Pass Laws Allowing Driverless Cars
“Section 8 of this bill requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to adopt 21 regulations authorizing the operation of autonomous vehicles on highways within 22 the State of Nevada. Section 8 defines an “autonomous vehicle” to mean a motor 23 vehicle that uses artificial intelligence, sensors and global positioning system”
Make
Google Takeout lets you easily export your data from Circles
“Just sign in, select which Google services you want to back up, and then click Creative Archive. Each of the services will be tidily backed up to a zip file in open formats that can be imported into other, non-Google web services. To start with, Takeout only supports the easy exporting of Buzz, Picasa, your Google Profile, Contacts, and Circles — Google’s recently-launched Facebook competitor — but the eventual plan is to provide easy exporting for every Google service.”
ExtremeTech
pic3D sheets convert LCD monitors to 3D
“‘pic3D’ sheets make use of a lenticular lens system instead of the parallax barrier found in most 3D films, a change in technology that is purported to offer light transmission levels of 90% and a 120° field of view. the product works with a downloadable software application that converts side-by-side imaging to stereoscopic views, which appear 3D when seen through the ‘pic3D’ sheets. the application also permits users to input video URLs from sites like youtube in order to watch 3D-like content.”
DesignBoom
Silver pen allows electrical circuits to be handwritten on paper and other surfaces
“People have been using pens to jot down their thoughts for thousands of years but now engineers at the University of Illinois have developed a silver-inked rollerball pen that allows users to jot down electrical circuits and interconnects on paper, wood and other surfaces. Looking just like a regular ballpoint pen, the pen’s ink consists of a solution of real silver that dries to leave electrically conductive silver pathways. These pathways maintain their conductivity through multiple bends and folds of the paper, enabling users to personally fabricate low-cost, flexible and disposable electronic devices. […] The researchers have used the pen to create a flexible LED display on paper, conductive text and three-dimensional radio-frequency antennas. They now plan to expand the palette of inks to enable pen-on-paper writing of other electronic and ionically conductive materials.”
Gizmag
TapNav GPS for iPhone: It Shows You Exactly Which Way to Go
“It’s a GPS app that cleverly uses Augmented Reality to show you which direction the road is going to go. Once you fire open the app, you’ll see what’s literally in front of you IRL (it uses a live feed from the camera like other AR apps) and a series of “AR” discs that paint the direction you should be going. So not only do you know which way to turn, you won’t get lost as long as you follow the blue disc road.”
Gizmodo
Fitocracy Brings Games And Social To Your Workouts (Invites Within)
“So, the founders decided to approach fitness exactly as they did their favorite RPGs: Give people a reason to get excited about, or addicted to, fitness by bringing the gaming reward system to workout routines. For example, when you join, it won’t be long before other users are offering you Fitocracy’s version of a workout plan, called “quests”, in which you are encouraged to do a certain number of squats, lifts, crunches, etc. The platform awards you with points, the ability to level-up, badges and more to get you dedicated to your fitness and treating it like a game, rather than some arduous task you’d rather put off until never. Of course, you’re going to be a lot less likely to adopt (and stick to) a workout routine without a little encouragement. Points are nice, but we need that carrot — that positive reinforcement to keep going. Which is why Wang and Talens have added a social aspect to Fitocracy — to build an environment of support and social reinforcement to keep people trucking on their personal fitness quests. You can interact with friends, share regimens, points-earned on social networks, get advice from others in various forums, and so on.”
TechCrunch
Korean Home Plus grocery shoppingd
“Uh-oh. Massive simplicity and practicality. It’s just big sheets of photorealistic billboard paper plus QR codes. But it’s saving consumers time and travel. Also, no broadband or registration problems.”
Beyond The Beyond
Poetry Bombing: Secretly Sewing Verses In Clothing Becomes Literary Graffiti
“The idea behind her project ‘Poetry Tags‘ was to make poems more accessible by giving each everyday item of clothing a voice, where by happenstance people were gifted a message. Armed only with needles, thread, and printed tags with the words of Sylvia Plath and Li Po, this form of literary rebellion is simply about discovery and making poetry more accessible to a broader audience.”
PSFK
LeapFrog Unveils Tablet Computer for Children
“But what distinguishes the LeapPad the most from other tablets on the market are its software and educational games. The device runs a bit like a spruced-up version of LeapFrog’s successful Leapster Explorer handheld gaming device and runs the games that come in Explorer’s cartridges. It will also work as a children’s ebook reader and play videos, and it comes with apps that allow children to create their own stories and personalize them with photos of themselves and their friends. LeapFrog vows to add more content and apps over time. The LeapPad is aimed at children between 4 and 9 years old and at this point does not allow third-party developers to create apps for it”
NYTimes.com
Ifeelgoods Raises $6.5 Million To Ride The Facebook Credits Wave
“Ifeelgoods offers a platform that allows retailers to provide Facebook Credits as marketing incentives in their online stores. Basically, Ifeelsgoods wants to make online retail promotions more effective (and less expensive) for sellers by having them hand out credits for virtual goods from popular social games in lieu of traditional promotions such as discounts, coupon codes or gifts.”
TechCrunch
OpenCandy’s Pokki Brings Web Apps To The Desktop, With Style
“So what exactly is Pokki? It’s a framework built on Chromium that allows developers to build basic applications using standard web technologies, but with a few key additions. First, these applications support nice notification tags in the menu bar (similar to iOS’s badge system). They’re also handy by design — click one, and it will pop up in a small window that you can use to access your Facebook wall, Gmail inbox, or whatever other application you’ve installed. Click outside of the Pokki, and it disappears. It’s very lightweight.”
TechCrunch
LiquidText software designed for active reading
“One of the things that reportedly sets LiquidText apart is its large onscreen work area. The display consists of the original document, and a large empty area to the side. Using fingertip gestures, users can select important passages from the document, then drag them into that work area (the passage will also remain in the original document, although it will be shaded to indicate that it has been copied). Passages in the work area can linked together to form a new document, or otherwise moved around and organized, while still remaining linked to their original sources.”
Gizmag
Startup Wins Funding For iPhone App To Scan Skin For Melanoma
“How would you feel about an iPhone app that claimed to be able to tell if that mole on your arm was not looking too healthy? Either Skin Scan is going to get people to see a doctor earlier, thus potentially saving lives. Or it’s going to make hypochondriacs of us all. I can’t decide which. Suffice it to say this appears to be one clever app. Because it also asks for your location, Skin Scan is also producing a live map of how our moles are looking around the globe. The implication for the app are very interesting – Skin Scan could end up mapping skin cancer rate across the planet, if it gets this right.”
TechCrunch
Steelcase Media:Scape Eases The Pain Of Virtual Collaboration
“Instead, media:scape mini is a large screen connected to four objects that Steelcase calls PUCKs. Team members can all just walk right up to the media:scape, plug their rigs into the PUCKs via USB, and the central screen can show what any one of them is doing. And the mini is a small enough package (it looks like a large iMac with tentacles) that it can be parked anywhere in an office without having to rip out walls.”
Co.Design
This 45-Mile ‘Wi-Fi’ Could Connect a Smarter Power Grid
“If your home Wi-Fi router wasn’t cooped up indoors, it could send a signal about a 20th of a mile before the signal became too weak and distorted for a computer to receive it. Technology developed by San Diego startup On-Ramp Wireless uses the same frequency, but less power, to send data signals 45 miles, thanks to algorithms that make the signals very resistant to noise. The technology, called Ultra-Link Processing, transfers data at a very low rate compared with a home broadband connection. But On-Ramp intends to offer it as a way to enable “smart energy” grids, in which simple sensors installed in home energy meters, for example, report local activity back to utilities, allowing them to manage power generation and distribution more intelligently.”
Technology Review
Phase change materials could be used to develop ‘brain-like’ computers
“Unlike human brains that make no real distinction between memory and computation, computers currently deal with processing and memory separately. This means data has to be constantly moved around, resulting in a speed and power “bottleneck.” Now, using phase change materials that can store and process information simultaneously, researchers at the University of Exeter in the UK have developed a new technique that could lead to the development of “brain-like” computers.”
Gizmag
“Breadcrumb” Routers Are A Firefighter’s New Best Friend
“Designed on the ZiggBee protocol, each WISPER (Wireless Intelligent Sensor Platform for Emergency Responders) unit consists of a single, inch-square waterproof and heat-resistant router containing an integrated two-way digital radio, antenna, and 3-volt power source. Developed by Oceanit Laboratories and the University of Virginia, WISPER routers are designed to be dropped as position markers, like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs, from waterproof dispenser as firefighters move through a building. These routers together form a mesh network that automatically reconfigures itself if a router is moved or destroyed, “if a WISPER note is damaged, the network reheals or repairs itself in real-time to maintain communication,” one Oceanit representative revealed.”
Gizmag
The Mechanic Muse – What Is Distant Reading?
“He advocates what he terms “distant reading”: understanding literature not by studying particular texts, but by aggregating and analyzing massive amounts of data. We need distant reading, Moretti argues, because its opposite, close reading, can’t uncover the true scope and nature of literature. Let’s say you pick up a copy of “Jude the Obscure,” become obsessed with Victorian fiction and somehow manage to make your way through all 200-odd books generally considered part of that canon. Moretti would say: So what? As many as 60,000 other novels were published in 19th-century England — to mention nothing of other times and places. You might know your George Eliot from your George Meredith, but you won’t have learned anything meaningful about literature, because your sample size is absurdly small. Since no feasible amount of reading can fix that, what’s called for is a change not in scale but in strategy. To understand literature, Moretti argues, we must stop reading books. ”
NYTimes.com
