Archive for January, 2009
This one’s kinda hard to swallow so take a deep breath, open your minds, and pretend it’s 2100. I CONTACT is essentially a mouse fitted to your eyeball. The lens is inserted like any other normal contact lens except it’s laced with sensors to track eye movement, relaying that position to a receiver connected to your computer. Theoretically that should give you full control over a mouse cursor. I’d imagine holding a blink correlates to mouse clicks.
The idea was originally created for people with disabilities but anyone could use it. Those of us too lazy to use a mouse now have a free hand to do whatever it is people do when they sit at the computer for endless hours. I love the idea but there is a caveat. How is the lens powered? Perhaps in the future, electrical power can be harnessed from the human body, just not in a Matrix creepy-like way.
Designers: Eun-Gyeong Gwon & Eun-Jae Lee
See the original posting about I Contact.
SONY ANNOUNCED yesterday that it will be bringing out a new shiny range of six low-power LCD televisions, with a bid to boost sales.
The new offspring of the company have been named V5 and not only feature the recently developed fluorescent backlight, but also a sneaky little sensor which means that these TVs watch you.
Sony hasn’t gone mad here, this latest feature means that the screen display watches the viewer using infrared sensors and turns off when no one is watching it.
The V5 series will include two models which Sony claims consume close to 40 per cent less energy in comparison to previous models.
The original article was posted on the INQUIRER.
This house in Woodland, Utah was designed by Gigaplex Architects.
From the architects:
A cozy home to accommodate a single man and weekend guests, including grandchildren, next to Provo River. Two linked corrugated metal grain silos arranged to allow the largest (27’ diameter) to have the most proximate visual and aural access to the Provo River, and the southern exposure to ensure passive solar heat gain during the winter. An electric mesh is embedded into the slabs of the lower floor as a first auxiliary heat source, and a propane-burning stove (manageable by internet) will provide the back-up. The metal grating and guard rail of the second level deck will provide shading into this great-room space during the summer months. Includes a “Bed in a Box” concept, each one complete with stereo sound and flat screen monitor.
Originally posted on Contemporist.
This wood and brushed aluminum keyboard features real Scrabble tiles with the points score slightly modded to show each key’s secondary function. It’s classy, it’s nerdy, and it’s worth a ton of points.
If you’re a geek and a Scrabble fan you have to appreciate this USB keyboard.
See more pictures of the Scrabble keyboard at Datamancer.
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Having a bike lane on the street that you’re pedaling down is a great thing. It makes drivers aware of you and it gives you your own space to travel in. Unfortunately, that is rarely an option. What to do? Just take a bike lane with you!
The LightLane is a concept design that uses lasers to project an illuminated bike lane all around you wherever you go. It keeps you visible to cars and it keeps you safe. Until all cities put in bike lanes for cyclist safety, we might have to rely on clever devices like this to stay safe.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,If you’re a pinball fan you’ll want to get a copy of Future Pinball.
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Future Pinball is a real time Pinball Development System. It allows you to design and play your very own pinball simulation in True real time 3D. It uses Advanced Physics to provide the best possible Simulation of a true to life pinball machine.
Tables are built up out of Standard components (Plastics, Pegs, Bumpers, Lights etc..) which are placed onto the playfield via the Editor. Objects like Surfaces, Lights and Rubbers are shapeable within the editor and generated real-time when the table is played. Other objects (Bumpers, Flippers, Gates, Triggers, Targets etc..) use pre-made 3d Models (of which there is a nice selection of each type).
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The Table logic is scripted in Visual Basic Scripting (via the Microsoft Scripting Technology´s built into Microsoft Windows). Scripting is designed to be simple but flexible enough to allow a wide vararity of Original Games to be created. Only a limited subset of the Visual Basic Scripting Language is used as a lot of extra functionality is provided by the game engine.
Full Sound / Music Support is also provided with multiple Music Channels to allow cross fading.
As Future Pinball is a Game Construction Program it contains some advanced concepts which may require a little bit of time (and patience) to learn and fully understand (such as computer graphics and scripting concepts).
User designed Tables are also available for download at the developer´s website. There’s also a tutorial available to walk you through creating your custom pinball game.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,If you’re an ebook fan and like mysteries you might want to check out this free volume of Charlie Chan detective stores packaged in a single volume.
An omnibus edition of the “Charlies Chan” detective stories of Earl Derr Biggers. This volume contains the following books:
1. The House Without a Key (pub. 1925)
2. The Chinese Parrot (pub. 1926)
3. Behind that Curtain (pub. 1928)
4. The Black Camel (pub. 1929)
5. Charlie Chan Carries On (pub. 1930)
6. Keeper of the Keys (pub. 1932)
If your view of Charlie Chan comes from the dozens of very bad, semi-comic movies made in the 1940s and 50s, then read these books and you’re in for a pleasant surprise. The books have extremely well-crafted plots (“The Chinese Parrot” is my personal favourite) and are well worth reading.
Chan, the first Chinese detective in literature, was modeled after Chang Apana, a real-life police detective in Honolulu.
Go to the original post on the mobileread forums to download the free ebook.
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,Since the iconic images of a moving galloping race horse were revealed in 1887 by English photographer Eadweard Muybridge, high-speed photography has come on in leaps and bounds. Multiple cameras are no longer needed to capture motion, just one, usually hideously expensive, camera is required (and some fancy equipment).
The Needle
© Vladimir Nefedov, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009
High-speed photography allows us to view things that ordinarily move too quickly for us register as a single image. Everyday events such as a drop of water falling into a bowl are suddenly transformed into liquid sculpture. Beauty and art replace the mundane.
The Girl
© Vladimir Nefedov, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009
Those who specialise in high-speed photography are masters of patience. Trying to capture the perfect shot takes some setting up, and although there are various ways to catch the images, seemingly frozen in time, many photographers have their own personal technique, which they guard closely. The most common technique is to use high-speed flashes with quick shutter times. The images are often then polished up in Photoshop, or some digital imaging package, but only the background and shadows are manipulated, the actual fluid shape is left untouched.
Watermetery
© Vladimir Nefedov, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009
Water is often used in high-speed photography, as are other fluids, which are capable of producing infinite organic shapes, depending on how the photographer has set up the shot. Some photographers use specific equipment such as pipettes and drip feeders; others taint the fluid with color, resulting in sometimes strong and impressive images like these by Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA) 2008 finalist, Vladimir Nefedov.
The Crown
© Vladimir Nefedov, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009
Vladimir is a recognized authority in the field of high-speed photography and once managed the professional photographic studio, Prozess in his native Russia. He says on his website (in Russian, so roughly translated):
“There is not yet a technique that could embody what occurs inside of us, and science has not thought up how to photograph dreams or happiness. Art of a photo is an attempt of visualization [of these things], made possible by manipulation of the images, given to us in the objective world and in sensations, they are then fixed using a camera, producing something imperceptible and unique…”
Ash Tray
© Vladimir Nefedov, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009
The Bell
© Vladimir Nefedov, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009
The Lira
© Vladimir Nefedov, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009
Red in White
© Vladimir Nefedov, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009
Crystal Vase
© Vladimir Nefedov, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009
Water Joke
© Vladimir Nefedov, courtesy of Sony World Photography Awards 2009
Originally posted on Environment graffiti.
I ran across these pictures of what my modern Metropolis referred to as an “urban kaleidoscope” that I thought were pretty cool. From a distance it’s not very impressive, and it really kinda sticks out like a sore thumb against the background of the surrounding architecture. But when you get closer to it you start to appreciate it a bit more, and it makes for quite a light show at night as you can see from the pictures at the bottom.
[posted by Eugene on my modern Metropolis] It’s always great to see people coming up with new and creative installations of urban street art. German designer Marco Hemmerling has created a multi-faceted installation in Cologne, Germany called Cityscope which reflects fragments of surrounding buildings.
While moving around the sculpture, the reflections on the glass continuously change. In this way, the viewer becomes an integral part of the installation and its complex reflections. As day becomes night, the installation takes on a whole new life. The structure is lit from within and the reflective, color-distorting film on its surface becomes transparent adding to its fragmented perception theme. Love the versatility and beauty of this piece!
Auto-stop systems, which cut the engine while idling at a traffic light in order to save fuel, are beginning to hit mainstream vehicles across the globe. A Ford executive said at the Detroit auto show last week that over the next several years, all Ford vehicles will get auto-stop capability, according to AutoblogGreen. Today, only Ford hybrids, including the Escape and Fusion (along with their Mercury counterparts, the Mariner and Milan), can do it.
The report said that automakers are adding the systems to manual transmission cars first, since the driver always sends a clear signal—shifting back into first—before he or she wants to begin moving again. But in the U.S., automatic transmission cars represent 95 percent of the market. In the case of an automatic, “an electro hydraulic pump must be added to shift the transmission back to first gear before restarting.” Look for auto-stop systems to appear on dual-clutch and other “auto-manual” style combination transmissions first, before they eventually appear on regular automatics.
Originally posted on GearLog.
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