Phonebloks Smart Phones (17th September 2013)What a great idea this is; create your own preferred smart phone using connectable blocks (like legos) of different types (GPU, memory, screen, camera, speakers etc), different shapes and colors.
Upgrading your smart phone is just to replace the part with new more powerful one, if the battery is getting old and started to need charging too often, replace it with a different blok or put two in. And great for our environment as we do not have to chuck out the whole mobile, just the pieces that have died or worn out. Here is the original article on this subject. |
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Oculus Rift - the Next-Gen Gaming Peripheral (16th March 2013)This gadget is the next-generation motion control of choice for all gamers who love FPS (First Person Shooter) or First-Person view RPG (Role Playing Games), racing or adventure types of games.
It might even work pretty well for all those kinetic types of interfaces - Golf for example might be quite good fun with this kind of gadget. The prototype has been built by a gaming enthusiast, but it is good enough that legendary John Carmack (Doom, Quake anyone) has decided to invest on it. Another "small" company getting involved is Valve (Half-Life, Portal). Expected price for it is around $300, but it looks like worth every penny. I reckon soon we can do real physical activity with our gaming - and the amount of gaming I do on daily basis will be great for me! |
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Buffalo DriveStation DDR - world's fastest external drive (14th March 2013)Anybody who works on geospatial industry knows that the best way to speed up your mapping software is to build some base map and aerial/satellite imagery caches. These are basically file system level repositories of millions and millions of JPEG or PNG files used to quickly draw your base map on any zoom level. Power of 4 applies here - every zoom level is 4 times more images than previous; for example in New Zealand we might have 20-30 million image files for a map resulting with TeraBytes of data.
Copying these via a traditional external drive is a joke - it can take weeks. What if I said to you that you could copy 20 million files in 18 hours rather than in 3 weeks? Well this is what this drive does and with a reasonable price of $400 for a 3TB drive. Christmas is here for you raster specialists! |
Touch screen popup bubble buttons
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NVIDIA Gaming console
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ePaper (and PaperTab) is Coming! (9th January 2013)ePaper is a thin flexible plastic-based technology that can be used as a monitor. It could replace need for paper in near future. The concepts are explained in this article.
View also the video on right; it introduces another conceptual use of this technology called PaperTab. PaperTab use several of these "screens" together to create a physical (on table top) multi-screen environment; you can merge screens together to make a bigger view, use some of these screens for specific tasks like email inbox etc. Yes, it is very much a gimmick, but a pretty cool one as that. I wonder about the black and white though - assume it is because of limitations on how much can be stored within the little plastic interface. |
Gadget Prediction on 2003 for 2013 by Wired (2nd January 2013)
Wired published this article as what they predicted a decade ago for 2013. There was actually quite a lot more in the original article, but the following predictions were actually quite close to what is happening right now:
The other 2 items: noise -cancelling ear-plugs and sun-shading contact lenses have not happened, however there is work going on with contact lenses as monitors and devices in your ears for deaf people.
- arm cuff smart devices - which is actually what Apple is working on right now
- food scanner - IBM is actually working right now on devices that can taste and analyse food for bacteria, chemicals etc. Probably not quite ready for 2013 though.
- glasses as a monitor/screen - of course all vendors are working on these, and actually even introducing augmented reality into the mix.
- flexible OLED displays - yep, they are definitively coming!
The other 2 items: noise -cancelling ear-plugs and sun-shading contact lenses have not happened, however there is work going on with contact lenses as monitors and devices in your ears for deaf people.
Budget Media Center (18th December 2012)Left: Mini Android that you attach on your HD TV port, connects to your wireless, you can pump up storage with an old SD card (I had a spare 8GB one). COST: $50-$70
Right: wireless keyboard & mouse, point & click on the screen from your couch, talks with your Mini Android. COST: $25 Verdict: Chrome games, internet, youtube etc on your TV with less than $100! |
Real Transformer (4th December 2012)This is probably the coolest toy I've ever seen, it is from a company called BraveRobotics and they have been working on it around a decade.
The robot can "see" with built-in camera that shows you the controller everything the robot "sees" on an iPad interface, a console-type controller is used to "drive" the robot.It can even shoot plastic arrows! All materials used have been 3D printed, but unfortunately it still comes with a pretty steep price tag; this puppy costs $26,000USD! Next version is due sometime around 2030 and is expected to have full Artificial Intelligence (AI) built in. With these guys you might just have to believe that they can deliver on their promise. |
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Microsoft is Making Augmented Reality Glasses (24th November 2012)
This article describes a recent patent Microsoft has applied - form of Google Glasses like device, but with augmented reality applied on them. Whereas the Google glasses are mainly a monitor type device, Microsoft is planning to push augmented reality on top of your every day life.
Of course other vendors also work on their versions; Nokia works on Mixed Reality Glasses, and Apple on their iGlass project. Samsung has had glasses available for your 3D viewing internet tv experience for a while now, it would only be a small hop for them to get into the Glasses type of device game.
See also this article - I believe Glasses will become (part of) Smart device wireless appliances.
Of course other vendors also work on their versions; Nokia works on Mixed Reality Glasses, and Apple on their iGlass project. Samsung has had glasses available for your 3D viewing internet tv experience for a while now, it would only be a small hop for them to get into the Glasses type of device game.
See also this article - I believe Glasses will become (part of) Smart device wireless appliances.
Replay Social Denim Jeans with Facebook updates (3rd November 2012)
What the ...???
Nowadays they try to push social media into almost everywhere, but this goes a bit too far. These jeans include a Bluetooth device in a specifically built-in little pocket that you can use with simple button presses to inform all your Facebook (LinkedIn, Twitter etc) contacts on what mood you are on (8 different ones from negative to positive).
Maybe I am getting too old, but I cannot fathom why you would do this - except maybe to tell your friends when you are having a grumpy day to stay away. Well, the younger generation might like it ...
Original articles here and here.
Nowadays they try to push social media into almost everywhere, but this goes a bit too far. These jeans include a Bluetooth device in a specifically built-in little pocket that you can use with simple button presses to inform all your Facebook (LinkedIn, Twitter etc) contacts on what mood you are on (8 different ones from negative to positive).
Maybe I am getting too old, but I cannot fathom why you would do this - except maybe to tell your friends when you are having a grumpy day to stay away. Well, the younger generation might like it ...
Original articles here and here.
Nokia FaceHugger for facial recognition (13th October 2012)
Nokia has started to test how facial recognition could be used as an ubiquitous computing interface in near future. FaceHugger is a test device used to teach software to understand better what human facial gestures mean. The actual interface device would be tour mobile device or even eyeglasses. Apparently glasses are the device interface Nokia has been playing with.
Safe to say this technology is in it's infancy, but together with speech and gesture recognition one of the potential ways we will interact with all technology in the future. See the original article here.
Note that another interesting test area Nokia is playing with is Quuppa - interior mapping software that is accurate within 30cm accuracy!
Safe to say this technology is in it's infancy, but together with speech and gesture recognition one of the potential ways we will interact with all technology in the future. See the original article here.
Note that another interesting test area Nokia is playing with is Quuppa - interior mapping software that is accurate within 30cm accuracy!
Mozilla Firefox OS SmartPhone (20th September 2012)Mozilla is about to release their own OS designed for SmartPhones and tablets called Firefox OS - or project "Boot to Gecko". The first mobile phone hardware that uses it will be built by a Chinese hardware vendor ZTE - who also builds SmartPhones using Android and Windows Mobile.
Here some more articles on it; #1 and #2. Why did they do this, we do not really need another mobile OS. There is one thing that I like about it - it does not have a concept of native apps, it is all HTML5 based, which is great news for developers. |
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Nokia Lumia 920 - why I need one (11th September 2012)Some of my favorite reasons include:
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Microsoft Surface is (almost) here (15th August 2012)There are a lot more surfacing on Microsoft Surface (excuse the pun) lately;
Great times ahead and looks like I have to buy another gadget. |
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OLED flexible displays (26th July 2012)Most monitor and display hardware vendors like Samsung are currently working on OLED displays. The main reason for using OLED rather than LED is that no background light is needed. The screen can be made really thin still retaining good visuals.
These kind of displays are also getting easier to mass-produce cheaply, are very sturdy (almost unbreakable), light-weight and use small currents of electricity. They are expected to become mainstream on pretty much everything from mobiles to TV screens. Some more outlandish ways of using this technology is to replace news paper and paper maps, sew into clothes, glasses or goggles etc. See the following article with more videos. Future is here folks as Samsung for example is panning to start mass-producing these later this year. See also this video link on what Samsung reckons this technology could be used for. |
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Nubrella - umbrella for today
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Data transmission via visual light (17th July 2012)Japanese have come up with a new technology that can transmit data via visual light. Two devices connect to each other via a dongle and a device that looks like flashlight can be used to send data.
Advantages: speed of light, sending data to specific 50cm radius locations and across areas (like underwater) where normal transmission waves do not work. I'm sure they will come with a lot more advantages in near future - a very interesting concept indeed. |
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Phase change memory advancements (24th June 2012)
Flash memory has almost reached it's limitations on shrinking; it is quite possible that it cannot be shrunk any more, which means that the memory sticks and little camera drives we have now (256GB largest you can get) are as big as they can get. This is of course a major issue as we produce more and more data every day.
Phase change memory has no similar limitations, but until recently there was some inherent problems that required solving for it to become viable memory storage mechanism. Luckily university of Cambridge has solved these so soon we can start shrinking memory hardware again.
There are also some additional advantages with PCRAM over Flash than just more memory in smaller size - it allows faster read and write times plus lasts a lot longer, making it viable as long-term permanent memory (for mobile devices for example) as well.
Phase change memory has no similar limitations, but until recently there was some inherent problems that required solving for it to become viable memory storage mechanism. Luckily university of Cambridge has solved these so soon we can start shrinking memory hardware again.
There are also some additional advantages with PCRAM over Flash than just more memory in smaller size - it allows faster read and write times plus lasts a lot longer, making it viable as long-term permanent memory (for mobile devices for example) as well.
MagicPlan for iOS (21st June 2012)MagicPlan is one of the coolest little apps around for iPhone, iPod and iPad (iOS5). It uses camera and gyroscope and allows you to easily create blueprints with accurate measures on any floor plan.
I tried it our on our home recently and it really works. With it you record the dimensions of rooms.house including doorways and any weird structural spaces, and then create a pdf or an image of it. This you can email to your builder, or just keep it on your device. One of the most frequently asked upgrades is to create an Android and Windows Mobile version of it, but it won't happen until more devices support gyroscope on these platform. |
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Motion Control & who cares?
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Augmented Reality Sandbox (8th May 2012)This is pretty cool and one way of using augmented reality. Possibly could be something on it for architects and software vendors?
Not a business opportunity for System Integrators though. However some useful things with augmented reality that I've seen are tools for viewing underground/embedded assets like drainage, water beams/electricity in houses and of course assets for city councils (hover your mobile camera over a rubbish bin will show you it’s asset id). Toolkits to do augmented reality are starting to pop up. |
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Ariel Atom 180 degree Motion Simulation (7th May 2012)What a gadget this is - a car simulator with curved 180 degree screen. Add into the mix super powerful Windows 7 PC that supports 5760 x 1200 resolution. Now if I only had a spare $23,000! More info on the gadget here and if you buy it, please invite me over to try it out. |
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iPhone 5 made of LiquidMetal (6th May 2012)
There are rumours around that next iPhone will be made using an alloy called LiquidMetal. This is an alloy that is super strong, very light and looks great. The problem has been that it can only be cooled down with really high heat, but Apple is apparently investing some $500M to figure this one out.
So this link shows what iPhone 5 could conceptually look like. And of course current guess it that iPhone 5 is out on October 2012, I for one, cannot wait.
So this link shows what iPhone 5 could conceptually look like. And of course current guess it that iPhone 5 is out on October 2012, I for one, cannot wait.
GPS Teddy Bear
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Fling for iOS
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