NeatTrix

…make me some pancakes.  Rosie the robot’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmother shows off her laundry folding skills. Something to note: the video says 50x which means this 2 minute video took one hour 40 min to film.

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Finally, I no longer have to feel inferior to those swarthy human lifeguards.  EMILY, or EMergency Integrated Lifesaving lanYard (why do people love acronyms so much, especially when they have to go to such linguistic lengths to have it come out as the desired word; apparently we can just pick letters at random to get the desired effect [LOVE or Leave grandma in the nursing hOme two states oVer and wait for her to diE] but I digress) EMILY uses sonar to track a drowning person, jets over to them at 28 mph, and then either takes them to shore or waits for the puny human lifeguard to get there. (continue reading…)

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With fewer pickups and sensors than the Emotiv EPOC headset (Emotiv Epoch Continued… & Emotiv Epoch) the NeuroSky headset offers the simplicity of a single brainwave pickup on the forehead and Bluetooth audio.

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Lumino is an concept for interacting with touch screen computer in 3D. With a system of glass-fiber-filled objects, Lumino is able to discern the particular block, or stack of blocks and modify the output accordingly. So it not only knows what’s sitting on it surface, it knows what’s sitting on top of that. Check it out.

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I was playing around with my black light the other day, and when I put my Kindle under it’s light, I saw this:

I’ve asked a few people and they can’t seem to make anything of the pattern of florescent (or non-florescent) keys.  One suggestion was the first character (if that’s indeed what it is) is an ‘a’ presumably for amazon, but it’s less clear what the second thing is.

I suppose one explanation could just be a coincidental mixture of florescent and non-florescent keys were used to make my particular Kindle (perhaps they’ve changed the formula for the plastic in the keys, who knows?)  This explanation is easy enough to test.  I just need some other people with Kindles to check their keyboards under a black light and get back to me.  Does Kindle 1 have the same pattern, or any pattern?

If however, everyone sees the same pattern of lighted keys, then what does that mean? Does anyone see some significance in this pattern? Or perhaps with the individual letters themselves? Something I didn’t think of?

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I’ve seen technology like this before. They were demoing it at a simulated medical disaster event almost 10 years ago, but this looks more user friendly, and I’m sure the accuracy of all the component parts is much better than it was: speech recognition, translation, and text-to-voice. One ability that’s always appealed to me is languages. I’m glad the technology is catching up to my lack of ability. Step two, read my thoughts, or at least the electrical signals being sent to my vocal chords and do the translation in actual real time. Step three, rule the world. Step four, tacos.

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The Wiimote controlling drum machines, by which I mean, machines that play the drums. A quick read of his website tells me that he’s using Arduinos to control the machines, plus some custom stuff. Pretty nice.

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So this looks all well and fine, but it’s hardly the ‘holy grail’ of alternative energy. For one thing, it requires fuel and oxygen. To me the holy grail is a black box that reaps dark energy or gravitons or neutrinos from thin air and spits out 120V. Or Fettuccine Alfredo. Anyway, if it’s all that it says it is, it beats coal and the mountain rape that goes with it.

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In February, Amazon is having a limited beta for the Kindle Development Kit, which will allow development of third-party applications for the kindle.    There is very little information about it at the moment, but they do say this

Voice over IP functionality, advertising, offensive materials, collection of customer information without express customer knowledge and consent, or usage of the Amazon or Kindle brand in any way are not allowed. In addition, active content must meet all Amazon technical requirements, not be a generic reader, and not contain malicious code.

I can think of a few dozen useful things I’d like to see right off the bat, although I’m sure if you thought about it you could think of a few of your own.

http://www.amazon.com/kdk/

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Here’s the official propaganda from Microsoft, and it clearly say that this is only the “project vision” and that the actual functionality will most likely vary.  Some of the things seem silly without some kind of a prop in your hands.  I agree that things like hand to hand combat would be much more natural with no controller, but things that have always had a physical element, like driving a car, just become ridiculous without something in your hands.  It certainly warrants keeping an eye on.  More than just gaming, as one element in a “smart” house, this could be very cool.

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I have my doubts about this one.  Seems like it would have the same frustrations of voice recognition (hello computer) but like all new game technologies, it all depends on people writing good games for it.  It could be a gimmick or it could be a whole new experience that changes the way we interact with computers. The AI behind the kid seems a little too polished, like maybe he says the exact same things every time.

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Cohda Wireless, an Australian company, has been awarded a huge contract with several European countries to begin testing their automobile to automobile communication system.  This isn’t some new technology that will let you send threatening text messages to that jerk behind you, this will actually be your car talking to other cars.  And what will your car be saying? Things like, “I’m going really, really, fast and I’m coming right for you”, or “I’ve just run a red light”, or “the guy behind my wheel is a crazy person, perhaps you should take a side street”.  Now your car, equipped with a similar device will let you know that something’s coming up and to be aware of it.  At least for now, that’s all it’s going to do.  Future versions, they claim, will include things like helping you to brake, if you’re too slow, or swerving around things in the road.  One thing they metioned was the having the car drop a curtain over the windshield  so you won’t freak out and do something rash (really?).

A nice idea.  The technology behind the autonomous car stuff, I think is the most interesting part, although they’re not testing that.  Another thing they should do, for every vehicle not using this device is in high traffic areas and build (or in most cases just repurpose) stationary radar detection/camera systems and give access to that data.

Here’s the article:http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6294866.ece

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