Communication is getting easier and easier every day, yet I always some how felt that something was missing. Now after seeing Inha Luke Yoo’s entry in Google’s “Mobile Tricks” contest, I know what the void in communication is! I want to be able to communicate via hologram, just like Princess Leia did using R2DR in Star Wars. Check out the video of Yoo’s concept. I love the idea, but it would still be missing the android to deliver the message to Obi-Wan for me. Dammit, I am never satisfied.
Granted this is not a new idea, I already mentioned Star Wars showed the idea back in 1977 and the Jetsons also showed this type of technology previously. Sure those are a movie and cartoon, but the above video is nothing more than a computer created conceptual model. I wonder how long it will be until this technology actual becomes a reality?
Wii is bringing gaming to the next level and if this controller makes it into production, it’ll be all over! I had a blast battling and bombing my way through the PS2 version of Mark Ecko’s Getting Up, but this spray can remote control, designed by German student Martin Lihs, as his thesis project at Bauhaus University, would have killed it!
Wait a minute. Screw this thing. Go out and do some real wreck!
Don’t feel like dieing, ever? Well you just might not have to if acclaimed inventor, futurist and all around genius, Dr. Ray Kurzweil is right. Dr. Kurzweil isn’t just one of these guys that sits around talking about the potential of new technological advancements, but has been working to advance society since he was a little boy in killa’ Queens (shout out to Maspeth)! The NY Times is reporting on some of Dr. Kurzweil’s latest predictions for the future that include pills that allow you to eat all you want and not gain any wait, all energy coming from clean sources and getting to live to see the Singularity (an age where humans/machines transition into ever living beings).
Now I am known for being a bit of a pessimist when it comes to the future and advancement of technology (and ok, just about everything), but I have to say of all the wild tales I have read, Dr. Kurzweil seems to actually be able to back his ideas up. The good doctor was selling programs to IBM and raking in some serious cash by age 14 and inventing machines that could analyze and read text back for the blind back in 1976. Using his text to speech technology, that was the size of a washing machine, as an example, Dr. K predicted that by the early 21st century the technology would be able to fit in the palm of your hand. Last Thursday, he unveiled just such a device. Not only was the device the size of a cell phone, but it wasn’t even phased by shadows, marks on the page or creases.
Personally I can’t wait to be morphed into a RoboCop or Krang like cyborg, but there is one flaw in Dr. Kurzweil’s predictions, the pill that will allow people to eat all the Big Mac’s they want is sure to hurt his idea that the life expectancy of humans will grow at a faster rate then we can age. (Come on I had to be a little negative, otherwise no one would believe I wrote this)!
For the full NY Times article and to read more about the good doctor click the link below.
As kids, most of us spent time laying in the grass, watching clouds roll by and imagining the shapes we could see in the fluffy white masses. Now, one company aims to indulge those flights of fancy by actually making “clouds” in the shapes of, well, anything, from the Atlanta Braves’ tomahawk to Mickey Mouse’s iconic head.These clouds are actually a mixture of soap-based foams and lighter-than-air gases such as helium, something like what you’d get if you married helium balloons with the solutions that kids use to blow bubbles from plastic wands.
The company uses re-purposed artificial snow machines to generate the floating ads and messages, dubbed Flogos. The machines can pop one Flogo out every 15 seconds, flooding the air with foamy peace signs or whatever shape a client desires. Renting the machine for a day starts out at a cost of about $2,500.
Designers use computer software to make a stencil that when placed into the snow machine, “cuts the foam in the exact right shape,” said Flogo inventor Francisco Guerra.
The Flogos are about two feet long and nearly a foot wide, and generally last anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, depending on conditions in the atmosphere, according to the company.
“They will fly for miles,” Guerra said. “They are durable so they last a while.”
They generally bob to heights of 300 to 500 feet (90 to 150 meters), the inventors say, though they can rise up to 20,000 feet (6,100 meters) in the air.
Guerra says that Flogos are environmentally friendly as the soaps that make up the foamy shapes are derived from plants, and that eventually a Flogo “just evaporates in the air.”
“It does not pollute the skies,” he told LiveScience.
Guerra also says the floating ads are not a danger to airplanes, because flying through one is “like going through a cloud.” Nothing from the Flogo sticks to the surface of a plane, even if it goes through the aircraft’s jet engine, he said.
It was just a matter of time before someone made the joke…
You’ve seen the MacBook Air — are you ready for the MacBook Earth, Water and Fire? We weren’t either, but then we got our hands on these images of a new generation of notebooks. Ever wanted your computer to be recyclable, blazing fast (literally), or poured out of a bottle? If you answered “yes” to any of those, there’s now a MacBook for you. No word on prices or release dates.
Sorry Ma-Ti, there doesn’t appear to be a heart MacBook for you.
It’s scary what grad students will come up with when they’re denied sleep and fed a steady supply of caffeine…Videotrace is in its early stages but you can already see the potential from this brief clip. Basically, it’s a system that takes regular video, and with just a few lines drawn can interpolate 3d objects within the video.
