For all the power and connectivity that modern mobile devices offer these days, why are we still typing on screens (or, God forbid, numerical pads) barely three fingers wide? A new weareable GUI system aims to turn any surface within arm’s reach into an input device.
The OmniTouch system was developed by Carnegie Mellon University in conjunction with Microsoft Research and allows users to interact with applications on any surface…
Continue reading… “The OmniTouch makes any surface interactive”
Bang! Lamp
Bang! lamp by Bitplay is a pretty cool lighting accessory that lets you turn it on and off through a remote control that’s shaped like a gun. Pull the trigger, the light goes out and the lampshade actually tilts as if shot. It also works in reverse, though it doesn’t really make much sense that way. The gun is an IR controller and that dark band around the base of the lamp is the receiver. (Video)
Continue reading… “Bang! Lamp – You’ll shoot your light out, kid”
Yes, cell phone radiation is a problem, but the damage will stop after the flesh is gone
“Life’s greatest question…. which I have not been able to answer… is, “What does a woman want?” – – Sigmund Freud
Continue reading… “Top 10 Photos of the Week”
Jonas Pfiel’s “Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera” sports 36 cameras and contains firmware that stitches their output together to form a global panorama; you throw it into the air and at the top of its arc, it takes a snap and processes it…
Continue reading… “Ball-camera that you toss in the air for a 360° panorama”
Teens are vain too?
Here’s a disturbing trend: Between 1996 and 2010 the number of teenagers aged 13-19 having elective cosmetic surgery has increased by 548% – from around 14,000 procedures to 76,841 last year, according to American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). The vast majority of these surgeries are rhinoplasty, followed by octoplasty (ear-pinning, typically), breast augmentation, asymmetry correction and reduction, and liposuction…
Continue reading… “The teenage plastic surgery boom”
Behold nature and its wonders! Tobias Lunchbreath understands that true happiness lies in the Oreo-fueled cycle of life.
Continue reading… “The cycle of life is a beautiful thing”
Death around the bacterial corner.
Turns out the Black Death really was the granddaddy of them all. Scientists have mapped the genome of the bacteria that caused the bubonic plague and traced it to all modern incarnations of the disease.
Scientists recently pinpointed Yersinia pestis as the bacteria that killed 50 million people in the 14th century…
Continue reading… “Scientists find relatives of the Bubonic Plague still lurking the earth”
Using corn as fuel is Madness! And not the British band…
The corn ethanol supporters are probably not very familiar with the concept of opportunity cost. Either that, or the subsidies and high corn prices are just to juicy to give up. Only about 20% of all the corn grown in the U.S. now goes to feed humans directly, and more than half of what remains is now being turned into ethanol fuel while the other half goes to feed livestock. The problem is that life-cycle studies show that corn ethanol ranges from barely better than fossil-fuel gasoline to significantly worse, especially if you take into account land use issues and the impact of higher food prices on the poor. Many would agree that corn ethanol is a net loss for society, yet this industry keeps growing…
Continue reading… “The U.S. now uses more corn for fuel than feed!”
Pick it up then burn it up.
An Israel-based company called Paulee CleanTec has taken a page from your local funeral home when it comes to dealing with your pet’s unwanted business.
Instead of picking it up in a plastic baggie—which is just about the worst thing humans have ever lowered themselves to do doing—the AshPoopie simply scoops and cremates the whole mess. Turning it into odorless, 100 percent sterile ash that you can just dump and let the wind carry away. That is until your local laws are updated, requiring you to scoop and bag the ash as well…
Continue reading… “AshPoopie cremates your pet’s indiscretions”
Taking off like a rocket.
Popular crowd funding platform Kickstarter has announced that more than 1 million people have backed at least one project, resulting in more than $100 million dollars in pledges.
Kickstarter allows users to post their projects and find funding for them from the Kickstarter community. Everything from the iPod nano watch to indie films have gotten their start on the crowd funding website.
It took Kickstarter just under two-and-a-half years to reach the 1 million backers milestone, according to a plethora of stats the company published on its blog…
Continue reading… “Kickstarter surpasses $100 million in pledges”
How hot is your house?
Scosche’s RDTX is a radiation detector for your iPhone. Seriously, it turns your iPhone into a Geiger counter—you just attach the wand to your iPhone and the RDTX will tell you the radiation levels around you…
Continue reading… “iPhone peripheral turns phone into Geiger counter”
Graduate Student Jian Shi and Materials Science and Engineering Professor Xudong Wang
demonstrate a material that could be used to capture energy from respiration.
The same piezoelectric effect that ignites your gas grill with the push of a button could one day power sensors in your body via the respiration in your nose…
Continue reading… “Electricity from the nose: Engineers make power from human respiration”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.