Δείτε παρακάτω μία περιγραφή νέων τεχνολογιών/εφαρμογών για τον Ιούνιο του 2008. Αναφέρω αυτά με το μεγαλύτερο ενδιαφέρον:
Interactive sculpture The organic Cloud
“The Cloud is an organic sculptural landmark that responds to human interaction and expresses context awareness using hundreds of sensors and over 15,000 individually addressable optical fibers. Constructed of carbon glass, spanning over four meters, and containing more than 65 kilometers of fiber optics, the Cloud encourages visitors to touch and interact with information in new ways, manifesting emotions and behavior through sound and a dichotomy of luminescence and darkness.”
3D browser UI
Personalization
Cloning: 5.5
“Physical data is taken from the client’s body and used in the process to reflect the user. Eye colour and details are used for glassblowing that takes place on Murano, and hair quantity and style will determine the most efficient sort of comb. Profile results in mirror shape, and range of body hair will result in a hand-embroidered rug. Weight and posture will be useful in creating made-to-measure chairs and pillows, while a fingerprint can personalize your mug.”
Feeling electromagnetism
Dual screens
Prezenter PSR Two-Touchscreen Laptop: Travelling Sales Pitches Go High-Tech
“It’s a custom notebook PC, designed to fold so that a 14-inch screen faces the victims audience, while a 7-inch touchscreen faces the seller. The small screen controls the presentation, and the audience can draw stuff on their screen.”
Optical computing
Transistors See the Light
“Researchers from the University of California, San Diego, report they have built the first transistors (the building blocks of integrated circuits) that carry information not as electrons but as excitons—pairs of positive and negative charges created by shining light onto electrons in a semiconductor crystal, which leaves a positively charged “hole”.”
Geo-locating a photo
New system estimates geographic location of photos
“The IM2GPS algorithm developed by computer science graduate student James Hays and Alexei A. Efros, assistant professor of computer science and robotics, doesn’t attempt to scan a photo for location clues, such as types of clothing, the language on street signs, or specific types of vegetation, as a person might do. Rather, it analyzes the composition of the photo, notes how textures and colors are distributed and records the number and orientation of lines in the photo. It then searches Flickr for photos that are similar in appearance.”
Satellite parties
Color matching Nike PhotoiD
“Take a photo with a mobile phone, text message it to a designated number, and Nike will extract the two dominant colors from the scene to create a pair of classic 1985 Dunk high-top basketball sneakers.”
De-materializing
Biological robotics
Reading University Neural Animat Project
“The neurally controlled animat consists of a culture of cortical cells which interact with the real world. The cells are in a lab, and become embodied by controlling a robot which acts as the artificial body of the remote ‘brain’. The robot is able to sense it’s surroundings, and pass this information back to the culture of cells. This creates a feedback loop between the cells and the robot.”
Phone audition
WeMix: A Music Career Via Cellphone
“It allows aspiring musicians to upload any kind of musical performance and get feedback from both peers and industry pros. The website features standard social networking features including profiles, video uploads and song rating. There’s also a toll free number to call where you can record your songs. If Ludacris or another of the sites celebrity mentors likes an artist, they’ll get flown to Los Angeles to record a polished version of the song in 48 hours for a WeMix video series.”
Virtual bookshelves
Robot band
Robot Bands: Robot Band is at Least as Good as Coldplay
“Zealand’s The Trons is a four piece rock band made up entirely of robots playing real instruments, performing real shows and—rumor has it—taking advantage of real groupies.”
Online kaleidoscope
Made in Japan - Volume 19
“It is reported that this can also be controlled via cell phone, if you’re in Japan. To give it whirl on the net, go here and click on bar (1, below). Depending on the traffic, you might have to wait your turn, but once your turn is up, you can control the lights from the (2) area, the direction from the (3) area, and the position via (4). Once it’s your turn, you get about a minute of time to control the kaleidoscope. Also, the lighting varies depending on the time of day, so it will naturally be darker when it’s nighttime in Japan.”
Sports social networks
Footbo.com: (Real) Football Social Network Kicks-Off
Saving dynamic content
Web Clipping: Iterasi Saves Snapshots of Dynamic Web Pages
“Install the Firefox or IE Iterasi add-on, click the Notarize button to save a snapshot of the current state of a web site—even the dynamic stuff you click on, like a pop-up location on a Google Map—to your Iterasi account. Add notes to your saved pages on the Iterasi web site, tag them, and search on the page content, notes, or tags. You can even use Iterasi to monitor a web site over time and set it to take a snapshot at scheduled intervals.”
Exchanging micro-data
Micro-Interactions: Making The Experience Portable
“Mike, an Apple employee was one of the first to greet me—and he extended a simple gesture. As he introduced himself he held up his iPhone which was displaying a digital name tag generated on the Web that he had just personalized moments ago. Within minutes, nearly half of the attendees of this small gathering were doing the same. it had gone “viral” so to speak—each person found our where they could customize their own “badge” and some were even adding “@” symbols so that their “Twitter friends” could recognize who they were. And this I thought was a simple but relevant example of how we are having “micro-interactions” in ways that we we can take with us.”
Nano-turbine
Low power processing
A 30-picowatt processor for sensors
“University of Michigan (U-M) researchers have developed an ultra low power microchip which ‘uses 30,000 times less power in sleep mode and 10 times less in active mode than comparable chips now on the market.’ It only consumes 30 picowatts in sleep mode, which means that a simple watch battery could power the chip for more than 200 years. Of course, this is not a processor for your next computer. It is designed for sensor-based devices such as medical implants, environment monitors or surveillance equipment. However, the design is very clever.”
Video collages
How To: Make Your Own Stabilized Video Collage
“One of the most creative uses of Flickr video support is the “stabilized video collage,” a beautiful way to capture a scene in a multi-frame moving portrait, as shown.”
Digital relics