Microsoft looks to be on a bit of a hot streak with innovations lately, and though this here project hasn't received much hype (yet), we'd say it's one of the most ingenious user interface concepts we've come across. Skinput is based on an armband straddling the wearer's biceps and detecting the small vibrations generated when the user taps the skin of his arm. Due to different bone densities, tissue mass and muscle size, unique acoustic signatures can be identified for particular parts of the arm or hand (including fingers), allowing people to literally control their gear by touching themselves. The added pico projector is there just for convenience, and we can totally see ourselves using this by simply memorizing the five input points (current maximum, 95.5 percent accuracy), particularly since the band works even if you're running.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
World's Largest Solar Powered Yacht Unveiled
World's Largest Solar Powered Yacht Unveiled
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Sunshine is all Raphael Domjan, the skipper of a catamaran-style yacht that sports some 5,382 square feet (500 square meters) of solar panels, will need to power the PlanetSolar.
The boat – nearly 102 feet long, almost 50 feet wide and standing 24-1/2 feet high (31 meters by 15 meters by 7.5 meters) was unveiled Thursday at the Knierim Yachtbau shipyard in the northern city of Kiel where it took 13 months to build.
The next step is the formal launching which is slated for April and, beyond that, said spokeswoman Christel Varone, are plans to take the yacht on an around the world journey in 2011.
The First Test That Proves General Theory of Relativity Wrong - A spinning top increases its weight much more than expected
The First Test That Proves General Theory of Relativity Wrong - A spinning top increases its weight much more than expected - Softpedia
According to Einstein's theory of general relativity, a moving mass should create another field, called gravitomagnetic field, besides its static gravitational field. This field has now been measured for the first time and to the scientists' astonishment, it proved to be no less than one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein's General Relativity predicts.
A spinning top weights more than the same top standing still. However, according to Einstein's theory, the difference is negligible. It should be so small that we shouldn't even be capable of measuring it. But now scientists from the European Space Agancy, Martin Tajmar, Clovis de Matos and their colleagues, have actually measured it. At first they couldn't believe the result.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Photo: Armadillo-like Crocodile Fossil Found in Brazil
Photo: Armadillo-like Crocodile Fossil Found in Brazil
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
The Most Accurate, Highest Resolution Earth View to Date - Nasa
The Most Accurate, Highest Resolution Earth View to Date - Nasa - Gizmodo: "This is the most accurate, highest resolution true color image of planet Earth to date. And at 2048 x 2048 pixels, you should put it in your desktop background now. You can get America too:
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Wiimote-Controlled Robot Drum Circle Makes Human Hippies Obsolete
Wiimote-Controlled Robot Drum Circle Makes Human Hippies Obsolete | Popular Science
Each of the Wiimote buttons can control higher or lower tones on certain drums, while tiling down or up controls volume. Tilting the Wiimote to the side and holding down a button can increase or decrease the repeating beat, ranging from quarter notes to 32nd notes.
Dually wielded Wiimotes also allows Flanagan to reverse the drum patterns on two drum machines, speed up one drum machine faster than the other, and do other neat tricks that alter the rhythm. Music geeks and curious readers alike can check out a full explanation below.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
IDC's new "skin-on-bone"-mimicking motorcycle helmet
...The revolutionary product design required careful selection of materials. A strong synthetic sits on top of the gel-like lubricant to form a protective layer across the surface of the helmet. State-of -the-art vacuum casting was used to create prototypes and the materials tested for resistance and strength. The chosen synthetic stretched up to eight times its original length."
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Low IQ among strongest predictors of cardiovascular disease -- second only to cigarette smoking in large population study
Low IQ among strongest predictors of cardiovascular disease -- second only to cigarette smoking in large population study
While lower intelligence scores -- as reflected by low results on written or oral tests of IQ -- have been associated with a raised risk of cardiovascular disease, no study has so far compared the relative strength of this association with other established risk factors such as obesity, smoking and high blood pressure. Now, a large study funded by Britain's Medical Research Council, which set out to gauge the relative importance of IQ alongside other risk factors, has found that lower intelligence scores were associated with higher rates of cardiovascular disease and total mortality at a greater level of magnitude than found with any other risk factor except smoking.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
TI stuffs WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and FM radios on a single chip
TI stuffs WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth and FM radios on a single chip
"Heads-up, kids -- Mobile World Congress is but days away from liftoff, and it looks like Texas Instruments will be there with a purpose. The company has today introduced what it's calling the 'industry's first quad-radio single chip,' which throws 802.11n, GPS, FM transmit / receive and Bluetooth radios onto a single 65-nanometer WiLink 7.0 solution. Purportedly, this device reduces costs by 30 percent, size by 50 percent and bragging rights by 894 percent. The chip is currently sampling to OEMs with undisclosed names, which could mean that a prototype phone or two will be taking advantage in Barcelona. Fingers crossed."
Friday, February 05, 2010
Graphene Transistors 10 Times faster than Silicon Created by IBM
Technology Review: Graphene Transistors that Work at Blistering Speeds
"IBM has created graphene transistors that leave silicon ones in the dust. The prototype devices, made from atom-thick sheets of carbon, operate at 100 gigahertz--meaning they can switch on and off 100 billion times each second, about 10 times as fast as the speediest silicon transistors."
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