Posted by 010081
Tech
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
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We’ve told you about the iTable before , and PQ Labs. They showed off their latest stage in the development process at CeBIT this year, by installing the screen into a coffee table. The newest version can register up to 32 touch points and actually determine the shape of the object being placed on the screen. But to me, that’s not the real story. The real story is that they installed a game that’s near and dear to my heart, Warcraft III . To me, this is the true future of the touchscreen interface, and the part of the technology that I’m excited about. It’s definitely worth your time to watch the video and see how far they’ve come in the development process, and how they are stacking up against their competitors . [via Gizmag ]
Posted by 010081
Tech
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
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The JST, Japan’s Science and Technology Agency , announced [JP] the development of M3-neony (pictured above) and M3-synchy today, two advanced baby-like robots. While “neony” (derived from “neonate”) is intentionally designed to look like a newborn, “snychy” just stands for “synchronous communication” (but as you can see, he looks like a baby, too). The M3 stands for “Man-Made Man”. M3-neony is developed to mimic the behavior of a human baby. The JST says the robot is able to move certain “muscles” randomly, just like a newborn who is learning how to move does. It’s supposed to serve as a research object for scientists who want to explore this process. Needless to say, M3-neony has the body of a baby, too, as he weighs 3.5kg and is 50cm tall. The robot features 90 touch sensors, 22 motors, two CMOS 3.3MP cameras, two microphones, three acceleration sensors, and two gyro sensors. M3-synchy (pictured above), on the other hand, is mainly designed to communicate either with other robots (seriously) or with humans. The JST says synchy is supposed to help scienctists understand the intricacies of verbal and non-verbal communication, especially how humans turn their look or look into each other’s eyes when discussing. The robot stands 30cm tall and weighs 2.5kg. Synchy has a CCD camera with 3.3MP and a wide-angle lens in its head. Other features include 2 microphones, speakers, 15 LEDs (that make the robot’s face blush in certain situations) and a face and voice recognition function for other robots and humans. Via Sankei Kansai [JP]
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Monday, March 1st, 2010
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Its a proven fact that playing guitar will get you chicks. Unfortunately, by the time you actually put in the time to stop sucking at it, most of the chicks are gone. The i-tab will have you playing pop songs in no time, its up to you whether or not you look like a putz while doing so. The device itself has a 5″ touch screen with integrated speakers for playing backing tracks. You get 4GB of onboard storage to hold as many Aerosmith MP3s as your little heart could desire. The i-tab currently only supports guitar tabs, but other instruments are in the development tubes, including some full scores. I don’t see a lot here that can’t be accomplished with an Android or iPhone app. I’m sure the developers considered it and have their own reasons for not doing so. But 200 USD is a bit steep for a dedicated tab reader. Probably the most newsworthy part of this unit is how it represents a real push for so-called “legal” tabs. Sure there have been plenty of websites that pay their share of licensing fees to ASCAP, BMI and the like, but i-tab is the first integrated device/service to do so.