If you like Yahoo Messenger and you have a smartphone with a forward camera, video for it is almost here. This is not just over Wi-Fi, like other free services. It also includes the full features of the familiar Yahoo Messenger. Read more on upcoming Yahoo mobile video service here in this informative article. Talking [...]
Whilst the number of web based conferencing program which could be identified on the web is substantial, selecting the preferred software obtainable isn’t that straightforward. There are a number of options which you should factor in while you’re trying to find this type of tools. If the number of persons you may need to carry [...]
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We pay lots of lip service to Turing but has anyone actually seen or thought about what Turing did for computing? Aside from the Turing Test, Alan Turing invented his Machine, a “tape-based” system for digital computing. The machines have always been thought of as a “thought experiment” but on crazy man actually built one. Although this Turing machine is controlled by a Parallax Propeller microcontroller, its operation while running is based only on a set of state transformations loaded from an SD card and what is written to and read from the tape. While it may seem as if the tape is merely the input and output of the machine, it is not! Nor is the tape just the memory of the machine. In a way the tape is the computer. As the symbols on the tape are manipulated by simple rules, the computing happens. The output is really more of an artifact of the machine using the tape as the computer. The heart of the turing machine is the read-write head. The read-write head transports the tape and positions cells of the tape appropriately. It can read a cell determining what, if any, symbol is written there. The machine works on, and knows about, only one cell at a time. The tape in my machine is a 1000’ roll of white 35mm film leader. The characters, ones and zeros, are written by the machine with a black dry erase marker. This thing is so far over my head that it’s in the stratosphere, but it’s an amazing build.
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Web video star GeoHot just did a quick demo of his untethered iPhone /iPod Touch jailbreak. That’s right – you just have to put something on your device – and not directly connect it to your computer – and it will jailbreak that heck out of it in a few minutes. It’s just like the old days when you could download an image on the original iPhone and suddenly jailbreak it. While the video doesn’t explain anything , it’s nice to see America’s youth busily attending to the major issues of the day, especially if that issue is jailbreaking the iPad when it comes out next week.
So this is candy made of sugar, spice, and stump remover. Click through to see a Furby eating it. Also, Jeri Ellsworth is the coolest geek girl in the whole wide world.
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It’s an interesting time to be in the e-book business. E-readers in their many varieties are sussing out the perfect user experience, and the race to the bottom might end up with students packing a Kobo into their bag instead of 20 pounds of expensive textbooks. When it comes down to it, though, you’re selling a mostly static experience — as indeed books have been for a long time. Interaction in books is the realm of children: pop-ups and coloring books. But the move to new and interesting devices has some people excited about the future of text — and this Text 2.0 idea may just change how you think about interacting with books. The idea is that it tracks where you’re looking, and based on a number of factors, triggers one of several context-sensitive actions. An eye-tracking interface is an entirely new beastie, however, and somehow I’m not convinced that real life usage will be quite as easy to collate and react to as this video seems to suggest. Now, there’s a whole world of UI implications that follow from the ability of a device to track where you’re looking. A whole system of navigation and file management controlled by gaze and blinks — the possibilities are endless. Remember the EyeWriter , a project allowing a quadriplegic artist to sketch things with only his eyes? But I digress. What’s on the table now is this Text 2.0 implementation of eye-tracking. While I appreciate what’s on offer, I have to wonder whether it’s something human beings would really appreciate. The simple fact is this: we don’t interact with things using our eyes. That’s what our hands are for. And that’s why the next generation of books and magazines is going to be both rich and tactile . While certainly you could train yourself to “click” with your eyes, I’m skeptical of the preferability of that over a simple touch-based interface. When the eye is the only or best input (as with the EyeWriter) then it’s a go, but for all others, any action that might be taken with the eye (getting a word definition or something) could be done just as easily with a quick gesture — and there’s much less room for error. Speaking of error, I’m also concerned about the level of precision necessary. This thing has to be able to tell whether I’m looking at the last letter of a sentence or the asterisk above it; that’s probably more than you can ask of a pair of tiny bezel cameras with fixed-focus lenses. The technology they’re using to develop Text 2.0 costs upwards of $10,000 — of course, that could come down or the software be ported to more cost-effective hardware, but can it really do what it says it can do and still be affordable? Well, I can see I’m coming off as a sort of tech pedant here. This isn’t a ready-for-market product, it’s a cool concept being worked on by some very smart people, and I can think of quite a few applications for this right off the top of my head. Kids learning to read would be a perfect example — a couple of these in a remedial reading class would probably raise scores significantly. But they clearly have some hurdles ahead of them if this is to be anything other than an academic project. In the end, though, I think these guys are a little too far ahead of the curve, if anything. If gaze detection is to play a part in any future UIs, I get the feeling that the meta-text interface will follow from established user behavior patterns in a greater UI scheme, rather than being specific to a single purpose, as they are in Text 2.0. That all will be seen, however — as soon as we get our eye-tracking Chrome OS iPad XPs. [via Wired and H+ ]
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I know of only one person who would be able to build this thing – my buddy Paul – but I would totally grab a beer and watch him solder everything together and then ride around on this thing like a little freak. Heck, if you try to build this, tell me and we’ll come by and film you riding it. Seriously. The instructions are pretty complex and you need quite a few parts, including a powerful motor and a go kart wheel. It uses an Arduino board and an motor controller to handle the self-righting systems and requires a pretty heavy motor and battery. The self balancing circuit is right here
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So the saying goes, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat down your door”. If that is true, Mark Fuller is about to be a really busy guy. Check out the mousetrap that Mark created using CAD, and a 3D printer. Mark created this gravity powered humane version of a mouse trap as part of a prototyping class at the Pennsylvania College of Technology. As you can see in the video, the mouse climbs into the trap after the bait, and then tips the device over, closing the magnetically sealed door. What’s even cooler about this demonstration is that Mark designed the piece, and then printed it out in about six hours on a 3D printer . Very cool stuff. Be careful watching the video though, because that music will get stuck in your head. [via Make ]
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Three Japanese universities ( Waseda , Kogakuin and Showa ) and robot maker Tmsuk have developed Hanako, a robotic dental patient who can behave like a human patient (to some extent). The robot, who is supposed to be female, can converse with doctors (“Please examine me!”, “That hurts!” etc.), discharge robotic saliva, sneeze, open and close her mouth, etc. Standing 157cm tall, Hanako’s body is the work of Tmsuk, while the “medical features” were developed by the dental faculties of the universities involved in the development of the robot. There are nine joints in her body, for example in her jaw, tongue and even in her eyelids. The main goal is to offer dentists or dental students a way to practice “real-life” procedures on a robot before taking care of human patients (at Showa University, dental students actually have to take tests using Hanako). This actually makes a lot of sense, I would say. Hanako reacts to mistakes by verbally expressing pain, rolling her eyes or even simulating a vomiting reflex, thanks to the touch sensors in her mouth. Watch Hanako in action in the video embedded below: Via Node [JP]
Excuse our enthusiasm, but here’s the DSi XL unboxed for all and sundry. Enjoy!
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