Author Archives: gadgets

Celluon Magic Cube Laser Projection Keyboard and Touchpad

Posted on by
image of laser keyboard

Keyboard projected onto desktop using a laser

The Celluon Magic Cube turns any table or surface into a virtual keyboard or multi-touch mouse with its amazing laser projection and motion detection technology. The Magic Cube is smaller than a pack of cards – easy to use, and a great travel companion projection keyboard for mobile, tablet, and laptop devices. Do read the reviews on Amazon, it isn’t so much magic as a bit of cool engineering that might be a bit ahed of ready for prime time. Still if you like to try cutting edge gadgets and are willing to accept the drawbacks they sometimes have, this might be worth looking into.

  • Projects a virtual laser keyboard onto any table and detects keystrokes. The experience of typing on a projected keyboard is different than a standard keyboard. Projects a condensed QWERTY layout. The Magic Cube detects movement just above the surface of each projected key. Practice using included tips is recommended. Devices with automatic keystroke correction, like the iPad, iPhone, and iPod improve accuracy significantly.
  • Acts as a standard keyboard via Bluetooth (wireless) or USB (wired)–no drivers needed
  • Great companion wireless keyboard for tablets and touch phones. Small. Light. Charges via USB
  • Compatible with Win XP SP2+, Mac 10.4+, iOS 4.3.5+ (iPhone/iPod/iPad), etc
  • Mouse mode projects a standard two-finger multi-touch pad (Windows 7 only. Not iOS capable)

    • Related: Self Balancing Enclosed Motorcycle – Wearable Computer with Projection and Gesture Recognition – Researching Direct Brain Interfaces for Text Entry

Try on Clothes and Accessories Virtually

Posted on by

FaceCake Swivel lets you try on clothes at home taking advantage of Kinect technology. Very cool. Kinect continues to allow some great innovation.

The application allows you to try on multiple items, layer them and see how they look from different angles (as you move the items move with you – it is true that this is still pretty rough, but given how fast innovation moves this part will likely improve quickly). You can also send an image to friends to have them weigh in on your potential purchase.

I haven’t been following that closely but my vague recollection is Kinect backed off attempting to prohibit innovation that integrated connect into other products. That was a very smart move, I believe.

Related: Hug Shirt (stay in touch from far away) – Camera Fashion – the photo includes extra images we don’t see – Wearable Computer with Projection and Gesture Recognition

Aakash Android Tablet from India: $35 for Indian Students, $60 Retail

Posted on by

Aakash Tablet from Venturebeat on Vimeo.

The Indian government has created a very interesting tablet for students in India. The 7 inch display tablet device is runs Android and is remarkably powerful given the price. Obviously it isn’t as responsive as devices like Amazon’s Fire.
Video on this cheap device from India works very well.

Aakash Android Table Review

The components inside the Aakash tablet are cheap, and easily sourced. For example, the Aakash tablet has a headphone jack and an audio-in jack, but no external speakers — an obvious cost-savings measure. However, with the addition of cheap headphones, and an equally cheap microphone, the owner can make calls on Skype and has the potential to communicate with people around the world.

The screen is pressure sensitive (also called resistive touch) and responds somewhat slowly to gestures. It’s definitely not as dazzling as the high-end tablets familiar to Western audiences, such as the capacitive touchscreen iPad
…
What makes the Aakash tablet different is that its creators didn’t strive for perfection. Instead, the emphasis was on getting the product into the market quickly so it could be adopted, tinkered with, and improved over time. As Wadhwa said, “to get the cost down, you have to make some compromises.”

The unmistakable impression we all got from using the Aakash tablet was that it is built for performance. Every design choice that might seem like a negative reveals three, four, five — or more — net benefits.

Why does it have two USB ports? So you can plug in a keyboard, of course, and still have a free slot for an external hard drive, or some other device. What about that screen cover that seems like it’s made from laminating material? If the tablet is meant for educational use, it’s probably going to have to contend with some pretty rough handling, dirt, dust and moisture. Better that it should withstand damage than look the extra bit nicer.

I really love to see gadgets aimed at the majority of the world’s population instead of only the rich. Gadgets aimed at the rich are pretty darn cool and fun. And I like them. I just also love to see us looking to create gadgets everyone can use.

Related: What Kids can Learn with Just a Computer and Time – Raspberry Pi: $25 Computer – Sub $100 Tablet in 2011

Japanese Wind Power Breakthrough Could Double or Triple Wind Energy Effectiveness

Posted on by

Ok, these “windmills” are a bit big to think of them as gadgets but there cool technology so I am including this. These “wind lens” turbines produce up to 3 times the energy of conventional wind turbines. They plan on running a test generation facility next year.

The breakthrough and research are being done by the Wind Engineering Section at Kyushu University in Japan. Strong vortices are created by the diffuser and the brim of the Wind Lens producing low pressure region behind the turbine. This increased pressure difference that helps the wind to flow more into the Wind Lens. It is amazing, to me, that it has such a huge impact.

Wind power generation continues to grow very rapidly, with many different breakthroughs, though it still only producing about 2% of global electricity. It was only 2007 that wind power surpassed 1% of global electricity generation.

Related: Engineering Floating Wind Farms – Wind Power Potential to Produce 20% of Electricity Supply by 2030

Wearable Computer with Projection and Gesture Recognition

Posted on by

Pattie Maes presentation at TED shows a very cool prototype for wearable, useful computing spearheaded by Pranav Mistry (who received a standing ovation at TED). It’s a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment.

The prototype of the system cost only $350. The software, created by them, obviously is the key, but how amazing is that, $350 for the hardware used in the prototype! There is a useful web site on the Sixth Sense project.

The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user’s hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques.

The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

Droid Incredible

Posted on by

image of Droid Incredible cell phone

The Droid Incredible really is a great gadget. I am too cheap to get it but if I were to use a cell phone much I think this is the one I would get. I personally prefer more open software like Android (which the Droid Incredible uses) to Apple (though Apple’s user experience is great, I admit).

The Droid Incredible by HTC features a body design that measures 4.63 x 2.3 x 0.47 inches (HxWxD), making it easy to slip into your pocket. A large, 3.7-inch HD screen with 480×800 resolution graces the front of the device. The responsive OLED touch screen features rich colors and is easy to use.

With a 1 GHz Snapdragon processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 8 GB of internal flash memory, the Droid Incredible delivers incredible performance, letting you run multiple applications. It includes an 8-megapixel camera with auto focus and 2x power LED flash, and also Google Maps Navigation, which provides GPS-based turn-by-turn voice guidance to get you where you need to go.