Gadgets Future

by Ryan Block, posted May 29th 2008 at 3:18PM
Inventor extraordinaire Dean Kamen spoke at D today about the latest developments in the Luke arm. Not that it wasn’t already impressive enough, but Kamen’s company, DEKA Research, has made even more amazing developments in the arm’s interface, complementing the early mechanical controls with spatial and neural interfaces. The shot above was taken of a man with transected nerves, which were interfaced directly to the arm, enabling him to delicately utilize numerous degrees of motion within hours of installation. Also in development for the Luke arm is a spatial interface (which would intelligently give some control of movement back to the arm itself), as well as a non-invasive mind interface that utilizes infrared to read neural signals through the skull. Furthermore, to lend in balance and motion with heavier usage, a new body-mounting chassis was built, featuring embedded bladders that tense up (inflate). Fricking crazy stuff. Shots from Kamen’s demo videos below.

Gallery: Dean Kamen’s Luke arm now has mind-control and 3D-spatial interfaces

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets, Robots

If you are planning to get a new navigational device, here is one that could be the best choice. You can get a lot of advantages by buying Garmin eTrex Vista Handheld GPS System from a very popular GPS manufacturing company called ‘Garmin’. The device comes with Garmin eTrex Vista Deluxe GPS receiver which has the potential to receive signals from wide channels. You can buy this handheld system for your personal uses.

The compact dimensions of the Garmin eTrex GPS System is:

• 5.1 cm width
• 3 cm depth
• 11.2 cm height
• 150 grams weight

Here’s the list of the installed software -

• MapSource BlueChart
• MapSource Fishing Hot Spots
• Garmin Marine Point Database
• Garmin Atlantic Highway Basemap

Some of the vital features are -

• Users can get high quality signals from 12 channels with great accuracy.
• WAAS allows the user to get high accuracy in finding a destination.
• Make use of 500 way points, 10 tracks and 3000 track log points.
• You can store a maximum of 20 routes in this new device. It is possible to have 50 routes for a way point.
• The product has come with a built-in LCD display which offers a resolution of 288 x 160 pixels.
• The highest memory capacity of the device is 24 MB.
• ‘Waterproof’ option is available with the device.
• The time taken for hot acquisition is 15 seconds whereas the time taken for warm acquisition is 45 seconds.
• The device has the capability to run up to 12 hours.
• It takes one second for updating the information’s.
• It is essential to use AA type batteries for getting battery power.
• Display illumination option is also featured with the unit.
• 288 x 160 is the highest resolution production capacity of the product.
• An aerial is embedded with the device which is needed for receiving the signals.

Vital services of Garmin eTrex GPS System. -

• Electronic compass
• Bearing
• Elevation
• Heading
• ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival)
• VMG (Velocity Made Good)
• ETE (Estimated Time Enroute)
• Local pressure
• 12-hour pressure trend

Read expert Sat Nav Reviews and compare cheapest sat nav systems at satellitenavigation.org.uk.

by Darren Murph, posted May 29th 2008 at 2:48PM
We’ll spare you our feelings on non-QWERTY layouts, but one thing’s for sure — Maurin Donneaud’s Carpet ‘board would certainly stretch the mind and leg muscles if used for any length of time. It isn’t the first fabric keyboard to grace the phalanges of eager typists, but this DIY concoction is definitely the largest we’ve seen. Peck the links below for more shots of the construction process.

[Via Hack-A-Day]

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Filed under: Misc. gadgets

Apple has added the usual lineup of TV shows to the French iTunes Store today: Desperate Housewives, Lost and Bob L’eponge.

The French store also adopts the variable episode pricing which debuted along with HBO at the US store two weeks ago. Episode will cost either €1.49 ($2.33), €1.99 ($3.11) or €2.49 ($3.89). There are also some freebie first episodes for a couple of weird looking cartoons: Kid Paddle (which may or may not be some kind of child punishment device) and Spirou & Fantasio.

Product page [iTunes]

It looks like the age of the cable box is nearly behind us. A new system being supported by all of the major cable companies, and hardware manufacturers including Samsung, LG, and Panasonic got another big boost today. Sony is on board as well. Essentially, the system is a cable box in your TV. It can do everything the cable box does (guides, DVR, VOD) without that extra peripheral. This’ll be great, and it seems like it truly is the way of the future. Now, if only they can start putting PS3s and amplifiers in our TVs too, so that we don’t have to have shelves and shelves of equipment underneath them.

The agreement also assures the consumer that competition will thrive with this new product. Each TV manufacturer and cable company will be able to tweak the service as they see fit in order to compete for your hard earned dollars. The platform even calls for “write once, run anywhere” applications, and to security for both you and your data and the copyright holders and their data. By getting other technologies behind the new ‘tru2way’ standard, the companies that are currently involved hope to bring on a true digital age. If cell phones, MP3 players, and UPMCs were to support tru2way, legal content could be controlled and still transferred all over the place as the consumer sees fit.

Read More: Gizmodo

I’m certain some of you are probably stumbling over the title of this article. What the heck is an Unshredder? The opposite of the Shredder, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles greatest enemy?

Actually, the Unshredder is something that helps a user “unshred” shredded documents, something spy agencies have been doing for years. All a user has to do is just use the scanning technology with the device’s artificial intelligence, and that which was shredded will be made whole once again.

Granted, the work of restoring a shredded document is only made less tedious as a user must paste the torn strips of the document onto a transparent tray, and then scan both sides.

This definitely would have come in handy during the cold war. I once heard this story of some American ship that would shred its documents, then it would just throw them out into the sea. This was before environmentalists told us it was a big no-no. Anyway, a Russian submarine would pick up these shredded documents, dry them off, then painstakingly put them together to recover top secret information.

Imagine how easy it would have been if the Soviets had the Unshredder. Well, now you can have it for a rather expensive price of $950 per year for its licensing fee.

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HTC fans can rejoice as the Touch Diamond has begun to show up a little earlier than expected at a handful of online retailers. Originally scheduled for an “early-June” release date, it seems these lucky few retailers were fortunate enough to get an early shipment, and if you are willing to shell out the rather high price tag one can be yours. Currently being listed on three websites, which include DechoWireless, PopularElectronics and Welectronics. The Touch Diamond is retailing as low as $780 and topping out at $900, this pricing is of course for an unlocked version. If like us, you have never shopped any of these retailers, its pretty safe to think that once we see the official release date come that we will also see a wider selection of sites to shop from.

Via [IntoMobile]

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Could this be the new iPhone? Tucked away inside both Mac OS X 10.5.3 (released today) and the newest iPhone SDK (also new today) you’ll find this icon, presumably ready to be deployed when the new iPhone shows up. The main difference is the bezel. It’s much narrower and also squarer-looking. The whole thing is more like the current ipod Touch than the iPhone.

Below you can see an animated gif which morphs between the old and new icons, uploaded to the MacRumors forum thread by frijole. You’ll also see a fairly convincing photograph of the new iphone, which appears very similar to this new icon.

See it for yourself in either

 

/Macintosh HD/Developer/Platforms/Aspen.platform/Developer/Library/Xcode/Plug-ins/AspenSupport.xcodeplugin/Contents/Resources

Or, if you don’t have the SDK, but have already updated your Mac, at

 

/System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources/

We would have expected this to turn up in an iTunes update on the day of the new iPhone’s release, but we guess even Apple makes mistakes.

What is this picture and why is it on my Mac? [MacRumors via Engadget]

Last January we saw tech conglomerate VIA announce its line of Isaiah processors. These clever chips were designed to revolutionize mobile computing through a mix of lightning fast computing speeds and low power consumption.

Today it has announced a new processor family and dubbed it Nano. Guess what kind of computers the processors are designed for? The very first 64-bit superscalars and speculative out-of-order processors ever made by the Bejing Taipei based company should provide owners of ultraportables some insane boosts in performance and function.

Now you’re probably wondering why you should care.

Imagine now if you would, an utraportable computer like say, the Asus Eee PC. Small computer, great cost, performs reasonably well … for something of that size. Now imagine the same computer with VIA’s Nano processor. Now the computer is running Photoshop without a hiccup. Now the computer is playing Blu-ray movies without a snag. Now the computer is running Crysis at a frame rate that’s actually playable.

The new Nano processors will run up to four times faster yet consume the same amount of power as the Isaiah chipsets VIA currently offers. The Lab can’t wait to get ahold of a super small lappy running one of these processors inside. Imagine, fragging fools in Crysis on a new OLPC. Ah, the dreams of geeks.

Dragons aren’t the only creatures that are able to breathe out fire and roast their target - all it takes is a little bit of ingenuity, plenty of DIY skill and passion in order to create an inorganic fire-breathing device - a wheelchair. This unique seating device uses parts from several different machines, consisting of a Marine rescue Helicopter seat and parts from an electric golf cart as well. Fully powered by electricity, it hits full stride at 22mph, and if a gentle demeanour fails to let ordinary folk move out of your way, you can always threaten to give them a tan they won’t forget anytime soon.