Jul 07
Jul 07
Jul 07
SolePower is a power generating shoe insole that can charge portable electronics.
(Credit: Screengrab by Dara Kerr/CNET)
What if people could charge their phones by going for a walk? No electricity, no power outlets, no more dealing with dead phone batteries. This idea actually isn’t too farfetched.
A new Kickstarter campaign is focused on getting funding for a power generating shoe insert that lets users charge portable devices — like smartphones, music players, and GPS devices — while they walk.
The device is called SolePower and is currently in an alpha prototype phase. The company is looking to raise $50,000 by July 18 to start working toward finalizing a mass producible product.
SolePower founders Matthew Staton and Hahna Alexander came up with the idea as mechanical engineering students at Carnegie Mellon University.
“We initially designed SolePower to simply light an LED on the shoe so students walking to and from campus at night would be more visible,” Stanton told CNET. “After we developed a proof of concept prototype for the class we realized that there were many more applications for the device.”
To generate energy, SolePower takes each step and converts it into usable electrical power. As the user swings their leg a… [Read more]
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Jul 07
Jul 07
LG teasers drop not-so-subtle hints of G2 launch at August 7th event (video)
Posted in: Today's Chili
While LG initially gave no clues as to the focus of its August 7th event, the company isn’t leaving much room for doubt now. It’s sending both formal invitations and a teaser video (after the break) suggesting that it would be “Great 2 Have You” at the New York gathering — a likely reference to the rumored G2 flagship. LG is still coy about showing the phone itself, although we already know that there’s a speedy Snapdragon 800 under the hood. We just wish we didn’t have to wait a month to see a lot more.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, LG
Via: Android Central
Source: LG (YouTube)
Jul 07
Jul 07
While final specifications on the LG Optimus G2 have not yet been solidified, the company has all but guaranteed that we’ll be having our first official look on the 7th of August. Event invites for the press have been sent out for a New York City engagement that’ll be taking place on that date with a teaser “Great 2 Have You” attached – and the leaked photos of the device itself continue.
What you’re about to see are a series of images and details leaked over the past week (or in some cases, the last several months). The first is a front and back image of the LG Optimus G2 suggesting that the rumors of a buttonless set of edges on this machine are true. Here LeaksChina provides photos so blurry you’ll have trouble believing they were captured by anything better than a 1 megapixel feature phone shooter – but they do the job regardless.
Next you’ll see an image of the device’s left side. This image is provided by TechTastic and suggests that we’ll be seeing a rather thin device to boot.
It’s been suggested that this machine will be a hero device for LG to take on the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S 4. To do this, the company is tipped to be bringing on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 quad-core processor and a top-notch display with edge-to-edge technology making for a rather unique experience in the palm of the users’ hand.
• 5.5-inch 1080p display
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor at clock speed 2.3GHz for each of four cores
• 2GB RAM
• 13-megapixel back-facing camera aside volume and power buttons
• Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean / LG UI
• Edge-to-edge display (aka a very small bezel)
You’ll see a collection of leaked images and details collected by SlashGear back on June 22nd that make the case for the phone outlined above as well.
Also of interest is the invite image itself – this BEAST is a massive 2,999 x 2,584 pixels when extracted. This is FAR larger than any average event invite for the press – normally they’re less than a few hundred pixels large, and blurry at that. Here LG has clearly made an effort to go big – and sharp. Stick around for the full show – SlashGear will be in NYC on the 7th with bells on.
LG Optimus G2 event scheduled for August 7th is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.
Jul 07
The Ivee Sleek Isn’t Just An Alarm Clock, It’s A Voice-Controlled Hub For Smart Homes
Posted in: Today's Chili
Alarm clocks rarely do much to get people’s salivary glands fired up, but ivee’s Sleek may just change that. To be fair though, calling the Sleek an alarm clock is about as accurate as calling Microsoft an OS maker — the description technically fits, but it’s a hell of an understatement.
The Sleek may have the right looks to adorn your nightstand, but its big draw is that it’s capable of connecting to the Internet and interpreting your natural voice commands.
The ivee team showed off a pair of Sleek prototypes back at CES (which I’m now kicking myself for missing), but they’ve recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to help bring the thing to market. Here’s the team vision in a nutshell: once you’ve procured a Sleek, you can set it up and ask it to set alarms, tune the FM radio, or play soothing nature sounds as you drift away into darkness. Once it’s connected to your home Wi-Fi network though, it’ll be able to answer basic queries for weather and stock performance (thanks to Wolfram Alpha’s API).
Firing up a web browser and start digging into the Sleek’s backend reveals even more options, and that’s where much of the magic happens — users will be able to hook up certain sorts of smart-home gadgetry into the Sleek service, and can control them by chatting up the Sleek base station. So far the team has managed to get it working with the popular Nest thermostat and Belkin’s smart WeMo power outlets, and there’s a voice-control scheme for Roombas in the works, too.
Oh, and if you do decide to put the Sleek in your bedroom, can you ask it to read you a bedtime story. Sadly, it doesn’t look like backers have any say on what ivee reads (which, knowing the internet, is probably for the best). The big potential downside for home automation nerds is that the Sleek lacks support for some common wireless connectivity schemes like Z-Wave or even Bluetooth, but the team is looking to bypass that hurdle by folding support for existing hub devices that can handle that sort of wireless interfacing.
Sadly, the early backer spots (and the slightly lower price tags that went with them) have all been snapped up, so laying claim to a first-run Sleek will set you back a cool $179. In the event you’re dreaming of bossing your alarm clock around, you’ve got about three weeks left to back the project — the campaign has already blown through its funding goal, and the folks involved expect to get those backer units out the door sometime this October.
Jul 07
Since the mid-1990s, pediatricians have urged moms, dads and caretakers to place sleeping infants on their backs to help reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDs.
Cases of unexplained death have since dropped by more than half, but a far less dangerous side effect has also cropped up: A growing number of babies now have “positional plagiocephaly,” or flat spots on the sides or backs of their heads.
A new study in Canada, published in the journal Pediatrics on Monday, found that more than 46 percent of 2- to 3-month-old babies may have some form of the condition, although most cases are mild.
Read More…
More on Health News
Jul 07
Giken – ECO Cycle – Futuristic underground bicycle parking system in Shinagawa, Tokyo
Posted in: Today's Chili
In Japan, bicycles are a popular mode of transportation and are great for a place like metropolitan Tokyo because they don’t need much space, don’t cost money to keep, they don’t pollute the air, unlike automobiles.
You will see a lot of bicycles parked everywhere here. Since there are many bikes, there are also various problems including a lack of bicycle parking spaces and bicycle theft. Also, especially during the morning commute, bicycle parking lots near stations get really crowded so that you need to line up to park your bicycle and it will take a lot of time. If you choose to park it on the street, it will be towed because it’s illegal.
To solve these issues, Giken invented a secure, smooth, space-saving underground bicycle parking system called ECO Cycle.
With ECO Cycle, what you need to do for parking your bicycle is set a device with a tag with an IC chip in it to your bicycle’s wheel beforehand, and set the bicycle and press the Start button at the entrance of ECO Cycle, and then it will be taken to the underground area. To get your bicycle back, hold your own IC card over the card reader at the entrance. Your bicycle will show up in front of you in about 13 seconds.
Please check out the video from Culture Japan:
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