Hasta La Gadget!

Marcia Gay Harden is bad at goodbyes. Really bad.

In this new sketch from Above Average, Harden and husband Jim O’Heir (a.k.a. Jerry from “Parks & Rec”) try to wish their son, possible new “SNL” player John Milhiser, as he goes off to college for the first time. But the goodbye gets emotional, and the Oscar-winning actress is unable to say goodbye without having a total breakdown.

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The following is an excerpt from “The Juliette Society” [$15.00, Grand Central Publishing], a novel written by former pornographic actress Sasha Grey. Grey has likened her debut book to “Fight Club,” but with sex instead of fighting, as it delves into the tumultuous world of an underground sex group, and aims to promote sexual liberation:

We don’t talk about it in the morning. I oversleep and Jack’s already gone. I hate waking up and he’s not there. Some people are afraid to go to sleep alone. I’m afraid of waking up, never knowing whether the new day is going to greet me with an empty bed, and no one there to hold me.

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The number of times Hello Kitty’s popped up on Engadget over the years is quite astonishing, and thanks to HTC, the cat leaves yet another paw print here. Earlier today, our Taiwanese brethren received an invitation (embedded after the break) for next Monday’s launch of the Butterfly s Hello Kitty limited edition. Interestingly and perhaps unsurprisingly, the cartoon character is seen wearing a uniform similar to that of EVA Air, a local airline that now operates five Hello Kitty edition planes.

Later on, a Mobile01 forum user followed up with what appears to be a spy shot of said phone’s printed ad, as shown above. Here you can see the feline’s head — with her butterfly hair clip highlighted for obvious reasons — dominating the white back of the 5-inch phone. And with that cute wallpaper, we assume there will be other Hello Kitty features on the software side as well. All will be revealed next week, of course. Meanwhile, we’re secretly hoping HTC’s also planning on a One Max with a glowing arc reactor stuck on the back.

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, HTC

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Source: Mobile01 (Chinese)

With the oncoming Arrested Development movie – yes, for real, for the thousandth time – appearing sooner than later, an interview with Rolling Stone had creator Mitch Hurwitz speaking up about Season 5 coming soon after. Though he’s still not sure when the movie will be appearing, he is working on it. He also suggests […]

Computers and sensors are quickly decreasing in cost and size, making it easier than ever before to build smart gadgets or robots. From accelerometers to thermal sensors, electronics nowadays can detect and record a variety of events and objects in their surroundings. Here’s one more sensor to add to your robot overlord-in-training. It’s called Pixy, a camera that identifies objects through color.

Pixy was made by Charmed Labs and embedded systems experts from Carnegie Mellon University. It’s actually the team’s fifth version of a smart and low-cost vision sensor, which they previously called the CMUcam. What separates the Pixy from other image sensors is that it only sends a small amount of data and it has its own microprocessor. These traits make it possible to integrate the Pixy even to microcontrollers like the Arduino.

Pixy identifies objects using “a hue-based color filtering algorithm”, which supposedly makes it consistent under different lighting conditions. It can also identify hundreds of objects at once. The image below is a screenshot of PixyMon, an open source debugging program for Pixy.

As you’ll see in the video below, Pixy can also track moving objects. That’s because it updates once every 20ms, fast enough to keep up with an object moving at 30mph. You can then gather Pixy’s data through UART serial, SPI, I2C, digital out, or analog out.

Pixy can be taught to “remember” up to seven different objects, but you can expand its memory by using color codes. Color codes are simply stickers or strips of paper with two or more different colors. Color codes increase Pixy’s color-coded encyclopedia from seven to several thousands.

Pledge at least $59 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a Pixy and an Arduino cable as a reward.

What will you build with Pixy? A security camera that texts you when your cat goes out? A color-seeking water bomb? A clown-loving machine? A drone that follows you around? A box of crayons that can tell you what color you picked? A weapon that works only on people wearing red? A LEGO sorter that can tell you which pieces are missing from your collection? A camera that automatically takes pictures of the sunset? A wearable assistant for colorblind people? A ticker that counts which Premier League referee hands out the most yellow cards? A useless machine that won’t turn itself off if you’re wearing the right color? Are the things I’m saying even possible?