IBM delivers augmented reality to shopping aisles

Are you one who absolutely loves shopping, especially when it comes to purchasing groceries at the local supermarket? Well, if you are a seasoned shopper, you would virtually be able to navigate through the labyrinth of aisles with your eyes closed, grabbing those weekly items as though it were second nature to you. What happens when you are new to a particular town, and there are less than helpful retail assistants? This is where the wonders of technology comes in, and IBM intends to help by offering an augmented reality solution to shopping aisles.

IBM’s Fiona Doherty recently demonstrated how an augmented reality shopping app is able to fill this particular niche, where it will automatically deliver personalized coupons, offers, customer reviews and hidden product details

You cannot deny the fact that going to a physical store still has this nostalgic feel to the shopping experience, and to be able to see, touch and feel (sometimes even taste!) a particular product before purchase is all part of the thrill. Since many of us already carry our advanced mobile devices wherever we go, it makes perfect sense for IBM to enter into this market, making life easier for shoppers to retrieve product details instantly and deals in-store at the blink of an eye thanks to a new augmented reality (AR) shopping app.

The app will not rely on barcodes or RFID tags in order to recognize products, although it will need a working camera on your mobile device as it compares a captured image with those in its database. If the product packaging matches according to the image processing algorithm that works in tandem with techniques used in facial recognition, color and shape matching, it will automatically overlay digital details of the product on the image.

Some of these details can include nutritional information, price, reviews and discounts on offer at that particular point in time. You also have the choice to opt into a social networking feature which will then deliver comments or reviews from friends and family concerning a particular product that has been added to the information shown.

Doesn’t this make it more important to make sure you have a fully juiced up smartphone before you go shopping?

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[ IBM delivers augmented reality to shopping aisles copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]


Mini Batman Bat-Signal

The crazy summer blockbuster season at the movies have arrived, and superheroes never seem to get old on the silver screen. I suppose a lot of it has to do with a form of escapism for us, where we do wish at times that we could eventually wake up with super powers one day, ditching our day jobs and being a general all-round idol to the rest of the world. Bruce Wayne might have had a tough childhood, but I guess he channeled all of that angst and bitterness in a way that helped society combat crime. While there is no way to whistle and have Batman show up at your whim and fancy, perhaps the Bat-Signal might do the trick.

What happens when there are budget cuts and austerity measures put in place by governments all over the world? Well, this is where the wonders of miniaturization comes in handy, and the $9.95 Mini Batman Bat-Signal is more than ready to make up for any shortcomings. After all, you can never quite tell just when you need that extra bit of accounting help at the office, and Bruce Wayne would definitely have the know-how in solving that bit without attracting the Attorney General in any way. The man runs a multi-billion dollar empire, doesn’t he?

[ Mini Batman Bat-Signal copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]


Soap bubble screen touted to be thinnest display in the world

I am quite sure that as a kid, you had your fair share of fun with those soap bubbles. These days, I see automated soap bubble blowers – even your kids need not build up their lung power any more, as all they need to do is dip the dipstick into a bottle of soap, pick it up, press a button and a built-in fan will do all of the blowing. Dogs and cats have had fun chasing down after these bubbles, and so did kids. Who would have figured out even remotely that the humble soap bubble could eventually be used as a display of some sort?

In fact, it has already picked up the moniker of being the ‘world’s thinnest display’ along the way, coined by no one else other than the team behind this transparent screen. This is made possible thanks to the research team who came up with new technology that is capable of projecting images onto a screen that is made up of nothing else but soap film. Just how does this work? We shall take a closer look after the jump to find out.

Basically, this international team managed to come up with this particular display by relying on ultrasonic sound waves that will change the film’s properties, resulting in either a flat or a 3D image. As for the bubble mixture used, you can say that it is somewhat akin to the one sold in stores for little kids, albeit with a far more complex chemical make up.

The team is quick off the mark to claim this as the world’s thinnest transparent screen, so you can more or less kiss those ultra slim Samsungs and LGs goodbye from their once lofty pedestals. Lead researcher, Yoichi Ochiai from the University of Tokyo, wrote, “It is common knowledge that the surface of soap bubble is a micro membrane. It allows light to pass through and displays the colour on its structure. We developed an ultra-thin and flexible BRDF [bidirectional reflectance distribution function, a four-dimensional function defining how light is reflected at an opaque surface] screen using the mixture of two colloidal liquids.”

No idea on when a commercially available version will arrive.

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[ Soap bubble screen touted to be thinnest display in the world copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]


BPM Drum Machine Style Calculator Wristwatch

I remember back in the days when I was a wee lad at school, wearing a watch was considered to be cool – and not just any watch, you had to have either a Swatch, or a Casio calculator watch. Those that came with a built-in remote control worked as well, too. Calculator watches are the coolest in my opinion, especially when it comes to math tests. Well, fast forward to today with all my math basics intact in my noggin’, here we are with something far more sophisticated, although its main purpose is to still tell the time – the $79.99 BPM Drum Machine Style Calculator Wristwatch.

The BPM Drum Machine Style Calculator Wristwatch comes with a polycarbonate strap and Hot Rubber applications, boasting a fully functional calculator, not to mention a faux drum-machine that ensures the beats are there to keep your minutes on track, allowing you to make that special countdown until a particular moment in the day or week. Something Junior would definitely appreciate, I believe.

[ BPM Drum Machine Style Calculator Wristwatch copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]


ChildMinder car seat sensor could help save lives

I have read tragic stories in the papers as well as on the Internet before, where some absent minded parents suffered unspeakable heartache when they realized their toddler or baby was left in the car, only to return to a lifeless body afterwards. Sometimes, we are just too preoccupied with our work that we even forget the extension of ourselves, and for those who firmly believe that prevention is better than cure, how about a $30 device known as the ChildMinder car seat sensor?

This particular device is capable of alerting you just in case you happen to walk away while leaving your helpless little one all alone in the car. Developed by Baby Alert International, the ChildMinder Infant-Toddler Elite Pad System has been described to be “a passive safety seat monitoring system,” where the Elite Pad is placed under the child’s car seat. This Elite Pad will then “talk” to your Key Ring Alarm Unit, should you move 15 feet away from it, will take half a dozen seconds of lapse before the alarm goes off.

[ ChildMinder car seat sensor could help save lives copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]


Commercial Free DVR – How can it Survive?

 

I watch a few less commercials on television these days. I just fast forward through them. In the old days commercials were when you went to get snacks or put the clothes in the dryer. I’m hard pressed to think of a television commercial that I have seen in the last 6 months that I was glad I watched. Maybe I just missed all the good ones, for all the things I really wanted… that would be my luck.

DVR’s have made it easy to just fast forward through those irritating blurbs about junk you don’t need, and they can condense your half hour shows into a quick 20 minutes, and now, The Dish Network is offering a brand new auto-skip feature on it’s DVR’s that actually lets viewers press a single button to eliminate all the major network commercials altogether, no fast forwarding required. Could this be the future of TV?

How will the TV networks stand for this? Another company, Replay TV offered a similar service and was promptly sued for offering a commercial skipping feature. The company has since filed for bankruptcy. As much as I LOVE the idea of skipping annoying commercials, it seems like services like these attack the very underpinnings that make TV a profitable business, after all, why else would TV networks be making all those intelligent and provocative programs for us?

I don’t know the future of Dish Network’s Hopper Feature, but television commercial viewership has to be way down already with the number of digital recording devices in most homes these days, does the fact that you can eliminate commercials altogether somehow make it worse than the fast forwarding that we’re already doing? I guess lawsuits will be inevitable. Could network television be in danger? I guess the real question is, how do you think they are going to make us pay?

[ Commercial Free DVR – How can it Survive? copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]


Musical umbrella delivers 8-bit tones

An umbrella is supposed to keep you dry from those rainy days, and it too, would be able to ensure your skin does not get sun burnt at all when it is scorching hot out there during the summer. At this year’s Amsterdam-based Music Hack Day, a couple of intrepid hackers who hail from Berlin did figure out a way to create a musical umbrella which is capable of producing a random series of lo-fi 8-bit tones.

These tones are triggered the moment a raindrop strikes the outer surface of the umbrella’s canopy, and since the results are totally random and abstract, you will hear different tunes all the time, and chances are just like snowflakes, you will not find the same two tunes at any time. What your ears will hear would be something akin to what the first generation Nintendo Game Boy is capable of churning out. To know more about how this particular musical umbrella works, read on after the jump.

The gist of the umbrella works this way – whenever raindrops strike the outside surface of the umbrella canopy, they will be transformed to tones thanks to the presence of a dozen piezo pickup sensors which are taped to the underside of the umbrella. These piezo pickup sensors are fully capable of responding to vibration, where they are then sent over to an Arduino Uno, which is actually a cheap and open source micro-controller that is popular with hackers and hobbyists. Not only that, it will in turn be hooked to a couple of speakers.

The Music Hack Day event was originally held in the London offices of U.K. newspaper The Guardian three years ago, and the movement has since spread to Berlin, Amsterdam, Boston, Stockholm, San Francisco, Barcelona, New York and Montreal, where over two thousand participants and sponsorship from notable music-tech companies are the attendees.

There is still no indication that this musical umbrella will be sold to the masses, but the umbrella’s creators, Alice Zappe and Julia Lager, decided to come up with a new and improved version of their Music Hack Day prototype.

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[ Musical umbrella delivers 8-bit tones copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]


Batteries of the future can be painted on

With the number of gadgets and gizmos that are in our possession these days, it makes perfect sense that we always have one thing at the top of our minds at all times – that is, the battery life of our devices. This is even more glaring when we are talking about going traveling – the number of chargers that we need to pack, in addition to the right adapter (especially when one is heading off for a foreign country on a different continent altogether), could prove to be quite a headache. Not only that, newer devices come with better and faster functions, so much so that advancements made in battery technology keep up with just enough to last as long as its previous generation, as it caters to the new features.

How about the idea of spray painting your own batteries? This is where future batteries might be headed, as one is able to paint batteries onto standard bathroom tiles, steel, glass – and even a beer stein! This particular battery is made possible thanks to five separate layers, where each of them has its own recipe, and together they measure a mere 0.5mm thick – or should we say, thin?

In order to demonstrate this particular technique, the team behind the battery actually spayed the batteries onto steel, glass, ceramic tile and a beer stein. This breakthrough will definitely be of particular interest in industrial applications, since it is compatible with current spray-painting technology. Right now, the most common batteries comprise of negative and positive halves (the anode and the cathode), with a material in between to separate them, while “current collector” layers are located at the top and bottom to gather up the electric charges which move through.

Plenty of batteries are constructed in a geometry that is not too far off from that of a “Swiss roll” cross section, where layers are rolled up into a cylindrical or round-edged rectangular shape. Guess the spray on battery idea from Rice University in Texas, US, has paved open a new way to place batteries on just about any surface.

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[ Batteries of the future can be painted on copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]


Indispensable Coffee Dispenser

If you are one who loves your coffee, then here you are with the $29.99 Indispensable Coffee Dispenser – something that will definitely carve a smile on your face. After all, it has been named after the adjective, ‘dispensable’, and not ‘disposable’ for good reason. Capable of holding around 0.5 lbs of coffee grounds, it sports an airtight design that ensures your coffee grounds remain as fresh as possible, but I would assume that leaving it there for a year or more is definitely going to affect the quality and freshness of the grounds, that is for sure.

The Indispensable Coffee Dispenser will dispense 1 tablespoon at a time, and the main advantage that this particular coffee dispenser has over the rest of the competition would be its eco-friendliness. After all, there are no plastic coffee pods to think about, where those are particularly wasteful. A single squeeze of the handle will enable the Indispensable Coffee Dispenser to deposit a tablespoon of grounds straight into your coffee maker, espresso machine, or reusable coffee pod.

[ Indispensable Coffee Dispenser copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]


Virus Eliminating Desk Lamp

There you are, hacking away at the keyboard late into the night at the desk. You start to scratch your nose, only to realize that a full blown sneeze is working its way at the end. Could this be due to the number of unseen viruses around your work area? If that is the case, then it is always better to be safe than sorry – and this is where the $299.95 Virus Eliminating Desk Lamp comes in handy. I am not quite sure whether this particular desk lamp works as advertised, but let us take a closer look at its hardware specifications below and arrive at our own conclusion.

The Virus Eliminating Desk Lamp is said to be an air-purifying desk lamp that is capable of eliminating up to 99.99% of viruses, allergens, and bacteria. An integrated fan and vents are located at the base of the lamp, where these will disseminate harmless hydrogen and oxygen ions which envelop positively charged viruses and bacteria such as influenza, staphylococcus aureus, and MRSA. Both hydrogen and oxygen ions will penetrate the pathogens’ membranes in order to destroy their DNA, rendering such microorganisms incapable of reproduction and survival. Not only that, allergens, tobacco smoke, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by some paint and furnishings are also neutralized along the way, all without the need for a filter. If you fall sick while sticking close to this lamp, it is about time you up your intake of vitamin C and perhaps, get more exercise.

[ Virus Eliminating Desk Lamp copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]