Hasta La Gadget!

The Optimus Maximus keyboard from Art Lebedev was cool, but it was way too expensive for most people, especially since keyboards are used so often and can break over time. I can only imagine what repetitive typing would do to all of those expensive little OLED displays. The E-inkey concept keyboard uses more cost-effective E-ink displays instead.

This changeable electrostatic keyboard is the brainchild of designers Maxim Mezentsev and Aleksander Suhih. The keycaps could contextually adapt their display depending on what you are doing, and which application you are using. The tiny energy efficient displays on the keycaps could possibly be made without ending up with a keyboard that costs as much as a computer.

Admittedly, if you’re a touch typist, the added displays wouldn’t be that useful, but it would look plenty good. Again, like many cool things, the E-inkey keyboard is still just a concept. Hopefully, somebody will put it into production in the not-too-distant future.

[via Yanko Design]

For a long time, laser weapons were the stuff of science fiction, but researchers have able to create viable laser weaponry over the last several years. Boeing and the U.S. Air Force flew the Airborne Laser Testbed for a long time before scrapping the project last year. That massive laser was in the nose of the Boeing 747, was used to destroy missiles in flight, and could be an offensive weapon. DARPA has now announced that it wants to put significantly smaller laser weapons into turrets on jet fighter aircraft next year.

DARPA wants these weapons to be used in defensive situations to destroy incoming missiles. DARPA is working on two weapon systems including the High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System (HELLADS), and Aero-Adaptive/Aero-Optic Beam Control (ABC).

The HELLADS would be a 150-kilowatt laser approximately 10 times smaller and lighter than current airborne laser systems. The project aims to create a laser weighing under 5 kg per kilowatt that could fit into a total space of only 3 m³. The ABC is a weapon that could be mounted on aircraft to shoot down incoming missiles behind an aircraft. It would use technology to allow it to maintain effectiveness while shooting through the turbulent air behind an aircraft in flight.

And if you think that the illustration above seems far-fetched, think again. It’s the rendering that DARPA themselves has been circulating for HELLADS.

[Military Aerospace via Gizmodo via Dvice]

iRobot makes robots for all sorts of needs in the military and other business areas. In the consumer space, the company is probably best known for its line of robotic vacuum cleaners, including the Roomba and Scooba. Last year, iRobot started trials of a robot designed to work in hospitals – called the RP-Vita, or Remote Presence Virtual Independent Telemedicine Assistant.

Developed by iRobot and InTouch Health, the robot is a telepresence device that stands about as tall as your typical human. It’s fitted with dual screens, a video camera, Wi-Fi and other sensors and even has its own stethoscope allowing doctors to perform patient examinations remotely. It uses an iPad to control communications, and the robot is able to use sensors to map its environment and navigate autonomously.

iRobot has announced that the RP-VITA has now been approved by the FDA to be used for active patient monitoring in pre-operative, peri-operative, and post-surgical settings. It can work in several areas of the hospital including cardiovascular, neurological, prenatal, psychological, and critical care. These robots are far from cheap and are estimated to cost as much as $4000 per month to purchase and operate, but that still could represent a significant cost savings by allowing doctors to check in on more patients and more frequently.

[via Science World Report]

If you’re the outdoorsy type who likes to fish, a new project is up on Indiegogo that will help you improve your catch. The project is called ReelSonar and it’s a high-tech fishing bobber. It looks pretty much like a normal fishing bobber except it has sonar technology inside, and can communicate with your smartphone.

That sonar technology is able to shoot ultrasonic sound waves into the water up to 150 feet deep to find where the fish are hiding. The fancy bobber connects to your Android or iOS smartphone using Bluetooth 4.0 to show you where the fish are. The bobber will even sense the water temperature and salinity and suggest the best bait to use.

When the fish finally come to bite your bait, the bobber will light up and the app will signal that fish are nearby. The app will even give you the relative size of the fish and estimate how many fish are nearby. Once you find a honey hole, you can tag the location of the spot using GPS.

The first 300 orders can get a ReelSonar unit and the app for just $79(USD). After that, the price goes up to $99. If the project reaches its $70,000 funding goal by January 21, the product will be released this Summer.

There are already a couple of ways by which mobile devices can communicate with computers without using wires, like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and the newer Near Field Communication technology or NFC. But Fujitsu Laboratories has come up with a way for a mobile device to interact with a computer, using its camera to “look” at the computer’s display.

To pull off the trick, Fujitsu Labs’ technology superimposes communications data on a computer screen in the form of microscopic blobs of light. The data can include IP addresses, SSID and anything else that can be used to identify the computer within the network. Complementary software on a mobile device will then enable it to read those microscopic blobs of light using its camera.

Once the two devices are connected, the same technology can also be used to monitor what file is being displayed on the computer screen at the moment and – should the mobile device user request it – automatically send it to the mobile device. As you’ll see on Fujitsu’s demo video, the technology can also be used to easily transfer files the other way, from a mobile device to a PC.

It sounds like a very useful technology, but I can’t help but imagine just how silly future classes and business meetings will look like if they use this tech.

[Fujitsu Labs via Engadget]