Hasta La Gadget!

In collaboration with developer GlassLab, EA has announced an interesting extension to the SimCity world. SimCityEDU is an online development portal for the education community to accompany the upcoming new version of SimCity. The goal is for SimCityEDU to be a resource for classroom teachers interested in using digital platforms to help students learn science, technology, engineering, and mathematics subjects.

The portal will allow teachers to create and share digital SimCity learning plans to encourage students to think critically. For students, this will be an excellent opportunity to get classroom credit for playing SimCity. Anytime you can play video games that are fun in school while also being educational is a big win for teachers and students

SimCity EDU will launch this March – around the same time as the new game. Educators interested in accessing the portal can sign up here.

EA thinks that SimCityEDU and SimCity will help inspire the next generation of leaders allowing them to hone skills for urban planning, environmental management, and socio-economic development. All kids will know is that they’re getting classroom credit for playing a video game.

If you’re the type of drinker who can’t tell when enough is enough, then maybe these ‘smart’ ice cubes can help you out. They’re not really ice cubes in the sense that they aren’t made from water and all. However, they’re supposed to go into your glass along with your drink in order to use them.

Each cube is made up of an accelerometer, some IR receivers, a battery, and an LED light which is molded into a jelly-like substance. This way, its insides are kept dry and the taste of your drink will remain unaffected.

The cube works by keeping track of how many sips the person has had and compares it with a timer to estimate the level of intoxication. The light goes from green to yellow to red to signal when the person has had enough. It’s a rough system that doesn’t consider a bunch of other things when it comes to intoxication, like a person’s tolerance to alcohol or the legal limits, but it’s a pretty good start.

These ‘smart ice cubes’ were built by Dhairya Dand, a student at MIT’s Media Lab.

[via Gizmag]

My mother has boxes of old 35mm film from my youth tucked away in closets and the attic. Most of those pictures we have probably never looked at because the prints were lost long ago. If you have a bunch of old 35mm film around, a new product is on Kickstarter which will help you get these images into your smartphone in digital form.

The Lomography Smartphone Film Scanner is a device which lets you feed through 35mm film through and a backlight. That backlight makes the images glow and then you use a smartphone, such as the iPhone and an app to take a digital photo of the 35mm film. The film scanner works with any 35mm film and also works with 35mm analog movie film. It’s also a perfect companion to the LomoKino 35mm moviemaker.

The film scanner is relatively inexpensive, and at this point a pledge of $60(USD) or more will get you one of the first of the devices manufactured. For around $100, you can get a bundle which includes both the scanner and a cheap 35mm camera. The project was seeking $50,000 and so far has raised over $99,000 with 18 days to go. The expected delivery date is March of 2013.

I didn’t think that anything could accurately emulate theSsun, but that didn’t stop Rafael Lozano-Hemmer from trying, as he used 60,000 LEDs to recreate some solar magic – albeit without the intense light and heat of the actual Sun.

At 4.5 feet in diameter, Flatsun is still a billion times smaller than the real Sun. Rafael used mathematical equations to position the LEDs in the large circular panel that mimics the sun’s never-ending movements. Custom panels inside the larger structure hold the red and yellow LEDs, which give off that eerie, but fascinating solar glow.

As people walk by Flatsun, it uses a video camera to responds to their movements. If the room is crowded, it’s turbulent, as if there were solar flares on Flatsun‘s surface. As the room empties, the installation slows down and finally shuts down completely.

[via My Darkened Eyes via My Modern Met]

In the future, we may not have any problems with carrying even full-sized tablets in our pockets because they’ll be as portable as plain old paper, as shown in this prototype technology called PaperTab. It was developed by Intel, Plastic Logic and Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab.

The PaperTab uses Plastic Logic’s flexible high-resolution 10.7″ electrostatic display, a flexible touchscreen and a Core i5 CPU. Like paper documents, PaperTab is meant to be used in groups. Each tablet is meant to run a single app, but users can also put multiple units together to form a big interactive display. Instead of just using gestures, users interact with the PaperTab by bending its portions. Transferring media and apps from one PaperTab to another is accomplished with a simple tap.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we actually end up with tablets this thin and bendy in the future. But I think having one app per device is a step backwards, and I wouldn’t want a permanently dog-eared and crumpled tablet. Then again the technology is in it’s very early stages so it’s too early to comment on its practicality anyway.

[Human Media Lab via Smarter Planet]