Hasta La Gadget!

Robot bartenders aren’t new, but Pernod Ricard wants to take them out of the DIY realm with Project Gutenberg, a modular drink mixer-and-dispenser that comes with a companion iPhone or … Continue reading

At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), The Verge noted that TV companies had largely given up on 3D displays. A small company called Voxon is not about to give up on the idea, especially because their device actually projects light in three dimensions. They call it the Voxiebox.

In simple terms, Voxiebox displays a 3D image by aiming a laser projector at a screen that’s rapidly moving up and down. The 3D image is a bit like the light trails produced through long exposure photography, except this one’s happening in real-time. Your view of the image or video being displayed changes appropriately as you move around the Voxiebox, as if you were looking at a physical object.

The video below shows Voxon co-founders Will Tamblyn and Gavin Smith talking about how Voxiebox came about. Sadly the sound is worse than the video’s quality, which is a shame because their presentation is informative and inspiring.

As you can see the current prototype of the Voxiebox has a very low resolution, a death sentence in an industry stuck in PPI cold wars and currently under attack from the 4K marketing blitzkrieg. Another challenge facing Voxon is that content has to be made specifically for the display. You can’t just hook it up to your PC, media player or console and expect to see Call of Duty or Game of Thrones in volumetric 3D. Which is why it’s perfectly understandable that Voxon is aiming its first Voxiebox units not to home users but to arcades. On the other hand… arcades? Like, who-goes-to-arcades-anymore-arcades? Good luck.

Still, Voxon believes that their device will carve its own niche. Last year Polygon came up with an interesting story about Joseph White, an eccentric game developer who’s working on a game and game platform called Voxatron. Voxatron’s world is made out of voxels – volumetric pixels – and Polygon said White made his game imagining that Voxiebox would one day exist. Voxiebox, meet Voxatron:

That’s cool and all, but I don’t think that Voxatron or 3D chess (Voxchess?) is Voxiebox’s killer app. Aside from having a more respectable resolution, I think the device would capture the public’s attention and support more effectively if it worked closely with motion sensors. The strength of 3D objects is that they’re tangible – I think Voxon needs to seize that strength.

Take CastAR for example. Industry reputation and connections aside, Technical Illusions is getting the support they need with its augmented reality device because they’re taking cues from the tangible world. The great news here is that display-wise Voxiebox is much better than CastAR’s complicated setup. Voxon just needs to find the right artwork to paint on its canvas.

[via ExtremeTech]

Now I know what you’re thinking. Most personal computers available today are already modular. That’s true, but what Razer wants to do is to make swapping computer components as easy as replacing the batteries on your remote control.

Project Christine has a base station with a number of slots with proprietary connectors. To build your PC, you just plug in the components to the base. But instead of dealing with fragile chips and odd-looking doodads, Project Christine’s CPU, RAM, GPU, storage drives and other parts will each have its own container.

Each container will be labeled and it will be able to connect to any slot or slots on the base station. No cables, no fragile connectors and no need to figure out which part goes where. In other words, the modules work like USB devices. Project Christine will also have an LED touchscreen that shows the status of its modules.

This means even non-techies can assemble, maintain and customize their own rigs. If you want more storage, then fill the slots with storage drives. Project Christine can have up to five storage drives, one SSD and four HDDs, with the latter configurable to a RAID 5 setup. If you want multiple GPUs, by all means slot them in. The computer can have up to a quad-SLI setup for its graphics cards. Same goes for repairs. Busted power supply? Swap it out. No need to open a dusty case.

The tradeoff here is probably going to be the price of the components, especially if Razer monopolizes the distribution of the modules. But even though it has not released any estimates, the company has a proposal to make upgrading Project Christine easy on the wallet: a subscription service. Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan mentioned this idea in his interview with Gamespot. Skip to 4:00 in the video below to him talk about it.

Subscription-based hardware? I can’t decide if that’s brilliant or stupid. Will it also cover repairs? How fast will Razer release module versions of computer parts? Do upgrades to computer parts even come at a steady pace? What if you subscribe and nothing awesome comes out in a year?

I do however love the idea of a foolproof yet infinitely upgradeable computer, and I get what Razer is doing here. It’s taking a page from Apple’s books: make beautiful and easy to use hardware, then charge a premium for it and control the upgrade path.

Upgrade your browser and head to Razer for more on Project Christine.

[via Gamespot]

Projection mapping makes for eye-catching presentations, but for now it’s mostly used in advertising, live performances and for artistic purposes. The folks at animation studio Leviathan think they can simplify the technology for commercial and personal use. The studio’s proof-of-concept is called Ghost Box.

As with other projection mapping setups, Ghost Box uses projectors – in this case two of them – to beam dynamic visuals to a three dimensional object. The kicker here is that instead of requiring sophisticated knowledge or equipment, the system is self-contained and the projectors are controlled by easy to use mobile apps. For instance, in the video below you can see Ghost Box was used as a car configurator. Users simply tap and swipe on a tablet to change the properties of the car, and their choices are projected in real time to a scale model.

Nothing beats seeing and handling an actual object, but I can see Ghost Box being useful for educational purposes. A Ghost Wall or a Ghost Room would be way better though.

[via PSFK]

More and more contraptions that charge devices or generate power without needing an electrical outlet are hitting the market. Some, like the PULSE Kinetic Jump Rope, are in their prototype stages, while others like the Voltmaker are ready to be shipped off.

Granted, you’ll be able to get a bit of a workout with both devices. Voltmaker will have you turning its hand crank until your arms are sore, while PULSE will have you jump rope until you’re ready to collapse so you can charge up your phone.

The PULSE kinetic jump rope looks like your typical jump rope on the outside, but the built-in dynamos in the handle make all the difference. Every spin the rope makes generates power that is stored in the embedded rechargeable battery. You can then hook your phone up to the jump rope’s handle in order to charge it.

The PULSE jump rope is currently available in a limited beta test run. Only 100 of these have been made, and each one retails for $129(USD).

[via Dvice]