Hasta La Gadget!

There are free firmware for routers that extend the functionality of certain models – DD-WRT, Tomato and Hyper-WRT come to mind – but if you want a user-friendly interface, the Skydog system might be better for you. Made by PowerCloud Systems, it lets you monitor and manage home networks using a convenient mobile app.

The Skydog router looks like a typical router. It has four Ethernet ports and offers dual band wireless N at up to 300mbps per band. But where it really shines is in its mobile app. The app is based on HTML5, so it will work with practically all mobile devices and desktop computers. It lets you see and label connected devices and restrict or put a time limit to their access, down to specific websites. This is great for parents who want to control their kids’ internet access without having to look over their shoulders all the time.

It also lets you save and switch templates so you can give more bandwidth to certain devices, like when someone wants to play online games or stream high definition videos. Best of all, you can manage a network wherever you are as long as you have an Internet connection. You can even manage multiple Skydog routers. That’s a godsend for people who are designated IT guys in their families.

Pledge at least $99 (USD) on Kickstarter to qualify for an early unit of the Skydog. Better start a fundraiser among your friends and family.

Researchers from Samsung’s Emerging Technology Lab are working together with the University of Texas, Dallas, to develop mobile devices that can be controlled using your mind. Innovation is a huge aspect of the tech world and Samsung is looking to jump miles ahead of its competition. This technological advancement will be beneficial to people who suffer from various mobile impairments. and would be a huge game changer for the tech industry.

Right now, the researchers are working on this new feature using the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. Using the power of their thoughts, the people who are testing out the mind-controlled Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 can launch applications, shuffle through music, turn the tablet on and off, and much more. The testers wear a cap equipped with EEG-monitoring electrodes to convey their actions.

The cap uses EEG-detected brain signals to launch an action. The researchers monitor “well known brain activity patterns that occur when people are shown repetitive visual patterns.” By just focusing on an icon blinking at a certain frequency, the testers can perform various actions like launching apps and pausing/playing music. Users were able to perform an action with their mind at a speed of one action per 5 seconds, with an accuracy rate of 80%-95%.

The researchers still require a lot more research in order to make this innovative feature a reality, but they’re working diligently to do so. Samsung’s lead researcher, Insoo Kim, says, ”

Finding new ways to interact with mobile devices has driven the project. Several years ago, a small keypad was the only input modality to control the phone, but nowadays the user can use voice, touch, gesture, and eye movement to control and interact with mobile devices. Adding more input modalities will provide use with more convenient and richer ways of interactive with mobile devices.”

Robert Jacob, a Human-Computer Interaction Researcher at Tuft’s University says that this research project will help find more ways to allow users to communicate with their mobile devices. This research will hopefully allow users more control over their mobile devices, and will still allow you to “stick the phone in the pocket.” However, unfortunately for us, when this new feature does become available for mobile devices, Roozbeh Jafari, an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Texas, Dallas, says that people may have to wear an EEG-cap to use it. Let’s hope that that cap is at least fashionable.

[via MIT]

Samsung testing out mind-controlled Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Sometimes, it’s just nice to sit down, take a load off, and listen to a tune. While you could pull out a pair of headphones, you might want to look into a different solution if you want to share your music with your pals – like this seat with built in speakers and an amp.

The MusicRocker Cube Chair is not only a comfy place to sit your butt down, but you can hear and feel the music beneath your rear as you sit on it.

Each Cube Chair has a pair of 5″ full-range speakers and a 6.3″, 15-watt subwoofer built into it. You can even connect up to 4 of them together to share the same music, and they also have a headphone jack built in, though I don’t quite understand why you wouldn’t just plug your headphones directly into your music player if you wanted to listen through those.

They come in a variety of colors, and are covered with a soft leatherette button-quilted, cushioned top.

Unfortunately, I have yet to find a U.S. retailer that sells the MusicRocker Cube, but you can find them over at Amazon Germany for €119-139 (~$155 to $182 USD). Since they come with a European 220V AC adapter, you’ll need to pick up a new AC adapter for use here in the U.S. Also, the Cube has a 240 pound weight limit, so keep that in mind if you’ve been indulging in a few too many of the cakes we’ve been posting around here lately.

On April 5, we reported that a giant game of Pong – possibly the largest to date – was scheduled to take place in Philadelphia on the side of the Cira Center skyscraper. Fast forward a few weeks, and the launch date of the game has come, with the first game having successfully started a few hours ago. The game is scheduled to take place again on Wednesday.

The Cira Center is a 29-story skyscraper that has become the surface upon which Pong, powered by LED lights, is being played. According to ABC, a crowd of hundreds came out to watch the games launch, which are kicking off Philly Tech Week. Obviously, it is based on the Atari game that was many individuals’ introduction to the world of gaming.

Those walking down nostalgia lane right now have Frank Lee, a professor of game design at Drexel University, to thank. He said when the project was announced: “Pong is a cultural icon, cultural milestone. This is my love letter to the wonders of technology as seen through the eyes of my childhood.” While some of the gaming slots have been reserved for certain individuals, most are being selected via a lottery.

Brad Denenberg is one such reserved gamer, who won the right in a drawing. When asked how he feels about playing Pong in front of hundreds of people, he said his biggest fear is being pitted against a child who trumps him in skill. The gamers are positioned on the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s steps, where they’re guaranteed to have a clear view of the very large gaming canvas.

[via ABC News]

Giant Pong game on Philadelphia skyscraper kicks off tonight is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you have even just one important digital file, you owe it to yourself and that intangible bundle of electricity that you hold dear to sign up for a cloud file storage service. Many of them have entry level services that offer a few gigabytes of storage for free. Of course they’ll happily sell you more space if you need to back up more data. But a small startup called Space Monkey wants you to trust in other users instead.

Space Monkey is a backup service that will offer 1TB of both local and online storage for $10 (USD) per month. The local storage is straightforward – you will simply use a complementary app to back up your files to the Space Monkey computer (pictured above), as if you were using an external drive. The online storage is where Space Monkey gets eccentric. Instead of setting up expensive and complicated datacenters, all Space Monkey subscribers act as each other’s datacenters. Bits of your data are encrypted and scattered among the Space Monkey computers of other subscribers, and vice versa.

It’s like the reverse of Bittorrent. In theory, the more subscribers that join Space Monkey, the more collective storage you all have and the more secure your data will be. And because they don’t have to setup datacenters, that also means less expenses and maintenance on the part of Space Monkey. Clever eh?

Is it just me or does the name Space Monkey just not fit into the product? They should’ve called it Data Offcenter. A pledge of at least $119 on Kickstarter lets you sign up for a 1 year 1TB subscription with Space Monkey.

If you’re not that familiar with online storage I highly recommend you shop around first. I can see what Space Monkey is getting at but there are dependable and affordable cloud services out there like CrashPlan or Backblaze. Or as I said earlier, try a free service first like the ones offered by Dropbox and Google to see if it’s good enough for you.