Hasta La Gadget!

Seriously Siri, you ain’t what you use to be. Back in May, 2009, I wrote about the first iteration of Siri, titled: "Siri, Advice from Virtual Personal Assistants."
For those who haven’t followed the iPhone evolution, while Siri was
first integrated into iPhone’s operating system with their "4S" launch,
it existed as stand-alone app previously. Fueled by artificial
intelligence, it was a harbinger of what was to come in the new age of Web 3.0 and semantic technology.

I’ll admit that this side of something I order from Amazon or a paycheck, I’m not big on getting mail in my mailbox anymore. It seems like I get reams of sales flyers and scams trying to get me to buy extended warranties for my car that I end up throwing in the trash. If you are the sort of person who doesn’t want to bother with printed mail, but needs access to the things that come in your mailbox, check out this new service called Outbox.

The service sends someone to pick up your mail three times a week. If you have something important you need to keep such as a package they will leave it on your doorstep (or in the mailbox presumably). The rest of the mail they take to their office, digitally scan, and then shred the originals.

Those scanned pieces of mail are then available to access online from the Internet via just about anything from your computer to your iPhone or tablet. This is an interesting idea because then all of the mail is digitally archived so you don’t have to have files to save your bills are other important documentation.

If your mailbox requires a key, all you have to do is take a photograph of that key in e-mail it to Outbox and they will have a copy made. I’m not sure how legal that last bit is considering that most PO Box keys I’ve seen say do not duplicate. The service costs $4.99(USD) per month, and is currently available only in Austin and San Francisco.

[via TechCrunch]

Aside from providing clean energy from a practically infinite power source, solar power now has another advantage over traditional power sources: it can be generated on nearly any surface. It’s all thanks these new solar panels that are thin and flexible enough that they can be attached like stickers. Let’s see you make a stick-on gas tank.

The peel-and-stick solar panel was invented by a group of researchers from Stanford University’s Mechanical Engineering department, led by Phd candidate Chi Hwan Lee. The researchers were able to fabricate the panels via “a unique silicon, silicon dioxide and metal “sandwich.”  Solar cells are deposited on a thin film of nickel that is in turn deposited on the aforementioned silicon/silicon dioxide (Si/SiO2) wafer. The researchers separate the resulting solar film from the wafer using thermal release tape. Finally the solar film is peeled off of the tape using water. The resulting solar film can now be attached to a variety of surfaces using ordinary adhesive such as double-sided tape.

We may not understand that process in its entirety, but I’m sure you’ll find the group’s other findings to be exciting. Not only did they make stick-on solar panels, they did so using existing machines and materials. Even more exciting is the fact that Chi Hwan Lee and his colleagues believe that the process can also be applied to other components, including printed circuits, transistors and even LCDs. This could go a long way into ensuring that the next Google Glass will be Google Gontact Glens. You get the idea.

[via Nature & Stanford Engineering via Springwise via Electric Power]

A week ago, we learned about the Mycestro, a pointing device that, despite its unusual form, only has a humble goal: to replace your mouse. The Ego! Smartmouse on the other hand is quite the opposite. It looks like a traditional mouse, but it is much more than that. The question is, do we need a mouse that’s this smart?

Made by Laura Sapiens, the Ego! – no, no, no signore, it’s Ego! Put some life into it! – is a Bluetooth mouse that can be used both on a flat surface as well as on air. You can also use the Ego! to control your HTPC or other Bluetooth media players. It can also be used as a wireless flash drive. It can also be used to as a gesture-based gaming controller. It can also remember and automatically input your passwords for you. It can also vibrate to alert you of an appointment or a new email. If Old Spice were to design a mouse, they’d probably come up with an Ego! Except the Old Spice mouse would have a six-pack.

In order to perform all those tasks, the Ego! runs on Linux, has a 400MHz ARM9 CPU, a flash memory capacity of either 2GB or 4GB, a VGA camera, a touch sensor (in place of a scroll wheel), an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a compass, a vibration motor and an optical mouse sensor. It’s got nothing on my mouse though! My Logitizzech M305,000 is covered in luxurious duct tape and has a special right-click button – 60% of the time, it works every time.

Here’s another look at the non-mouse features of this mouse:

Laura Sapiens is currently raising funds for the Ego! Smartmouse on Kickstarter. Pledge at least £70 (~$106 USD) to get one.

But back to my original question: how many people need a mouse this smart? The gestures for managing windows for example – is that actually faster than just using the mouse the normal way? How often do you need to move a file and yourself as well to another workstation? Will the VGA camera be good for anything else other than that gimmicky pairing method?

I’m not saying the Ego! is a bad mouse. I’m just not that convinced that it should exist. Partly because it’s making my mouse feel bad.

[via Laura Sapiens via Digital Trends]

I’m always looking for better ways to wake up, but other than the jarring loud alarm that wakes me up every morning, I haven’t found a decent solution to my problem. This app might do the trick.

The Sleep Cycle Alarm Clock app is available for iPhone, and it monitors your movement during sleep using the iPhone’s accelerometer. Then, it finds the optimal time to wake you up during a 30 minute window that ends right at the time that you set your alarm.

The goal of this is to wake you at the optimal time to minimize the sleep inertia caused from jarring yourself awake at the wrong point in your sleep cycle. This is because people move differently during the phases of their sleep. During the lightest sleep phase, you move the most and that’s when Sleep Cycle wakes you up.

This seems like a definite improvement over some of the other alarm apps and solutions I’ve come across. The fact that it monitors your sleep using the iPhone itself is also pretty cool. You can get Sleep Cycle for $0.99 at iTunes.