Oct 09
Western Digital’s new storage offerings
are sure to satisfy those with a need for fast, reliable,
high-capacity storage technology.
Oct 09
Whether you’re a frequent flier, an avid outdoorsman or a kid who was a prime target for bullies back in grade school, when you were so thin you might as well have been two-dimensional, your packed lunch a bait for your physically endowed peers – wait where was I? Right. We’ve all lost a bag at some point in our lives. So it’s fun to see a concept for a suitcase that hates being lost as much as you hate losing it.
Conceptualized by Rodrigo Garcia, the Hop! suitcase has three Bluetooth sensors and a microcontroller. The sensors are meant to be paired with a Bluetooth-enabled phone. A pair of treads running on compressed air help the Hop! follow its owner – or whoever has his phone. If the Hop! loses track of the phone that it’s paired to, it will lock itself down and make the phone vibrate. It will try its best not to cry, because it’s a big boy.
Head to Garcia’s website to see more details and pictures of the Hop! Forget about following me, what I want is a suitcase that can carry me around.
[via Slash Gear]
Oct 09
Logitech G710+ Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Offers Tactile Feedback with Less Clicking
Posted in: Today's ChiliThere a lot of touch typists out there who love mechanical keyboards with all their clickety-clacking and loads of tactile feedback. Though people who sit around mechanical keyboards in an office often don’t care so much for the noise they produce. Logitech has unveiled a new mechanical gaming keyboard called the G710+ that offers mechanical keys with less noise – not that you should be playing games at work now, should you?
The keyboard uses premium mechanical switches that offer definitive, tactile key presses while eliminating much of the noise associated with mechanical keys. To dampen the noise output even further, Logitech equips the keys with dampening rings. Every key features anti-ghosting technology and the keyboard supports up to 26 key presses at one time. Each key is rated at a lifespan of 50 million presses.
The keyboard also has adjustable dual-zone backlighting. This feature allows users to adjust the lighting behind the WASD and arrow keys independently of the backlighting behind other keys – making it perfect for playing FPSes in darkened rooms. The G710+ also features six programmable G-keys and for media controls. The Logitech G710+ keyboard will ship soon for $149.99(USD).
Oct 09
I have to admit that my cable management system is basically non-existent, and the cable squid is set to take over the rest of my apartment if I don’t manage to do something about it soon. Maybe the Smart Guide cable management system could help me out.
Smart Guide was created by Albanian designer Marin Myftiu. His solution addresses many concerns that people have with their bowl of cable spaghetti, and should eradicate at least part of yours. Its modular structure and rainbow color-coding make it pop, and help you keep track of what wire is running where. It will work with cables of virtually any size, shape, or length.
The system can be used for power cable management, PC cables and rack servers, as well as the wiring of a PC. For now, this is a concept, but someone needs to put these into production ASAP.
[via designboom]
Oct 09
To be honest, I’m never satisfied with my workstation. Most of the time, I say to myself that it will do for now, but there’s always room for improvement. Check out the BendDesk, which merges a desk with a computer workstation in a most efficient manner.
The BendDesk is a working prototype that was designed and created as part of a research project by by Malte Weiss, Simon Voelker, Jan Borchers from the Media Computing Group, and Christine Sutter from the Department of Work and Cognitive Psychology of the RWTH Aachen University in Germany. The whole setup is multi-touch, and allows users to interact with the entire surface. It merges two separate vertical and horizontal work surfaces, enabling continuous interaction between both of them.
This is still a concept, and if you’ve got the money, you can get yourself a Microsoft Surface (PixelSense) Table, but honestly I’d rather like to have a functional touchscreen on a desk than on a coffee or dining table.
[via GadgetOse]
Oct 08
Hauling luggage through the airport can be a pain, as any frequent traveler will tell you. A new suitcase called only “Hop” is looking to change all of that, though, using signals from your cell phone to go hands-free. According to Hop’s official website, the suitcase comes equipped with three sensors to identify and triangulate the Bluetooth signal from your phone, using those to pick you out of a crowd.
Once it’s done that, a microprocessor not only figures out Hop’s position as it relates to your phone, but controls the two caterpillar tracks in the bottom of the unit to get it moving. Hop follows behind the user at a constant distance, so you don’t have to worry about it “stepping” on your heels, so to speak. If it loses the signal it’s following, your phone will vibrate, letting you know that your poor suitcase is lost and alone in a sea of strange people.
We can see Hop in action in the video below, and we have to say that it looks like a great little device. There’s just one problem: it looks as if you’ll have to walk at a relatively slow pace to keep the suitcase from losing the signal. Since a walk through an airport is rarely a leisurely stroll, that could potentially cause some issues. Also, don’t expect TSA agents to just smile and wave as you walk through security with a remote-controlled suitcase tailing you.
Still, the idea behind Hop is really cool, and we’re willing to bet that there are some frequent flyers willing who would put down some money for it right this instant. It looks like this is just a prototype at the moment, so don’t expect it to be available for sale anytime soon (if it ever is, for that matter). Would you purchase one of these if Hop ever became available commercially?
Hop suitcase follows user like lost puppy is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
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Oct 08
Last week, we featured an sculpture of a horse that was made out of old keyboards. While it was truly impressive, there’s no chance you’ll be putting it in your house any time soon. Here’s some keyboard art you might actually hang on your wall.
Christopher Cobell of SketchkeysArtistry hunts down laptop keycaps in a variety of shades of grey to create these masterworks of pixel art. The largest of the current selection is his portrait of Marilyn Monroe shown above. Each one is handmade by gluing thousands of individual keys to a black foam backing, suitable for framing. Though I kind of like the idea of leaving the keys exposed so you can actually feel them.
He’s got several other images available for sale in his Etsy shop right now, including a sailboat, an abstract cityscape, and my personal favorite, a humorous image of a pair of bombs – reminiscent of Bob-Omb.
The artist states that part of his process is to “check for any accidental expletives from the random placement of the keys.” Darn, I was hoping to make that a game for my houseguests – to find the hidden dirty words.
Prices for this awesome keyboard wall art range from $179 to $965 (USD), depending on the size and complexity of the image. If you look closely at the bomb image, you’ll see a Windows start key in the bottom right corner. I wonder if that’s intentional.
Oct 08
The current crop of smartwatches are a bit lackluster in my opinion, especially when it comes to their displays. Maybe the Futaba flexible OLED screen on display at this year’s CEATEC show will change this. This is basically a concept watch that uses a video display wrapped around your wrist.
With the right manufacturing process, OLEDs can be surprisingly flexible, which is a must if you’re trying to create a watch that has a screen which wraps around your wrist. The current display has a 256 × 65 pixel resolution on its 3.5-inch display, and the entire watch is 0.22 mm thick. Beat that, Apple!
This prototype watch seems to get its power and data from an external circuit board. How this would be integrated into an actual watch remains uncertain. Also, someone needs to tell Futaba that the case they set this into doesn’t look very cool. A bit of styling goes a long way. Maybe they should partner up with some of the TokyoFlash watch designers next time.
[via SlashGear]
Oct 08
Microsoft’s Kinect sensor has proven to be quite versatile and accurate, but in the end’s it’s only one motion sensor. A company called Yost Engineering Inc. or YEI recently showed off how multiple motion sensors can be used in videogames, enabling real-time motion capture and virtual reality.
YEI makes what it calls the 3-Space Sensor, a wireless motion sensor with a gyroscope, accelerometer and compass as well as advanced processing and algorithms to process the motion data it captures. Using 17 3-Space Sensors and 3 dongles, the company was able to demo a real-time motion capture session using the Unreal Development Kit, as well as a virtual reality demo that shows how motion capture can increase immersion.
Dance Dance Revolution 2050 is going to be hilarious. Seriously though this could work well with the Oculus Rift.
Oct 08
Are you still hoping for a pill that will instantly get rid of your
spare tire, the fat under your arms, or your oversized thighs? This is
not about a pill, but an injection scientists are working on, and it
doesn’t work instantly, but it does seem to work – at least on
preliminary tests in mice.
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