Hasta La Gadget!

It’s not easy being a new father. Infants are so tiny and delicate that I’m scared to even look at them. So I totally understand why this guy went the extra mile to look after his new child. Before his daughter was even born, hacker and blogger Gjoci was working on putting together a breath detector from a Wiimote and three 1 milliwatt lasers.

He positioned them above the crib and it sets off an alarm anytime his daughter’s breathing seems to stop or becomes irregular. It sort of does look like an alien is abducting your child, but it works and gives him some peace of mind while she sleeps. And that is priceless.

A simple program asks the camera every couple of milliseconds whether the lights are still moving. If they are, then everything is good. As long as there’s a little bit of motion, the detector knows everything is just fine. Should anything bad should happen, an alarm sounds, alerting the parents immediately.

[via Hack A Day via Geekosystem]

Have you ever wanted a dedicated device to navigate your Instagram feeds? Well, Instagram addicts rejoice, because D2M is working on something they call Instacube, which will allow you to do exactly that and more!

Instacube is basically a digital photo frame specifically made to display and interact with Instagram photo feeds in real time. The 6.5-inch touchscreen has a special 600 × 600 resolution display, allowing you to view the photos as high as Instagram permits. That’s a bit odd, in my opinion, for what happens when Instagram updates to a larger resolution?

You can tap between pictures, and type when needed using the on-screen keyboard. There are dedicated tactile buttons on top which power the device on and off, switch feeds, and a heart-shaped button for liking photos. It’s powered by Android and comes with 4GB of storage as well as 256MB of RAM. It keeps connected to Instagram via Wi-Fi. The rechargeable battery allows you to move about with it.

Instacube is currently raising funds for production over on Kickstarter, and you can get your hands on one of the first 1,000 Instacubes for $99(USD), a $50 discount off the regular retail price.

Researchers from the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) may have discovered pieces of Amelia Earhart’s long lost plane lurking off the coast of a Pacific island. Many who follow the Earhart story and developments know that the Pacific island of Nikumaroro is one of the locations at the center of the speculation – it’s around there that some think Amelia Earhart went missing after departing from Papua New Guinea in 1937.

TIGHAR has scoured the island many times in the past, including during this most recent expedition in July. Though the latest search of the island turned up nothing, it’s what hides beneath the waves that has researchers interested this time around. Using an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle to scan and a Remote Operated Vehicle to record high-definition video, TIGHAR searched the waters off the coast of Nikumaroro. At first, it seemed that the search of the ocean didn’t turn up anything, but after analyzing about 30% of the video that was brought back from the expedition, TIGHAR forensic imaging specialist Jeff Glickman told Discovery News that he had discovered an “interesting debris field” in the footage.

The image above may not look like much, but Glickman says that in the debris field there appears to be “the fender, possibly the wheel and possibly some portions of the strut.” There’s a chance that what was discovered by TIGHAR is the same object that was pictured in an image of the island from 1937, just three months after Amelia Earhart went missing. Taken by Eric R. Bevington, the picture of the island shows a man-made object jutting out of the ocean, which some believe could be a part of Earhart’s plane.

TIGHAR will continue analyzing the data from the expedition, and then if more analysis backs up this initial hypothesis, they hope to pull the objects up from the debris field and examine them closer. This is definitely a very exciting development in the search for any sign of Amelia Earhart, and if TIGHAR has discovered what its hoping for, it may not be that much longer before the 75-year search comes to a close. Stay tuned.

Amelia Earhart wreckage possibly discovered in Nikumaroro waters is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Dubbed the YP-GP1, those looking for a
feature-packed portable media player without an overly large screen
or Apple’s logo on the casing probably need only be patient for a
little while longer.

Multitouch gestures on trackpads have become common place on laptops over the past few years, but they’re going to get a serious boost with the release of Windows 8. Synaptics is trying to make sure that the user experience will be up to snuff, today demoing its new ForcePad technology. The tech will not only bring improved sensitivity and multitouch gestures to touchpads, but also add support for force detection.

ForcePad will rely on pressure tracking instead of traditional mouse clicks, reducing the thickness of the touchpad as a result. Rather than having one set level for finger tracking, ForcePad will constantly adapt and tune itself, allowing the user to get the best performance possible out of the trackpad at all times. The technology is capable of detecting up to five fingers, and Synaptics is adding support for five new gestures that developers will be able to take advantage of in Windows 8 and apps.

Synaptics gave an interesting example for the force detection use: fast forwarding through a movie. Rather than clicking constantly to increase the speed of the fast forward, users could simply press harder on the trackpad to scroll faster through the movie. Once they let go, the movie would resume playing at normal speed.

The company has introduced a new keyboard technology too, designed for ultrabooks and thin notebooks. Synaptics has dubbed it ThinTouch, with the downpress of keys reduced to 2.5mm. Not only that, but the entire keyboard surface is equipped with a capacitive touch sensor, which could open the door for touch gestures on keyboards as well as the trackpad. Because the keys sit closer to the substrate, backlight levels for individual keys should also be much brighter.

Synaptics says that both technologies should start showing up in notebooks sometime in 2013, but didn’t go into details about which OEMs would be making use of the new features. The first ForcePad-enabled laptop should debut at CES 2013, so keep an eye out in January for a demo of the technology.

[via Gizmodo]

Synaptics ForcePad aims to improve laptop trackpads is written by Ben Kersey & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.