Hasta La Gadget!

Could cellphone radiation actually be good for you and bad for you at the same time? It might, according to a group of researchers at the University of South Florida, who say that tests on mice suggest that long-term cellphone use might actually help fend off some of the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. That, as you might have suspected, is the exact opposite of what the researchers expected to find, and they say that exposure to electromagnetic waves from cellphones could both prevent some of the effects of Alzheimer’s if the exposure is introduced in early adulthood, or potentially even reverse some of the impairment among those already memory-impaired. Needless to say, the tests are still in the earliest of stages, but the researchers are apparently planning on modifying the experiment to try to speed up the results, and eventually expand it to include tests on humans. Tests on mice still found cellphones to be an impairement while driving.

[Thanks, Antonio]

Study finds cellphone use may fend off effects of Alzheimer’s disease originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 10 Jan 2010 10:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the year coming to a close, marketing research company Nielsen has compiled its list of top mobile phones in the U.S. market. The no. 1 phone in the United States is Apple’s iPhone 3G, with 4 percent of the market, according to Nielsen’s January-to-October calculations. Research In Motion’s Blackberry follows in a close second with 3.7 percent, and the Motorola RAZR stands at third with 2.3 percent.

More charts, including top brands and websites of 2009, are also available at Nielsen.

See Also:

• iPhone Dethrones Rebel XTi as Most Popular Camera on Flickr …
• iPhone Grabs Top Rank in Smartphone Satisfaction Survey

Ah, the MIT Media Lab, home to Big Bird’s illegitimate progeny, augmented reality projects aplenty, and now three-dimensional gestural computing. The new bi-directional display being demoed by the Cambridge-based boffins performs both multitouch functions that we’re familiar with and hand movement recognition in the space in front of the screen — which we’re also familiar with, but mostly from the movies. The gestural motion tracking is done via embedded optical sensors behind the display, which are allowed to see what you’re doing by the LCD alternating rapidly (invisible to the human eye, but probably not to human pedantry) between what it’s displaying to the viewer and a pattern for the camera array. This differs from projects like Natal, which have the camera offset from the display and therefore cannot work at short distances, but if you want even more detail, you’ll find it in the informative video after the break.

[Thanks, Rohit]

Continue reading MIT gestural computing makes multitouch look old hat

MIT gestural computing makes multitouch look old hat originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The magical properties of coffee stains have already spurred on some researchers to develop a better coating for TV screens, and it looks like they’ve now inspired a few folks to create a new type of touchscreen as well. This latest instance apparently began when Hebrew University professor Shlomo Magdassi was working to develop a touchscreen using silver nanoparticles but ran into trouble making the screen conductive while still remaining transparent. As it happens, the coffee-like stains that he and his colleagues had been trying to remove with fast-drying solvents was actually the solution to his problem, since they remained in contact with each other as they dried and preserved conductivity, but left about 95 percent of the light through the holes in the center, thereby making the screen itself almost fully transparent. Of course, there’s still quite a bit more work to be done before the screens move beyond the lab, but Magdassi has apparently already found that copper nanorings can be used in similar manner, and says that the screens could even double as solar panels to give devices a bit of added juice.

Coffee-like stains inspire new type of touchscreen originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 07 Dec 2009 17:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s been awhile since we heard anything from Sensitive Objects, the French firm that developed Anywhere Multitouch, the platform that uses piezoelectric sensors to extend touch sensitivity beyond the display to the entire device. Well, we thought it was a pretty sweet idea — and apparently Motorola did as well. According some spicy and exotic PR, Moto’s investing some of its hard-earned cash in the company, which began as a project by the French Science National Research Center. As Reese Schroeder, managing director of Motorola Ventures, put it: “Natural user interface (NUI) and in particular interacting with a device through touch is an area of rapid development and great excitement. Sensitive Object provides an innovative and unique approach allowing new ways of interaction. We’re most excited to be involved in their growth and success.” One has to wonder what kind of new and innovative handset interfaces are coming around the bend — and one has to wonder what kind of havoc it will cause when you put one of these “anywhere multitouch” phones in your pocket without locking it first. Luckily, the technology is said to be cheaper to implement than the other touchscreen solutions currently available — so if these guys get their way, we might be accidentally calling our ex-girlfriends with the whole device very soon indeed. PR after the break.

Continue reading Motorola invests in Anywhere Multitouch technology

Motorola invests in Anywhere Multitouch technology originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:52:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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