How many remotes do you have? Are you always looking for them? Then here’s something for you: the Remote Buddy, a vertical remote holder that not only serves as a home for your remotes, but will help you locate them when they wander out of the room … Link - via OhGizmo!
Original post by Alex
I’ve travelled quite a bit in the past, but I didn’t even know about this: US Customs and Border Protection agents can "randomly" seize your laptop, camera, cell phone and other electronic devices at the border for inspection - meaning they’ll take a peek at what you’ve got stored in your machine:
Bill Hogan was returning home to the U.S. from Germany in February when a customs agent at Dulles International Airport pulled him aside. He could reenter the country, she told him. But his laptop couldn’t.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents said he had been chosen for "random inspection of electronic media," and kept his computer for about two weeks, recalled Hogan, 55, a freelance journalist from Falls Church, Va.
But don’t they need a warrant to do that? Nope - no, they don’t:
Authorities need a search warrant to get at a computer in a person’s home and reasonable suspicion of […]
Original post by Alex
Pretty soon you can ditch that remote control and change the channel with just winking at the TV or something, thanks to Jacob Whitehill.
Jacob, a computer science Ph.D. student from UC San Diego built a technology for detecting facial expression that turns his face into a remote control that speeds and slows video playback:
In a recent pilot study, Whitehill and colleagues demonstrated that information within the facial expressions people make while watching recorded video lectures can be used to predict a person’s preferred viewing speed of the video and how difficult a person perceives the lecture at each moment in time.
This new work is at the intersection of facial expression recognition research and automated tutoring systems.
"If I am a student dealing with a robot teacher and I am completely puzzled and yet the robot keeps presenting new material, that’s not going to be very useful to me. If, instead, the […]
Original post by Alex
The researchers at the ICT Graphics Lab at University of Southern California have created a low-cost 3D holographic display system … and what image did they choose to showcase the technology? The TIE Fighter from Star Wars!
Link - via Wired’s Gadget Lab, Thanks Brendan Leahy!
(47 words, 1 image)
Original post by Alex
There’s a bunch of cell phone charger alternative (like solar chargers or using batteries) but this one is unique: it’s a phone charger powered by dance!
Orange today unveiled a prototype phone charger which harnesses the kinetic energy of your dance moves to allow you to make calls.
The device - which weighs 180grams and measures about the same size as a pack of cards - will be strapped to peoples arms and tested at Glastonbury Festival this week.
As the dancers moves their arms along to the music – a specially designed system of weights and magnets creates an electrical current which provides a top-up charge to a connected mobile phone.
Read the full post (120 words, 1 image)
Original post by Alex
(YouTube link)
The Silver Swan is an automaton built in 1773. Now housed at the Bowes Museum, it finds and eats a fish every day at noon and 3PM.
The swan is life-size and is controlled by three separate clockwork mechanisms. The Silver Swan rests on a stream made of twisted glass rods interspersed with silver fish. When the mechanism is wound up, the glass rods rotate, the music begins, and the Swan twists its head to the left and right and appears to preen its back. It then appears to sight a fish in the water below and bends down to catch it, which it then swallows as the music stops and it resumes its upright position. This performance lasts approximately 40 seconds.
I wonder if the robots being built now will still work in 235 years. Link -via Metafilter
Original post by Miss Cellania
That’s what women with long fingernails are complaining about the iPhone. Because the iPhone multi-touch screen works by detecting electrical conductance of your finger, fingernails or stylus don’t work:
She and other women who have long nails — as well as people of all genders with chunky fingers — have real trouble typing on the iPhone. The 39-year-old consultant and lecturer, who says her fingernails are typically between one-eighth and one-quarter of an inch long, wants the iPhone to include a stylus.
"Considering ergonomics and user studies indicating men and women use their fingers and nails differently, why does Apple persist in this misogyny?"
Link - via reddit
Original post by Alex
