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Archive for the 'Hardware' Category
Technology: BiDi Screen from MIT Media Lab
What the MIT Media Lab describes as “Computing with a wave of the hand” makes the much hyped implementation of current multi-touch screens look like technology from another century (which it actually is).
The new system allows gestural control without the need to touch the screen’s surface of screen elements with 3D objects and hand movements in 3D space near the screen - think Minority Report on a small screen. Watch the video below to see it in action…
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Technology: An interview with NVIDIA’s Andy Keane at SC09
If your interested in HPC or want to learn about the great response and interest NVIDIA got for their new GPU / Cuda solutions at the SC09 show last week listen to Andy Keane, General Manager of NVIDIA’s’ Tesla GPU business unit.
Carry on with the good work - we’re all hoping to get a hand on a Fermi board soon.
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UN: How not to manage IS/IT
A metaphor / parable on how tax payers’ money is burned within some internationally (un)-coordinated organizations aka multinationals aka United Nations.
The underlying story is based on actual experiences in the field of Information Systems / Information Technology (IS/IT) within one of the largest UN organizations. While - as we hear - since then things got even worse, this short story not only tries to demonstrate the lack of professionalism in those organizations, but also what happens when people who “know what they are doing” come to those organizations without political protection by their own governments. The sad endings to these stories are often like in the underlying true case used for this metaphor.
With that case we know…
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Photography: Tokyo Reality - Canon EOS 5D MarkII
Interesting what you can do with the latest top-of-the-line digital SLR cameras. Tokyo Reality is a 6 minute movie shot with the new Canon EOS 5D MarkII that comes with full High Definition video capability.
In Live View Mode, this digital master piece from Canon allows to shoot uninterrupted at full HD, 1080 resolution with 30fps. The movie was created within 3 days from 74GB of rushes (after processing).
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Research: MS SecondLight
With the new Secondlight prototype Microsoft has added another dimension to its touchscreen technology called Surface.
The two build-in projectors allow to display different images in a way that looks simultaneous to the eye. Microsoft presented the new technology during the PDC and has provided some additional technical details earlier this month.
While one image is displayed onto the large screen and can be manipulated with gestures the second projector can create an independent image on a flat or 3D surface like a piece of paper or a Plexiglas cylinder.
Microsoft provided some very interesting sample applications like…
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Computer Interfaces: Interactive Mirror
This is a patent pending touch capable mirror features proximity sensors, gesturing, and both near-field and far-field infrared. Conceptualized by Alpay Kasal of Lit Studios and Sam Ewen of Interference Inc. Designed/constructed by Alpay Kasal.
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Fun: A Calculator built with LBP
A video of a small 8bit calculator build within the LittleBigPlanet world creation platform for the PlayStation 3. This is the emulation of an electronic calculator with 610 switches, 500 wires, 430 pistons, 70 emitters and more implemented in the beta version of the creator.
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How it’s done: Book scan
If you ever wanted to know how the millions of book pages for online libraries might be scanned in the future, here are two videos showing one of the robots at work.
The automatic book scanning machine, called ScanRobot can scan up to 2500 pages per hour and is shown in action, scanning an old book from the 16th century, at a speed of about 1250 pages per hour.
The ScanRobot won one of last year’s European ICT Grand Prizes and series-production of…
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Tokyo: Charms against computer viruses
Japan is one of the leading high-tech places around the world but it’s also a country of traditions.
When visiting Tokyo many have a look-around the Akihabara quarter to see the latest gadgets and future computing tools that are often already available there in small series before hitting mass markets around the world.
Next time visiting Tokyo and when you bought some great new computing device in Akihabara, take it with you and visit nearby Kanda-Myojin Shinto shrine.
The shrine sells the faithful special IT prayer charms to ward off computer viruses. Visitors can also have their computers purified to protect them from common electronic ghosts and devils.
The “computer protection services” offered by the shrine have been popular for some time among…
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AI: Autonomous Helicopters teach themselves to Fly Stunts
Finally someone has adapted human learning approaches and used them within AI.
Called “apprenticeship learning” and build into AI Algorithms by Stanford University students, they created an autonomous helicopter system that learns to fly stunts by watching human pilots.
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