Forget touch screens ... Touch everything! Disney (the masters of bringing objects to life) unveils new technology that can turn ANYTHING into a button

• Any material - from bedknobs to broomsticks, and even water - can be become gesture-sensitive
• Technology is similar to smartphone screens - but can create 3D 'map' of touch inputs
• Sofas could become TV remotes, clothes could become mp3 controllers, doors could be 'password-protected' by gesture

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Toshiba to ship glasses-free 3D TV to U.S. in early 2012

Toshiba has confirmed to CNET that it plans to make a glasses-free 3D TV available to buyers in the U.S. sometime during the first quarter of 2012.

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“Painless” Plasma Brush Is Becoming Realistic In Dentistry

“Painless ” Plasma Brush Is Becoming Realistic In Dentistry, MU Engineers Say from
 MU News Bureau on Vimeo.

University of Missouri (MU) engineers and their research collaborators at Nanova, Inc. are one step closer to a painless way to replace fillings. After favorable results in the lab , human clinical trials are underway on the “plasma brush.”

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Gadgets You Should Get Rid Of (or Not)

The common rap against technology is that it leads to an accumulation of devices. But the nature of technology is changing. Fewer products are doing more tasks — all accomplished by countless lines of massless software code.
And so we no longer need to accumulate products. If anything, we can cut down. The question is, Which can be replaced and which are fine, or even preferable, to keep? It is plain as day that paper maps and Rolodexes have given way to their digital counterparts. But what else can you get rid of? Here is a list of common consumer technologies and products and a somewhat opinionated judgment on whether to keep or pitch it.
DESKTOP COMPUTER Lose it. You may have one now, but are you really going to replace that deskbound PC when it becomes out of date? Assuming you are not a hardcore gamer or a video editor, laptops have all the necessary computing power the average user needs. If you want to replicate that desktop experience, you can always connect your laptop to a larger display and keyboard.
HIGH-SPEED INTERNET AT HOME Keep it. With the advent of devices like the MiFi, which converts a 3G mobile signal into a Wi-Fi cloud for multiple devices to share, you might be thinking about giving your Internet service provider the boot and using your cellphone as your Internet connection, even when at home. That would work — provided that you get a strong data signal where you live; that you never intend to stream video from Netflix, YouTube or Hulu; and that you have an unlimited data plan from your wireless provider. Given all these caveats, it probably makes more sense to stick with your I.S.P.
CABLE TV Depends. While you may and should hold on to a good broadband connection at home, it is debatable whether you need to pay for cable TV. Sports fans probably will want to keep it, as many leagues restrict online content, but casual viewers who mainly want some shows and movies to watch could get by with a good Internet connection and some low-cost subscriptions to services like Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Instant Video.
POINT-AND-SHOOT CAMERA Lose it. Yes, a dedicated camera will probably take a better picture than the small lens and image sensor of a smartphone, but it will not be that much better. And a point-and-shoot has limitations of its own. It is hard to share photos until you have transferred them to your computer, and there are no apps for cameras, as there are for smartphones, that allow you to quickly apply cool filters and treatments to the shots you took. Perhaps most important, a camera may or may not be close by when a photo-worthy moment arises, but it’s very likely that your phone will.
CAMCORDER Lose it. Camcorders get squeezed at both ends of the video spectrum. On the low end, smartphones can capture video, and while it may not be Imax quality, many people do not care. At the high end, new digital S.L.R. cameras (like Canon’s EOS Rebel T1i, which costs around $750 with a lens) can shoot full-HD video while taking advantage of all the interchangeable lenses that were created for still photography. That camcorder you have now is probably the last one you will own.
USB THUMB DRIVE Lose it. File sharing does not require hardware anymore. In almost any case you can think of, you can move files around digitally via the Internet. That could mean signing up for a service like Dropbox, which creates a private, shareable hard drive in the cloud, or by simply e-mailing yourself attachments and storing them in the drafts folder of Gmail, Yahoo Mail, etc. A USB drive is just something to misplace or break.
DIGITAL MUSIC PLAYER Lose it (probably). Do you have a smartphone? Then you have a music player. Why load yourself down with an extra gadget? Apple popularized the music player with its iPod, but when was the last time you saw that iconic white box with the dial on the front? Music is data, and many multifunction devices can handle it along with many other kinds of data (like video, e-mail and apps). The one exception may be if you enjoy music while exercising. In that case, a tiny player like the $49 iPod Shuffle might be a better accessory than a larger, heavier smartphone.
ALARM CLOCK Keep it. Smartphones can be terrific alarm clocks. They can ramp up the volume gradually, display weather information and awaken you to your favorite song. And when on the road, they are still light-years ahead of the incomprehensible alarm clocks in hotel rooms. But a recent daylight time glitch in iPhones that fouled up the clock could give some early risers pause. Furthermore, setting and resetting smartphone alarms may require a dive into one submenu too many; turning a little knob on the back of a clock and flipping a switch is still simplicity itself.
GPS UNIT Lose it. The least expensive GPS units cost around $80. But your smartphone can do the same thing, if not more, for half that price, or even free. Android smartphones already have Google’s turn-by-turn navigation app built in. And earlier this month, Google announced that the company would be including live and historical traffic data in route planning, so you hopefully get to where you are going faster.
If you have an iPhone, you have several options for GPS apps, including Navigon’s MobileNavigator (which starts at $30) and ALK’s CoPilot Live ($20). Renting a car? Decline the optional GPS; if you have a smartphone, you already have one with you.
BOOKS Keep them (with one exception). Yes, e-readers are amazing, and yes, they will probably become a more dominant reading platform over time, but consider this about a book: It has a terrific, high-resolution display. It is pretty durable; you could get it a little wet and all would not be lost. It has tremendous battery life. It is often inexpensive enough that, if you misplaced it, you would not be too upset. You can even borrow them free at sites called libraries.
But there is one area where printed matter is going to give way to digital content: cookbooks. Martha Stewart Makes Cookies a $5 app for the iPad, is the wave of the future. Every recipe has a photo of the dish (something far too expensive for many printed cookbooks).
Complicated procedures can be explained by an embedded video. When something needs to be timed, there’s a digital timer built right into the recipe. You can e-mail yourself the ingredients list to take to the grocery store. The app does what cookbooks cannot, providing a better version of everything that came before it.
Now all Martha has to do is make a decorative splashguard for a tablet and you will be all set.
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iPhone 5 to Feature “Wave and Pay” Technology

Apple is expected to install “wave and pay” technology for the next version of its iPhone, boosting mobile commerce and potentially giving the company a big piece of the multibillion-dollar transaction industry.
The iPhone 5, due out this year, is likely to incorporate technology called Near-Field Communication, which incorporates financial account information and ties that data to specific devices, according to Asian suppliers and others who have been in talks with Apple.

“I do believe the iPhone 5 will have NFC embedded,” said Bill Gajda, Visa’s head of mobile innovation, one of those in ­discussions with Apple.
Apple declined to comment.
Samsung and other handset makers who use Google’s Android smartphone software are already putting NFC in new models, and Research in Motion and Nokia are embracing the technology as well.
NFC works at a range of four to five inches via point of sale scanners and is considered more secure than RFID and other touchless technologies.
Apple could bring the system to a broad audience rapidly by putting it in all versions of its phones. Owners of iPhones are typically heavy users of data and their upscale demographic makes them a desired target for businesses.
Apple also brings to the table credit card numbers it has on file for more than 100m users of iTunes, the digital storefront for entertainment and software downloads. That could give it the leverage to extract better terms from card issuers, who typically tack on fees of roughly 2 per cent to retailers who accept their systems.
Apple could also decide to go it alone, keeping transactions in-house, said Richard Doherty, an engineering consultant who has spoken with Asian equipment suppliers bidding for inclusion in the next iPhone.
Mr Gajda said he hoped that Apple would adopt an “open” strategy that would allow consumers to decide which accounts to tie to their phone.
Large retailers who do not yet have NFC scanners would have to spend heavily to switch to new terminals, Mr Doherty warned, though it would be easy for smaller outlets that rent such terminals to start leasing NFC-capable machines instead.
US wave and pay trials have, thus far, been small. Visa has been working with some card­issuing banks, for example, who mail small cards with financial credentials that can be inserted into the iPhone and other smartphones.

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Mercedes-Benz Biome Concept to Go Against BMW EfficientDynamics in 2015

Autocar has learned that Mercedes-Benz plans on producing a mid-engined eco supercar to go against the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics. The Mercedes-Benz Biome concept is a preview of the new supercar that will be released in 2015.

The concept was developed at Mercedes' Californian design studio.
"There are elements within the design that could easily be progressed and developed for production. We were conscious during its development to ensure it wasn't too limited or edgy. It had to be do-able without any significant changes," says Hubert Lee, head of the California design studio.

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Miracle Film Turns Any Surface into a Touchscreen

 

Here’s one for all you lovers of futuristic interfaces. An interactive hardware company called Displax has begun marketing Skin, a paper-thin, flexible film that would transform any non-metal surface into an interactive touchscreen.
You could place Skin on any surface, transparent or opaque, flat or curved, and use it to display any interactive content you like. Displax’s multi-touch technology can detect up to 16 fingers at once and can also detect air movement.
Skin is completely transparent and works on surfaces that are also transparent; you can place Skin on a glass surface and interact with content displayed under the glass.
This unique hardware operates via a grid of nanowires embedded Skin’s polymer film. Each time a user makes contact with the surface, either by blowing on it or directly touching it, “a small electrical disturbance is detected allowing the micro-processor controller to pinpoint the movement or direction of the air flow,” according to Displax.


We can imagine millions of cool use cases for such a technology — business presentations, medicine, museums, schools, and gaming to start. The possibilities are as endless as our collective and ever-growing want and need to interact with digital content through multi-touch interfaces.
What do you think of Skin? Is this a product you’d like to try or use?
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Green Float: The futuristic concept that sees humans live in giant skyscrapers on floating water lilies in the middle of the Pacific

Humans in the future could live in mini floating cities that drift across the Pacific as if on giant water lilies.

The startling new concept has been dreamed up by Japanese technology firm Shimizu and is designed to be a way of harnessing green technologies and creating carbon-neutral cities.

The Green Float concept involves a number of cells, each one kilometre wide, that house between 10,000 and 50,000 people.
 

The majority of people on the cells would live in huge towers 1km high surrounded
by lush green fields
 

Each individual cell would be free to float on the Pacific Ocean near the equator but could also be joined together with other cells to form larger towns and even cities.

A group or modules, a collection of cells, would become a country in its own right.

Most people in this brave new world would live in a 1 kilometre-high ‘City in the Sky’ at the centre of each cell. More people would live in residential areas around the edge of the cell.

The central towers would be surrounded by grassland and forests and be self-sufficient in terms of food, while livestock and other farming would take place in 'plains' also surrounding the tower - all built on a lattice of 7,000-tonne honeycomb pontoons.

The towers would be built from super-light alloys with the metal deriving from magnesium in seawater.

The imaginative plan is designed to create a future carbon-neutral society and the Shimizu developers claim that living on cells in this way would cut carbon emissions by 40 per cent.
 

The floating cells, each with a City in the Sky structure at its centre, 

can join together to form larger modules
 

The City in the Sky skscrapers are designed to be carbon negative with extensive environmental technologies and recycling facilities built in

The cells would create zero waste and recycle every product and covert waste into energy using new green technologies. Islands of waste would drift around the ocean and could be ‘harvested’ to provide energy

The location of the islands is key to their success too, the designers claim.

Each group of cells would be near the equator where the climate is at its most stable and a range of technologies would be used to protect the floating cities from tidal waves and extreme weather.

To protect the inhabitants from large waves, strong elastic membranes would be attached to the lagoons around the outer edge of the cells, with the shallows above the membranes standing 30 feet above sea level.
Shimizu scientists calculate that the water pressure difference between the lagoons and the ocean would limit the movement of the membranes and buffer the force of the open sea waves.

Seawalls as high as 100 feet could also be constructed. And tsunamis in the open sea are far less dangerous than those that hit coastal areas, the designers say.
 

A country consisting of one million people would be formed after 

modules joined together one by one

Lightning rods would be fitted around the circumference of the towers and mesh lightning conductors will be placed on the exterior walls to protect against lightning strikes.

Shimizu wants to develop the first cells by 2025 and is concentrating on developing the technologies to make it happen. The concept was displayed at a recent Japanese university conference.

This is the not the first outlandish idea that Shimizu has come up with. The firm also proposes encircling the moon in a belt of solar collectors that would collect solar energy and transmit it to Earth.
 

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Record your entire life with the Looxcie wearable camera

 

The problem with YouTube is that you can only share stuff you happened to be recording. The Looxcie, a $200 video camera that you wear on your ear, proposes a simple solution: record everything, all the time.

Here's the idea: You wear the Looxcie on your ear and it records everything you see, roughly as you see it. The camera can hold up to four hours of video (in crummy 480×320 at 15fps); when it runs out of space, it starts dumping the oldest footage—it's not made for collecting clips, it's for capturing them in the moment.

 

When that shareable moment arrives—your cat gets stuck in a vase!—you press a button that instantly makes a clip out of the last 30 seconds and it gets beamed via Bluetooth to an app on your Android phone (other OSes coming by the end of the year). There, you can edit the clip and share it through all the usual services. The app also lets you access all the other footage stored on your Looxcie, allowing you to create longer clips and tweak settings.

If you're the particular species of oversharer who likes the idea of your every move being committed to (computer) memory, or if you want to finally figure out what happens after you drink all those FourLokos, you can pick up a Looxcie over at Amazon for $200.

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Can Android Tablets Compete with the iPad?

We’ve rounded up what we know about upcoming Google Android tablets to see if any devices will give the Apple iPad a true rival.

With the success of Apple’s iPad, virtually every manufacturer is brainstorming their own version attempting to ride the tablet wave. Sound familiar? The tablet market seems to be following the path of smartphones, but there is a key difference this time: Apple doesn’t have quite the head start they had back when the first iPhone was released. Android has made a big dent in the mobile industry and it’s looking to do the same for tablets. Apple sold 3 million iPads in the first 80 days and they’re expected to sell around 20 million more in 2011. If Android wants to get its foot in the door then the time is now, before they fall behind again and it takes years to catch up. More and more manufactures are unveiling plans for tablets and the vast majority are choosing Android (sans HP with their Web OS tablet). Below we’ve rounded up everything we know at this point about upcoming Android tablets and when they might hit the market. If there is a tablet we have missed, let us know and we will add it to the list!

Archos 7

The Archos 7 features a 7-inch (800×400) display, 8GB of internal storage along with a micro SDHC slot (for additional storage) and an ARM Cortex A8 processor. The Archos 7 has been available since March and it runs for $199.99.

Cisco Cius

Last month Cisco revealed its plans to join the tablet arms race with the Cius. The Cius will pack a 7-inch screen, a 720p webcam on the front and a 5 megapixel camera on the back. No firm launch date has been set, but Cisco has stated that they’re shooting for early next year.

Velocity Micro Cruz Tablet

Velocity Micro will step away from its luxury gaming throne to dabble in the emerging Android tablet market with the release of their Cruz Tablet this summer. It will feature a 7-inch touch-screen, 4GB of built-in storage, and will accept SD cards for additional storage. The Cruz Tablet will release this summer at a surprisingly low price of $300.

Samsung Galaxy Tab P1000

Samsung unveiled a picture of its upcoming Samsung Galaxy Tab last month and it looks like the iPad’s smaller twin. It will feature a 7-inch AMOLED display, Android 2.2, 16GB of internal storage with a microSD expansion slot, and will be powered by a 1.2GHz A8 processor. The Galaxy Tab is expected to launch sometime this summer and a larger 10-inch tablet from Samsung has been rumored to follow.

Dell Streak

Stewart Wolpin thought the Streak was closer to a large cell phone than a tablet in his hands-on impressions, but it’s being promoted as a tablet so we’ll play along. The streak will feature a 5-inch display, 5 megapixel camera, and integrated social media apps such as Twitter and Facebook. No solid release date has been set for the Streak, but its unlocked price is expected to be $500.

Notion Ink Adam

The Adam will be the first tablet on the market to feature the Pixel Qi display. The 10-inch transflective LCD display offers 3 different modes for viewing including a reflective e-paper mode for low power viewing even in bright sunlight. The Adam is expected to be released in Q3 of this year in selected countries.

ICD Ultra

ICD’s follows up its 15-inch Vega tablet with the ICD Ultra, a smaller Android-based device. The ICD Ultra will feature a 7-inch touchscreen display, a NVIDIA Tegra T20 chipset, and integrated 3G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Pricing and a final release date have not been set.

Pandigital Novel

The Pandigital Novel can be classified as an eReader but since it features a web browser and media player we think it crosses into tablet territory as well. The Novel will features a 7-inch color 800×600 touchscreen, an SD card slot for adding storage, and will integrate with the Barnes & Noble eBookstore. It will be priced at $199 and is slated to go on sale this month.

NEC Life Touch

The Life touch will feature a 7-inch TFT LCD screen, ARM Cortex A8 processor and 256MB of RAM. The Android 2.1 device is expected to be available in Japan in October with no official price as of this article.

Google Tablet

Details are still scarce on the rumored Google Android Tablet. There have been reports that Verizon and Google are working together on a tablet, but at this point we don’t even know if Google’s Tablet will run on Chrome OS or Android.

Acer Tablet

The Acer tablet looks very similar to its LumiRead e-book reader that was announced at the same event back in may. Not many details have been released but we do know that it will feature a 7-inch color display, will run Android, and has a likely Q4 release date.

LG Tablet

LG announced on July 6th that they will be jumping into the Android tablet market. They didn’t however provide any details on the device, only stating that it plans to release it in the fourth quarter of this year.




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Orbis – Urban Mobility Vehicle

Orbis is a compact, electric vehicle that is both “green” and offers a viable alternative to driving a car in an urban area, reducing congestion, parking requirements and pollution. Orbis will be able to be transported by its user with little effort while being compact enough to fit inside of buildings, on public transit and essentially anywhere the user would need to go. Through technology guided by gyroscopes, Orbis will be self balancing on one wheel and be powered by a lithium ion battery in order to successfully accomplish its goals.
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Nissan's Lean, Green 'Land Glider' Banks Like a Motorcycle, Feels Like A Plane

                 By Clay Dillow

The Nissan Land Glider Nissan's new concept car seats two passengers 

in tandem and leans into turns like a motorcycle.

 

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a Nissan? Though limited to terrestrial travel, the concept Land Glider automobile from Nissan banks like an airplane, tilting into corners, giving drivers the sensation of flying. But, the likenesses to aviation don't end there. The two-seater orients driver and passenger in tandem -- one in front and one in back -- and rather than a steering wheel, the Land Glider has airplane-style, computer-guided yoke controls.

Inside the Land Glider:  

The controls of the Land Glider resemble those of an airplane rather than a car.

 

Inspired by glider aircraft and motorcycles, the Land Glider is a lean 3.6 feet wide and ultra-lightweight, allowing its zero-emissions, all-electric motor to whisk it along with decent pep. Though its tight profile and narrow frame should make it easy enough to park, video cameras replaced by cameras feeding to dashboard monitors give the driver plenty of perspective on the vehicle's surroundings.

But the coolest features by far are the tilting wheels and leaning fenders that allow it to lean up to 17 degrees as it negotiates turns, assisted by the steering computer that determines optimum tilt for the current speed and trajectory. The Land Glider goes on display at the Tokyo Motor show October 24, but you can sneak-peek it below.

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