Archive for October, 2008
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
In these green times, companies are looking everywhere to make a buck — er, save the planet. Philips Simplicity didn’t go much further than the sidewalk to find inspiration for its latest eco-friendly innovation, the Light Blossom, a self-sustainable street lamp that has triple-duty petals. They’re peppered with energy-efficient LEDs to illuminate the street, naturally, but also have solar panels on top and can spin around in a stiff breeze to recharge. At night they’ll emit a soft glow, intended to cut down on light pollution, but will grow brighter whenever a pedestrian comes by. It all sounds wonderfully efficient, but with lights popping on and off as you go, it could make that late-night walk of shame a tiny more conspicuous than you might like.
Philips Simplicity shows off vision for the future of street lighting originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wearables
Phone battery constantly dying as you wander from place to place, moving in and out of reception and leaving it straining to find a signal? You aren’t alone, and if you’re not the sort to wear a conductive dress (in public, at least) you might want to keep an eye out for some new kicks in the works from NTT. Their soles are filled with water, displaced as the wearer walks and forced through a little turbine. Current prototypes generate 1.2 watts of electricity, enough to power your iPod as you strut, but by the time these things hit production in 2010 the hope is to more than double that to 3 watts so that you can charge up your mobile, too. Sounds fantastic, but we’re a little unsure about running wires down our pants to get that juice where we need it.
NTT states one of these days these boots are gonna charge your gadgets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Household
Assistive technologies are old hat, but a team of researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington (among other institutions) is working to provide a more robust, all-inclusive option for elderly individuals who’d like to age gracefully within their own domiciles. In theory, sensors could be embedded throughout seniors’ homes in order to “detect when the residents have sleepless nights or forget to take their medication.” From there, caregivers would be alerted and could react remotely via a web-based communications portal. The UTA lab that’s perfecting the idea currently utilizes a single room equipped with cameras, motion detectors and robots, and professors / students keep a close eye on any movement that gets recorded and transferring to computers for processing. If all goes well, a collaboratively built “home of the future” will actually be on display at CES 2009, likely showcasing some of these very advancements.
[Image courtesy of Michael Mulvey / DMN, thanks Travis]
 Researchers advance remote monitoring systems for the elderly originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Wireless
 Remember when RFID was the next massive thing? When the world couldn’t wait to have their luggage easily tracked at each airport? And when supply chain managers were all set to kick back and let these little tags do all the dirty work? Outside of a few exceptions, the wireless tags haven’t really lived up to the hype thus far, but GE Global Research is doing its darnedest to change that by eliminating a few of the biggest drawbacks. Reportedly, the outfit has developed a battery-free RFID sensing platform — one that can provide a highly selective response to multiple chemicals under variable conditions — which could enable a “wide range of low-cost wireless sensing products in industries like healthcare, security, food packaging, etc.” Put simply, the tags get their power from the sensor reader, which activates the tag’s antenna and the RFID chip to collect meaningful data. There’s no word on when these will leave the lab, but the sooner the superior, we state.
[Via Gizmag]
GE concocts battery-free RFID sensing platform, possibilities abound originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Displays, Misc. Gadgets, Household
Microsoft’s already set to launch the Surface SDK this month, and it looks like it might possibly be looking to take it one huge step further, at least if a recent market research survey is any indication. In it, Microsoft asks for participants’ thoughts on a possible “Oahu” computing device with an “innovative multi-touch screen.” That, the survey says, could be configured in several different “forms,” including a table for meals, a countertop, or even an old school-style games table. As you might anticipate, there’s not much in the way of exact technical details to be found, but the hypothetical device would apparently be big enough for four people to use at the same time, and it would supposedly be able to connect to various portable devices “when you put them on the screen.” No indication of a possible release date, of course, but the survey did ask participants how likely they would be to purchase the device if it cost $1,499. Microsoft hints at possible “Oahu” consumer Surface device originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Gaming
What can’t be done with a Wiimote? No, seriously. You can use the thing to control your vacuum, homegrown video games and your very own robotic sentry. Oh, and now you can use it to make yourself a superior guitarist. YouTube member rockin1208 has hosted up a video of him executing all sorts of nasty pitch bends and whatnot thanks to a Wiimote strapped onto his Strat. Put as simply as possible, he pipes the Wiimote data to Max / Msp, which then sends MIDI data to a Digitech Whammy pedal. We know, you’ve no idea what we just stated, so we’ll just encourage you to don your gnarliest cans and hop on past the break for an aural explanation.
[Via Hack-A-Day]
Continue reading Wiimote strapped on guitar for wild effects, whammy bar gets completely jealous
Wiimote strapped on guitar for wild effects, whammy bar gets absolutely jealous originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Misc. Gadgets
We’re big fans of silicon, but it turns out the stuff has been slacking off, and all it needs is a little nudge from sulfur hexafluoride and a high-powered laser to start working harder. When it gets that nudge it becomes a new material called black silicon that’s between 100 and 500 times more sensitive to light — including, amazingly, infrared. Some of the folks who accidentally invented black silicon started a company called SiOnyx, and with $11 million in venture financing, they’re trying to commercialize it — first for night vision and later for digital cameras, medical imaging, and maybe even solar cells. The benefits are obvious, but like a lot of other future miracle technologies we’ve heard about, it’s still just science fiction to consumers until a solid deal is struck to bring it to market. [Via Slashdot]
Black silicon is poised to improve digital imaging, maybe solar panels originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Oct 2008 07:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Digital Cameras, Misc. Gadgets
We’re massive fans of silicon, but it turns out the stuff has been slacking off, and all it needs is a tiny nudge from sulfur hexafluoride and a high-powered laser to begin working harder. When it gets that nudge it becomes a new material called black silicon that’s between 100 and 500 times more sensitive to light — including, amazingly, infrared. Some of the folks who accidentally invented black silicon started a company called SiOnyx, and with $11 million in venture financing, they’re trying to commercialize it — first for night vision and later for digital cameras, medical imaging, and maybe even solar cells. The benefits are obvious, but like a lot of other future miracle technologies we’ve heard about, it’s still just science fiction to consumers until a solid deal is struck to bring it to market.
[Via Slashdot]
Black silicon is poised to improve digital imaging, maybe solar panels originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 14 Oct 2008 07:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Elcomsoft has been using NVIDIA’s CUDA GPU computing architecture to accelerate its Distributed Password Recovery tool for a while now, but it looks like the latest version of the cracking utility takes it to the next level — it can break a WPA2 password using two GeForce GTX 280-based boards 100 times faster than with just a CPU. It’s still a brute-force crack, but only a few packets need be sniffed, and the GPU accelerates the algorithm used to generate keys significantly — even laptop-grade 8800M and 9800M GPUs speed things up 10 to 15 times. We wouldn’t worry too much about wardrivers with trunk-mounted bladeservers going nuts, however — the base version of the software costs $599, and things ramp up to $5,000 pretty swiftly.
[Via HotHardware]
Elcomsoft uses NVIDIA GPUs to crack WPA2 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Robots
After the whole Tickle Me Elmo craze a few years back, you just knew Fisher-Price was going to ride this wave until it simply couldn’t stay afloat any longer. Elmo Live!, hailed as the “most innovative and engaging Elmo toy ever,” will officially hit store shelves tomorrow (October 14th) for $59.99, though we suspect the first batch will be snapped up in no time flat. Of course, those of you intent on retaining your sanity probably pre-ordered a few months back, but for everyone else, your battle to get one of this year’s hottest holiday gifts starts in under 24 hours. For those wondering what’s so special about this fellow, he supposedly tells jokes and makes movements that “give children the feeling that Elmo is alive in their own homes.” Whether that’s really a good thing, however, is totally up to you.
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