Livescribe - A notetaking computer in a pen.
The Livescribe paper-based computing platform by Pulse, consists of a smartpen, paper, software applications, and developer tools.
Despite its inherent lack of digital connectivity, pen and paper endures because it is incredibly well-suited to the unstructured, spontaneous, flexible nature of our lives and work styles. A simple pen and paper gives people contextual cues and perspective, supports collaboration in live groups, and allows for very easy navigation, reference and comparison of information.
But paper and pen present serious limitations in an increasingly digital world. Paper documents are static and difficult to share. Written notes are susceptible to loss and damage. What’s missing is a way to maximize the freedom of expression and rich context afforded by pen and paper while delivering the connectivity, archiving system and “capture” capability of a computer.
That's where Livescribe comes in. With Livescribe, people will no longer have to settle – they can have the best of both the paper and digital worlds.
A high speed infrared camera (over 70 images/sec) records every move over the specially mapped paper.
The smartpen is about the size and weight of a large Montblanc pen, and comes equipped with a removable ink cartridge, a microphone to record audio, a speaker for playback, a small OLED display, and an internal computer chip that captures handwritten notes and drawings. When someone writes with the smartpen on Livescribe paper, the recorded audio is automatically linked to the written notes.
The paper is an integral part of the smartpen package. Imagine a piece of paper the size of Europe and Asia, where every 3 square millimeters is covered with a unique pattern of dots practically invisible to the human eye. The pattern of simple, micro-dots enables a patented dot-positioning system to precisely track the smartpen’s movement on paper. As a result, anything you write – words, numbers or drawings – can be stored, recognized, and intelligently responded to by the Pulse smartpen
For more information, visit the Livescribe website and/or watch a Video.
Worldometers - world statistics updated in real time
Worldometers is managed by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world.
The counters that display the real-time numbers are based on Worldometers’ algorithm that processes the latest and most accurate statistical data available together with its estimated progression to compute the current millisecond number to be displayed on each counter based on the specific time set on each visitor’s computer clock.
Many of the statistcis are eye-opening and the rapidly increasing numbers on some of the subjects can be shocking.
Check out Worldometers for yourself to see real time statistics of things including how big the world's population is (approx 7,000,000,000) and how quickly it is increasing, how many computers sold worldwide this year, how many lightning strikes have hit earth so far this year (2,000,000,000 and counting), and how many cumulative hours waited for web pages to download this year (approx 20, 000,000,000 to date).
Read the full article
3D animation and film from Cheoptics360
Dane Peter Simonsen has developed a new three-dimensional display technology called Cheoptics360.
The Cheoptics360 uses four 3D projectors to project and reassemble the moving images inside a transparent pyramid shaped chamber.
The result 3D images and videos floating in mid-air. You can move around and view the image from anywhere in the room.
The Cheoptics360 system can be built on a scale from 1.5m to 30m and be viewed outside as well as in.
For more information please check out their website at http://www.vizoo.com (click ‘showreel’ for more cool videos)
GINA: A flexible automobile 'skin' developed by BMW.
BMW recently presented GINA, a fresh new look at design, innovative materials, and hitherto unheard of flexibility. GINA replaces the traditional ridged (usually) metal automobile panels with a textile fabric skin that is stretched tight around a (strong) metal frame incorporating carbon fibre wires. This frame allows the shape of the car to change. This is a car can WINK at you!
GINA - for "Geometry and Functions in 'N' Adaptations"- allowed designers from both BMW and BMW Group DesignworksUSA to throw out the rule-book. The skeleton of the car is controlled by electro-hydraulic devices and can actually move and change shape beneath the fabric skin.
This GINA concept extends to the interior, where BMW's designers have made visible only those instruments that are required at a certain time, while the rest of the time the same fabric interior "blinks" them out of view. At present there is no suggestion of GINA appearing in a production car, but with luck we may see elements of BMW's out-of-the-box thinking in a decade or so.
Theo Jansen – creating mechanical 'life'
Theo Jansen blends the line between art and engineering, this Dutch visual artist creates kinetic sculptures: “life” in the form of “animals” that walk the beach. For the last 17 years, he has been creating and evolving a series of wind-powered animals made of plastic tubes. Powered (fed) by the wind, they start moving and turn eerily mobile creatures Jansen calls ‘beach-animals’.
Jansen explains how his creatures operate: Self-propelling beach animals like Animaris Percipiere have a stomach . This consists of recycled plastic bottles containing air that can be pumped up to a high pressure by the wind. This is done using a variety of bicycle pump, needless to say of plastic tubing. Several of these little pumps are driven by wings up at the front of the animal that flap in the breeze. It takes a few hours, but then the bottles are full. They contain a supply of potential wind.
Take off the cap and the wind will emerge from the bottle at high speed. The trick is to get that untamed wind under control and use it to move the animal. For this, muscles are required. Beach animals have pushing muscles which get longer when told to do so. These consist of a tube containing another that is able to move in and out.
There is a rubber ring on the end of the inner tube so that this acts as a piston. When the air runs from the bottles through a small pipe in the tube it pushes the piston outwards and the muscle lengthens. The beach animal's muscle can best be likened to a bone that gets longer. Muscles can open taps to activate other muscles that open other taps, and so on. This creates control centres that can be compared to brains.
When asked, ‘What will be the next steps?’ in an interview with Sebastian Campion, Jansen replied, “I think the next steps will be their brains. Now they have stomachs and can walk on air. But the brains are something, which they really need. Right now, I can only leave them alone for 5 minutes and if I want to extend that period they really must learn to think for themselves.”
For the full interview please click http://www.artificial.dk/articles/theojansen.htm
You can learn more about Theo Jansen on his excellent website http://www.strandbeest.com
