Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Nokia Lumia Portable Video Projector is Actually a Good Idea
Edgar Mkrtchyan usually sends us 3D renders of new Nokia phones, but now he imagined a very interesting accessory: a Nokia Lumia projector. The sketch is shown in much detail below and the designer will also come up with a 3D render later on. This is a portable video projector, one for Lumia handsets, a segment of accessories that never really took off till now.
The projector shows everything you see on the handset’s screen on a big wall, which can be a good thing for conferences for example. Imagine integrating the Microsoft Office experience with this and sharing PowerPoint presentations synced from your Windows RT tablet to your Lumia for example. How cool is that? Also, watching a movie on the “big screen” becomes easier, even if you’re stranded in the mountains. Multimedia content is transmitted via NFC and the device fits in as if it were a “bed”.
There’s also a big speaker on the side of the projector and the device apparently uses Carl Zeiss technology. The portable video projector has a 3.5 mm jack, 2 ventilation grids, 2 loudspeakers, a micro USB port for charging and a 3000 mAh battery. The 3.5 mm audio jack is used to settle the phone into the cradle. The cool thing is that you can also power the phone with the projector thanks to induction charging. With the 3000 mAh battery you can watch over 8 hours of video. Price this product anywhere around $100 and you’ve got a hit!
Also, the design looks great and the device is highly portable. Notice the slope it has when placed on the table and directed upwards, very good idea!
amazing concept phone:Kambala
The main idea of the project is to combine a mobile phone and wireless headphones. Material – a multilayered polymer, in which all electronic components are located inside in the form of layers. If you squeeze the phone, then in his mid appears earpiece, which is inserted into the ear. Thus the mobile phone turns into a headset. The inner surface of the phone is a continuous flexible screen, as well as a layer of sensors, which transmit the image from inside the phone on the outside – there is a layer of paint that can take any color – just like a fish flounder. When you wear this headset is automatically masked in your head and almost disappears. Instead of the joystick – sensitive strip on the edge of petal headphones.
Samsung Galaxy S IV Render Comes From Romania, Seems Cut Out of Galaxy S III
Since Victor Greavu, a designer with Romanian name sent us a render of the Samsung Galaxy S IV that has a Romanian language interface, we can conclude that this is the Eastern European version of the new Galaxy S. Although at first sight I was tempted to criticize this design, since it’s basically the display of the Galaxy S III cut out, it could actually work…
What if Samsung really created such a device, a mere frame surrounding a display and hiding a very thin body with hot hardware? How about a dual core ARM Cortex A15 processor inside? How about a Full HD 5 inch display? I’m sure both will make their way onto the Samsung Galaxy S III and I can bet that the camera resolution will jump past 10 megapixels and include some sort of new stabilization. S Voice is also expected to be improved, as well as gestures.
If the new Galaxy S does have such thin bezels, since you’ll keep touching them, it may be a good idea to implement some side swiping gestures. I imagine a system a la BlackBerry 10 OS, but that’s thinking a bit too far… So, while Victor’s design is too simple to actually impress, it may be a hint to what’s coming.
pebble-fashionable-key-port
Have you heard about Key Fob? Well, Key Fob is a
decorative and at times useful thing that can be
seen with many people carried with their keys or
chain. Therefore this beautiful ‘Pebble’ has been
designed with many slots so that user can easily
group their keys into categories such as
car keys, home keys or office keys. It features a
simple sliding mechanism so that you can quickly
access the keys. You can check out the exploded view
with several pieces fitting together without much
aid. So, try this new funky personalized key fob
Calliper Style Radio
Like a precision calliper tool, 08 Radio by Mikael Silvanto lets you precisely find the station you want by sliding the entire radio unit up and down the scale. [via yankodesign]
Pixel Perfect Hour Glass
Title says it all. A perfect gadget anyone wants to own, I suppose? [Pavel Balykin via yankodesign]
Pebble Key Port
Designed with many slots so that user can easily group their keys into categories such as car keys, home keys or office keys. [via tuvie]
Microsoft Arc Mouse
When you go advanced in all your computer equipments, the next best thing is to get a futuristic mouse. [via geekandhype]
Info-Live Watch
INFO Live is an data organizer for connected internet world. It is able to transfer data information to any hardware and person any moment in time of need.
Cellphone Code
This phone uses haptic technology to provide physical feedback for making a call. To turn it on…twist a section, to dial a number…twist a bunch of sections, to make an international call…break your wrist!
Napkin PC
The Napkin PC is a multi-user, multi-interface, modular computer designed for creative professionals to collaborate and bring their greatest ideas to life.
Nokia Aeon Full Screen Concept Phone
The most prominent design feature of aeon is a touchscreen that stretches over the full surface area of the phone. [via engadget mobile]
Cool Futuristic/Concept Gadgets That Really Inspire
About 10 years ago, we didn’t really expect the 1.4mb 3.5 inch floppy to evolve into flash drives 10x smaller with storage capacity as big as 32gb. The interesting thing about technology is; it’s just going to get more and more high-end but the size, is just going to get smaller and slimmer.
These concept gadgets you see before you today, have extremely high chance of getting into production anywhere in the future. For example, Microsoft’s Surface Computing Technology certainly tells us they are for real. Here’s some really cool concept gadgets, just concepts for now but we really hope it’ll be implemented, that inspires. If we happened to missed something impressive, please let us know in comment. Full list after jump.
B-Membrane Laptop/Desktop
Concept computer designed by Korean designer Won-Seok Lee. No bulky monitors, just a UFO shape system that displays screen like a projector. [via yankodesign]
Cool Tech Gifts for the Little Genius in Your Life Read more: Cool Tech Gifts for the Little Genius in Your Life - Popular Mechanics
These clever robots, gross-out dinosaurs, and other toys will delight the technologically inclined tike.
Kre-O Transformers Battle for Energon Set /// $40
One-up classic Legos with this Kre-O set, which features four tiny figures and 379 bricks that kids use to build the Energon vault and the Transformers—Optimus Prime and Megatron, naturally—as robots or as robots-in-disguise.
Zoomy Handheld Digital Microscope /// $40
Mounting specimens on slides is so last century. This scope lets kids observe and record the miniature world with the help of a computer. The Zoomy connects via USB and transmits magnified images to the screen for printing.
Sphero /// $129
Early tech adopters will flip for Sphero, a smartphone- and tablet-controlled robot. The device doubles as a controller for tablet games. Just try prying it out of your kids’ hands—we dare you.
Sphero /// $129
Early tech adopters will flip for Sphero, a smartphone- and tablet-controlled robot. The device doubles as a controller for tablet games. Just try prying it out of your kids’ hands—we dare you.
Sphero /// $129
Early tech adopters will flip for Sphero, a smartphone- and tablet-controlled robot. The device doubles as a controller for tablet games. Just try prying it out of your kids’ hands—we dare you.
Next Up in Kinect-Style Motion Sensing: Ultrasound?
Microsoft researchers have been developing a system called SoundWave that emits pulses in ultrasound ranges and detects Doppler-based changes to track human movements. Its creators hope their accidental discovery could improve gesture-based controls.
Gesture-based controls have become so widespread they seem almost mundane. We casually flip through photos on our smartphones and have no problem swinging our arms back and forth in front of an Xbox Kinect. However, both touchscreens and camera-based recognition systems require specialty hardware. At Microsoft, researchers have created a program called SoundWave that needs only a speaker and a microphone.
Sound might seem like an unusual choice for gesture recognition—after all, moving hands need not make any noise. But SoundWave isn’t trying to detect the sound of your hands. Instead, the speaker plays an ultrasonic tone, one that is high-pitched enough to be inaudible to the user. The microphone then detects changes in the ultrasound and interprets those changes as movement.
Sidhant Gupta, a graduate student at the University of Washington, stumbled upon the idea while working on a different project. While measuring the frequency of a 40-kHz ultrasound wave, he noticed that the computer’s microphone was behaving oddly, picking up rogue signals at 39 and 41 kHz. "I thought it was a loose wire and that I should fix it."
Even after double-checking that all connections were secure, the abnormal signal persisted. He then realized that it wasn’t an equipment malfunction. The phantom ultrasound waves were the result of his leg idly bouncing up and down in his seat, produced by something out of high school physics: the Doppler effect. Think of an ambulance siren as it zooms down the street. The change in pitch that you hear is determined by the Doppler Shift formula. If the sound source is zooming toward you, you get more sound waves, resulting in a higher frequency and a higher-pitched siren. If it’s speeding away, the opposite happens.
When Gupta sits still, the sound waves bounce off his leg and back into the computer microphone, registering as 40 kHz. However, when he starts to fidget, the bounced sound waves appear to be moving toward and away from the microphone. The restless leg produces a small, but measurable, change in frequency. Based on the pattern of these changes, he wrote a program that recognized whether his leg was moving up or down and expanded it to detect other types of movement and gestures.
Though using the Doppler effect to track human gestures has been around for a decade, it had always required customized equipment. SoundWave eliminates the need for any specialized hardware, requiring only basic technology. Computers, cell phones, and other electronics already come equipped with a speaker and microphone.
Microsoft is not looking to revolutionize motion control with ultrasound. Dan Morris, another researcher involved with SoundWave, envisions the program more as a supporting actor than a one-man show. SoundWave wouldn’t replace Kinect, but it could work beside it and make it better by making gesture recognition more accurate in more directions. "Computer vision isn’t perfect, so anything you can do to provide more information will make [gesture recognition] more accurate."
If there’s one worry about SoundWave, it is that the technology relies on the limited hearing range of adults for the ultrasound pulses to go undetected; but not everyone’s hearing is so diminished. For instance, products like the Mosquito antiloitering device play similar tones to specifically target and irritate the more sensitive ears of teenagers, and Bhiksha Raj, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, worries about the side effects of SoundWave on young children and pets. "Don’t get me wrong, the premise is brilliant," he says, "but you know what happens when you hear a high-pitched tone. They have to take care of these issues first."
Morris says the team is aware of that concern, and early in the project’s development they tested SoundWave in crowded environments where both dogs and kids abound, and never received any complaints. "We tested it with a 4-kHz tone and it was about as loud as the sound effects that normally come out of a laptop."
Sound might seem like an unusual choice for gesture recognition—after all, moving hands need not make any noise. But SoundWave isn’t trying to detect the sound of your hands. Instead, the speaker plays an ultrasonic tone, one that is high-pitched enough to be inaudible to the user. The microphone then detects changes in the ultrasound and interprets those changes as movement.
Sidhant Gupta, a graduate student at the University of Washington, stumbled upon the idea while working on a different project. While measuring the frequency of a 40-kHz ultrasound wave, he noticed that the computer’s microphone was behaving oddly, picking up rogue signals at 39 and 41 kHz. "I thought it was a loose wire and that I should fix it."
Even after double-checking that all connections were secure, the abnormal signal persisted. He then realized that it wasn’t an equipment malfunction. The phantom ultrasound waves were the result of his leg idly bouncing up and down in his seat, produced by something out of high school physics: the Doppler effect. Think of an ambulance siren as it zooms down the street. The change in pitch that you hear is determined by the Doppler Shift formula. If the sound source is zooming toward you, you get more sound waves, resulting in a higher frequency and a higher-pitched siren. If it’s speeding away, the opposite happens.
When Gupta sits still, the sound waves bounce off his leg and back into the computer microphone, registering as 40 kHz. However, when he starts to fidget, the bounced sound waves appear to be moving toward and away from the microphone. The restless leg produces a small, but measurable, change in frequency. Based on the pattern of these changes, he wrote a program that recognized whether his leg was moving up or down and expanded it to detect other types of movement and gestures.
Though using the Doppler effect to track human gestures has been around for a decade, it had always required customized equipment. SoundWave eliminates the need for any specialized hardware, requiring only basic technology. Computers, cell phones, and other electronics already come equipped with a speaker and microphone.
Microsoft is not looking to revolutionize motion control with ultrasound. Dan Morris, another researcher involved with SoundWave, envisions the program more as a supporting actor than a one-man show. SoundWave wouldn’t replace Kinect, but it could work beside it and make it better by making gesture recognition more accurate in more directions. "Computer vision isn’t perfect, so anything you can do to provide more information will make [gesture recognition] more accurate."
If there’s one worry about SoundWave, it is that the technology relies on the limited hearing range of adults for the ultrasound pulses to go undetected; but not everyone’s hearing is so diminished. For instance, products like the Mosquito antiloitering device play similar tones to specifically target and irritate the more sensitive ears of teenagers, and Bhiksha Raj, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, worries about the side effects of SoundWave on young children and pets. "Don’t get me wrong, the premise is brilliant," he says, "but you know what happens when you hear a high-pitched tone. They have to take care of these issues first."
Morris says the team is aware of that concern, and early in the project’s development they tested SoundWave in crowded environments where both dogs and kids abound, and never received any complaints. "We tested it with a 4-kHz tone and it was about as loud as the sound effects that normally come out of a laptop."
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