Join Tio Light Switch teaches kids about energy conservation
Kids are notorious for leaving lights on. They don’t have the burden of knowing how high that energy bill really is when they constantly leave the lights on within rooms they aren’t using. This light switch was probably created to save the earth, but it might be nice to have purely to save your sanity. With this visual reminder of how much energy is being used, it might help you keep your energy bill down.
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Real calculators designed to resemble your desktop calculators
Even if you’re used to using both a Mac and a PC, for some reason you’ll probably start to acquire a preference as to which calculator you prefer. The one within Windows or the one you would use through Mac OS. Either way you’ll get the same numbers, but for one reason or another you might find one of them more convenient than the other. Well these calculators take the in-computer versions and make them real.
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The Cup Communicator lets you talk through cups
Even if we never tested it, we’ve all thought about using the cup trick to communicate with a nearby friend when we were kids. To be able to secretly talk without your parent’s knowledge is every kids dream. Well with technology as it is, it’s a touch easier for kids to do that. If you’d still like to enjoy that same feeling you got as a kid when you used those cups, maybe you could give this cup trick a whirl in an updated way.
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Engineer builds a microscope with $10 in parts and a cellphone
This digital microscope made from a cellphone and $10 in parts could revolutionize bush medicine.
First there was the One Laptop Per Child laptop for under $100, now an engineer has created a $10 do it yourself microscope out of a cellphone!
The vision of engineering professor Aydogan Ozcan of UCLA, the microscope uses a cellphone and ten dollars ($10) of off the shelf parts. The idea is pretty groundbreaking and could help doctors who seek to diagnose illnesses in the “bush” areas of the third world where sophisticated lab equipment simply isn’t available.
The idea is pretty ingenious. Rather than take a slide and magnify it, the cellphone microsope can image the slide sample and send it wirelessly to the nearest hospital laboratory. But with special “app” software developed by Ozcan, the cellphones can also detect abnormal shaping of bloodcells which could show signs of infection.
And there’s even a special microscope box which can connect to a cellphone which can then transmit the data where it needs to go.
“There’s no need for regular microscope lenses anymore because the software can magnify the cells electronically,” said Ozcan, “by creating a hologram that can image several cells at the same time and analyze how they interact. We can learn a lot in seconds.”
And in a world where infectious disease can strike hundreds in a few hours, this invention can save lives to boot. My only question is, when will we see the iPhone app?
Hat Tip – the NYTimes via The Giz
Media Chair offers surround sound
If you’re all about being immersed in you music, this chair is definitely the way to pull that off. With the speakers right up around your head, and the cozy look of the chair, you’ll be able to get lost for hours. I just wish it were a swivel chair, then it’d have that command center type appeal. Although, you could get that super villain kind of look if you picked up the black version of the chair.
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More Courier details leaked
More details have emerged about the operating systems and applications that power Microsoft's new Courier Tablet PC.
Details about Microsoft’s alleged bookish tablet PC are beginning to surface, and with every bit leaked, the anticipation rises. Courier, the dual screen tablet which we reported about here a few months back, looks more like a book reader should look, but also enables a “cliff notes” representation of the data files saved on it, but also contains a searchable “journal overview” which enables users to search by subject, keyword, or other criteria.
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Infractor is an innovative way of research
This next device is odd, to say the least, but I can see how it would come in handy. There is a video of it after the jump if you want to see it in action, but it won’t make sense without a little bit of explanation.
Here’s how it works. You begin with a “light source” that is really a database of some information, like the New York Times, for example. This source is placed on a table that is probably best described as a Microsoft Surface (but isn’t).
This source shines a light with visible particles that essentially contains all the information of on that database. From there, the user can physically place a “prism” that filters out all the information except a certain subject. That subject can be pre-determined by the user by a jog wheel.
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Microsoft shows off its next-gen computing muscles on campuses nationwide
Even though Microsoft could probably easily rest on the profits from Windows 7, it is always good to hear them working on new ways of interfacing with computers. Lately, chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundle has been going from college to college, showing off the latest next-gen computer prototype.
Mundle has a lot of interesting things to say about the way computers are headed. One of his demonstrations includes a computer that can project its images onto a pane of glass in front of him. He says that the future will probably bring about a workstation that will include multiple displays, that will eventually work their way into 3-D images. I can’t help but agree with him.
Continue reading » Microsoft shows off its next-gen computing muscles on campuses nationwide
