Tag: rights-reserved

One Ring To Rule It All… By Bluetooth

Get ready for the Internet of Rings . Today’s the last day to jump on the earlybird bandwagon for Ring, which has completely cleaned house over on Kickstarter . In case you missed the digital memo, Ring is a wearable device that allows you to “control anything” and “shortcut everything” (or so its creators at Logbar claim). Enticingly vague promises, backed up by tight tech design and a pretty intense bank of R&D. The innovation at the heart of the device is fine gesture recognition—put it on your finger, tap the side to activate and your finger’s moves are registered and transmitted to the device of choice. From there, you get a lot of functionality: control appliances, send texts, make payments through Ring’s gateway, and get vibration or LED notifications. If you can sync it, you can rule it with Ring. To futz with your Bluetoothed lamp, draw a lamp in the air. To draft a letter, draw a letter and then start spelling. The instant payment feature is a little surprising, but an interesting take on the common interaction. In addition to the “built in” symbols and controls, you can add your own personalized finger-commands. They’re opening the API for app developers who want to get in on the Ring game, and have a store to make Ring-related apps easy to find. The charging dock is pretty boss, and they estimate it can perform about 1, 000 gestures per charge. They’re also offering it in a range of sizes, so you apes and dainty types aren’t out of luck. Onward, to the future! (more…)

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One Ring To Rule It All… By Bluetooth

Reducing the Heat In Computing

Graphene + Copper (not to scale, obviously) About a year ago, I traveled to Cornell University to interview a bunch of materials scientists who work at the nanoscale level. This means they work with stuff that is very, very tiny. A nanometer is a billionth of a meter. One of the challenges nearly all of the scientists kept mentioning is the issue of overheating in electronics. Most of us are directly familiar with the heat released from our computers when we balance them on our lap for a period of time, for example. And this becomes a big deal as devices get smaller and smaller. The smaller the copper wires—which connect chips, among other things—the more heat they emit. This is important for future devices and wearables. Scientists are exploring all kinds of solutions but a proven one has recently been announced in the journal Nano Letters. We’ve mentioned the magic material graphene before and it continues to be the superhero material, coming to the rescue over and over again. This time, it shows up as a possible damper for heated copper wires. Graphene is a one-atom thick material that can move electrons and heat. And it is able to cling to copper. Apparently by sandwiching copper between layers of graphene, the heat created by the metal is decreased by 25 percent. When attached to copper, the graphene actually changes its structure in such a way that allows the heat to move more freely through the metal, instead of being trapped in it. From left: (1) copper before any processing, (2) copper after thermal processing; (3) copper after adding graphene. Image via UCR Today (more…)

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Reducing the Heat In Computing

Flotspotting: Kibum Park’s Awesome Urban Residences

You undoubtedly remember those slick renderings for the Lowline , the still-in-progress underground NYC park tentatively scheduled for a 2018 opening. The renderings were done by architect Kibum Park, a partner at James Ramsey’s RAAD , a firm that “[focuses] on single and multi-family residential, commercial and hospitality projects.” Well, turns out Park’s got a Coroflot page , loaded up with renders of some bee-yootiful hotels, restaurants, houses and apartments, the latter being the ones that most caught our eye. The clients are of course anonymous and text descriptions are largely absent, but the images do most of the talking. Check out this NYC penthouse with its crazy, sun-dappled, yurt-like master bedroom with elevated library: (more…)

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Flotspotting: Kibum Park’s Awesome Urban Residences

Amos Chapple’s Photographs of the Coldest Town on Earth

Globetrotting photographer Amos Chapple has shot in sixty countries, eventually working his way up to be named Cathay Pacific’s Travel Photographer of the Year for ’09. More recently, New Zealand native Chapple recently photographed a region with weather very opposite from that of his home country: Oymyakon, Russia, where the average winter temperature is negative-58 Fahrenheit (negative-50 Celsius). As Chapple told Weather.com , “occasionally my saliva would freeze into needles that would prick my lips, ” and “focusing the lens would sometimes be as challenging as opening a pickle jar.” Viewing these photos officially means you can never complain about being cold ever again. The temperature is so brutal that Oymyakon residents’ lives are structured around surviving it, with inconveniences aplenty. For example: No wearing eyeglasses outdoors, unless you want them to stick to your skin. Even worse, there’s no indoor plumbing. It’s impossible to keep underground pipes from not freezing, so guess where you’ll go when you need to use the bathroom: Then there’s the gas situation: When you stop your car, to run into a store for instance, you cannot turn the car off, or it won’t start again. So everyone leaves their cars running (except at night, when they’re parked in heated garages)… (more…)

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Amos Chapple’s Photographs of the Coldest Town on Earth

The Next Big Thing in Geo Software

Data consolidated from a farmer’s plow’s GPS as it circled near Dmitriyev, Russia. Uncovering unknown territory is more and more rare, as GPS paired with the Web has made even the most remote or unusual routes accessible to the world. The free service of OpenStreetMap (OSM) has more than one million registered users contributing data from GPS, aerial photography and just regular traversing across every possible route in the world. OSM has more than a decade of consolidated data and is often referred to as the “Wikipedia for maps.” But the interesting part is that their data are considered their primary product, and not actual maps. Many sites are powered with OSM data—like Craigslist, Foursquare, Geocaching, MapQuest—organizations that want to use it instead of pricey Google Maps. But OSM also powers the beautiful maps produced by the startup MapBox. Here’s an example of a runner’s various routes (the thicker red lines represent the number of times he ran that particular route) using data from OSM. (more…)

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The Next Big Thing in Geo Software

Babies: There's an App for That

Due out in January, the Mimo Baby Monitor shows the softer side of technology trickle-down. The key object is a baby onesie or “kimono” (kidmono! oh ho ho) employing Bluetooth Low Energy, wearable-washable sensors, and turtles. Once you’ve suited up your progeny in this thing, you’ll received real-time information on your babe’s position, breathing, temperature, sleep status, and future SAT scores on your phone. Although it has one proverbial foot on either side of the precious/practical divide, there definitely seems to be a trend towards wi-fying babies. Mimo is just one product in a small herd of baby-applied tech devices poised to crowd the digital shelves. Never mind tracking your runs and heart rate. You’re a new parent now; no time for running, and your heart rate is likely to be higher than healthy at all times. Get used to it, get the app, and get some rest. (more…)

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Babies: There's an App for That

Autodesk Announces CAM 360, World’s First Cloud-Based CAM Solution

So you’ve designed your product, run simulations on the model, figured out the PLM and rendered countless iterations. Now it’s time to actually machine the thing. Autodesk is now addressing this final step, taking advantage of Autodesk University’s packed attendance (10, 000-plus people this year!) to announce their new CAM 360 software , which they’re billing as the world’s first cloud-based CAM solution. CAM 360 is seen as the final puzzle piece in their cloud-based digital manufacturing software suite, following on the heels of PLM 360 (product lifecycle management), Sim 360 (simulation software) and Fusion 360 (design). By finally integrating the thing that actually generates the toolpaths for CNC, the company reckons manufacturers will enjoy a huge time savings. And the cloud-based approach confers three distinct benefits: 1) Customers no longer need worry which version of the software they and their collaborators are on; 2) Files can be accessed anywhere, anytime; and 3) they’ve got virtually limitless cloud-based computing power available to quickly crunch those monster files. The CAM 360 release date is pegged for next year. (more…)

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Autodesk Announces CAM 360, World’s First Cloud-Based CAM Solution