Blog Archives

We Are the World

An international group of scientists proposes a "knowledge collider" to bring supercomputing to bear on social problems. While crunching the numbers won't be a problem, figuring out what they mean will prove more challenging.

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The Future, a Thimbleful at a Time

An intriguing concept device called "Thimble" would serve as an interface, text scanner, and Braille e-book reader for the blind. But the crucial technology, a refreshable, haptic Braille display, remains elusive.

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Disintegrated Digital Frame Reverse-Engineers Ektachrome

The DIA Parrot wireless photo frame by Nodesign deconstructs the LCD, separating the backlighting from the display unit to create a luminous projection effect. Usually, an LCD unit is sandwiched with its opaque backlight, hiding the display’s smoky windowpane quality. By separating the two, the DIA Parrot celebrates the qualities of the LCD while providing a new/old lightboxing effect. The ...

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This Flute Is Fab

With a fabbed flute, we see emergence at its natal stage; the imperfect copy of the old instrument is a promising harbinger of the novel sounds to come.

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No Empty Gestures: Touchless Interface to Demo at CES

The Norwegian firm Elliptic Labs’ booth at CES next week will feature several implementations of a touchless, gesture-based interface for tablets and mobile devices, according to the company. Unlike the Kinect, Elliptic’s interface, called Ultrasonic Touchless Input, graphs hand movements using echolocation. Bathing the user in a silent ultrasonic torrent, it measures the return time of rebounding sonic impulses to ...

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