Zipwhip's Textspresso
concept coffeemaker is exactly how it sounds. After texting your drink
order to the one-off machine, it makes your brew and texts you back to
let you know when it's ready for pickup.
Friday, May 31, 2013
10:02 PM
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We’ve all seen our fair share of rocks, and most of them aren’t that pretty. The ones that are though can be totally mind-blowing. Ryoji Tanaka, a Japanese photographer and chemist, likes to capture some of the most striking elements, minerals and compounds in close-up (like the Uranium-containing cuprosklodowskite you see above) and the results are crazy awesome.
Top picture: Uranium-containing cuprosklodowskite.
Pictures: Ryoji Tanaka
6:45 PM
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There are countless reasons to wear a digital watch: they don’t need winding, they keep incredibly accurate time and include a host of functions. And even good reasons not to wear a watch at all: smartphones. But watchmaker Maurice LaCroix makes a good case for still considering an analogue timepiece with its Masterpiece Seconde Mysterieuse, which includes a perplexing floating second hand looping around a smaller face.
With only 125 units being produced you can safely assume this will fall under the ‘obscenely expensive’ category of watches, but if you’re big on finding unique conversation starters, it’s money well spent. So how does that detached hand manage to find its way around the watch’s face? Spoiler alert: the entire face secretly spins, along with the mechanism that turns the second hand. So while the secret might be disappointing, the overall effect is still pretty awesome.
[Maurice LaCroix via Hodinkee]
3:10 PM
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When was the last time you stepped inside a phone booth? Like an actual walled-up, door closing, clear porta-potty type booth to make telephone calls? Those fake stalls don’t count! I really can’t remember. Slacktory culled up various phone booth scenes in movies and reveals what we’ve always kind of known (and smelled) about phone booths: they are terrible places to be.
You’re almost guaranteed to get run over by a car. The only guy who needs a phone booth is Superman. [Slacktory]
11:38 AM
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Brian Eno has always been a prolific artist as a pop star and an ambient composer. But 77 Million Paintings, one of Eno’s more recent releases, is his most expansive: a series of almost 300 individual music and lightworks that combine in an infinite array of randomised variations.
But where did the idea for the genre-bridging work come from? Eno himself talks about his inspiration in this mind-bending short film.
77 Million Paintings extends Eno’s ideas about generative music — which uses computer programs to generate sound — into visual art. It’s not a new exhibit, but this video, which was filmed with RGB+D cameras, is really cool. Why? Because the legendary Eno is notoriously reclusive and never talks about his work! To hear what inspires the dynamic piece makes it even more interesting. [Red Bull Music Academy]
7:55 AM
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On those frequent days when you just don’t feel like working, there’s nothing like a fun desk toy to wile away the hours. If you’re tired of your Newton’s Cradle, and you don’t want to draw attention to yourself with a office-wide Nerf war, check out the solar-powered Zendulum. Like a Newton’s Cradle its hypnotic back-and-forth motion should easily hold your attention until quitting time. But it adds the fun of magnets, which is office toy pay dirt.
Assembling the DIY kit is a great way to kill a slow morning, and you might actually learn something along the way. Like your windowless cubicle doesn’t have enough sunlight to charge the capacitors which keep the neodymium magnetic sphere perpetually rolling to and fro. In that case you can just plug the $40 Zendulum into a USB port and keep on ignoring those time-sensitive TPS reports.
[ThinkGeek]
Tuesday, May 28, 2013
12:02 PM
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The design for the Lifebook was developed by Prashant Chandra after winning a competition Fujitsu was holding. The Lifebook allows all the parts and devices to work together with your computer without having to worry about USB plugs and cords. For example, the digital camera slot on the front of the Lifebook allows for instant connectivity, enabling you to download all your photos straight to the computer. You can also charge your camera this way.
Another interesting part of the design is that the Lifebook doesn’t come with a keyboard because it is also a tablet. The tablet, once slotted in place becomes a keyboard when needed or a second display screen. You can finally have it all in one package!
source: NewTechnologyInventions
10:52 AM
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A newly published patent application from Apple describes a way in which the iPhone would automatically lower or raise its volume based on how close you are to the device.
"Adjustment of acoustic properties based on proximity detection," a patent application published Tuesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, describes how the iPhone's promixity sensor could be used to automatically change the volume or even switch between the receiver and the speaker.
Holding the iPhone to your ear would lower the volume through the receiver. Moving it slightly away from your ear would raise the volume. Putting the phone down and moving away would switch the audio output to the speaker. Moving further away would increase the volume of the sound piped through the speaker.
Transitioning from the receiver to the speaker or vice versa would fade out one while fading in the other, ensuring that the switch is smooth and seamless. The phone's sensor could also adjust the frequency of the sound depending on your distance from the device. For example, the lower frequencies would be boosted as you move further away from the phone so that the quality of the audio is maintained.
The phone might detect your proximity by measuring infrared light or low-intensity sound waves or by calculating how much light bounces off from you and hits the sensors. The iPhone and other touch-sensitive devices could also tell when your face or ear is up against the screen as another way to determine your proximity and thereby adjust the volume.
source: news.cnet
Monday, May 27, 2013
3:37 AM
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In the keynote presentation at the tConsumer Electronics Show, Samsung device head Stephen Woo and lab lead Brian Berkeley showed off bendable, rollable, foldable displays with several concept devices. The flexible screens, which Samsung has branded as Youm, are designed to have displays as rich and crisp as current smartphones, but with more options for form factors.
In one example, CNET noted, the screen bends around the edge of the device to display information on the side of it, similar to the information on the side of a book. More broadly, flexible screen technology could help improve the resilience of consumer technology devices and make them even more portable.
Source: newtechnologyinventions
1:20 AM
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Rumors that Apple is getting ready to release a low-cost iPhone in the near future have been swirling for quite some time now, and if new reports are to be believed, consumers might see that day come sooner rather than later.
According to a report from BGR, Apple will begin testing the new iPhone as early as next month, producing just 1,000 devices for the June field tests. Consumer production is slated to begin ramping up sometime between July and September.
Earlier reports indicated the low-cost handset would be released in limited supply, 2.5 to 3 million units, alongside the iPhone 5S, which is rumored to launch in September. The device is aimed at emerging markets and Apple will reportedly wait and see how initial sales go before expanding production and shipping more units.
The low-cost iPhone is expected to have a polycarbonate plastic case to help keep costs down, as indicated by a purported image of the device that leaked earlier this month. Additionally, the handset, which will reportedly be manufactured by Foxconn and Pegatron, is expected to have a 4-inch display and run on an Apple A6 processor.
BGR reports the smartphone could be priced as low as $99 or $149 from retailers.
source: BrightHand
1:11 AM
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According to technical reasons we are not clever enough to be able to argue with, the version of the HTC One sold in the US lacks an SD card slot due to internal space restrictions. Because of something to do with our mobile radio frequencies. That’s what HTC says and we're powerless to argue.
The explanation comes from HTC’s Jeff Gordon, the company’s Senior Global Online Communications Manager. Jeff told Techradar: “Because the Chinese version of the One is designed specifically for the smaller Chinese radio bands, we do have additional space inside the device we were able to use for the microSD slot. That space isn’t available to us in the global version.” They could, of course, just made it a bit bigger, though. So we’re not entirely sure we believe them. [Techradar]
Source: GIZMODO
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