Tag Archive for 'research'
CityWall is an interactive multitouch project open to public experimentation at the Lasipalatsi medical center in Helsinki, Finland. Developed by the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, CityWall currently offers passers-by a 3D GUI to explore the benefits and nuisances of urban nature. It’s able to recognize an unlimited number of fingers touching the screen and [...]
OLED could become the next major illuminated touch-sensitive technology, taking advantage of the fact that the homogeneous area light-source can be used to recognize points of contact without requiring a separate touch foil as LEDs would. The system, developed by Fraunhofer IPMS, is initially being touted as a light controller, for switching and dimming, but [...]
Microsoft have received a lot of criticism for their Tablet PC “obsession” over the past few years, but they’re still not giving up. Craig Mundie, chief research and strategy officer, is visiting college campuses this week with the company’s latest touchscreen prototype: showing new, better-integrated versions of long-standing apps such as OneNote, together with a timeline-based search [...]
Students at Humboldt University in Germany are working on developing autonomous hovering platforms capable of using patterns and responses more usually observed in adapted insect behaviour. Traditionally such helicopters - often used for surveillance or remote monitoring - are controlled via preset routes, direct remote control or GPS.
Ken Hinckley, of Microsoft Research, has been working on a dual-touchscreen multi-tasking prototype called Codex, taking two of OQO’s Model 2 UMPCs and using intelligent software to manage how information is spread between the displays. Rather than manually positioning different windows on a single large screen, Ken’s concept recognizes that, say, reference and in-progress documents are more [...]
Japanese scientists have discovered a method of changing magnetic domains - such as those used in RAM and hard-drives - using magnetic fields rather than the current process of electromagnets, in a system that could see storage become faster and more energy efficient. Magnetic domains, tiny regions inside magnetic materials that behave as individual magnets [...]
A team at Oregon State University have apparently taken another step toward giving walking robots a more human-like - and energy efficient - gait, by fitting them with artificial tendons. Existing robotic limbs struggle to recover energy through a springy gait, but the Oregon team have introduced steel cable tendons and fibreglass springs made from [...]
LEDs are known for their efficiency. And that’s a good thing, considering they’re in just about everything these days. But the truly fantastic thing about LEDs is their ability to convert 50-70% of the energy that goes through them into light. However, high costs have prevented them from taking over traditional lighting like fluorescents, until [...]
Scientists at the University of Oxford are experimenting with ways to increase internet speeds by, ironically, slowing down the light used in fiber optic communications. The boost would come through replacing the existing system required to separate and route different signals to different destinations. Using so-called metamaterials, that can be engineered to slow light down, [...]
If you’re looking for the next generation of PC cooling technology or consumer electronic recharging, you may only have to look so far as a group of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory who have developed a flexible solar cell. This cell could be applied to all sorts of electronics [...]
