Devices Site

Posted Mar 12th 2008 6:55AM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: Robots
An MIT researcher has developed a tool for students learning to play the drums which can speed up the time it takes for newcomers to pick up the instrument. The device, a robotic arm designer Graham Grindlay calls the “Haptic Guidance System” (or HAGUS), uses a drumstick fastened to a set of motors which a user holds while being led on beat. A brace holds the arm in place while the machine plays back a pre-recorded pattern — in studies, Grindlay found that students with no drumming experience were able to hit the drum 18 percent more effectively after using the HAGUS. A spokesman from the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford says the work does a “wonderful job” demonstrating the ability of haptic devices to train beginning musicians. So… can a Rock Band implementation of this be far behind?

[Via Digg]

Under normal circumstances a Q&A session with a tech CEO is a fairly bland event. Sure sometime you get a Ballmer-esque monkey-boy moment, but usually it’s an opportunity for the CEO to break some news and to get out without looking clueless. This week though we are reminded why a room full of tech-savvy web developers is a very different crowd.

Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook was to appear in what was billed as a keynote but ultimately was a sit down Q&A with Business week reporter Sarah Lacy. Lacy and Zuckerberg have a history together in that she has written a book about Web 2.0 and this newest wave of internet movers and shakers that Zuckerberg is currently riding. It should’ve been a simple session with everyone going home with some more extra information on Facebook and not much else. It wasn’t.

Lacy seemed to be interested in engaging Zuckerberg in a casual conversation. She told stories about how they had hung out, she interrupted him several times and generally danced around any serious discussion. Normally, this wouldn’t garner much more of a reaction from a crowd than simple eye rolling but this group wasn’t going to have any of it. The crowd became unruly and began yelling to the stage. One spectator yelled “Ask something interesting!” at the stage to which Lacy responded “Try doing what I do for a living. It’s not that easy.” She then invited the audience members to ask their own questions. The session was now completely in the crowd’s hands. The crowd peppered Zuckerberg with questions about the unpopular Beacon privacy problem, the API and assorted other topics that the room full of web developers had an interest in.

Perhaps the most striking thing to come from this meltdown was the complete back channel discussion that went on through Twitter. Without the crowd ever having to do more than stare at their phones, they developed a mob mentality and thus gained the upper hand on the interview. The Twitter feed was awash in comments about the interview and opinion of Lacy’s poor skills had converged in Twitter before the first heckler even raised his voice.

The genie has been out of the bottle on two-way media communication for quite a while now. It’s clear that this type of crowd interaction is going to grow. The traditional media’s desire to make itself into a one way conversation is over. Between comment threads, forums, blog posts and Twitter, the audience is no longer simply staring at a show passively. It is an open discussion as to whether or not the crowd at the Zuckerberg interview was just plain rude or if Lacy deserved to have her Q&A disrupted, but the truth is that even at media events as traditional as the staged Q&A the game has been completely changed. The audience is not only listening, but it is also participating.

Read [CNET] Via [BuzzMachine] Image Courtesy [Flickr user oraclejulio]

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The General Mobile DST11 offers a 1.3 megapixel camera which also records video as well as the following features:

* dual-SIM slot
* miniSD card slot
* dual-band GSM (900/1800MHz)
* 2.0″ 262k color display
* GPRS
* Speakerphone
* Stopwatch

Via MobileBurn.

Who says games are nothing but vehicles of sloth and sloppiness? Ubisoft’s new DS pedometer will definitely help you get moving, as it was released to complement the My Weight Loss Coach DS title. All you need to do is plug it into your DS’ GBA slot, download personal data and start walking/jogging with the DS. The DS pedometer will be released in Europe this summer first, with the rest of the world to follow. Why can’t they release it in the world where there is the largest percentage of obese people? If you want to pick this up, you ought to use money from your Lays potato chips fund.

Posted Mar 12th 2008 3:12AM by Thomas Ricker
Filed under: Portable Audio
var Uh oh. Japan’s trade and economy ministry is now officially investigating the explosive nature of the ipod nano. The culprit is model MA099J/A — AKA, the old black and white plastic model already reported to spew “chest high flames,” cause bedroom fires, and explode across the floor. The Japan incident occurred in January when an iPod nano reportedly “shot out sparks while recharging.” At this point, all odds are with the nano’s lithium ion battery. Apple Japan has been ordered to investigate the issue and report back to the ministry with the cause. Kind of like asking the fox what it was doing in the hen house, eh?

OLEDs might be pretty expensive at the moment, but they will soon be cheaper to manufacture as GE has developed a method to make OLEDs in a roll-to-roll manner, resulting in lowered costs that (hopefully) will be translated to the final product. So affordable that in theory, these low-power OLEDs could actually end up being disposable, but Greenpeace activists won’t be too happy to hear that. Anyways, this is good news since we will be able to enjoy OLED notebooks, cell phones, portable media players and a whole host of other applications not thought of yet without breaking the bank.

Posted Mar 11th 2008 11:35PM by Joshua Topolsky
Filed under: cellphones
This is just getting silly, don’t you think? The iphone Dev Team has once again proven their totally gnarly talents by freeing up the latest firmware before it’s even the latest firmware. Apple, here’s our suggestion — just let people do what they want with your devices, since they’re clearly going to do it anyway. That way, instead of making enemies, you’re making lifelong buddies. Reasonable, right? Steve, give us a call, we’re more than happy to riff on some ideas for playing nice with the end-user.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Instead of going to a professional clinic or hospital to have your mouth checked up for infections, why not do it yourself with one of these Miharu intra-oral dental cameras? Using a 0.02-inch Pinhole Lens, LED lamps and disposable batteries, this new novelty will give you a close-up view of all the tartar that’s stuck in your gums and underneath your tongue. What’s more, the video can be shown on any compatible TV set by using a single 6-foot spiral RCA cable. A very awesome feature that lets you show off your cavities to all your friends. And it will also work great with your other body parts, such as your ears, nose, and just about any other hollow cavity you can think of and fit this into. “Sanitary viewing” never seemed so simple or pricey as the Miharu intra-oral dental camera retails for $159.

Read [Red Ferret] Via [Coolest gadgets]

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Online video service Hulu will be opening its doors to the public in just a few days. As of Wednesday March 12, 2008 anyone will be able to sign up and use Hulu, where before (and currently) it is has been limited to invitation only sign-ups which has been in effect since they first launched just over four months ago.

In addition to opening the service to anyone, Hulu will also be adding the previously rumored Warner Bros content as well as a selection from twenty others to include the NHL, NBA and Lionsgate. Hulu will be offering more than 250 TV series and about 100 movies at the time of launch.

For anyone that was unable to get a beta invite, I would highly suggest checking it out on Wednesday. Being skeptical at first myself it proved to be a very nice way to view TV shows online.

Read [Reuters] Read [TechCrunch]

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Motorola fans, get ready to rejoice. According to an unofficial statement from one of Motorola VPs, the big M has decided to make some big announcements at CTIA Wireless on April 1-3, instead of during the recently concluded Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. The reason why is because they didn’t want to get overshadowed by the other companies’ announcements back then. And if you’ve already seen the video embedded above, you might even say there’s almost no need for their humble act of trying to move away from the hype. Their upcoming phones kick butt, so far, judging from the video. Could it be time for Motorola’s comeback?

So what can we expect from Motorola in their “big announcement” during CTIA 2008? At least four new rockin’ cellphones, that’s for sure. All aimed at different market levels, different users, and different price brackets. According to a news report from Unwired View, the following are the possible cellphone models that Motorola will officially announce as available very soon: the MotoMing 2, Motorola Q10, MOTOROKR E10, and a 5-megapixel camera built from a collaboration with leading camera maker, Kodak. Of course, all of this has not been made official yet so don’t hold your breath. But judging from experience, I think it would be safe to say that there must be at least some bit of truth to these very colorful rumors. And of course, this video won’t surface out of nowhere for no reason. How many times has an unofficial product been leaked to the press and proven to be fake? That’s right, always less than the times those have been proven to be real. So stay tuned, we’ll keep you updated.

Read [Unwired View]

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