This week the experimental developer-aimed group known as Google ATAP
- aka Advanced Technology and Projects (skunkworks) have announced
Project Tango. They’ve suggested Project Tango will appear first as a
phone with 3D sensors. These 3D sensors will be able to scan and build a
map of the room they’re in, opening up a whole world of possibilities.
The device that Project Tango will release first will be just about
as limited-edition as they come. Issued in an edition of 200, this
device will be sent to developers only. This developer group will be
hand-picked by Google’s ATAP - and sign-ups start today. (We’ll be
publishing the sign-up link once active.)
Speaking on this skunkworks project this morning was Google
user Johnny Lee. Mister Johnny Lee is ATAP’s technical program lead,
and he’ll be heading this project for the public, as you’ll see it. This
is the same group that brought you Motorola’s digital tattoos, if you’ll remember.
Taiwanese firm Polytron Technologies has revealed the world's first
fully transparent smartphone prototype. As you can see in the pictures
above and below, the prototype device is almost fully transparent. The
only components visible on the device are the board, chips memory card
and camera.
The rest of the device is a piece of glass that
sports a small touchscreen (also transparent) located in the center of
the device. According to Polytron, its technology may be available by
the end of 2013.
Gaming accessory maker SteelSeries has partnered with Tobii Technology
to develop a device that will let gamers use their eyes to control game
play.
SteelSeries expects to announce further details about the partnership
and products over the next several months. But the Tobii EyeX
Controller, which will be demonstrated at International CES, will show
how eye-tracking peripherals can look and function.
SteelSeries is sure eye tracking will play a big part in the future of
gaming, because it expands the number of ways players can interact with
games, company CTO Tino Soelberg said in a video announcing the partnership.
Danish SteelSeries and Swedish Tobii have several ideas about how
players will be able to use their eyes to control games. It makes
accessing menus easier, and makes games with complex controls easier to
learn, they said. Developers can also let gamers aim a flashlight or a
weapon by looking at a target, and then use regular controls to shoot.
Another idea is to let gamers select the player they want to pass the
ball to by looking at them.
Developers who want to be part of the first wave of games with eye tracking can preorder the Tobii EyeX Developer Kit for $95 during the show, according to Tobii.
The kit includes hardware, middleware and a development framework, and will start shipping in March.
MarkerBot opened this store in Boston on November, 22 2013. There is now 3 such stores in USA (New York, Greenwich and Boston). You can of course buy MakerBot 3D printers, filaments, but there also some 3D printed gifts and some workshops seem to be regularly organized as well.
The shop is located in one of the most famous street for shopping in Boston (144 Newbury Street). Beyond the fact that the MakerBot outlet is contiguous to fashion boutiques (being the only computer hardware shop for miles around), the idea is mainly to democratize the ownership of a 3D printer, trying to morph 3D printer into the fridge of the 21st century.
On Friday, Microsoft released its 3D Builder app, which allows Windows 8.1 users to print 3D objects, but not much else.
The simple, simplistic, free app from Microsoft provides a basic way to
print common 3D objects, as well as to import other files from SkyDrive
or elsewhere. But the degree of customization that the app allows is
small, so 3D Builder basically serves as an introduction to the world of
3D printing.
In fact, that’s Microsoft’s intention, with demonstrations of the MakerBot Replicator 2 slated for Microsoft’s retails stores this weekend. Microsoft customers can buy a new Windows 8.1 PC, as well as the $2199 MakerBot Replicator 2, both online as well as in the brick-and-mortar stores themselves.
One of the selling points of Windows 8.1 was its ability to print 3D objects,
a complement to traditional paper printing. Although Microsoft is
pitching 3D Builder as a consumer app, the bulk of spending on 3D
printing will come from businesses, which will account for $325 million
out of the $415 million that will be spent this year on 3D printing,
according to an October report from Gartner. However, 3D printers have made their way into Staples,
and MakerBot latched onto an endorsement of the technology from
President Obama during his State of the Union address, recently
encouraging U.S. citizens to crowd-fund an effort to 3D printers in
every high school in America. (MakerBot also announced a Windows 8.1
software driver on Thursday.)
Microsoft’s 3D Builder app could certainly be a part of that effort.
Frankly, there’s little to the app itself besides a library of
pre-selected objects, most of which seem to be built around small,
unpowered model trains of the “Thomas the Tank Engine” variety. After
selecting one, the user has the option of moving it around a 3D space,
increasing or decreasing the size to a particular width or height—and
not much else.
Users can also import models made elsewhere. Again, however, 3D Builder
isn’t really designed to modify the designs. It’s also not clear which
3D formats are supported.
On the other hand, some might be turned off by the perceived complexity
of 3D printing. If you have two grand to spend on a 3D printer but
aren’t really sure how to use it, 3D Builder might be a good place to
start.
In June 1977 Apple Computer shipped their first mass-market computer: the Apple II.
Unlike the Apple I, the Apple II was fully assembled and ready to use
with any display monitor. The version with 4K of memory cost $1298. It
had color, graphics, sound, expansion slots, game paddles, and a
built-in BASIC programming language.
What it didn’t have was a disk drive. Programs and data had to be
saved and loaded from cassette tape recorders, which were slow and
unreliable. The problem was that disks – even floppy disks – needed both
expensive hardware controllers and complex software.
Steve Wozniak solved the first problem. He
designed an incredibly clever floppy disk controller using only 8
integrated circuits, by doing in programmed logic what other controllers
did with hardware. With some
rudimentary software written by Woz and Randy Wigginton, it was
demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 1978.
But where were they going to get the higher-level software to
organize and access programs and data on the disk? Apple only had about
15 employees, and none of them had both the skills and the time to work
on it.
The magician who pulled that rabbit out of the hat was Paul Laughton,
a contract programmer for Shepardson Microsystems, which was located in
the same Cupertino office park as Apple.
On April 10, 1978 Bob Shepardson and Steve Jobs signed a $13,000
one-page contract for a file manager, a BASIC interface, and utilities.
It specified that “Delivery will be May 15?, which was incredibly
aggressive. But, amazingly, “Apple II DOS version 3.1? was released in
June 1978.
Probably the single most troubling thing about the inescapable
advance of technological obsolescence is the rate at which old devices
are being thrown out. It’s not just the landfills full of last year’s
superphone, nor the rare Earth elements we’re mining at incredible
speeds, but the sheer, simple waste of it, as well.
But what if electronics were designed on the molecular level to be
biodegradable? What if recycling a phone was as simple as buying a small
bottle of solvent and leaving the phone for several hours? What if you
could pour out your old iPhone and return the insoluble metals left over for a discount on your next handset?
That’s one of the many possible uses for a new technology that could
see integrated circuits built on soluble chips, along with many of the
other pieces they require. Professor John A. Rogers and his team of
researchers at the University of Illinois have made significant progress
in the field, and they have a lot of ideas about how it might change the world.
Beyond the applications for recycling, the team sees biomedical
science as a major application. Currently, inserting foreign technology
is difficult not just in the implantation, but in the extraction as
well; many pieces of technology are simply left inside a patient, since
that often ends up being less dangerous than an additional surgery. This
research could lead to a future for implanted technology in which
implants simply melt away into the blood-stream, either as a slow,
natural reaction beginning at the moment of insertion or as a catalyzed
reaction begun by an injected agent.
In either case, the ability to break down electronics
in a biologically safe way has huge benefits. Environmental monitors
could be peppered throughout an area without the need to worry about
collecting them again later. Whether it’s tracking bird populations on a
grassy tundra or measuring the chemistry of a oceanographic oil spill,
the ability to use technology with a built-in timer will open up all new
applications, or make feasible old ideas that could never succeed
practically.
Though
the team doesn’t mention it in the video, the US military has taken an
interest in the concept. It’s not hard to image why, as covert
technology advances along lines from miniaturization to autonomous
artificial intelligence. In surveillance, the problem of extraction is
just as profound as it is for surgery. The ability to insert a drone
designed to die after a prescribed amount of time, to liquify or break
down beyond the point of recognition, is extremely enticing to DARPA,
the military’s advanced research arm. DARPA has thrown significant
funding behind this effort, and no doubt has a wide array of application
in mind.
Of course, not every component of modern circuit boards can be so
easily replaced with a degradable polymer. Their primary material of
interest is actually a purified form of the silk produced by silk worms
for cocoons. That works for the plastic boards and other simple
substrates, but efficient conducting materials are much harder. They
found that ribbons of magnesium work well as conductors since it will
naturally break down to a molecular level when immersed in water.
Super-thin sheets of silicon, used for semiconductors will break down in
much the same way.
It’s also one thing to say that magnesium and silicon are safe to
release into the body, but quite another to get government approval to
test that idea. There’s really no telling how the body will react to
such a release of chemicals into the bloodstream without directly
testing it. That’s a hard road to hoe, however, one studded with
predictable and unavoidable delays. Couple this with public fears (well
founded and otherwise) about putting wireless technology in their
bodies, and about implants of all types, and you have an issue these
researchers will likely have to battle for several years to come.
In the end, the military and industrial applications for this
technology will almost certainly beat the medical to market. Still, it’s
an exciting idea that has to potential to change the way a whole sector
of computer technology is both made and used.
Motorola has unveiled Project Ara,
an open-source initiative for modular smartphones with the goal to "do
for hardware what the Android platform has done for software." The
company plans to create an ecosystem that can support third-party
hardware development for individual phone components — in other words,
you could upgrade your phone's processor, display, and more by shopping
at different vendors.
Motorola will be working with Phonebloks,
which recently showed off a similarly ambitious concept for modular
smartphones; the Google-owned hardware manufacturer says that it plans
to engage with the Phonebloks community throughout the development
process and help realize the same idea with its technical expertise.
Project Ara's design comprises
of an "endo" — the phone's endoskeleton, or basic structure — and
various modules. The modules "can be anything," says Motorola, giving
examples ranging from a new keyboard or battery to more unusual
components such as a pulse oximeter.
"We want to do for hardware what the Android platform has done for software."
The company will be reaching
out to developers to start creating Ara modules, and expects the
developer's kit to be released in alpha this winter; interested parties
can sign up to be an "Ara Scout" now.
15.10.13 - Two EPFL
spin-offs, senseFly and Pix4D, have modeled the Matterhorn in 3D, at a
level of detail never before achieved. It took senseFly’s ultralight
drones just six hours to snap the high altitude photographs that were
needed to build the model.
They weigh less than a kilo each, but they’re as agile as eagles
in the high mountain air. These “ebees” flying robots developed by
senseFly, a spin-off of EPFL’s Intelligent Systems Laboratory (LIS),
took off in September to photograph the Matterhorn from every
conceivable angle. The drones are completely autonomous, requiring
nothing more than a computer-conceived flight plan before being launched
by hand into the air to complete their mission.
Three
of them were launched from a 3,000m “base camp,” and the fourth made
the final assault from the summit of the stereotypical Swiss landmark,
at 4,478m above sea level. In their six-hour flights, the completely
autonomous flying machines took more than 2,000 high-resolution
photographs. The only remaining task was for software developed by
Pix4D, another EPFL spin-off from the Computer Vision Lab (CVLab), to
assemble them into an impressive 300-million-point 3D model. The model
was presented last weekend to participants of the Drone and Aerial
Robots Conference (DARC), in New York, by Henri Seydoux, CEO of the
French company Parrot, majority shareholder in senseFly.
All-terrain and even in swarms
“We want above all to demonstrate what our devices are capable of
achieving in the extreme conditions that are found at high altitudes,”
explains Jean-Christophe Zufferey, head of senseFly. In addition to the
challenges of altitude and atmospheric turbulence, the drones also had
to take into consideration, for the first time, the volume of the object
being photographed. Up to this point they had only been used to survey
relatively flat terrain.
Last week the dynamic Swiss company –
which has just moved into new, larger quarters in Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne –
also announced that it had made software improvements enabling drones
to avoid colliding with each other in flight; now a swarm of drones can
be launched simultaneously to undertake even more rapid and precise
mapping missions.