Amazing new touch technology could revolutionize smartphones, doorknobs, your sofa. What if any object in the world, not just smartphones and tablets, could know when and how you were touching them? If a team working at Disney Research and Carnegie Mellon University continues to make progress, soon we may have smarter chairs, doorknobs, bathtubs, and even living things. Using the researchers’ new technology, called Touché, we could sense what is touching an object (human or fork?) , how it is being touched (pushing, pinching, grasping), and which body part is touching it (hands, elbows, number of fingers). That means a flat surface could recognize if you are standing, sitting, or Tebowing on it. Touché operates on the same general principle as the capacitive sensor in your touchscreen phone. The technology needs only one electrode, which opens the applications to almost any object that can conduct electricity.
The team will be presenting their research at CHI 2012, the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in Austin next week. Photo credit/Flickr. BetaKit. Atmel’s flexible touch sensors will revolutionize mobile device design. In a lot of the “future world” videos produced by technology companies, we are supposed to be wowed by devices that look far different from today’s tablets and smartphones. One common theme is the use of a device that is entirely display and is capable of adapting to the needs of the user at a given time.
It would be pretty cool technology, but, up until now it, was nearly impossible to achieve, making the videos more sci-fi than future tech. Enter Atmel, a semiconductor manufacturer. The company released a product called XSense, which allows for the creation of flexible, touch sensitive displays by making the sensors themselves thin and film-based. “Traditional touch sensors are typically brittle and may crack, not allowing it to bend,” Atmel’s Global Communications Manager Agnes Toan told ExtremeTech. While Atmel only deals with the touch sensors, there is plenty of recent movement around flexible displays. All of a sudden those future videos don’t look so sci-fi anymore. China report spells out grim climate change risks. Twenty top predictions for life 100 years from now.
16 January 2012Last updated at 08:50 Last week we asked readers for their predictions of life in 100 years time. Inspired by ten 100-year predictions made by American civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins in 1900, many of you wrote in with your vision of the world in 2112. Many of the "strange, almost impossible" predictions made by Watkins came true. Here is what futurologists Ian Pearson (IP) and Patrick Tucker (PT) think of your ideas. 1. IP: Likelihood 10/10. PT: Good chance. 2. IP: Likelihood 10/10. PT: Good chance. 3. IP: Likelihood 9/10. PT: Good chance. 4. IP: Likelihood 8/10. PT: Good chance. Continue reading the main story More readers' predictions English will be spelled phonetically (jim300) Growing your own vegetables will not be allowed (holierthanthou) The justice system will be based purely on rehabilitation (Paul) Instead of receiving information from the media, people will download information directly into their brains (krozier93) Crops will be grown in sand (jim300) 5.
Predicting The Top Five Health Trends For 2012. 5 Brands Most Likely To Be Gone By 2015. Carbon emissions 'will defer Ice Age' 9 January 2012Last updated at 06:20 By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News The climate, if not species, of an Ice Age "ought" to return within 1,500 years Human emissions of carbon dioxide will defer the next Ice Age, say scientists.
The last Ice Age ended about 11,500 years ago, and when the next one should begin has not been entirely clear. Researchers used data on the Earth's orbit and other things to find the historical warm interglacial period that looks most like the current one. In the journal Nature Geoscience, they write that the next Ice Age would begin within 1,500 years - but emissions have been so high that it will not.
"At current levels of CO2, even if emissions stopped now we'd probably have a long interglacial duration determined by whatever long-term processes could kick in and bring [atmospheric] CO2 down," said Luke Skinner from Cambridge University. The current level is around 390ppm. Orbital wobbles As things stand, they believe, it will not. Loving CO2. Swiss solar aircraft makes first international flight (Update 2) Pioneering Swiss solar-powered aircraft Solar Impulse ambled over Europe into Belgium on Friday on its first international flight, with the pilot reporting that everything was running smoothly.
"The flight is going really well, I have just flown over Liege, it's a real pleasure to enter Belgian airspace," Andre Borschberg said as the dragonfly-like aircraft cruised at 50 kilometres (31 miles) per hour. UPDATE: Swiss solar-powered aircraft lands in Brussels "The view I have here is extraordinary," the Swiss pilot added in a live feed over the Internet. "I'm above the clouds, for now I'm taking advantage of the blue sky. " The experimental emissions-free aircraft was scheduled to take just over 12 hours to cover some 480 kilometres (300 miles) from western Switzerland to Brussels airport, after flying over France and Luxembourg at 3,600 metres (11,880 feet), the Solar Impulse team said earlier.
Asked about upping the speed, Borschberg said: "That's not the aim of this plane for now. " Smog-eating aluminum panels launch for buildings. By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY Updated 5/13/2011 7:02 PM | Buildings that eat smog? Alcoa, a maker of aluminum products, introduced an architectural panel Thursday that it says not only cleans itself but also the air around it. By William A. Gnech By William A. The aluminum panel has a titanium dioxide coating that, when combined with sunlight, acts as a catalyst to break down pollutants such as smog into harmless matter that rain washes away.
"It could have a significant impact" if enough buildings use the product, says Craig Belnap, president of Alcoa Architectural Products. The panel is the latest in a series of building products — whether cement, tile or paint — touted for their pollution-fighting abilities: •Ceiling tiles that remove formaldehyde, which is linked to health problems, were announced this week by Armstrong Ceiling & Wall Systems, which says the product has been certified by UL, an independent non-profit testing group.
China seeks alternatives to 9 million burials a year. By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY Updated 4/8/2011 12:06 AM | BEIJING — China is running out of space for 9 million burials a year and is urging the bereaved to look east, to the ocean, for the final resting place. By Andy Wong, AP By Andy Wong, AP "Beijing will become just a city of tombs," says Zhang Hongchang, head of the official China Funeral Association. With offerings of food and liquor and the burning of paper iPhones for the deceased to enjoy in the afterlife, China is honoring its dead this week as record-breaking numbers of people visit cemeteries to "sweep tombs" in the ancient Qingming festival.
Most Chinese worry more about rising prices for burial plots that have made some cemeteries more expensive per square yard than the fanciest city apartments. Li Xinjing, spokesman for the Beijing civil affairs bureau, says to save the environment and money the Chinese should choose a "green burial," such as scattering ashes at sea or burying ashes under trees. Arcosanti. Coordinates: Arcosanti is an experimental town and molten bronze bell casting community that has been developed by the Italian-American architect, Paolo Soleri, who began construction in 1970 in central Arizona, 70 mi (110 km) north of Phoenix, at an elevation of 3,732 feet (1,130 meters).
Using a concept he called arcology, he started the town to demonstrate how urban conditions could be improved while minimizing the destructive impact on the earth. He taught and influenced generations of architects and urban designers who studied and worked with him there to build the town. Overview[edit] The goal of Arcosanti is to explore the concept of arcology, which combines architecture and ecology. An Arcosanti apse Construction broke ground at the site in 1970, and has continued at a varying pace through the present.
Many features are particular to the design and construction of Arcosanti. Visitors' center and residence The Arcosanti site has a camp area built for the original construction crew. Trend spotters. Light Touch projector makes any surface a touchscreen. A previously little-known company from the UK called Light Blue Optics has demoed a projector at CES which allows users to interact with the light image as if it were a touchscreen. The Light Touch throws a 10-inch image at WVGA resolution at incredibly short distances thanks to the holographic projection technology involved. At the same time the infra-red touch sensitive system allows users to interact with social networks, multimedia sharing and any other applications that can use the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth support in the device to connect to the Internet.
It comes with 2GB of onboard flash memory, a microSD card slot for expanding the storage and the battery life will last 2 hours. Expect to hear more from this one on the OEM front as interest grows. UPDATE: Two years on and although Light Blue Optics doesn't seem to have come up with the goods, others have. . - Prodigy projection keyboard iPhone case turns any surface into a keyboard. Beyond City Limits - By Parag Khanna. View a photo essay of the world's top global cities The 21st century will not be dominated by America or China, Brazil or India, but by the city. In an age that appears increasingly unmanageable, cities rather than states are becoming the islands of governance on which the future world order will be built.
This new world is not -- and will not be -- one global village, so much as a network of different ones. Time, technology, and population growth have massively accelerated the advent of this new urbanized era. Already, more than half the world lives in cities, and the percentage is growing rapidly. At the same time, a new category of megacities is emerging around the world, dwarfing anything that has come before.
Many will pose challenges to the countries that give birth to them. Neither 19th-century balance-of-power politics nor 20th-century power blocs are useful in understanding this new world. For these emerging global hubs, modernization does not equal Westernization. U.S. report sees perils to America's tech future. News January 6, 2012 10:00 AM ET Computerworld - The ability of the U.S. to compete globally is eroding, according to a federal report released Friday that described itself as a "call to arms.
" The report, which has a strong emphasis on technology, warns in stark terms that "some elements of the U.S. economy are losing their competitive edge. " The report, titled the "The Competitiveness and Innovative Capacity of the United States," was prepared by the U.S. Department of Commerce, which said the report reflected "bipartisan priorities. " "This is a topic of pivotal importance," said Commerce Secretary John Bryson, in a statement. The report sees problems in many areas. It points out, for instance, that the U.S. ran a trade surplus in "advanced technology products," which includes biotechnology products, computers, semiconductors and robotics, until 2002.
Many of the warnings raised in the report may seem familiar. Despite that investment, the report sees cracks in research spending. Mapping The Future. Com: Consumer trends and insights from around the world. What's Next.