The Leap: Gesture control like Kinect, but cheaper and much higher resolution It seems Minority Report-style computer interfaces might arrive a whole lot sooner than we expected: A new USB device, called The Leap, creates an 8-cubic-feet bubble of “interaction space,” which detects your hand gestures down to an accuracy of 0.01 millimeters — about 200 times more accurate than “existing touch-free products and technologies,” such as your smartphone’s touchscreen… or Microsoft Kinect. Before you read any further, watch the video below. It’s really rather awesome — and apparently the video is footage of a real The Leap unit, rather than a computer rendering (you know a device is serious when the The is part of the product name). You will also notice that it doesn’t only detect hand movements and gestures — you can use objects, such as a pen or chopsticks, or, assuming software support, your favorite pet. Now, having watched the video, you probably have a few questions. In practice, I have some doubts about the actual usability of Leap.
One Per Cent: Touché brings touch control to everyday things Jacob Aron, technology reporter Forget smartphones or tablets - the future of touch control could be doorknobs, furniture or even your own body. Researchers at Disney Research in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, have created Touché, a system that can detect a variety of touch gestures on everyday objects. It works thanks to capacitive sensing, in which an electrical signal passing through the object changes when touched by a conductive material, such as a human finger. Using multiple frequencies allows the system to distinguish between a single finger, multiple fingers, a full-hand grasp and many other touch gestures. The researchers say Touché could be used to create smart doorknobs that unlock when grasped in a certain way or allow tables and chairs to sense the position of people using them.
10 Futuristic Materials Lifeboat Foundation Safeguarding Humanity Skip to content Switch to White Special Report 10 Futuristic Materials by Lifeboat Foundation Scientific Advisory Board member Michael Anissimov. 1. Aerogel protecting crayons from a blowtorch. This tiny block of transparent aerogel is supporting a brick weighing 2.5 kg. Aerogel holds 15 entries in the Guinness Book of Records, more than any other material. Carbon nanotubes are long chains of carbon held together by the strongest bond in all chemistry, the sacred sp2 bond, even stronger than the sp3 bonds that hold together diamond. “Metamaterial” refers to any material that gains its properties from structure rather than composition. We’re starting to lay down thick layers of diamond in CVD machines, hinting towards a future of bulk diamond machinery. Diamonds may be strong, but aggregated diamond nanorods (what I call amorphous fullerene) are stronger. Transparent alumina is three times stronger than steel and transparent. inShare28 Materials
Les téléphones du futur auront une sensibilité à fleur de peau - Si les écrans résistifs sont de plus en plus remplacés par des écrans capacitifs, le futur pourrait bien choisir d'afficher les informations directement sur votre peau. L’université Carnegie Mellon et Microsoft travaillent ensemble sur des écrans tactiles à fleur de peau. Leur système, baptisé Skinput, est capable de reconnaître sur quelle partie de votre corps vous avez tapoté en fonction du son émis par la peau, un muscle ou un os. Cette technologie pourrait être utilisée pour les jeux, mais aussi comme mode de saisie alternatif pour un téléphone ou un ordinateur. Donnez leur encore un tout petit peu de temps, et on pourra vraiment parler à notre main.
Life and Incredible Adventures of Optimus Keyboards Japan to unveil world’s first 3D printing photo booth Otome 3D compnay will open the world's first 3D printing photo booth in Japan. The world’s first 3D printing photo booth, creating life-like miniature photos, is set to be unveiled at the Eye of Gyre exhibition in Japan. A Japanese company known as Omote 3D is planning to offer the 3D photo printing service at the Eye of Gyre exhibition that will be held in Tokyo's Harajuk. According to the 3D Focus, the visitors who intend to have this 3D photo of themselves, will have to be scanned in a booth. There, the visitors will have their bodies scanned into a computer as they will be required to hold a certain pose for 15 minutes. Then the machine will display their statuette on the 3D color printer depicting not only the features, but the basic textures of clothing and hair.