Zoom-in on your coffee

Canon was giving away these coffee mugs at the Winter Olympics press center.

All Surface touch screen

Type a letter on your table. Browse through through pictures on the bathroom door. Just to give you an idea of what Light Touch could do for you. It's an interactive projector that lets you transform any flat surface into a touch screen.


In geek speak - Light Touch™ has Holographic Laser Projection (HLP™) technology inside which creates bright, high-quality video images in WVGA resolution. Integrated infrared sensors detect motion and turn the projected image into a 10.1″ virtual touch screen, so the user can control the projector and interact with applications simply by touching the image.

For the rest of you, the projector allows you to interact with data on any flat surface, much like you would on an iphone screen.

The Yogic Light Bulb

Jeff Leiberman's tribute to the levitating gurus of the Himalayas. Enlightment.
light bulb is a levitating yet powered lightbulb. It will float stably in midair and remain on for years without any physical contact, charging, or batteries. Ironically, with the levitation and wireless power circuitry both on, this entire package still consumes less than half the power of an incandescent bulb.
This is not a trick or a photoshop manipulation. The bulb and the casing contain hidden circuitry [shown in figures] that uses electromagnetic feedback to levitate the bulb roughly 2.5" from the nearest object, and uses coupled resonant wireless power transfer to beam power from the housing into the bulb itself.

This mouse moves on an eye ball

Look up to scroll. Blink to click. It's not a page out of a sci-fi movie, rather one out of the instruction manual of i-contact. (don't miss the pun) A mouse that fits right over your eye ball, just like a contact lens.

Chariot Skates

Testing 1st samples from new moulds in Sydney & China from Chariot Skates on Vimeo.

Chariot Skates. It's what happens when a unicycle collides into each leg of a rollerblade.

Water is good for the eyes.

Chanced upon this article in the Guardian about Josh Silver and his vision (their pun, only borrowed by me) of making the world's poor see. And like any cost effective model, it started with eliminating the middle man. In this case the optician. Take out his fine tuning cost and you can make a pair of spectacles a lot more affordable.
So who will do the tuning then? Well Josh Silver answered that with a question. What if a pair of glasses could be "tuned" by the wearer him/herself to correct his/her vision?
This professor of physics at the Oxford University, then found the answer to this question in a simple principle of optics - The thicker the lens, the more powerful it is. And in a simple marvel of nature - Liquid is a natural magnifier. After that, it was as clear as water. Inside the tough plastic lens of the frame are two clear, circular sacs that can be filled with fluid. The volume of the fluid can be controlled by syringes attached to each arm of the frame.
The wearer adjusts the fluids levels to suit his/her vision. And when one reaches the desired clarity, the sacs are sealed by twisting a small screw and the syringes removed.
His glasses have already found their way to about 15 countries, and about 30,000 of them are already perched on noses there. But retd-Prof. Silver has his sights set far higher. He's looking at India through his fluid filled glasses. By next year, he and his team plan to launch a trial where they hope to find at least a million noses to house their visionary product.
With a target cost of a dollar a piece, the economies of scale that an India and China can add to the pricing formula can definitely make it a reality. Add to that the simplicity of the product that allows it to be mass-produced and not custom-made to vision and one could see the pricing being pulled even lower.
But while he can see a bright future for his product (and for its users), he also sees a lot of scope for improvement. The clunky size and design, being the most pressing one. But Silver is optimistic about being able to make it as delightful to look at, as it is to look though.

Wheel of change

Conceived and developed by the the SENSEable City Lab for the Kobenhavns Kommune, the Copenhagen Wheel would have debuted on December 15th at the COP15 United Nations Climate Conference. If you haven't heard about it (I hadn't), it's probably because all murmurs of approval must have drowned under the heated debates at the conference and the loud protests on the streets.
While the wheel may not become a missionary for the environment (yet), converting the heathen motorists to religiously start cycling to whereever they can; but it definitely takes cycling to its next generation. The Nike Plus equivalent for cyclists; it allows you to send and store information in your smart phones, mapping pollution levels, traffic congestion and road conditions in real time. While the wheel itself allows you to capture the energy dissipated while cycling and braking and use it when you feel your energy levels dipping.
"SENSE AND SUSTAINABILITY
Controlled through your smart phone, the Copenhagen Wheel becomes
a natural extension of your everyday life. You can use your phone to unlock and
lock your bike, change gears and select how much the motor assists you.
As you cycle, the wheel’s sensing unit is also capturing your effort level and
information about your surroundings, including road conditions, carbon monoxide,
NOx, noise, ambient temperature and relative humidity. Access this data
through your phone or the web and use it to plan healthier bike routes,
to achieve your exercise goals or to meet up with friends on the go.
You can also share your data with friends, or with your city - anonymously
if you wish – thereby contributing to a fine-grained database of
environmental information from which we can all benefit."