Archive for the 'Recently Observed' Category

Skinput: The Reverse of VR

Forget immersing yourself into a computer generated reality.  It looks like in the very near future, computer reality is going to be generated on top of our outer reality.  And onto us.

This is the first new interface technology to actually fire my imagination in a long, long time.

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151 Million Gigabyte CompactFlash Cards?

The CompactFlash Association has announced their CF5.0 specification, which allows memory cards up to 144 petabytes.

That’s PETAbytes, which translates to 150,994,944 gigabytes.

Unfortunately the new Compact Flash specification only allows transfer speeds up to 32 megabytes per second, which means a full 144PB card would take about 153 years to transfer.

(from Michael Zhang at PetaPixel)

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iPad Nano

Heheh. Indeed. (Via EncyclopediaDramatica.com)

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Kindle vs. Tablet Computer? No.

I keep reading articles like this one:  Kindle Apps Won’t Beat Tablets

…and I finally am fed up with it.

The Kindle is not competing with the iPad (or whatever Apple is going to call its supposed tablet computer).

The Kindle is not intended to be a computer.

It’s a book.  A book.  BOOK.  Read my lips: BOOOOK.

I didn’t buy a Kindle to read email, play games, mess with Facebook, or do my bank statements. I wanted a simple reliable device with which I use to disappear into novels. I do not want it to do 1000 other things.

Why is this so hard for tech journalists to understand?

I’m sure an Apple iPad (or whatever) is going to be uber cool and do a zillion things.  It will also be a device, no doubt, you can use for reading.  But if it’s going to cost more than a Kindle 2 and have a battery life of less than a day, it’s not worth it to me.  I have a desktop computer, I have a laptop, I have an iPhone.  AND I have a Kindle, and I don’t use the Kindle to do anything that the other three does, nor do I ever want to.

It’s the one device I have that removes me from all those other things.  The Kindle is my escape.  If it does start doing all those other things, it will be ruined.

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NASA Low Noise, Electric VTOL Personal Air Vehicle

Real or not, this is definitely one groovy gizmo.

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Ion iType for the iPhone

Call me crazy, but I’ve been looking forward to this exact gizmo since I first replaced my last PDA with my first iPhone.

Ion's iType

Now all we need is a word processor on the iPhone that has true spell checking, and I’d be able to work on my novels on the go again without having to lug a laptop around.

Rumor has it that Microsoft’s Office for iPhone (if it really exists) is due to make an appearance about the same time this goes to market.

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Parrot AR.Drone : Flight Demo

My friend Dede sent this to me, saying, “This is so totally you.”

She’s right. This goes directly on my wish list.

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Hearing Aids

I find this Dutch army surveillance device from pre-WW2 so retro-funky that I actually want to put on a pair and try them out.

From ButDoesItFloat.com

See this and more images at ButDoesItFloat.com

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