Water buckets and rocking chair become spiffy interactive art projects (video)
December 28, 2010 No Comment
Cameras and wands may be the game controllers du jour , but it seems there’s still room in the world for virtual reality experiences a bit more concrete — like these buckets, filled with water, that let their user physically paddle through a digital dreamscape. “Channels” uses a pair of flex sensors attached to plastic spoons to monitor the flow in each bucket as a projector throws the minimalist 3D environment up on a nearby wall. Meanwhile, “Cadence Chair” uses an antique rocking chair outfitted with an accelerometer to align ribbons of light, and if you do it in the right rhythm it plays a hidden video. Both are student projects from New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Project, and as you’ll see in videos after the break, both look pretty darn cool. We’re having this sudden urge to go back to school. Continue reading Water buckets and rocking chair become spiffy interactive art projects (video) Water buckets and rocking chair become spiffy interactive art projects (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 22:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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The Florida International baseball player with a record-setting 56-game hitting streak has been charged with rape in the Bahamas, court officials in the islands’ capital said Monday. (Dec. 27)
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Ivorians unevenly followed a general strike aimed at pressuring their incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo to step down, largely sticking to the same fracture lines that marked the West African nation’s civil war eight years ago. (Dec. 27)
Continue reading …Mercedes Terminal Mode partnership comes to fruition with internet-connected 2012 C-Class
December 28, 2010 No Comment
Last year Nokia made something of a telematics coup , partnering with just about every major European manufacturer and doing everything it could to get its Terminal Mode in-car smartphone integration into more autos. Mercedes was one of those partners and now we’re getting a glimpse of the result in the new C-Class. Merc has made some minor exterior updates to the car (not necessarily for the better, in our opinion), but on the inside comes an updated Mercedes COMAND infotainment system that, for the first time, offers full internet access. Using Terminal Mode the car interacts with a smartphone to provide the data, allowing dashboard surfing (while stationary) and the transmission of Google Maps points and directions right to the vehicle. There’s also Bluetooth for streaming your tunes through the car’s sound system and a USB port in the armrest to keep things charged while you decimate that slab. PR is below if you’re looking for more details, or you can just wait for our impressions when we get to Detroit in a few weeks. Continue reading Mercedes Terminal Mode partnership comes to fruition with internet-connected 2012 C-Class Mercedes Terminal Mode partnership comes to fruition with internet-connected 2012 C-Class originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Photo: Tambako the Jaguar / CC There was once a time when seals thrived in the cold waters of the Baltic sea, near the coast of Poland, but fishermen in the region didn’t appreciate the competition. For decades, they drove away and killed thousands of seals until eventually there were none to be found. Now, after almost 50 years of absence in these waters, the animals are finally makin… Read the full story on TreeHugger
Continue reading …I am shocked, shocked to hear that security conditions in Afghanistan have, in fact, been deteriorating over the past year and are not, in fact, improving. The Wall Street Journal was able to view two confidential “residual risk accessibility” maps, one compiled by the U.N. at the annual fighting season’s start in March 2010 and another at its tail end in October. The maps, used by U.N. personnel to gauge the dangers of travel and running programs, divide the country’s districts into four categories: very high risk, high risk, medium risk and low risk. In the October map, just as in March’s, nearly all of southern Afghanistan—the focus of the coalition’s military offensives—remained painted the red of “very high risk,” with no noted improvements. At the same time, the green belt of “low risk” districts in northern, central and western Afghanistan shriveled. The U.N.’s October map upgraded to “high risk” 16 previously more secure districts in Badghis, Sar-e-Pul, Balkh, Parwan, Baghlan, Samangan, Faryab, Laghman and Takhar provinces; only two previously “high risk” districts, one in Kunduz and one in Herat province, received a safer rating. I am confident that General “Super Dave” Petraeus will have a good explanation why his “population-centric” counterinsurgency operations, featuring more frequent and powerful air attacks, have not been working. It must be the fault of those dirty hippies and media reporters not backing the troops.
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ABIDJAN – Fears of renewed fighting in Ivory Coast grew yesterday following a threat from west African neighbours to force out incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo if he does not soon heed international calls to step down. West African leaders are giving Mr Gbagbo an ultimatum this week to step aside, though he has shown no interest in doing so since the demand was made on Friday. While doubts exist over whether the region could carry out such a military operation, followers of…
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We don’t know much about it yet, but it’s looking like we might be getting a taste of 3D on the go after all at CES . We’d hoped it would be with Nintendo’s 3DS , but that report turned out to be a bust , and now LG is apparently going to pick up the slack with a new mobile digital TV that has a 3D display. We know virtually nothing about the set at this point, but we’re thinking it will be glasses-free and are speculating that, after its appearance in Vegas next week, it’ll never be seen in the US again. LG looks set to unveil mobile 3DTV at CES originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 27 Dec 2010 20:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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By Mike Luckovich Related Entries December 26, 2010 Let’s Not Spin the Civil War December 21, 2010 Haley Barbour’s Civil Rights Airbrush
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The overuse of antibiotics can lead to drug-resistant superbugs, so it’s cause for concern to the folks at Johns Hopkins’ Center for a Livable Future that the vast majority of bug-killing drugs aren’t even consumed by sick humans. Center for a Livable Future via Wired : In accordance with a 2008 amendment to the Animal Drug User Fee Act, for the first time the FDA released last week an annual amount of antimicrobial drugs sold and distributed for use in food animals. The grand total for 2009 is 13.1 million kilograms or 28.8 million pounds. I found the stories covering this revelation interesting, but they did not convey the whole picture. It is important to understand how this amount compares to the total available for people. So, I decided to find out for myself and contacted the FDA for an estimate of the volume of antibiotics sold for human use in 2009. This is what a spokesperson told me: “Our Office of Surveillance and Epidemiology just finished an analysis based on IMS Health data. Sales data in kilograms sold for selected antibacterial drugs were obtained as a surrogate of human antibacterial drug use in the U.S. market. Approximately 3.3 million kilograms of antibacterial drugs were sold in year 2009. OSE states that all data in this analysis have been cleared for public use by IMS Health, IMS National Sales Perspectives™.” 3.3 million kilograms is a little over 7 million pounds. As far as I can determine, this is the first time the FDA has made data on estimates of human usage public. Below is a breakdown of the FDA numbers prepared by my colleague, Dr. David Love, also from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future, which compares the estimated amounts of human usage with food animal usage. Read more Related Entries December 26, 2010 Let’s Not Spin the Civil War December 21, 2010 Haley Barbour’s Civil Rights Airbrush
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