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| These Contact Lenses Give You Superhuman Vision | |  Contact lens wearers can get a new perspective on their environment with the latest vision technology -- contact lenses that let the wearer focus on two fields of view at once. Wearers can keep an eye on a projected image while their surrounding scenery can also be looked at -- resulting in superhuman vision. The human eye on its own can only focus on one distance at a time. The contact lenses, however, will let two images be viewed at the same time. The projected image goes through the retina display, while the background image is still visible. And, while most of the world is fascinated with Google Glasses, the Pentagon is focused on getting a supply of these contacts, called iOptik. It recently ordered a supply from Innovega, the company that makes them. The Pentagon will reportedly use the technology to develop display screens akin to what Arnold Schwarzenegger's character wore in the movie Terminator. In addition to contact lenses, the company also makes glasses with projection images in the lenses, which it showed off at CES 2012. With this technology, the company said, glasses and lens wearers could view content from their mobile devices while still looking at the scenery around them. The technology will be available to the public in 2014. Futurist tech has been used to address a number of health concerns, as well as expand on the human body's natural capabilities. Would you wear these lenses? Tell us in the comments. |
| Explore Alien Planets With This Free App | | Friday, April 13, 2012 11:35 PM | Sam Laird |
|  Ever wonder what those planets orbiting far away stars are like? Well, now there's an app for that. The free Kepler Explorer app for iPhone and iPad allows users to explore some 2,000 planetary systems discovered by NASA's Kepler Mission. The Kepler Mission scans the Milky Way galaxy in search of Earth-size planets in the habitable zones of the stars they orbit. In short, it's laying the groundwork for finding other life-hosting planets. So far, the mission has found about 2,300 alien planet candidates in about 1,800 distant planetary systems. The Kepler Explorer app was developed by a team at the University of California, Santa Cruz and led by associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics Jonathan Fortney. Fortney says one goal of the app was too "keep information more on the lines of what we already know about planets," rather than root it in hypothetical guesswork. The app begins with a drop-down menu that lists all the planetary systems discovered by the Kepler Mission. You can then move a slider to show planets' orbits around their respective stars. By zooming in and navigating a given system, you're able to call up more information on specific planets. You can also show how a planet compares in size to its host star. When viewing planets, you can also play with different possible compositions of their body and atmosphere, using elements such as iron, rock, water and hydrogen to try out combinations consistent with the Kepler Mission's findings. Most of the planets found so far by the Kepler Mission are not hospitable to life. But, Fortney tells Mashable, some of the objects you can use the app on are potentially Earth-size temperate planets" -- meaning you could be playing around with some other beings' home. Fortney believes the Kepler Explorer app will appeal to a wide range of audiences. "There are certainly a lot of people who are very interested in astronomy," he says. "Astronomy is the science that the public keeps up with most, besides medicine." Will you check this app out? Let us know in the comments. Image courtesy University of California, Santa Cruz |
| LEGO Robots Used to Generate Synthetic Bones | | Friday, April 13, 2012 9:38 PM | PSFK |
|  Scientists from the University of Cambridge are using robotics from the LEGO Mindstorms robot set to help produce samples of synthetic bone tissue. The team uses hydroxyapatite-gelatin composites to create the synthetic bone, which has low energy costs and improved similarity to the tissues they are intended to replace. Synthetic bone can provide a vast array of innovative applications; from medical implants to building construction, but producing samples of bone can be an intensive and -- repetitive -- process. Daniel Strange, one of the PhD students working on the research, commented: "The great thing about the robots is once you tell them what to do they can do it very precisely over and over again -- so a day later I can come back and see a fully made sample." The LEGO Mindstorms robotic kit includes motors, sensors and microprocessors that can be programmed to perform basic tasks on repeat. The team used the kit to build cranes to dip the sample into one beaker of calcium and protein, rinse it in some water and dip it into another beaker of phosphate and protein -- this has to be done repeatedly to build up the compound. Google's Department of Engineering created a video of the Cambridge team's research to promote its international Science Fair competition, encouraging teenagers to engage with science. The video goes behind the scenes at the lab to show how the team develop the bone samples. |
| HTC Titan II: The Other LTE Windows Phone Is Big, Beautiful, Pricey [REVIEW] | | Friday, April 13, 2012 9:13 PM | Emily Price |
|  The HTC Titan II is HTC's first LTE Windows Phone, and one of just two LTE Windows Phones currently on the market. Debuting alongside the Nokia Lumia 900 on April 8th, the handset is HTC's followup to the original Titan, a massive Windows Phone the company debuted in late 2011. Under the hood, the Windows Phone Mango handset comes sporting a 1.5 GHz S2 Snapdragon processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 16GB of built-in storage. The phone has 800x480 Super LCD screen, and comes rocking a 1.3-megapixel froward-facing camera for video chatting as well as a massive 16-megapixel rear-facing cam. However, it's also $100 more with a new contract than the Lumia, its only LTE Windows Phone competition. So is the HTC Titan II worth the extra cash? Design One of the first things you'll notice about the Titan II is that it's huge. The phone measures 5.2 in. tall and 0.39 in. thick. The Titan's curved design makes it easy to hold (even for medium-sized hands), but if you're used to toting around something smaller like an iPhone then the Titan will definitely be an adjustment. But if you have trouble viewing content on smaller screens, the Titan II offers a decent amount of screen real-estate that's easy to read and interact with. Display The phone has a 4.7 in. touchscreen, which is on the smartphone high end. The Nokia Lumia 900 has a 4.3 in. screen. Unfortunately, the resolution on the Titan's screen is just 800x480 -- exactly the same as the Lumia and the original Titan. The screen resolution is a limitation of Windows Phone, which currently can't support higher res displays. But it stands out on the Titan II's gigantic screen a little more than it does on smaller displays like the Lumia. Zoomed-in text on the screen can often look pixelated and jagged, and video and photos look less sharp than they do on some other handsets running competing operating systems. Camera The 16-megapixel rear-facing camera is where the HTC Titan II really shines against the competition. 16 megapixels is larger than many of the point-and shoot cameras out there, and the phone's dedicated camera shutter button can make you feel like you've got a traditional camera in your hand rather than your smartphone. The Titan II's built-in camera app comes loaded with a ton of scene modes and the kind of settings you might find on a point-and shoot. There's a great panorama mode which allows you to shoot a panoramic shot by simply panning your phone across a scene. Less exciting is the Titan II's video-capturing abilities. The handset is only capable of recording 720p video, rather than the 1080p available on much of the competition. Sure, 720p video is by no means horrible. But it's a definite downside if you're looking to play your videos back later for friends on a television. Windows Phone If you haven't tried out Windows Phone, you should go check out a handset at your favorite mobile retailer -- even if you're not in the market for a new phone. The OS is clean, easy to use and perfect for smartphone newbies, as well as anyone looking for a simple no-nonsense smartphone solution. Even though the Titan II has a single-core processor (another limitation of Windows Phone), the OS was able to zip smoothly along. App support for Windows Phone is considerably smaller than that available for iOS and Android, but we were able to find most of the apps we were looking for in the store. Their design meshed well with Windows Phone's Metro interface. What's Missing Microsoft is very strict about the requirements for Windows Phone devices. They want to make it so you're looking at many of the same specs from handset to handset. One important thing Windows Phone currently doesn't support, besides high-resolution displays, is microSD expansion. The Titan II comes with 16GB of built-in storage. After mandatory installs, however, you're looking at a little over 13GB of available storage on the device for your apps, photos and videos. If you're someone who's going to be snapping a ton of pictures with the handsets 16-megapixel camera, or recording 720p videos you're going to eat up all that storage space pretty quickly -- forcing you to store your content in the cloud rather than on the device itself. Worth the Buy? We really enjoyed the HTC Titan II, and would definitely rank it as one of the best Windows Phone handsets currently available. Unfortunately, its $199 price tag makes the handset twice the price of the LTE Nokia Lumia 900 (also on AT&T) which offers a superior body design and screen for half the cost. What do you think about the HTC Titan II? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. |
| Retro Digital Cinema Camera Is a Hit on Kickstarter [VIDEO] | | Friday, April 13, 2012 4:52 PM | Alissa Skelton |
|  Meet the Digital Bolex D16, a small hand-held video camera inspired by the cinema-quality Bolex cameras popular in the 1960s and '70s. The Digital Bolex mimics 16mm film, which essentially provides independent filmmakers an affordable alternative to shoot high-quality, raw images that aren't compressed. The project has raised more than $262,000 on Kickstarter.com. The first 100 backers will receive the Bolex D16 for $2,500 -- a $800 discount, says inventors Elle Schneider and Joe Rubinstein. The Kickstarter fund will help the creators develop the cutting-edge camera technology further. "Think of the difference between a blocky, low-res JPEG image you find online, and a smooth high-res photographic print in a gallery," Rubinstein said on the Kickstarter page. "That's the difference between compressed, normal video footage and raw. It's a big difference." The Digital Bolex D16 prototype shoots completely in raw format files. The filmmaker can then adjust color balance, contrast, white balance and more without diminishing the quality of images. The camera has a side crank that is easily programmable to control frame rates or other camera functions. The D16 offers high-quality resolution (comparable to the HD-quality of the new iPad). Its creators claim the D16 is the first truly cinema camera featuring RAW, uncompressed video recordings. The camera stores data on dual CF cards. "There is no camera on the market that offers affordable RAW quality to consumers and independent filmmakers," Rubinstein said. Would you back or purchase a Digital Bolex D16? Tell us in the comments. Image courtesy of Kickstarter, Joe Rubinstein |
| RIM Almost Let Other Phones Use the BlackBerry Network [REPORT] | | Friday, April 13, 2012 4:36 PM | Pete Pachal |
|  Research in Motion was on the verge of adopting a strategy that would have opened the company's BlackBerry network to competing phones before a change in management led to its downfall, a new report claims. According to Reuters, former RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie wanted to allow wireless carriers in North America to use RIM's proprietary network to provide data service to non-BlackBerry phones. The idea was for carriers to leverage the rel atively inexpensive BlackBerry data plans -- which would only allow basic social networking and instant messaging -- to entice users to upgrade from low-end "feature" phones to smartphones. However, the report says talks with the carriers led to trouble in RIM's boardroom. Soon, both of RIM's CEOs were out, replaced by the current chief, Thorsten Heins. The plan stalled, and Heins appears to have abandoned it, pinning RIM's future solely on the success of its own platform -- and the soon-to-come BlackBerry 10 phones in particular. SEE ALSO: RIM Doesn't Need BlackBerry 10 - It Needs a Time Machine BlackBerry phones use both RIM's network as well as the carriers' network. RIM's network is extensive, and the company operates data centers in key locations. By compressing and encrypting much of the data that runs through the RIM network, BlackBerry phones tend to tax their data plans significantly less for everyday operations like instant messaging or Twitter updates. For a large number of people, that's exactly what they want to do with their phones. According to statistics from comScore, 64.2 million people use social networks on their phones, with more than half of them doing it "almost every day." Balsillie's strategy would have presumably opened up a new source of revenue for RIM, and would have created a kind of in-between category of cellphone: something better than a feature phone, but not as versatile as a full smartphone, complete with multimedia apps like Netflix and Angry Birds. But Heins took over, dropped the idea, and Balsillie resigned from the company's board shortly thereafter. What do you think of RIM's almost-plan? Would it have been a good strategy, or was the new CEO right to kill it? Sound off in the comments. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, franckreporter |
| Apple Releases Update to Remove Flashback Trojan | | Friday, April 13, 2012 4:25 PM | Christina Warren |
|  Apple has issued a new software update that also serves to remove the most common variant of the Flashback Trojan. The update, which was released via Software Update on April 12, supersedes the previous software updates issued to patch the Java vulnerability that allowed malicious software to track users on more than 600,000 Macs. In addition to removing the most common variant of the malware from infected systems, the latest update also does its part to protect against future Java infections. As Apple's security notes describe: "This update also configures the Java web plug-in to disable the automatic execution of Java applets. Users may re-enable automatic execution of Java applets using the Java Preferences application. If the Java web plug-in detects that no applets have been run for an extended period of time it will again disable Java applets." The real-world effects of the Flashback Trojan are not really known, but the potential damage is very, very real. All Mac users are encouraged to update their systems immediately. Apple has been criticized for allowing the vulnerability in its branch of Java to go unpatched for such a long time. This allowed Flashback to evolve from a user-installed piece of malware into something that would self install if user's simply visited an infected web page. While we'll give the company credit for coming up with a solution that both removes the malware and helps protect against future attacks, this is also the sort situation that didn't have to happen. Apple advertises security as one of the key features of OS X -- and this is true -- but that doesn't mean that Macs are invulnerable from malware. It doesn't help when Apple-provided software is left out of date even after a vulnerability is found. If you haven't already, install the latest update on your Mac immediately. |
| Appetite for Mobile Access More Than Doubles Wireless Traffic | | Friday, April 13, 2012 3:48 PM | National Journal |
|  U.S. wireless data traffic grew by 123% from 2010 to 2011, from 388 billion megabytes to 866.7 billion MB, according to CTIA-The Wireless Association. The wireless lobbying group's survey found a 43% increase in the number of active smartphones and other wireless personal devices, from 78 million in 2010 to 111.5 million last year. "With almost 95% of these devices capable of transmitting wireless data, Americans' voracious appetite for anywhere and anytime mobile access is why the wireless industry needs more spectrum," the group said in a statement. Some other tidbits from the report: A 7% increase in wireless subscriber connections, from 311 million in 2010 to 331.6 million last year. Number of active data-capable devices: 295 million, up from 270 million in 2010. Wireless-enabled tablets, laptops and modems: 20.2 million, a 49% increase from Dec. 2010. Minutes of Use: 2.296 trillion in 2011, up just 2% from 2010. Average local monthly wireless bill (including voice and data service): $47.00, virtually unchanged from 2010. "Our survey shows yet again that we are choosing to have more than one wireless device, including smartphones, tablets and ereaders, which is why the wireless penetration rate is almost 105 percent," Steve Largent, president and CEO of CTIA, said in a statement. |
| 5 Mobile Apps for Seasonal Allergy Sufferers | | Friday, April 13, 2012 3:17 PM | Jeana Lee Tahnk |
|  With April showers, come May flowers and for many, May flowers also come with itchy eyes, runny noses, sneezing, and general pollen-induced misery. Seasonal allergies are on the way, like it or not. So, if you see the beautiful sights of spring through watery eyes, then these five mobile apps will help you better prepare for the upcoming season. |
| How Interactive Ebooks Engage Readers and Enhance Learning | | Friday, April 13, 2012 2:28 PM | UX Magazine |
|  The invention of the tablet PC has created a new medium for book publishing. Interactive books are everywhere, and have revolutionized the way people consume the printed word. With the recent software available to allow easy creation of interactive books and with the race to bring these products to market, there seems to be a more and more dilution of quality and a loss for the meaning of interactivity. When publishers create new ebook titles or convert a traditional printed book to a digital interactive ebook, they often miss the added value this new medium can provide. It’s important to understand the distinction between apps and ebooks, because it often confuses both publishers and consumers. It basically comes down to formats; apps are mostly native iOS or Android software, whereas ebooks are documents of a particular format, such as the open standards EPUB and Mobipocket (.mobi). And ebooks can be further distinguished from “enhanced ebooks,” which use formats such as ePUB3 for iBooks (Apple) and Kindle Format 8 (KF8) for Kindle Fire (Amazon). Ebooks were the first to appear on devices such as the Kindle, and have very limited interactivity. You are mainly able to flip the pages, search for content, or highlight words to see a dictionary definition. These devices also allowed font size to be increased to enable visually impaired readers enjoy books more easily. This gave publishers the unforeseen benefit of regaining a large population of users who couldn’t read printed books. Enhanced ebooks (ePUB3) are a new digital publication standard that allows easy integration of video, audio, and interactivity. I expect this format to advance the future of textbooks and other educational material. Future textbooks might be able to "read themselves" with audio narration, perhaps preventing students from actually reading. But the benefits outweigh the downsides; for example, the new text books might also offer the ability to make and share annotations without destroying the book, interactive self-tests throughout the chapters, and generally a much more enjoyable learning experience. Apple recently released iBooks Author, a free ebook creation software that lets anyone with a Mac to create iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books, etc. iBooks Author generates a proprietary format for books that will only be available for sale on Apple devices. Adobe has also made available a Digital Publishing Suite via InDesign for the iPad, Android, and Blackberry platforms. Mag+ and Moglue are two other independent publishing platforms that are worth mentioning. This video was released by Apple to promote the iBooks Author: Interactive ebooks is a category for apps designed specifically to utilize the powers of tablets to enable users to interact with the storyline in sight, sound, and touch. I like to think of interactive ebooks as an evolution of the printed book with added interactivity in order to create an experience beyond the printed format. Examples of interactive ebooks include pop-up book apps for kids, interactive travel guides that utilize the device GPS capabilities, cookbooks with built-in timers and video recipes, or any traditional book that now uses the tablet to enhance the experience with interactivity. Grimm's Rapunzel ~ 3D Interactive Pop-up Book On a touch device, interactivity is the ability to engage with the user interface, including the ways you move your fingers on the screen, the way you to select an app, or how you browse the web. Interactive ebooks are, by definition, an enhanced book-like experience that have a different core premise than other types of apps (with the exception of games perhaps). Whereas in most applications, interactivity focuses on menu navigation and interaction with the user interface as means to achieve a goal (view an image, find an address, read an email), interactive ebooks provide interaction with the content and storyline, and therefore offer a unique experience each time. A good example of is Richard Dawkins’ The Magic of Reality, where you interact with the storyline through interactive demonstrations and games that allow you to get hands-on with the science discussed in the book by, for example, letting you simulate the effects of heat, pressure, and gravity on different states of matter. The experience of interactive ebooks should not be confined to animations based on touch-and-response interaction, or merely flipping the page; when designing these books one must ask what is the enhanced experience—why to move from print to digital, and how to create value and fun. Interactivity for the Sake of Interactivity If a book app does not use interactivity in order to enhance the reading experience, it does not belong in the interactive ebook category. In the race to bring interactive books to market, some of the books have only featured very superficial interactivity—what I call “interactivity for the sake of interactivity”—where, for example, touching an image activates a simple animation such as making a butterfly fly, or a tree drop leaves to the ground. These interactive experiences do not add value to the story, and are therefore somewhat meaningless. There are a few exceptions where this type of interactivity is actually a success. For example. one of the first books published as an interactive app for the iPad was Alice in Wonderland. This book was a phenomenal success though offered nothing but eye-candy interactivity. When the app was first published, the reviews called it "a reinvention of reading” that made clever use of the accelerometer to make Alice grow as big as a house or to throw tarts at the Queen of Hearts and watch them bounce. Although these activities through the 52 pages of the book are fun, I think they distract from the actual story. The reason this book was such a success is due its having been published when the iPad was fairly new, and touch interactivity was still an exciting experience. Another book that was fairly successful at the time was The Pedlar Lady of Gushing Cross, which offers narrated animation with very basic interactivity, but was considered revolutionary when it came out because reading the story while seeing the animation unfold was definitely an enhanced experience to the young reader. However, this book did not offer any real value through interactivity, and might as well be classified as a short animated movie. The limited interactivity of seeing letters animate while you tilt the device was merely a gimmick, as you can see in the video below Cozmo's Day Off is an interactive ebook that was on the top-seller list for many months, and is packed with interactive elements that made it a great success. It contains over 100 unique audio and animated interactions. However, this app would be better characterized as a game for young kids and not as an interactive storybook because the story seems secondary to all the bells and whistles, and it’s written in style not intended for young audiences. But perhaps this is a case where interaction simply for the sake of interaction can be the whole point of a book. The image below shows all of the hotspots that trigger an animation sequence for one page of the book: Interaction for Value It is possible for interactivity to go beyond the superficial, to add value to the book and create an experience that would be impossible in print. Here are a few examples of such cases. Al Gore's Our Choice is a great example of how meaningful interactivity creates an engaging and fun learning experience. With clever use of interactive infographics, animations, documentary videos, and images, this book is a great example of what the future has in store for digital publishing. The Martha Stewart Cookies iPad app is a wonderful example of an interactive recipe book. Besides just offering great recipes, it also allows you to search recipes based on ingredients and cookie type to find the perfect cookie for your needs. For example, you might use the app’s search wheel (below) to look for bars and biscotti-type cookies with oatmeal as the main flavor component. This is a great added value because this type of interaction is unmatched in print. Paris: DK Eyewitness is probably the most complete travel guide you can find for the iPad. It features beautiful cutaways of buildings that can be explored by tapping and zooming, complete offline maps for all the central districts of the city, interactive city and park walks with “hotspots,” and extensive listings of the best sights relative to your current location. No more searching aimlessly for your location on a map or looking through index pages; the interactive app shows what's around you within walking distance, making the iPad a must-carry on in your travel bag for an experience unparalleled in a traditional travel guides. Bobo Explores Light is an educational experience for young adults. It puts a fully functional science museum in the palm of your hand, teaching you about lasers, telescopes, lightning, reflection, bioluminescence, and sunlight. This is great example of using simple interactivity to explain relatively complex topics through science experiments that you can actually perform on your iPad. Bobo, a friendly robot, serves as a guide, taking the young reader through space, land, and sea, to learn all about the science of light. In my book, Timor the Alligator, kids participate in the story by picking toothpaste and helping Timor brush his teeth. This story could not have been told in a printed book because, without the use of interactivity, young kids would not be able to visually understand that brushing actually helps keep a clean mouth. The simple process of choosing a toothbrush, adding toothpaste, and brushing Timor’s teeth until they turn white serves as an educational experience for preschoolers and toddlers reading the book. With the Numberlys app, kids (and adults) learn about the alphabet through a series of fun interactive games. This book probably has the most spectacular visuals I’ve seen to date. Its aesthetic is inspired by Fritz Lang’s silent film, Metropolis, so the app offers a unique cinematic experience and gameplay to engage users to learn about the (fictitious) "origin of the alphabet." As you can see from these examples, interactive ebooks are no longer just about a touch-to-animate type of interactivity, nor simply the touch interface controls. Rather, they are about adding value through interactivity by using the full capabilities of a touch device to engage the user and enhance the learning and reading experience. These engaging experiences are what I call a true reinvention of reading. |
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