Personal Electronics Archives - Page 2 of 2

There’s a cool project over on Indiegogo now called StickNFind, that creates small bluetooth-enabled ‘tags’ you can attach to objects. A smartphone app can measure signal strength to approximate distance (it cannot tell you what DIRECTION the tag is in, though), which is nice, but what impressed me more was the ‘leash’ function and the ‘find it’ function.

The ‘leash’ will alert you on your phone when a tag has moved a set (approximate) distance away from your phone. I can see this being useful for kids in crowded areas, pets, etc.

The ‘find it’ function is pretty neat too. Imagine a tag out of range. When it is back within range, your phone will alert you. Lots of possible uses for that!

The campaign closes in 11 days, and they’ve already exceeded their funding goal…so time is limited if you want to get in on it. Check it out here.

It seems every hardware company is working on creating a better TV experience (Apple, Google, and Samsung being the big ones). Intel is now joining the mix with a set top box, but they’re encountering the same problem that has kept Apple’s TV in the labs instead of your living room. Namely, they are up against content owners who like things the way they are and don’t want to change. This ‘head in the sand’ approach is simply not going to work…technology will advance and change is inevitable. This is much like the music companies resisting change to their business model, until file sharing services like Napster came along and forced change. TV will eventually face similar pressure…if the TV content owners act now and partner with the tech companies, they can help shape the future of TV…rather than sit on the sidelines and watch it be shaped for them.

The Disney research lab in Pittsburgh released a cool demo video showing how any surface can be converted into a touch sensor. One of the coolest applications would be to use your skin to control an iPhone. Your body becomes the buttons…touch your palm with one finger for one action, two fingers for something different, touch the wrist for another action, you get the idea. Exciting possibilities here, check out the video:

If you’re more the DIY type, check out the video below that shows someone making their own version of this touch sensor. You can find instructions and details here.

(via Hack a Day)

Technology doesn’t so much change our lives, as much as our lives change as technology changes. In many countries, it’s an integral part of what we are today. This graphic from frugaldad.com does a nice job of showing some of the areas where new technologies are replacing the old (‘disruptive’ technology). For example, smartphones and tablets are making the traditional desktop PC obsolete.

It’s worth noting though, that while this technological evolution continues, the majority of the world is left out of much of it, though at the same time, the rapid evolution of technology allows others to leapfrog the first-world countries. Cell phones are a good example, where third-world telephone infrastructure is so sparsely deployed and unreliable that more people own cell phones than traditional land lines. Or in India, where solar is favored over coal. People in first-world countries can ride the wave of technological progress, while much of the world ends up on a different path, skipping ahead once technologies have reached certain price/performance points.

The infographic is pretty big, so check it out after the ‘more’ link.

Continue reading “Disruptive technologies” →

Broadcom has unveiled a new chip (the BCM4752) that can receive data from all four satellite navigation systems in orbit (GPS, GLONASS, SBAS, QZSS) to provide faster, more accurate results. Not only that, but it can also reference other radio signals, like wi-fi and Bluetooth, for example. Combine that with additional inputs from accelerometers, compasses, gyroscopes, and altimeters, and the result is an unprecedented ability to locate one’s exact position with potentially centimeter-level accuracy, even indoors.

Some people freak out about this ‘big brother’ like capability, but the reality is that this is providing incredible information to the user. It’s how that information ends up being used that may or may not be Orwellian; I see so much potential is this level of detail that I remain optimistic that developers can find a way to provide this service to users in a way that protects privacy.

Category: Personal Electronics

StickNFind – the evolution of smart ‘things’

Intel working on a TV solution, also

Transform anything into a touch sensor

Disruptive technologies

Centimeter-level location determination for portable electronics