Peak Geek

Geckskin

matt — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:17:29 +0000

Scientists have long studied geckos, fascinated by the amazing holding power of their feet and continuously attempting to replicate that with human technology. Well, we’re a step closer now thanks to researchers at the University of Massachusetts, who developed a pad that mimics the pads and tendons of a gecko’s feet, with the result able to hold hundreds of pounds to a smooth wall (~700lbs, to be more precise). The example they showed was a 42″ TV held only by this ‘geckskin’ material. Read more about it over at New Scientist.

Google AR Glasses

matt — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:10:02 +0000

The web is abuzz lately with rumors that Google is not only developing augmented reality glasses, but that they’ll actually be for sale later this year! Features are expected to include a camera and small display (obviously), though also a cellular data connection and multiple sensors (including GPS), for under $1k (closer to $500-600 is more likely). Information will supposedly be displayed in an augmented reality sort of view, overlaid into the wearer’s field of view, rather than be shown on a separate display off to the side. So at this point, it’s all just a bunch of rumors but one things for certain, AR is advanced at a fast pace and once the display technologies have reached a consumer level, expect a flood of apps to surface.

ESL Lightbulbs

matt — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:55:23 +0000

Vu1 has developed a new, energy-efficient lightbulb that’s a bit different….not like the LED and CFL bulbs you see on the shelves today. They’re using a technology known as Electron Stimulated Luminescence, or ESL for short. ESL bulbs emit electrons which hit a phosphor coating inside the bulb, which then emits light. Pretty simple in theory, and the result uses around 60% less energy than an incandescent bulb (and contains no mercury, unlike CFLs), at a reasonable price (approaching $10 once production ramps up). Compared to LED bulbs, it uses more energy and doesn’t last as long, but LED bulbs have had challenges getting good color reproduction, and the ESL bulbs might have an edge there. You can read more about it over at Vu1′s homepage, or check your local Lowes if you want to buy one to try out.

Object Removal in Photographs?

matt — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:15:08 +0000

So here’s the problem…you want to take a picture of a person in a public space, but all the strangers walking by keep cluttering up the image! The solution? Use a soon-to-be-released app from Scalado to just ‘exclude’ those random people from the picture. I’m not completely certain how the technology works, but believe it’s essentially taking multiple images of the same picture, so once it identifies an area that has changed (a person walking through the image), it has the data already for what should be behind that person. This video is a nice demonstration of how this technology could be used:

It’s easy to see how this can be useful for taking pictures, but think about taking this one step further. What if this technology were embedded in a realtime AR display? Imagine wearing AR glasses, and having a wearable computer essentially ‘filter out’ all the people from your field of view. Or, once you can do that, replacing them with abstracts. Maybe just floating blue misty shapes like ghosts, so you know there are people there but aren’t distracted by the details? At that point, the possibilities are endless and really just a matter of creative software implementation. Awesome.

Matterhorn Glass

matt — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:40:59 +0000

As a scotch drinker and mountain lover, I love this artistic glass concept from Tale Design in South Korea. Embedded in a relatively normal-shaped glass is a mountain-like protrusion, inspired by the Matterhorn. Tale Design has done some other creative glasses as well, such as this moon glass where the surface of the liquid changes as the level drops, and represents phases of the moon.

Water Shortages in the Forecast

matt — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:17:16 +0000

Water supplies in our country are not only facing pressure from an increasing population, but climate change is likely to make the problem worse. So bad in fact, that by 2050 more than one in three counties in the US could face either a high or extreme risk of water shortage. Most likely, this will affect southern and southwestern states, and the southern Great Plains states. Read more over at sciencedaily.

Smart Parking

matt — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 13:08:12 +0000

Finding a parking spot in a crowded city just got a whole lot easier! San Francisco has embedded magnetic sensors under 8200 parking spaces throughout the city, to detect the presence of a car, and has made this information available to all at the SFpark website. It doesn’t show individual spots, but gives a block by block status of congestion, with estimated number of spaces available in each, along with the parking rates for different times of day. Pretty cool! And yes, ‘there’s an app for that‘ too…

Solar power…from grass?

matt — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:58:42 +0000

Can we generate solar power from grass? Researchers at MIT think this might be a possibility. While efficiency is low, the real metric to look at is energy per unit cost. Watch the video below for some really interesting information on this.

Solar Power in the Developing World

matt — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:45:06 +0000

Watching the propagation of technology throughout our global society can be fascinating. Case in point, the telephone. First world telephone users started with hard wired phones, which transitioned to cordless phones (still using the wired infrastructure), and are only recently transitioning en mass to cell phones. In developing countries, the infrastructure for a wired phone system simply doesn’t exist, and is very expensive to install. These same countries are finding that cell phones are less expensive to deploy on a wide scale, and as a result these areas are incorporating phone technology into their lives at a different point in the cycle than first world citizens.

A similar technological lead-frogging is beginning to appear in energy. While first-world countries continue to burn fossil fuels and transmit that energy hundreds of miles through wires to the end users, the costs with building that infrastructure is making alternative energy, specifically solar, much more appealing to developing world citizens, where solar can be less expensive than the fossil fuel alternatives.

It’s a fascinating transition, and for more on this I recommend reading this article at climatecrocks.com.

Light-trapping nanoshells

matt — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 15:34:32 +0000

Scientists at Stanford are exploring an unusual method of increasing solar cell efficiency – they’re using hollow silicon spheres to help trap the light that would otherwise be reflected. Trapping the light in this manner allows more of it to ultimately be absorbed, increasing overall effectiveness. You can even stack up multiple layers of these tiny spheres to further improve efficiency. Hard to say if and when this will make it to the commercial market, but it does help show there’s a lot of research going into solar energy…a future without fossil fuels is an ever-increasing probability. (via Gizmag)