Augmente Reality iPhone inside iPhone

Is there anything better to show off your iPhone than presenting your friends a virtual iPhone inside your real iPhone?

But wait, it doens't stop there. Just look at their faces when you show them the augmented reality iPhone really does work just like the real one!

(Sure, it's just "make believe", but the illusion will surely awe anyone watching it. :)

Check the video:


via [Engadget]

10 Scientific Magic Tricks

How about using your secret magic on your frinds and family? Put science to good use by doing these simple - yet effective - science tricks that will puzzle lots of people out there.



via [Richard Wiseman]

Bluetooth Keyboard driver for iPhone

It is now possible to use a bluetooth keyboard to type on your iPhone (provided you have a jailbroken iPhone.)

The App is available on Cydia and, although not free, should come in handy for thousands of users hoping to type in their iPhones with a more confortable keyboard.
(Don't get me wrong - the iPhone virtual keyboard is excellent - but, imagine how you can type an entire essay on the go, just by taking a small portable bluetooth with you.)

Avoiding Camera Loss

There's nothing worst than reaching for your brand new digital camera (or even your old one) and figuring out you've forgotten it somewhere!

Well... here's a tip that can potentially save you from such a disastrous situation, and it involves nothing more than leaving some pictures in your memory card in order to "communicate" with the person finding it.

Definitely a must read, and "must-do" for everyone. :)

Light Tape - Electroluminescent Lighting

I know everyone is talking about LEDs, but that doesn't mean there aren't other kinds of interesting alternatives when it comes to decorative lighting. Check these amazing electroluminescent tapes from Light Tape.

The applications are only bounded by your imagination:



And if you want to know more about it, you have a lot of tutorial videos available:

Architectural Projection Mapping

Some more excellent examples of what you can do with large-scale projection mapping.


Battle of Branchage from seeper on Vimeo.



Why wonder what Jean Michel Jarre would have accomplished if he had this kind of stuff available back in the days. ;)

5 Innovations for the next 5 Years

IBM revelaed their 5 in 5, five predictions that they believe will come true in the next five years.



In short:

1. Better health management
2. Intelligent Buildings
   
3. Electric Vehicles
4. Better Water management
5. Increased public safety
   

Notion Ink Tablet

This sure would be a great Christmas present - but unfortunately is scheduled to show up in January.
This Smart Pad from Notion Ink has a very interesting spec list; the most important one being the fact it uses one of those multi-mode miraculous displays from pixel Qi.

But, as the screen alone is not enough, this smartpad relies on a powerful nVidia TEGRA to run thing smoothly, and has all the assortment of extras you'd expect on such a device: accelerometers, proximity and light sensors, water sensores (an water proof tablet, that would be too much! :), digital compass, GPS, WiFi, bluetooth, 3mp camera, HD video and Flash hardware acceleration, and more.

Thanks to the Tegra chip and the Pixel Qi display, battery life goes through the roof: 48h in standby, 8h playing Full HD video, 16h browsing the net through WiFi.

Now we just have to wait and see how much this incredible tabler will cost.

OLPC XO-3

Even if they have yet to achieve their $100 goal for the current OLPC computer, Nicholas Negroponte is already planning ahead for a future tablet OLPC, the XO-3.

Instead of using a keyboard, this will be a pure Tablet based computer focusing on nothing but the screen.

One of things I particularly like to see mentioned, is that this device would be hermetically sealed, making it dust/dirt/water-proof. That's one thing I think most manufacturers are currently forgetting. Sure I can have an iPhone... But if I happen to be on the street, with rain pouring down, you can bet I won't take it out unless I feel it's "safe".
With mobile devices, we sure need to be able to use them in all.weather circumstances. And I like that about this XO-3.

Moving on, this OLCP would have a target price of $75.

Of course, none of this is real for the moment, and if you were to build such a device... it would certainly cost a lot more than $75. But, we often need "science-fiction" to lead the way and show manufacturers what type of devices we want for the next couple of years.

Let's just hope that by 2012, we can indeed have such a device. And this time... let's hope they can actually build it for the estimated $75 price.

Air Dexterity Robot

When we talk about robotic object manipulation most people will immediately think of mechanical graspers. But... are you aware of what can be accomplished using nothing but air?

I challenge you to watch the following video and not be amazed by these "blowing" robots. :)



Sure it won't replace "real" robot fingers, but it's impressive nonetheless.

Google Browser Size

Here's one more tool every web designer will want to keep in his bookmark collection: Google's Browser Size.

This web tools allows you to quickly figure out which parts of your site are immediately visible to your visitors, and which parts require scrolliing. Best of all, there's no download involved: it's all web based. :)

PAPERduino

While attending Codebits I came across a very interesting project by Guilherme Martins: PAPERduino.

Considering that the PCB is one of the most "troublesome" aspects of building your own Arduino - unless you opt to buy a ready-to-assemble kit - Guilherme had the excellent idea: why not bypass the PCB completely and use paper and cardboard instead?

The PAPERduino thus becomes one of the easiest and cheapest methods to build your own Arduino.

Considering you'll soon be able to print electronic components on paper using nanotube ink I don't think it's too far-fetched to think of a time when you'll be able to print all your electronics in a similar way.

Upgrade your Laptop drive with an SSD

If you have a new (or aging) laptop and won't stand any longer for the hard drive spinning around while you wait for an application to launch: why not replace it for an SSD?

That's what I convinced one more friend to do, and the chosen model was the 80GB Intel X25-M. If cost is an issue, you can find cheaper models (like the new 64GB Kingston SSDs that show around for under 120 euros.)

If you want a detailed analysis, check out this Anandtech article about the X25-M.

... but it's time to get back to work:

Replacing your laptop hard drive is often just a matter of flipping it over and accessing the hard drive compartment. But as always, in my case, my friend's Sony Vaio forced us to dissamble the case and keyboard in order to gain access to it.

He also took the chance to upgrade to Windows 7. Win7 is the first OS from Microsoft that properly recognizes SSD and configures itself accordingly. Unneeded services like automatic defrag and indexing are automatically disabled (if you're using an older Windows version, be sure to disable it yourself.)
There are also some other advanced issues like partition alignment; but you can google around for it - I'll assume that if you're willing to spend money on an SSD, you'll also be running the latest OS version you can get.

Once installed, you can immediately notice the difference. Booting up the OS takes under 20 seconds. All the tiny pauses we grew accustomed to endure are now gone (making us notice just how much time we had to wait before.)
You can actually continue to work on your laptop while a virus scan or other disk intensive operation is running!

The only issue was that his Sony Vaio comes with two graphic cards: one Intel for "low power operation", and one Nvidia Go 7600 for "performance".) Sony doesn't seem to have Windows 7 64bits drivers... and trying to install either drivers results in failure - so, I'm yet to figure out to solve this issue (and once again leaving me with a really bad impression of Sony.)

But, even with just a generica graphic card, the SSD benefits can be seen and felt at every key stroke, at every mouse click. Thing just "happen" without any delays.
This is indeed one of the things everyone should experience to see the difference.

What about your old hard drive? Well... my suggestion is buying an external USB HDD case (around 10 euros) and using it as a backup drive for your data.

3D Gesture Recognition from MIT

The MIT is a place where we can find lots of interesting projects, and today I'll show you a revolutionary 3D gesture recognition system.

To solve the problems associated with existing technologies, which are either too bulky or have problematic work areas, this project from MIT uses the LCD screen itself as a 3D camera to capture your gestures.

The screen toggles working modes at high frequency, making it look just like any other LCD screen to the user - but allowing snapshots to be captured simultaneously for fractions of a second.

This type of technology is so new that there isn't any such screen yet. They had to build their prototype using regular video cameras for now - just to prove it will work.

When this device becomes real, it will be the holy grail in gesture and motion capture: a thin screen that can detect your gestures in the 3D space in front of it without any drawback.

Stantum Multitouch

Remember Stantum? They made an impressive demo, using a seemingly uninteresting resistive touchscreen, combined with their "secret sauce" ingredient: software.

Now they're back, showing how the same technology can be applied to PCs instead of MIDs and smartphones.

Merging Duplicated Contacts in Gmail

At last! Google has finally decided to lend a hand in helping us keep our contacts in order. You can now merge duplicate contacts at the press of a single button.

... go press it and see how many contacts it saves you. :)

The State of Computing

Couldn't resist sharing this xkcd comic that pretty much sums it up:

Dell Mini 9 turns Double Screen Tablet

If you're tired of waiting for the fabled Apple Tablet, check this Harlequin double screen tablet:

A user took apart his Dell Mini 9 and modded it with a secondary screen where the physical keyboard used to be. The result is amazing, and clearly shows how good such a device would look if it were to be built by any manufacturer.

I just wonder how much this affects battery life (the screen is usually the "worst offender" when it comes to power usage, and two screens... you can do the math.)

... unless he uses one of those eco-friendly PixelQi screens! ;)

Synaptics Fuse

"Touch" interfaces are all around use, growing by the minute thanks to devices like the iPhone and Android. But there's still lots we can do to achieve a truly physical computing interface. The Synaptic concept, Fuse,was developed to remind us of that.

In the future, we'll be able to squeeze, flex, and tilt your devices and interact with it in a much more physical way (watch the following video.)

Google Phone - Nexus One

While most people were fooled to think the Google Phone turned into a number of different Android models, now we get to know there really is a Google Phone.
As a Christmas Gift, Google offered thousands of Google Phones to its employees and here are the first photos:

It's and HTC built device (codename Nexus One) but, as you can see, there's no HTC logo on it.

In the back, the sticker hides a QR code being waved around like a flag by the small Android robot..

It comes with Android 2.1, which brings more homescreens and some new 3D elements in the interface, as well as Google Maps Navigation and the new Google Googles.

We should soon begin to see some videos of it in action.

Google Goggles for Android

Everyone knows that searching on Google implies typing keywords or phrases somewhere.

On mobile devices things are changing, and you can now just use your voice to do the same searches on Google without worrying with keyboard or typing.

But now, this Google Goggles on the Android takes search to the next level: searching by images.

You just need to take a picture of any object or place, and instantly receive results related to it.

Ninite

If you're tired of directing your friends through the installation of all the essential free programs they "must have" on their brand new windows computers, you need to check out this ninite. Instead of going through the same old and boring steps of download/install/next/next/next/clicking dozens of times, you (preferably they) just need to select which programs they want and let ninite handle everything.

SpeedTracer for Google Chrome

If you work in web developmente, here's one tool you'll definitely want in your toolbox: SpeedTracer for Google Chrome.



This Chrome extension allows you to analyze any web page/web app performance in detail. You'll then be able to pinpoint any bottlenecks and make the necessary adjustments to improve user experience. A "must have" tool in any wev developer bag of tricks.

Norway UFO was Failed Missile Launch

What would you do if you looked up to the sky above and saw the following image?

No, these aren't special effects. In Norway thousands witnessed this strange phenomena - and, as you'd expect - thousand of explanations started flooding the news and internet.

But, relax... we're not being invaded by aliens - at least not yet. It was just a failed missile launch from a russian sub.

Here's a video explaining this strange event:

PhoneGap - Mobile Development Made Easy

One of the presentations I couldn't miss at Codebits was Brian LeRoux talking about PhoneGap.

I had heard about PhoneGap, but nothing like watching a live presentation about it. :)



So, what's this PhoneGap from Nitobi? Well, it basically allows you to quickly and easily develop for a number of mobile devices.
Imagine your boss comes around and asks you to code an App to run, not only on an iPhone (that would already be an hurdle for most non-iPhone programmers) but also Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry,  and Symbian?

Would you really be willing to waste a lot of time learning all those platforms? With PhoneGap you can easily develop your App using HTML and Javascript, and know that same single App will run on all those devices!
(For javascript they recommend XUI, which is quite compact and allows a better user experience on mobile devices.)

As mentioned by Brian right in the beginning of the talk, the objective of PhoneGap is to cease to be needed. Hopefully, as web standards evolve, all this stuff should be provided in a standardized way. Think of it just as an helper layer that allows you to do your work at this moment. (A bit like Google did when they launched Gears to allow offline use; something that now has been deprecated by HTML5 features.)

Until that happens, if you want to use geolocation, accelerometers, sound, vibration, and others... PhoneGap is the way to do it.



And if you need any help, be sure to check PhoneGap on Google Groups.

Optical Illusion

Once again, not everything we think we see is actually what's in fron of our eyes. This optical illusion is the perfect demonstration of how our color perception relies a lot on the surrounding colors. Check it out:



Not less impressive:

3D Mapping with LIDAR

Google's Streetview next step?

With these autonomous robots, anyone can now map a large area in 3D with laser precision.

The trick about these ROAMS is that they use a lower cost 2D LIDAR and a rotating mirror to do the job of the much more expensive 3D LIDAR systems. This means that they can drop the price from $100,000 to just about $6,000.

Truth be told, Google already uses LIDAR in their streetview vehicles, but I doubt they're capturing such accurate measurements as these one. But, who knows? Maybe a Lidar Mapped Streetview 3D is just around the corner! :)

Unigine Heaven 3D DX11 Benchmark

This Unigine Heaven Demo is a great demo that shows some of the new DirectX 11 features, such as tesselation.

With tesselation on, the graphic card can automatically fill in the "details" for low polygon count 3D models.

You can see it in action in the following video:




And the beautiful  Heaven demo itself:

Evoluce ONE - Surface Table

Little by little, these Surface tables are becoming increasingly popular and common. This Full HD 47" Evoluce ONE uses a "Integrated-Through-Screen-Optics" system allowing it to detect an unlimited number of simultaneous touches, has haptic feedback, and is Windows 7 compatible.

Now all we need is a nice price... so we can get one for our homes. :)

Photo Apps for iPhone

If you have an iPhone, here are some photo Apps you might want to keep handy.

Back from the days when polaroid shots had all the magic, there's now... Polarize.

This App allows you to simulate that old (but still effective) polaroid look, and even write your own text on it.

But, you're more interested in supernatural stuff and want to play a prank on some friends, nothing like the Ghost Capture app, that allows you to haunt your photos with ghostly images and spectres.

Multi-Monitor Setup in Ubuntu KDE

If you two or three monitors aren't enough for you, how about using a 6 monitor setup in your Ubuntu KDE, with full graphics acceleration and effects?

Sapo Codebits

Today is the first day of this year's Sapo Codebits in Lisbon, Portugal - which I will be attending for the first time.
(And considering it's open for a limited number of participants, I feel honored to be included.)

For 3 days, for 24h a day, the main theme will be programming and everything developer related, with countless  talks, presentations, and workshops. The hardest part is selecting which ones to attend...

So, for the next couple of days don't worry if I'm "away" - I'll try to keep you posted. :)

Avatar Augmented Reality

While we're counting down the days for James Cameron's Avatar premiere, we can't stop but be amazed by these augmented reality publicity stunts:

Lightpainting with the iPhone

Here's a tip for all you photographers out there: grab your iPhones and let your imagination run free!

Lightpainting with the iPhone - @naovouporai

And if you've never heard about this before, check out what lightpainting is all about.