The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

prostheticknowledge:

Prototype Real / Digital Info Interface System

Using projection and gestures to create interactive relationship with information - video embedded below:

Fujitsu Laboratories has developed a next generation user interface which can accurately detect the users finger and what it is touching, creating an interactive touchscreen-like system, using objects in the real word.

“We think paper and many other objects could be manipulated by touching them, as with a touchscreen. This system doesn’t use any special hardware; it consists of just a device like an ordinary webcam, plus a commercial projector. Its capabilities are achieved by image processing technology.”

Using this technology, information can be imported from a document as data, by selecting the necessary parts with your finger.

More at DigInfo here

RELATED: This is very similar to a concept developed in 1991 called ‘The Digital Desk’ [link]

(via kenobi-wan-obi)

rcruzniemiec:

Nebula 12 Light Fixture

The Nebula 12 is a concept developed by Micasa LAB, Zürich. Using meterological data from MetOff the Nebula forms to represent outside weather.

(via scinerds)

biologylair:

The “vampire” bacterium Micavibrio aeruginosavorus (yellow), leeched to and sucking nutrients from a Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium (purple), surrounded by dead P. aeruginosa (gray) cells.

According to research at the University of Virginia, this impressive vampire-like bacteria could serve as a powerful natural antibiotic amidst rapidly evolving drug-resistant bacterial diseases such as tuberculosis. Micavibrio aeruginosavorus is unique in that it can survive entirely on a “diet” of certain bacteria, rather than drawing nutrients from its environment. The bacteria is also “so selective a feeder, it is harmless to the thousands of beneficial bacteria that dwell in the general environment and in the human body.”

Photo Credit: University of Virginia

Microsoft Imposes a Carbon Price on Itself

teleological:

Microsoft just announced that it will effectively be carbon neutral by the next fiscal year. But the way it plans to do so is much more interesting than your typical “buy a bunch of offsets” emissions-reduction scheme—instead, the company is creating a “carbon price and charge back model” that will levy fees on each of its various internal business groups for the emissions they generate. In other words, Microsoft is imposing a carbon price on itself.

The fee applies to data centers, office buildings, etc—each arm of the many-tentacled business. An extensive software system will tally how much carbon each “business unit” is emitting, and how much it will be docked. That amount paid will go into a company-wide investment fund that will be used to purchase renewable energy, and, yes, offsets.

The business groups can opt to invest in energy efficiency or local renewable power—which will likely be cheaper than coughing up the fees. Microsoft will essentially be running its own mini-version of a cap and trade. But whether or not it actually works will depend entirely on how stringently the system is enforced, and the price Microsoft sets on carbon emissions. If properly calibrated, it should prove a worthy experiment in reducing CO2 with innovative corporate governance.

(via scinerds)

discoverynews:

Hover Car Is No Hallucination

While you may feel like you’re smoking PCP when looking at the concepts included in the People’s Car Project, I promise you, you’re not hallucinating. Yes, that’s a hover car design and yes, it does look like a translucent yo-yo.

The concept car is one of three designs Volkswagen culled from 119,000 unique, user-submitted ideas of the People’s Car Project (PCP) that the company debuted in China nearly a year ago. The company recently displayed the ideas and concepts at the Beijing Motor Show.

keep reading

thirteenstiel:

futurejournalismproject:

Today, Harvard joined MIT in announcing edX, an online service allowing anyone anywhere to take Harvard and MIT classes online and free of charge. The pilot course is in Computer Science and runs through early June - enroll here.

The plans, though, go beyond what we’ve seen before. Namely, they open the door to new research.

via Fast Company:

Eventually, edx will offer a full slate of courses in all disciplines, created with faculty at MIT and Harvard, using a simple format of short videos and exercises graded largely by computer; students interact on a wiki and message board, as well as on Facebook groups, with peers substituting for TAs. The research arm of the project will continue to develop new tools using machine learning, robotics and crowdsourcing that allow grading and evaluation of essays, circuit designs and other types of exercises without endless hours by professors or TAs. Although edx is nonprofit and the courses are free, Agarwal envisions bringing the project to sustainability by one day charging students for official certificates of completion. 

Besides Harvard and MIT, Stanford has taken the leap into MOOCs (massively open online courses) along with Princeton, Berkeley, Michigan-Ann Arbor, and University of Pennsylvania in a joint venture with Coursera. Check it out.

This is definitely good news for a LOT of students across the country!

(via 1313days)

wildcat2030:

Manila is one of the world’s five dirtiest cities, but graffiti? That’s not a problem. It’s not that people don’t paint on the walls in the hyper-polluted Philippines capital, because they do. But they do it with a paint that actually eats smog out of the air. The catalytic paint, called Boysen KNOxOUT, reacts with light and water vapor to filter out nitrogen oxides. An environmental scientist interviewed in this BBC video says it can scrub out 20 percent of polluting nitrogen. Manila is deploying the paint in the form of massive murals, which are both beautiful and, because of their size, effective. Eleven square feet of paint-covered surface can absorb as much pollution as a full-grown tree, and these murals are close to 11 THOUSAND square feet. If we could get this stuff into the hands of street artists and taggers, it would be like having an army of energetic teenagers planting trees all over the city all day, every day. (via Super-polluted city tries to clean itself with smog-eating paint | Grist)

Smog. Eating. Paint.

(via scinerds)

wetheurban:

THE MAGIC CUBE LASER KEYBOARD

This sexy little box projects a full-sized keyboard onto any flat surface, allowing the user to type messages on an iPhone or iTouch without the need for midge fingers. The Magic Cube even makes a life-like tap sound when you type, so you feel like you’re really using the real thing. Check out some footage of the device in action [above]. 

Available to buy here!

A magic addition for the iPhones/iPads!

theweekmagazine:

“Hug Me” Coke machine dispenses free Coke when you hug it.

The world’s most unusual vending machines: A slideshow

This vending machine needs to be transported to @pinkrotaryphone

(via discoverynews)

blamoscience:

Researchers have cleverly devised a way to make paper that is waterproof, bacterial resistant, and magnetic. By wrapping certain nanoparticles around the fibers of the paper, it’s properties can be changed. The researchers point to using iron oxide nanoparticles to make the paper magnetic, and using silver nanoparticles to repel bacteria. The implications this technology has on the future of food packaging and medical applications are astounding. 

Full story here.