NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

Old Cigarette Vending Machines Dispense Artwork

Giddy attendees at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas report encountering an old, bright yellow cigarette vending machine. Only instead of smokes, the machine dispenses artwork in cellophane-wrapped cartons.

Nanoprinter Achieves Insane Resolution

The converted cigarette machine is called an Art-o-mat and for a mere $5 you can get a pack of art. Wired.com blogger Roberto Baldwin snapped a photo of one yesterday and wrote, "I only have $3. Sure there’s a metaphor for 4K TVs in there somewhere."

Art-o-mats have been around for a little while now, but they're becoming more prevalent as a way to bring art to the masses in an entertaining way. Back in the late '90s, North Carolina artist Clark Whittington noticed his friend had a Pavlovian response to crinkling cellophane.

"When the friend heard someone opening a snack, he had the uncontrollable urge to have one too," Whittington wrote on the Art-o-mat site. So the artist took advantage of that response, converting a banned cigarette vending machine into an art dispenser, appropriately, for a show at a cafe in Winston-Salem. When the show was over, the cafe owner asked to keep the machine.

In the past several years, Art-o-mats have found homes well beyond North Carolina, from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. They've gone from a one-off to a novelty to a nationwide phenomenon. One even arrived here in Denver last year at the Access Gallery in the Santa Fe arts district.

Gallery owner Damon McLeese stocked it with professional artists' work, as well as works created by teens with disabilities who participate in art programs. Inside the machine, packs contained a wide array such as earrings made from computer chips, beaded keychains and drawings of wolves, according to the Denver Post's Colleen O'Connor.

Crystals You Drink Every Morning: Big Pic

I find it hard to argue with the idea of these banned machines finding new lives delivering art with $5 tokens. If everyone bought art instead of cigarette packs and snacks, we'd be a heck of a lot healthier. Possibly even smarter, too.

Photo: An Art-o-mat machine in Las Vegas. Credit: Miss Shari, via Flickr.

CES 2013: Flower Power Empowers Novice Gardeners

Are you plagued with a black thumb?

Taking the guesswork out of gardening, Parrot at CES unveiled a new plant sensor aptly named Flower Power.

With wireless sensors to measure sunlight, humidity, temperature and fertilizer, Flower Power, which takes the form of a stake that goes into the soil, keeps tabs on the health of your plants and sends this information wirelessly to your smartphone via the low-powered Bluetooth 4.0.

Supported by a database of 6,000 plants, the wireless sensor analyzes the data it collects, letting you know how a plant is faring specific to its traits (eg. some flowers are thirstier than others, some like sunbathing more than others). In the event your black thumb kicks in, Flower Power will let you know your greenery is in need of some TLC (or water).

Though Parrot was mum on pricing, it indicated that Flower Power is expected to launch by the end of the year.

Credit: Alice Truong/DNews

---

Email:

---

CES 2013: Smart Fork Tracks Your Eating Habits

The body's a strange thing. It takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to tell your brain you're full, so during that time, you're just scarfing away unnecessary calories. But this new electronic fork, which had everyone abuzz at the CES press preview, tackles the overeating problem most people are blissfully unaware of.

The HAPIfork (pronounced happy fork) uses gentle vibrations to nudge eaters into slowing their chomping down, this smart fork purports to help digestion and weight control by providing insightful analytics about your food schedule, measuring:

• the time it takes to finish a meal
• the number of "fork servings" per minute
• fork serving intervals

After collecting this information, users upload their stats either through USB, which is how this smart fork charges up, or Bluetooth.

The fork costs $100, and admittedly, that's a pretty penny for an eating utensil -- especially given how many of us have drawers of overflowing plastic ones from take-out joints. But for anyone who is part of this newfound, quantified-self movement, it might be the perfect addition to other gadgets that collect data, like smart pedometers and sleep monitors.

The HAPIfork, which won CES' Innovations Design and Engineering Award, is part of a suite of other HAPI-health products, including an activity tracker and a watch that monitors stress levels and sleep. HAPIfork is expecting to crowdfund production on Kickstarter in the spring.

Credit: Alice Truong/DNews

---

Email:

---

CES 2013: Gorgeous Hard Drive By Philippe Starck

Design virtuoso Philippe Starck's latest project has popped up at CES in Las Vegas: It's a hard drive.

Boring, you might think, but look how gorgeous this thing is. Inspired by the movie of the same name, the Blade Runner is a 3.0 portable hard drive from LaCie that contrasts the sleek aluminum used as a material against the "angular cage-like shell" of the exterior, according to the company. Here's Starck in his own words:

"In my design nothing is useless -- style, symbolism or functionality," said Starck, who design credits include the super yacht of the late Steve Jobs. "In the Blade Runner, the warm interior electronics are encased in a mystifying shell, and the blades are the radiator that cools it down. The suspension gives space for air to circulate around the hard drive, and the metal material increases the temperature conduction."

The front of the drive features Starck's signature plus symbol, which functions as a power button and glows orange when there's activity.

The Blade Runner has a limited-edition run of 9,999 produced. No available ship date yet, but the drive will retail at $299.

Credit: All images, Alice Truong/DNews

CES 2013: What to Expect

Attendees preview the latest gadgets -- and a live trampoline act -- in the North Hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center. Credit: CES

By FoxNews.com

Apple won’t be there. Nor will Google. And for the first time in many years, Microsoft won’t have its own booth. But the International Consumer Electronics Show (Jan. 8 - Jan. 11), one of the largest and longest running tech trade shows around, is still expecting one of its biggest years ever.

Despite a couple tepid years following the recession, CES is back to setting records. The Las Vegas show remains the ultimate platform for thousands of companies to show off their latest wares with aplomb with the arrival of the new year.

CES 2013 will be the biggest CES ever with over 3,000 exhibits showing off 20,000 new products across 1.87 million square feet of floor space, the CEA (the Consumer Electronics Association, the show’s governing body) announced last month. Here’s what we can expect from what is still one of the greatest tech trade shows on Earth.

The Rise of the Startups
Microsoft isn’t the only juggernaut bowing out of the gadget extravaganza. Nokia, Dell and HP are all skipping this year’s CES along with perennial no-shows like Google, Amazon and Apple. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing for a show that’s traditionally been dominated by heavyweights like Intel and Sony.

WIDE ANGLE: CES 2012: Gadgets Galore and What's in Store

Hardware is the new software and, as The Wall Street Journal reported in August, a new generation of Silicon Valley start-ups are turning their back on the web and actually making stuff now. In the age of Kickstarter, expect big ideas from bit part players (like the Pebble smartwatch, which raised $10 million). From an innovation perspective, this can only be a good thing.

DNEWS VIDEO: GPS Shoe Hotfoots Your Location

Samsung’s Big Party
This year could be all about Samsung, which will be one of the biggest players strutting its stuff. The Korean conglomerate has rapidly taken up the mantle of “the other Apple” with an endless array of smartphone and tablet devices, including the blockbuster “iPhone killer” the Galaxy SIII (there are rumors Samsung may even unveil the SIV). Samsung has a lot in store this year, including “unprecedented” smart TVs (check out the teaser) and even a state-of-the-art bendable phone display.

The Ghost of Microsoft
Officially, Microsoft is done with CES, but the company will be there in spirit thanks to the flop that is Windows 8. This will be another chance for Ballmer and co. to push their controversial operating system through a plethora of newly imagined hybrid touchscreen devices. Lenovo, Asus and others will be trying desperately to catch our attention with "post-pc" devices that swivel, twist and fold. 

Smarter TVs, Smarter TV Subscriptions
Another year at CES means another year of bigger, thinner, better TVs. If last year was about 3D, this year is all 4K and OLED, which means higher resolutions, sleeker frames and more vibrant colors. And pricier sets. Much pricier sets.

ANALYSIS: Plastic Could (Finally) Replace Glass

The flipside of that is content for our big expensive screens. Intel is introducing its own set-top box and TV service in an effort to get its chips into our living rooms (after missing the boat on getting their chips into our pockets), according to Techcrunch. The proposed service would theoretically allow consumers to pick what channels they’d like to subscribe to versus paying $80 for 200 channels you never watch -- which sounds great, but we’ll believe it when we see it.

The “Internet of Things”
Chips are getting smaller, networks faster (slowly but surely at least) and everyone’s got a smartphone -- which means smarter, well, everything. Indeed, after many false starts, the “smart home” may have finally arrived with Internet-connected appliances, like the Philips Hue and Belkin WeMo. You know, “smart” lightbulbs (and of course, there's an app for that).

Gesture Control
It’s about time we started moving away from the mouse, home row keys and perpetually misplaced remote controls. With the advent of technologies like facial recognition, eye-tracking, voice recognition and gesture control, expect brand new ways to communicate with your machines.

Phones With Gig Screens
Bigger isn’t necessarily better but trust us, it’s inevitable. Phones with even bigger screens are on the way. We’re talking 5 inch screen, or even 5 and a half inchers. Just don’t call it a phablet.

Connected Cars
Over 100,000 square feet of show floor space will be filled just by automakers. Companies like Ford, Audi and Kia will all be hawking cars that seamlessly integrate with your cloud.

The Continued Slow Death of the Point-and-Shoot
The industry response to Android phones with incredible built-in cameras? Cameras with built-in Android. Ugh.

Get More from FoxNews.com/Tech

• New Lego Robotics Kit Talk to iPhones
• Young Scientist of the Year's Invention Could Clean Water for $1.1 Billion
• Scrolling Through the Dead Sea Scrolls Online

---

Email:

---

Pollution Levels At Your Fingertips

Pollution is invisible and knowing how much is around you is not always easy. But a new system called Citisense, which consists of a mobile air quality sensor and smartphone app, could one day give people real-time information about the air around them. 

"Asthmatics, who number in the millions, would find this valuable to their immediate health," said William Griswold, a computer science professor at UC San Diego, who lead the group that developed the system. "What we found is that people are very interested in their personal exposure, even if they are not asthmatic."

The system, which is still in the research stages, has a mobile sensor that a person wears while walking or biking around a city. The sensor detects the levels of pollutants in the air and sends the information to a server that uses machine learning to analyze the information for the app. Users with the app can see maps that display levels of pollutants, estimates of a user's exposure to those pollutants as well as a color-coded scale for air quality that uses EPA standards, i.e. green for good and purple for bad.

NEWS: See How Purchases Directly Impact Climate Change

The sensors were tested for four weeks by 30 people all over San Diego, most of them faculty at the university. According to the press release, one tester found that she was exposed the most to pollutants while she rode her bike to work. 

Griswold said in the release that, “The people who are doing the most to reduce emissions, by biking or taking the bus, were the people who experienced the highest levels of exposure to pollutants.” The field tests also found that pollution levels varied throughout the day, depending on variables like traffic.

For the most part, the sensors are mobile and proximity to them is necessary for the app to receive data. However, Griswold said in an email to Discovery News that if enough sensors were put out into an area, personal sensors wouldn't be necessary to receive feedback on the pollutants nearby. "With the machine-learning component in the backend," he said, "it will be possible to get an estimate of your exposure from the machine learning estimates, even if you don't have a sensor."

Toward the end of the testing phase, a few fixed sensors were tested, but Griswold said that they didn't affect the user experience enough to continue.

One of the hurdles facing the project now is battery life. The data exchanges between the sensors and mobile devices takes up a lot of power. When testing, users had to carry around two chargers, one for the sensor and one for the smartphone. Currently, the team is experimenting with replacing constant updates by spacing out times when data is transferred to every 15 minutes to save battery life, or making it a transfer that occurs on demand.

Griswold said in an email that sensors like this will be start appearing on mobile phones in about a decade or so.

via CleanTechnica

Credit: Jacobs School of Engineering

---

Email:

---

Hi-Tech Bird Feed Snaps Photos: DNews Nugget

Hi-Tech Bird Feeder Snaps Photos: This is a cool idea for bird lovers. The Bird Photo Booth is a gadget that accommodates and iPhone 3,4 or 5 or an iPod Touch (4th, 5th generation) or any GoPro camera and allows the user to take images that get sent via Wi-Fi to another device, like an iPad. Just slip the phone or iPod Touch into the foam pocket. Turn on your phone and enable the app. Shut the enclosure on the foam pocket. Place some bird food in the dish. Step far enough away so that the birds will come to feed. And then snap away remotely. The Bird Photo Booth’s design keeps the bowl of bird feed out of the frame and the case protects equipment from curious wildlife. via Gajitz

GET MORE MUST-READS HERE!

---

Email:

---

Robots Fight Superbugs in Hospitals

One of the biggest worries about American's obsession with antibacterial soaps is the possibility that viruses and bacteria will develop into "superbugs." At Johns Hopkins Hospital a new method is being tested to prevent the rise of superbugs by using robot-like devices that spray hydrogen peroxide.

These bots are about the size of a washing machine and weigh nearly 60 pounds each. Two bots are placed in a sealed room that has had its vents covered. One device sprays a light bleaching agent into the air to kill and prevent the spread of drug-resistant bacteria. A thin layer of the hydrogen peroxide agent, about 2 to 6 microns thick, coats all of the surfaces in the room, including equipment, tables and chairs. A second vaporizer breaks down the bleaching agent into its water and oxygen components, making it non-toxic to humans. The entire process takes about an hour and a half to complete.

BLOG:Sun Celebrates 'Solar Max' New Year With Flare

DNEWS VIDEO: Modern Medicine and Tech

The vaporizers were first developed in Singapore in 2002 to combat the spread of SARS and were stocked in U.S. government agencies in case of an anthrax outbreak.

The team at Johns Hopkins found the rate of patients contaminated with drug-resistant diseases dropped by 64 percent. The vapor also proved effective against bacteria like Staphylococcus, which causes staph infection, and its super cousin MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), which is resistant to antibiotics and causes flesh-eating disease.

The study's senior investigator Trish Perl said in a press release that, "Our goal is to improve all hospital infection control practices, including cleaning and disinfection, as well as behavioral and environmental practices, to the point where preventing the spread of these multiple-drug-resistant organisms also minimizes the chances of patients becoming infected and improves their chances of recovery."

The positive results of the study has lead the hospital to purchasing two decontaminating units to be used in rooms that have a high-risk of drug-resistant bacteria. Further testing will be done to see if the bots are useful for decontaminating the outside packaging of unused but potentially exposed hospital equipment.

Credit: BioQuell 

---

Email:

---

World's Most Annoyingly Addictive Machine

It's annoying. And yet. I can see how it would be impossible to stop flipping those toggle switches. There's a meditative quality to it. The machine is an advanced version of the Most Useless Machine, which came out about three years ago and had just one switch. Child's play compared to this one.

In this version, there are eight switches. And while it seems that the human should be able to outsmart such a simple machine, a broken Canon 850i printer, in fact, the human succumbs to the idiotic pleasure of switch-flipping in much the same way it does to popping bubble wrap.

If you want to build one of these machines yourself and go insane, you can get the plans here.

 

---

Email:

---

Party Horn Only Works If You're Drunk

Now that Christmas is in the rear-view mirror, you're speeding towards one last holiday destination: New Year's Eve, typically one of the most besotted nights on the calendar.

DNEWS VIDEO: Gadgets and Gizmos

PHOTOS: Sexiest Tech and Techiest Sex of 2012

Once you make that last exit towards Boozetown, here's a little party favor that'll remind you not to get behind the wheel after you've sung those last notes of "Auld Lang Syne."

Although the Buzzed Buzzer, created by Tyler DeAngelo and Sacha De'Angeli, sounds like any old party horn blown on New Year's Eve, it only makes a sound if you're drunk. Maybe not lamp-shade-on-the-head drunk, but alcohol must be present on the breath of the reveler who's blowing it.

Unfortunately, you have to buy the materials and put it together yourself. Think of it as your last craft project of 2012.

All you have to do is take a traditional party horn, add a micro-controller, an alcohol sensor, a resistor, a buzzer, a battery and a battery charger. Yeah, I know, it sounds a little more complicated than just Scotch-taping everything together. Fortunately, there are detailed instructions on how to make your own. Just a heads up, you're going to need your soldering iron, wire cutters, wire strippers, needle nosed pliers and a computer installed with Arduino IDE and Teensyduino. You might want to do this before you start in on the cocktails.

BLOG: Hangover-Free Booze Coming To A Glass Near You?

Another word to the wise: Buzzed Buzzer is not a breathalyzer device, so don't think it's going to give you your blood alcohol level and let you know if you should drive or not. Better just to throw your keys in a bowl, uncork the champagne, get out the lamp shades and blow your horn.

Bottoms up.

via Gizmag

credit: Buzzed Buzzer

---

Email:

---