NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

Urinal Video Games Played With Pee

My girlfriend and I once drove across Michigan's Upper Peninsula. One day, after we downed a couple pasties, we stopped in to the VFW post in Ontonagon for a few beers. There, in the men's room, I saw something I'd never seen before: Hanoi Jane Urinal Targets.

In an era before Smart Technology, slapping a Jane Fonda sticker on some porcelain was the best the world had to offer in urinal target-practice games...at least in certain circles of disgruntled veterans and political malcontents. However, full-bladdered fellas, the future of mens' room gaming is upon us.

PHOTOS: 7 Places Poo Will Power the Future

Last year, we told you about Captive Media, a London-based start-up that created a urinal entertainment system. Think of it as X-Box meets Hanoi Jane Urinal Target, with the joy stick already in your hand.

DNEWS VIDEO: IS IT FUTURE YET?

Well, the company has had a golden year since it's launch. Co-founder Gordon MacSween told Wired the response has been "beyond his wildest expectations." After being on the market in 18 bars, hotels, corporate offices and private residences across the U.K. and Europe, the company is set to soon aim its success at the U.S. market as early as next year.

In case you forgot what the system entails, here's a refresher:

Mounted on the wall above the urinal is an LCD screen that plays advertisements loops until you step up to the trough and unzip. By the time you let it flow, the game is on. Infrared sensors below the screen shoot into the urinal and detect your pee stream. That data is fed back into the system and used to control the game. For you stray shooters out there, there are decals in the urinal to correct your aim.

There are five games that, unfortunately, you don't get to choose from. They just randomly pop up. As you'd expect, a few titles are very tongue-in-cheeky. There's "On the Piste," a POV ski run game where you navigate the slopes trying to hit penguins; "Clever Dick," a trivia game and Art Splash, a coloring book of sorts that lets you email your masterpiece to loved ones, friends and art critics once you're finished.

As Captive Media's website proclaims, the gaming doesn't have to stop once you've zipped up. The system is well-endowed with high-score features and an online leaded board that let's you take your measuring contest to new lengths.

NEWS: Weird Microbe Turns Pee Into Rocket Fuel

The company just raised $700,00 from U.K. investors, so at least they'll have a pot to pee in for awhile. British blokes like their pints of ale. That they're rewarded with urinal video games the more they drink must be making bar tenders swoon. In fact, they already are. According to Wired, one bar in Cambridge reported a 22 percent spike in sales of a cocktail advertised on the game screens.

American dudes, I know you're anxious for your favorite watering hole to get one of these, but you'll just have to hold your horses. However, between now and then, if you're looking for a little target practice, you can always head up to the Ontonagon VFW lodge.

 

via Wired

credit: Captive Media

---

Email:

---

Supermodels, Google's Project Glass Hit Runway

If we know anything by now about eyewear trends it's this: what was yesterday's fashion faux pas is today's must-have accessory of haute couture. Case in point: black, thick-rimmed glasses. Once the hallmark of nerds everywhere, now they're a hipster-chic trademark, worn everywhere from the streets of Williamsburg to NBA post-game interviews.

BLOG: Google Demo 'Glass' with Crazy Skydiving Stunt

Though they'll likely experience a quicker ascent to cool-kid-christened popularity, augmented-reality glasses are still stuck in the getting-beat-up-on-the-playground phase. Remember Steve Mann? He's the University of Toronto professor who was physically assualted in a Parisian McDonalds restaurant because he was wearing self-designed, augmented-reality glasses.

But bullies beware, there's a new kid on the block.

DNEWS VIDEO: IS IT FUTURE YET?

Because they were developed by celebrities of the tech world's cool, new Babylon -- Silicon Valley -- Google's Project Glass augmented-reality glasses already have a fashionable leg up on the competition. However, now that they've done their thing down the runway, they might have both legs up.

The glasses are being used to record behind-the-scenes footage of designer Diane von Furstenberg's show for New York Fashion Week. They may not be too sexy for Milan, but this marks the first time the glasses have been publicly used for anything other than an arguably less-vogue tech demo.

The culmination of this project will be "DVF through Glass," a short film offering a first-person glimspe of what it's like for designers and models to prepare and perform during fashion week. Though the video won't be released until September 13th, Furstenberg has been publishing runway photos at DVF's Google+ gallery.

NEWS: Google Glasses: Virtual Reality In Your Face?

If augmented-reality glasses and New York Fashion Week are just too funky for you, remember, you have the freedom to wear whatever you like. However, if staying ahead of the curve is the name of the game, Steve Mann might be one of the coolest guys in the world. 

Personally, I think Mann has a long way to go before he becomes a pioneer of style. For starters, when at a McDonald's in Paris, don't order a Chicken Ranch Wrap. Everyone knows the cool cats order the Royale with Cheese.

via The Verge

Credit: Aygul Zagidullina

---

Email:

---

Pucker Up for This Interactive Poster

Oh Japan, you never cease to amaze me -- especially when it comes to kissing. You would think a Kiss Transmission Device that lets you make out over the Internet would be the end-all, be-all of kooky kissing contraptions.

But that's the great thing about Japanese researchers and developers. Just when you think they can't possibly come up with anything zanier than a long-distance French-kissing device, they do.

In what has been and, I assume, will continue to be, a long line of artificial pseudo-sexual simulations from the Land of the Rising Sun, comes a kissable poster, compliments of a research group at Keio University.

 BLOG: Bar-coded Condoms Track Where You Have Sex

DNEWS VIDEO: MIND-CONTROLLED ROBOTS, CYBORGS AND ROBOTIC CARS

Remember when you were just a teenager in love? -- twirling the phone cord (what's that?) around your finger; mooning over your school-girl crush, just wishing that the Corey Haim poster on your wall would come alive. Remember?

Apparently the Keio researchers do because that's basically their inspiration for this system. However, having procured his License To Drive the streets of teen idol heaven, Justin Bieber is more likely to be the dreamy face on those posters nowadays.

"I'm a big fan of pop idols, and I have posters of them in my room," researcher Keidai Ogawa explained in a promo video. "It bugged me that the posters didn't move at all. We built this system because we thought, if a poster could move to match people's movements, that would be interactive and fun."

While kissing an actual person can also be interactive and fun, let's at least hear how it works.

"This system is very simple," Ogawa said. "There's an ultrasound sensor here, to detect how far away your head is. As you approach the sensor, the picture changes. When you get closer, the picture becomes a kissing face, and when you move away, it becomes a blushing face."

 BLOG: Kiss Transmitter Let's You Make Out Over the Internet

As the researchers plan to develop an iPad application, they're also interested in incorporating more features to arouse your senses. The scent of shampoo from a person's hair, a lemon-flavored film on the screen lips or a kisser who whispers "I love you" are all being considered.

Having the desire to kiss a screen avatar is beyond me, but I'm certainly not going to throw stones. Kissing is important, so if you need to lock lips with a machine or screen just to keep sane, I say go for it. I mean, Digital Underground wrote a whole song about it. In fact, Keio researchers, next time you're throwing one of your dance-a-thon ragers, get the party started and throw "Kiss You Back" on the stereo. It might help you find a more realistic partner.

via DigInfoTV

Credit: Pochuter, DigInfoTV

---

Email:

---

Finger Camera Frames Your Photos

I confess. I'm a terrible photographer -- mainly because I can never bridge the gap between getting out my camera and feeling like I'm infringing on the moment. Don't get me wrong, I've got a good eye. Often I've used my fingers to frame a memorable shot or snap an imaginary picture. But alas, no lasting images, only fleeting memories.

DNEWS VIDEO: Gadgets and Gizmos

BLOG: Are These Satellite Images Exposing America's Secrets?

Which is why this finger camera seems like it was designed especially for handicapped shutterbugs like myself who are crippled by the ephemerality of life.

Thankfully, a Japanese research group has developed the Ubi-Camera which lets users compose a photo by looking through their fingers. Now instead of imitating your favorite film director scouting film locations, your fingers can actually put forth a finished product.

Once the match-box-sized camera is stuck on your finger, the built-in infrared range sensor calculates how far your finger frame is away from your head. That data is used to crop the image so it matches what you're seeing through your fingers.

BLOG: Future Eye-Tracking Systems Will Read Your Mind

Unfortunately, the Ubi-Camera only exists as a prototype. Plus, it has a few glitches to work out -- namely that it's connected via a cord to a computer. For someone like me who's looking to capture the moment, while still existing in it, the only use I have for a tether is when I snip it with my scissors.

On top of that, the camera has no zoom and the infrared sensor is prone to mistakes. Researchers say they're hoping to integrate face recognition into the system which could help alleviate some of the glitches.

Until then, I'll keep treading water, snapping fake photos and "Riding for the Feeling." Like Bill says, it's "the fastest way to reach the shore."

via Gizmodo

Credit: DigInfo

---

Email:

---

iPhone Has Night Vision With Adapter

iPhone Night Vision Adapter: $199

John Lennon claimed to have written the lyric, "What do you see when you turn out the light?" But most don't know that he originally answered his own musical question with: "I can't tell you, but I know I'd have an easier time if I had quick access to a state-of-the-art third-generation optical night vision accessory." A true visionary, he was clearly way ahead of his time. Because just a month and a half ago at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas, the iPhone Night Vision Adapter made its debut.

NEWS: Google Glasses: Virtual Reality in Your Face?

DNEWS VIDEO: iPhone in Space Explained

This patent-pending accessory from US Night Vision is made for iPhone 4/S. It takes advantage of the mobile device's ability to capture decent audio, high-def video and high-quality stills...and pairs it with a night vision system that utilizes a laser rangefinder and doesn't give off an infrared signature. With the ability to add encryption and real-time streaming to share that media, you potentially have quite a powerful stealth reconnaisance pairing in the palm of your hand!

Chris Byrd, USNV's Vice President of Sales, revealed to Discovery News that the new version of the system -- due out in the next couple of weeks -- will incorporate an intermediary iPhone case. The super-tough multi-layer polycarbonate case has been designed for independent protection for everyday use on the low end. And on the high end, it will supposedly accommodate the extreme dampening necessary for using the system as a site on a live weapon firing rounds. Future accessories will allow for a variety of other mounts on people, equipment and vehicles.

PHOTOS: Are These Satellite Images Exposing America's Secrets?

New USNV customers who buy one of their compatible products from them -- such as the popular AN/PVS-14A model pictured above, which starts around $3,900 -- will receive the case and adapter included. And branching out from Apple phones, Byrd told Discovery News that they're tracking six to eight other handsets, working to release a similar product within the next 30 days for the Samsung Galaxy SII Skyrocket. A Skyrocket that can see in the dark...look out!

Credit: US Night Vision

---

Email:

---

Device Instantly Turns You Into A Surgeon

Let's say you're an archaeologist deep in the remote jungles of Chiapas, excavating Mayan artifacts, when one of your colleague's appendix ruptures. You're miles away from a hospital. No time for emergency transport. Time to sterilize what knives you have and perform an impromptu appendectomy.

BLOG: Cold Plasma Kills Bacteria Better Than Antibiotics

Even the most intrepid explorer might balk at such a task. But thanks to this device, any wimp might one day lean back in his chair at a dinner party and regale the table with that one time we saved Dr. Jones' life on the banks of a muddy creek in the wilds of Mexico.

DNEWS VIDEO: MODERN MEDICINE AND TECH

The device is called the Computer Assisted Medical Diagnosis and Surgery System (CAMDASS). It was created by the European Space Agency (ESA) to provide astronauts with on-the-spot medical knowledge.

Basically, the augmented reality-based CAMDASS provides a step-by-step tutorial for untrained medical operators. A head-mounted display superimposes images on the spur-of-the-moment "surgeon's" vision, while the system "registers" the afflicted's body with a set of markers.

So far, the prototype has been used only to execute ultrasound exams, since they're wide performed aboard the International Space Station (but jungle appendectomies can't be too far off.) The ultrasound probe is linked with CAMDASS and tracked by an infrared camera. The head mount includes a 3D augmented reality visor which provides the user with instructions of how to use the probe. Reference ultrasound images also appear for the wearer to refer to and can be controlled by voice commands.

Users who participated in trial runs reported they were able to perform complicated procedures on their own.

BLOG: Spray-On Wi-Fi Boosts Your Signal

"Based on that experience, we are looking at refining the system -- for instance, reducing the weight of the head-mounted display as well as the overall bulkiness of the prototype," said Arnaud Runge in a news release. Runge is a biomedical engineer in charge of overseeing the project for ESA.

He added, "once it reaches maturity, the system might also be used as part of a telemedicine system to provide remote medical assistance via satellite. It could be deployed as a self-sufficient tool for emergency responders as well."

[Via GizMage]

Credit: ESA

---

Email:

---

Men Don't Read Online Dating Profiles

Every year, more people search online dating sites to find their next Valentine. A new study shows that how you catch a potential date's eye might depend on your gender. Researchers used eye tracking technology to follow people's eye movements as they perused online profiles. The results show that men spend 65 percent more time looking at photos than women. Women, on the other hand, spent 50 percent more time than men actually reading the profiles.

NEWS: The Science of 'I Love You'

AnswerLab, a consumer research company, ran the study in one day at a coffee shop in San Francisco, Calif. The study asked 39 patrons who identified themselves as interested in dating the opposite sex to take part in the study. Participants, 18 women and 21 men, looked at dating profiles from Match.com and eHarmony.com on a laptop.

DNEWS VIDEO: Science and Technology Help Find True Love

The researchers collected data using the Tobii X1 Light Eye Tracker, a new, portable model of eye tracker. The device works by shining an infrared light at the eye, creating reflections which are, in turn, recorded by a camera. Using the recorded pattern of reflections, the program calculates the angle between the cornea and pupil, which is used to calculate the angle of the gaze. Combining the angle of the gaze and the distance between the eyes and the screen leads to accurate tracking of the eye's movements.

Although you might not know it, your eyes are constantly moving, making quick adjustments to take in details. Only the very small, central portion of the eye, called the fovea, is capable of really seeing details. As you look at something complicated, like a dating profile, with different text elements, photos and advertisements, your eyes make rapid movements so the fovea can briefly focus on each of the different elements that catch your eye's attention. Each tiny focusing event is called a fixation.

NEWS: Online Dating Evolves

Because the eyes make this tiny movement when we study objects or read, the eye-tracking systems can figure out what we looked at, precisely, and for how long. The image above shows the gaze fixations of a man in the first 10 seconds that he looked at the profile, which totalled more than 200 fixations.

Image: AnswerLab

---

Email:

---

Airport Laser Lets You Keep Your Liquids

So, you're standing in the security line at the airport when you realize that bottle of duty-free Jameson is still in your bag. Also, you just cracked the seal on some not-so-easily-chuggable Kombucha. And that priced-gouged bottle of sunscreen you bought in Tulum? It was almost $10 and it's still nearly full.

Normally, these liquid-filled bottles would need to be surrendered to the trash can held by a smirking TSA agent. But have no fear frequent fliers, new screening methods may soon be clear for take off.

British company Cobalt Light Systems says they've developed a scanning machine that could put an end to those pesky restrictions that ban liquids in carry-on luggage.

DNEWS VIDEO: SYNTHETIC LIFE, ENGINEERING TISSUE AND MORE …

NEWS: Are These Satellite Images Exposing America's Secrets?

Cobalt says their Insight 100 machine could analyze bottles as big as three liters for explosives and do it in less than five seconds. Here's how:

Bottles are placed inside what looks like a microwave oven, however this machine is no warmer of leftovers. Rather, a laser is shined into the bottle to chemically analyze its contents with a technique known as Spatially Offset Raman Spectroscopy (SORS). Energy levels in the liquid molecules are able to shift the wavelength of the laser light. From these small shifts, bottle contents can be determined.

BLOG: Police Want 'Drive-By' Friskings

Colbalt says the the Insight 100 exceeded the European Civil Aviation Conference (ECAC) standard for use in airports with nearly perfect detection results and few false positives.

"We have worked incredibly hard over the last couple of years to refine the SORS technology and bring the Insight 100 to market," Cobalt's CEO, Paul Loeffen said in a press release. "It is a great achievement to have exceeded the European standards at this stage so that we are in a prime position to supply this unique bottle screener to European airports."

Don't live or frequently travel to Europe? Better double check what's in your bag.

[Via New Scientist]

Credit: Cobalt Light Systems

---

Email:

---

Police Want 'Drive-By' Friskings

If you think your privacy feels violated by TSA agents whenever you get randomly selected for a pat down or body scan, well, get ready for this: drive-by friskings by the New York Police Department.

NYPD announced this week that they are developing a new portable device to detect concealed weapons or explosives on possible perpetrators. The device uses infrared rays to scan a person's body and provide officers with a digital outline of any concealed weapons.

BLOG: Pentagon Tests Hypersonic Flying Bomb

DNEWS VIDEO: IS IT FUTURE YET?

“If something is obstructing the flow of that radiation -- for example, a weapon -- the device will highlight that object,” NYPD Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said at the Police Foundation’s State of the NYPD breakfast, according to the New York Times. “This technology has shown a great deal of promise as a way of detecting weapons without a physical search.”

The new device, developed in conjunction with the Pentagon, is currently effective only at short ranges of three to four feet. But NYPD spokesman, Paul J. Browne, said he was confident that the range could be extended to 82 feet. With that kind of distance, officers could conduct infrared friskings from their squad car.

BLOG: View Life Through Browser-Equipped Shades

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said finding solutions to gun violence is necessary, but the proposal is troublesome.

“We have no idea how this technology works, if it is effective and what its error rate is,” she said. “If the NYPD is moving forward with this, the public needs more information about this technology, how it works and the dangers it presents.”

 [Via New York Times]

Credit: NYPD

---

Email:

---

Turn iPad or iPhone into Universal Remote

VooMote Zapper: $69.99

About the size of a skinny peanut a fat paperclip the 30-pin connector itself, this diminutive dongle can just as easily enable either an iPhone or iPad to control various A/V devices around the house. Another nicety is that it's pretty unobtrusive to leave attached to your i-thing most of the time. But it's also easy to recommend because of its intuitive companion app.

NEWS: Forget the Remote; Control TV By Waving Your Hand

Room by personalizable room, the wizard walks you through adding devices by their function and brand. If none of the app's test buttons work for a particular device, you can teach it. And if you're not sure what you're doing, helpful hints are just a quick tap away.

Once you've got the basics down, you can nix, shift or clone certain buttons. For common activities (such as watching TV), you can either create macros or try to fit the most critical buttons for that activity's devices (in this case, the cable box, receiver and TV) on a special screen. And if buttons bore you, gestures with taps and swipes can adjust the volume, change channels or pause a movie.

Currently the app is made for the small screen. But early next year, zero1.tv will be releasing a native iPad version that incorporates cool TV Guide functionality, along with the obvious increase in graphical real estate.

Credit: zero1.tv

---

Email:

---