Presented in Liberation, a highchool in South Korea, Seoul, will adopt a new kind of robot, the OFRO to check on kids at school. Communicating with school supervisors via a video camera and a microphone, it can detect any suspicious activity. Thank you Olivier for the link!
I now hope for a subversive robot, much cooler, with fancier behavior, created as a response to this very scaring surveillance attempt.
Interaction with microsoft surface
Microsoft Surface, a finger interactive table to organize digital media, will be available on the market in winter 2007.
Videos.
Microsfot surface table
This very neat idea of interactive surface is in the research market for a long time now: for instance with Diamondtouch, Ali Mazalek’s tangible viewpoints and James Patten’ sensetable from 2000-2001. It is exciting the process of this research being revisted by giant companies for mass production. I wish they would have kept the tangible quality of objects to control digital data. Maybe Pattenstudio will take care of that part!
Video of audiopad by James Patten and Ben Recht.
Aurelius introduced me to Cool Earth, a renewable energy startup. It has patented a way to make solar energy more efficient than coal. Impressive …
Three years ago our top scientists and Nobel Prize winners met in Washington in search of a solution to energy-related Global Warming. Four points came from the meeting:- there is no solution available
- yet we must implement one by 2050
- the only power source that presents a viable solution is solar
- but solar energy is currently far too expensive.Cool Earth was formed to solve this problem. Now. With currently available technology. We are working to reduce the cost of solar electricity by a factor of 25, making it cheaper to produce than energy from coal or other non-renewable sources. By developing a solution from minimal, low-cost materials, we aim to make solar generation as profitable as today’s best investment options.
This extreme goal has led us to exactly one real and viable solution: a solar farming approach, based on concentrated photovoltaic collectors, constructed from inexpensive, widely-available plastic films.
Here’s how the system works:
Inflatable concentrators gather light and focus it onto photovoltaic cells, increasing the energy impacting the cells many times over. Our design costs 400 times less per collected area than conventional mirrors, can withstand 100 mph winds, and can protect the mirror surface and receiver from rain, insects, and dirt.
Series of concentrators are suspended on support and control cables stretched between poles. By suspending the concentrators, vast areas of land can be easily converted for solar energy production with limited environmental impact. The ground beneath the concentrators remains free for other uses, such as farming or ranching.
The timing is perfect. Our technology is in place. And we have a plan to reach “grid parity” in three years, not thirty.
Burger time place setting
Chris Dimino redesigns the classic place setting: fork, knife, spoon, cup, and plate using unconventional materials solution: the burgertime place setting, using videogame controllers as ustensils and a TV screen plate that plays the classic nintendo game “burgertime”
