Predator: A Smart Camera that Learns

A scientific research project by Zdenek Kalal, a PhD at the University of Surrey, UK. More infos about the project here, but isn’t it too… powerful? Do you think?

Festo - SmartBird - biomechatronic bird flies and lands autonomously

SmartBird is an ultralight but powerful flight model with excellent aerodynamic qualities and extreme agility. With SmartBird, Festo has succeeded in deciphering the flight of birds - one of the oldest dreams of humankind.

This bionic technology-bearer, which is inspired by the herring gull, can start, fly and land autonomously -- with no additional drive mechanism. Its wings not only beat up and down, but also twist at specific angles. This is made possible by an active articulated torsional drive unit, which in combination with a complex control system attains an unprecedented level of efficiency in flight operation. Festo has thus succeeded for the first time in creating an energy-efficient technical adaptation of this model from nature.

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E-Notebook E-Note

Eco-friendly & Low-Carbon
e-note LCD Writing Tablet is a rewriteable black board. With the reflex LCD technology, it is high precision and fast response, and sensitive operation which lets you easy to write notes or draw any images on the board. Just press the erase button, the board will be cleared. The built-in battery can last 5 years that's equivalent to 50,000 papers.


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Working prototype of the transparent battery

Researchers Create Transparent Lithium-Ion Battery (See Video)

NEW BeoSound 5 Encore

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Total Recall – device future

This is a creative and an excellent device which records the person’s experiences in a form of media, sound as well as the sense of touch and smell, to be communicated to others. The icons that appear in a form of holograms on the transparent touch bio screen can be operated by fingers.
Bio particles stick out from the screen surface in the form of protrusion, transferring the recorded sense of touch and the smell from the memory is splashed from the top part..
You can contain the situations and experiences at your travelling spot in a bottle and send your memories like the letter in a bottle to many people. (via)

Music can be touched?

Can music be touched ? Yes, The designer Jackson McConnell made this type of speaker which can show waveform especially for hearing-impaired people to help them enjoy music in a particular way.

money counting ring

So much cash stashed at home that fingers get tired while counting! Who wouldn’t want to live that life! The truth is that small business and maybe some households do have that kind of money, and the big counting machines currently available are inconvenient. So the solution lies in a compact Counting Ring, a simplified money counting machine. It packs in features like LED Display & Power Switch, Sheet-Separating Veins, Battery Slot and Infrared Ray Scanning. Slip it on the thumb and you’re set. My only worry would be a bundle of soiled and crumpled notes, however overall for a majority of cash-stash, this should do.

Designers: Wei Hansen, Li Shaochen, Xu Jinrui, Qi Yibin & Zhao Ying

ECO car combines retro design with modern technology for a comfy ride

Combining the old traditions of Laurin and Klement, a pre-war Czech company, with modern technology and system, designer Petr Novague has come up with a car concept that apart from presenting retro design also helps in sustaining the ecology. Hailed as “ECO,” the concept car features tube car frame, half-hood body and carbon components, which makes it a lightweight and energy efficient vehicle. Running on four narrow wheels, powered by built-in electric motors, the ECO car promises a sustainable ride in utmost comfort. Locating the batteries under the tilting front lid, which also works as door, the ecological automobile presents an effective operating range of 500 km per charge.

Attaching the lattice truss frame, made in chromium-molybdenum steel, to the carbon frame with inside honeycomb upfront, the retro-futuristic car also touts electronic drive-line (4 x 4) with stabilization system, which reduces the weight of mechanical connections by a huge margin. Moreover, the ECO car can change it ground clearance, thanks to the double-wishbone axel disposes of the push rod suspension, uniball endings and impact dampers, according to the road or terrain.

HTC Stick Phone Concept is the Answer Inside the HTC Tube Tablet

Antoine Brieux continues his creation with an interesting accessory for this tablet-smartphone: a secondary Stick Phone with basic functionality. The device is only used to answer a call on the Tube tablet. Aside from the speaker, microphone, answer and end call keys, this stick phone doesn’t sport other features and it does strictly what a phone is supposed to do: allows the user to chat with other people, while the tablet does the rest, replacing a full fledged PC.. [via Concept-Phones]

Feno Folding Notebook Flexes the Display Muscle

Created by Niels van Hoof, the Feno folding notebook concept incorporates a hinge within the display, unlike the usual folding devices, with a hinge between the display and keyboard. There’s also a pop out mouse in the mix and this would surely look good if the project fell into Sony’s hands to make a new Vaio.

This technology has one single drawback: it’s hard to make the hinge in the middle of the screen invisible, even with the most modern tech available. Also, why choose Windows for this notebook and not Android, Chrome OS or even MeeGo? And why not go with the touchscreen keyboard, too, since we’re here? [via Yanko Design]

Sony Ericsson Cyber-Shot Yiko is Only a Design!

We all were so excited over a new leaked Sony Ericsson Cyber-shot phone? since this was a concept created by Shane A. Bygrave who now details his work in the following pics. Known as Sony Ericsson Cyber-Shot Yiko, the device runs Android in the typical SE customized way. The device comes with a 16 mega-pixel camera, with Exmor R technology and a powerful flash. The form factor of the handset reminds me of the Xperia Arc, especially with the curved shape of the Yiko and its low thickness.

Should we consider this an Xperia Arc with an upgraded camera? [via Esato]

IBM shows off the old hardware in its basement

Historical hardware from IBM's 100 year history is on show at its Hursley site

IBM IS CELEBRATING its 100th anniversary this year, and like any centenarian it has accumulated a cornucopia of bric-a-brac over the course of its life. At the company's Hursley offices near Winchester, however, this means bits of old mainframes and suchlike.

This is a card punch from 1949, used for preparing punched cards, the data storage medium of its day.

More card punch equipment bearing the Hollerith name. Herman Hollerith founded the Tabulating Machine Company, one of the three firms that merged to form IBM in 1911.

A timestamping machine for workers clocking in. Another ancient product from one IBM's precursor companies.

IBM Type 77 punched card collator, dating from 1937. It could automatically sort and file two sets of punched cards, handling up to 240 per minute.

IBM Selectric typewriter from 1967. These models featured proportional spacing, and a golf-ball head to print instead of each key manually striking the paper. Some Selectric models could record text to tape, allowing for editing like a crude word processor.

A magnetic tape reel of the type used with the Selectric typewriters to record and edit text, pre-dating the word processor by many years.

Before RAM chips, computers used magnetic core storage for data memory. This unit dates from 1958.

A Transformer Read-Only Store (TROS) module, used by IBM to store microcode in some computer systems in the 1960s.

An early card assembly using plug-in modules built using integrated circuits (chips) instead of individual transistors.

IBM 5444 disk storage device, developed at Hursley in 1969 for the System/3 computer. The removable cartridge on top contains a single 14in disk storing up to 2.5MB of data.

Another early disk drive, showing how little the basic design has changed in decades. The disk platters and read/write head assembly are clearly visible.

An 8in floppy disk, originally developed by IBM for loading microcode into System/370 mainframes at power-up. Later, floppies developed into a widespread general-purpose storage medium.

Introduced in 1979, the IBM 3279 was the company's first colour mainframe terminal and could even display graphics.

The IBM PC was introduced in 1981, and is the direct ancestor of today's Windows PCs. This model is a PC XT with a hard disk (early models had only floppy drives or a cassette interface), but shows the original PC keyboard layout and the bulky monochrome display screen.

IBM's PC Convertible, from 1986, was the firm's first 'laptop' computer. It weighed over 5kg, and had a detachable screen allowing it to be used with a monitor on a desk. It was costly compared to rival machines from vendors such as Toshiba, and did not sell well.

The ThinkPad 701, an early ThinkPad laptop model from 1995, featured a unique 'butterfly' keyboard that unfolded and locked together as the lid was lifted, to give a full-size keyboard that is wider than the system case. Later laptops had larger and wider screens, doing away with the need for such a feature.

Not an antique, but a modern z10 mainframe used at Hursley as part of IBM's software and services development, and safely behind glass to keep it away from the grubby hands of visitors.