Flutter, a Kinect-like gesture control startup bought by Google

Flutter since 2012 allows Mac users to control music and video on iTunes and Spotify using the hand gestures just like Microsoft's Kinect. Flutter or renowned for "Kinect for OS X" is a free app for Mac that enabling gesture controls to OS X computers. It is compatible with iTunes, Spotify, Winamp and Windows Media Player. The Next Web reported that the company has acquired by Google.

It is believed by this acquisition Google is will leveraging the gesture controls to its Android system or its Google Glass. A video showcasing the how the Flutter works follows below:

The acquisition was confirmed by the Flutter's homepage where they post :

Today, we are thrilled to announce that we will be continuing our research at Google. We share Google’s passion for 10x thinking, and we’re excited to add their rocket fuel to our journey

Some said, this acquisition will not affecting the current Flutter app.

Via TNW

» Read more

October 2, 2013

Gamepad for iPhone may be underway

Do you like to play game on your iPhone ?, hate those on-screen controls that made most of your thumbs occupying the screen when playing games on an iPhone ?. Well your expectation may come from Logitech. The company was teasing the internet via their Facebook account last week, with a picture of a device that probably Logitech gamepad for iphone.

As you may already know, iPhone now is supporting the hardware controllers such as external games controller as Apple was adding this kind of support with iOS 7. Prior version of iOS, it didn't supported. The connection to the iPhone are currently unknown, whether it will utilizing Bluetooth or direct connection to the Lightning port.

via Gigaom

» Read more

October 1, 2013

Acrobat.com, a suite hosted service from Adobe System Inc.

Adobe System has introduced a suite of hosted services, acrobat.com. Acrobat dot com is a set of online services consist of file sharing and storage, PDF converter, online word processor and web conferencing.

To deliver the engaging online experiences beyond traditional office productivity tools, Acrobat dot com take the advantage of PDF, Adobe Flash® and Adobe AIR™ technologies. The services hosted by acrobat dot com include:

1. Adobe Buzzword®, on-line web-based word processor that can be used to easily, create, co-authoring and sharing documents for comment and review. It is also able to create high-quality print results.

2. Adobe ConnectNow, web conferencing that includes video and voice conferencing, desktop sharing and integrated chat service. To use this service you need to install Adobe ConnectNow add-in.

3. Online File Sharing, centralized online file sharing with access controls and online PDF conversion for up to five documents that support high quality, web-embeddable documents.

Acrobat.com is also designed to work with Adobe Acrobat 9 and Adobe Reader 9. Acrobat 9 users can access to a "personal workspace in the clouds" that is available from virtually anywhere for working with others online and can use acrobat.com as a central location for sharing forms, conducting shared reviews and co-navigating a PDF document with colleagues. Adobe Reader 9 can have easy access to Acrobat.com to share files, convert to up to five documents to PDF online and participate in electronic forms and shared reviews that is initiated by Acrobat 9 user.

“Fifteen years ago, PDF moved the world from paper to electronic documents without sacrificing print quality, changing the way we share information.Acrobat.com extends that vision, moving the world from email attachments to online collaborative documents without sacrificing authoring quality. With rich Internet applications enabled by Adobe, we can combine desktop and cloud computing to create innovative productivity applications that will change the way we create, store and share documents together.” said Rob Tarkoff, senior vice president, Business Productivity Business Unit.

Currently Acrobat.com is available as public beta for free sign-up.

via adobe.com

» Read more

June 9, 2008

Gamers, this lightning fast 2000 Mhz memory is for you !

If you are a gamer who are demanding faster frame rates, faster loading times and faster task switching for best performance of your gaming pleasure these memory from Corsair is might be for you. Corsair, renowned for its high performance computer product has announced that they will launch a new 4GB DOMINATOR DDR3 memory kit that is running at 2000 Mhz at CompuTex 2008 in Taipei held on 3 - 7 June 2008.

Designed to have the highhest performing IC maximum over-clocking, DOMINATOR is equipped with Corsair's patented DHX quad-layer heat sink cooling system.

The DOMINATOR family of memory represents the ultimate in performance
technology engineering from Corsair. DOMINATOR is designed with the highest
performing IC overclocking capability and Corsair's patented DHX cooling.
DHX technology is an innovative quad-layer heat sink design that optimizes
memory performance and reliability by maximizing thermal dissipation. With
DHX Technology, heat is removed via two paths -- the leads of the BGA chips
into the PCB (conductive cooling) and the back of the BGA packages into the
custom designed extruded aluminum heat sinks (convective cooling). This
allows DOMINATOR modules to achieve industry leading overclocking
performance while remaining stable and reliable.

As for gamers who demand nothing but the best performance, Corsair provide gaming performance analysis which conclude that there are significant performance benefits with 4GB Corsair memory featuring DHX technology. Test findings demonstrate that 4GB has faster frame rates, faster loading times and faster task switching of up to eleven times.

Frame rates

» Read more

June 2, 2008

US States and Regional Agencies using Microsoft Virtual Earth platform for developing geospatial applications

Leading states, localities and regional agencies in US are using Microsoft Virtual Earth platform to develop their geospatial applications for citizens. Virtual Earth platform is Microsoft integrated set of powerful online mapping and search service that has many features including bird's-eye view, 3D imagery, aerial and satellite imagery. Virtual Earth is also powering Live Search Maps, a Microsoft online local search and mapping website.

Amongst those local governments who utilises Microsoft Virtual Earth are, Washington State community for interactive parking location locator, City of Seattle for permitting,planning and zoning system, Texas and Ohio for online traffic monitoring system where citizens could finds latest traffic information and accident details as well as able to see traffic camera views.

TransVista, a Texas's El Paso Intelligent Transportation System, allows residents to see live traffic in camera views, and viewing roadway communication signs, including traffic incident data. Users can toggle between traffic hazards and incident data and can control information displayed through user friendly panel on the left side of the main screen.

The city of Miami chose Virtual Earth mapping software to develop online applications that provide enhanced public safety response where fireman could respond more quickly to emergencies as the Microsoft's accurate photorealistic and geo-specific Miami city 3D model provide them unobstructed views of emergency sites before they arrive on the scene, for urban planning system that helps to study the impact of new contruction and for tourism services where visitors able to explore the city virtually before leaving the hotel room.

More about Microsoft Earth Virtual in government click here

» Read more

June 1, 2008

Invisible Shield for your gadgets protection

Are you worried that your precious gadgets such as iPhone and iPod are scratched but still want your gadgets original looks without adding too much cases ?. This might be your choice; invisibleSHIELD from Zagg is scratch-proof patented film. Made from military grade material, that used to protect helicopters blades from dust, dirt and debris, now is offered to be used to protect your gadgets. It is invisible or transparent and a durable protection for your gadgets.

The shield is only 0.2 mm thick, and if you want to remove it, it comes off clean and leaves no sticky material. Offered with lifetime guarantee; they will replace it for free, invisibleSHIELD is currently available for iPhone, iPod, Macbook Air, Blackberry, LG Shine and Voyager, Nintendo DS lite, Sony PSP Slim and Palm Centro.

» Read more

May 31, 2008

Self parking car: Volkswagen Passat CC Park Assist Vision

This is about self parking car. Many car manufacturers are showcasing self parking feature for their for future products. Volkswagen is one of them through their Park Assist Vision technology.

Image by dez1172

Volkswagen unveiled their new-level self-parking technology Park Assist Vision which is now come in full automatic system. Car driver could stand outside the car and let the system parking the car itself. All of these are done with help of those cameras and proximity sensors, the system do the rest, and 'voila' your car parked. However this is just a technological showcase, we may see in production by 2010. Video is after the jump.

» Read more

May 1, 2008

New Lord of the Ring: Ring that exchange information when handshaking

What you do when meeting new person, handshaking and followed by name card exchange or sort of information exchange. Shaking hands is a customary greeting action and this ring designed by Hideaki Matsui is designed to exchange basic information with new people by shaking hands in their first meeting.



When hand shaking, the rings on their fingers gain the proximity to operate and the rings exchange the information and store it. The more the people met by the user, the more information is gathered. When the user need to check people that have met, ring need to attach to the card and the card will displays information that was stored in the ring. The power source of this ring is obtained from body temperature, so no worry on empty batteries.

» Read more

February 12, 2008

Geothermal heating: bring comfort to your world

Up to 50% of energy bill is for heating and cooling, people are always finding new way for efficient usage of energy for this 'most household expenses'. How about geothermal heating systems ?.

Geothermal system is a system which capture the heat from below the frost line ( about 4 feet deep ) where the temperature are constant at 50 degrees Fahrenheit all year long ). During the winter, the heat pumped from the ground and uses it to warm the air in your home. In the warmer summer months, the processed is reversed, taking heat from your home and transfered it back into the ground

With up to 75% energy efficiency offered compared to the conventional heating and cooling system, geothermal system is offering a great savings. Furthermore in term of environmental, the U.S. Department of Energy forecasts that by the year 2030, geothermal heat pumps can provide as much as 2.7 quads per year of renewable energy. This is very significant, as U.S annual energy appetite in is 81 quads per year and growing and it also offers significant reduce of emissions too.

For more information about Geothermal System : www.alliantenergygeothermal.com

» Read more

February 11, 2008

ioDrive: ultra high-speed 640 GB Flash Storage

What you think about the storage media with a data rates speed almost the same with DRAM ?. It is almost a thousand times faster than any existing disk. ioDrive is designed to deliver 100,000 IOPS, 800MB/s Read and 600MB/s Write. io stands for Indexed Object, ioDrive is based on NAND, this is an ultra high speed and huge flash drive .

The ioDrive™ is the industry's first, NAND based enterprise storage solution that provides access rates comparable to DRAM with storage capacity on par with disks — being able to improve both memory capacity and storage performance by 100x. The ioDrive™ leverages Fusion-io's proprietary ioMemory™ architecture to strip away the complexity and limitations of traditional storage infrastructure to provide a high performance, highly scalable Local Storage device or Storage Cache device

IoDrive uses PCIe x4 connector to enable rapid implementation into todays computers, whihc rewuires no changes to applications or infrastructure. While the iODrive eliminates the challenges and concerns associated with mechanical disks, it also make enterprises no longer need to buy expensive, high performance fiber channels disks, RAID controllers,fiber channel switches or custom software.

ioDrive shipping will begin in early 2008, offered in the line of capacities of 8)GB, 160GB, 320GB and 640 GB. It is overpriced as it's targeting a retail price at $30 per Gigabyte, but it is normal for new technology. Lets see the progress, if this new fast storage media could revolutionize computer technology, where it will be the end of traditional hard drives. The producer of ioDrive boasts 'puts the power of SAN into the palm of your hand'.

[via 4sysop]

» Read more

October 25, 2007

Sex with robot by 2050 - future geeky behavior ?

Recent claim from an artificial intelligence researcher said that humans will be marrying and having sex with robots by 2050. Cool, you may recall Bicentennial Man movie in 1999, where it was based on Isaac Asimov writing. In that movie Robin Williams as a robot is so human-like, even he felt in love with human. It may be come true in the near future, us, human marry a robot.

David Levy, a Netherlands university student who recently completed his PhD on the subject human-robot relationships told that robots would become so human-like in appearance, function and personality. Speaking of personality in a robot, is also predicted that people would fall in love with them, have sex with them and even marry them. He have identified roughly a dozen basic reason why people fall in love, and almost all of them could apply to human-robot relationship. He explains about this human-robot relationship on his thesis "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners"

"At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, but once you have a story like 'I had sex with a robot and it was great!' appear in a magazine like Cosmo, I'd expect many people to jump on the bandwagon," he said.

[via newscomau]

» Read more

October 16, 2007

British Police Microdrone hovering spy camera

British Police are now using flying surveillance camera. This camera is from Microdrone Gmbh, it's battery powered and has capability to return to its home base even if it losess two of its four rotor blades. With the capability to fly at 350 feet, it will be hard to notice from the ground. The ability of hovering outside a window and zooming just enough to say how intrusive this new toy might be, it open to use and abuse.

Using these devices for military purposes is one thing, but when the police have them the discussion is completely different. Although in principle it won't allow them to spy on anything that couldn't already be seen from a helicopter, small and cheap MAVs are likely to be much more common. And, crucially, unlike a helicopter you will not be able to tell when one is watching you.

[via Wired]



Technorati Tags: Surveillance camera

» Read more

October 3, 2007

Rsizr: Coolest Image Resizer

Rsizr is a free web, Flash application that lets you resize JPG, PNG and Gif images on your computer. Rsizr lets you to process normal image rescaling and cropping , and also can resize image by using a new image resizing algorithm called Seam Carving ( a method of image retargeting ) that tries to keep intact areas in your image that are richer in detail.

Here is what Rsizr can do, it pretty amazing.

This is the original image:



And this is the result, ( click to enlarge )



Do you see the different ?, the above process shows how we can stretch the image into the panoramic view, but keep the object intact. The object at the center is not stretched, only the surrounding area is stretched. You can check what Rsizr can do at their image gallery.

More info about Rsizr can be found here. Don't forget, that Rsizr requires Flash plugin 9.0.45 or greater.

Image taken from Rsizr homepage

[via BrentEvans]


Technorati Tags: Photo editor, Image resizer

» Read more

October 2, 2007

Toshiba notebooks with HD DVD drive

Toshiba has announced line of new Satellite notebooks. Following the HD DVD hype, Toshiba's notebooks are now has HD DVD capability. Toshiba's Satellite P205 with Intel Core Duo processor gives users the option of watching stunning audio-visual quality and dynamic content interactivity with HD DVD on the 1440x900 (WXGA+) 17" widescreen display.

Toshiba equipped the notebook with HDMI output, allowing users to take advantage of the HD DVD drive and play HD content on their home televisions up to 1080i resolution. It's also equipped with 256MB Ati Mobility Radeon HD 2600 video display card and two Harman Kardon stereo speakers and also utilizing Dolby Sound Room technology to deliver surround sound when using stereo headphone or speakers.

Toshiba laptops others than Satellite series which has HD DVD drive can be check here

[Via Infosync]


Technorati Tags: Notebook, Toshiba, HD DVD

» Read more

October 1, 2007

1 Gigabyte todays and 20 years ago physically compared

Technology has evolved, things getting smaller while the capability is getting bigger. This shows how is a one-gigabyte of an IBM hard drive from twenty years ago is a gigantic compared to today's one-gigabyte SD card.

[Via emergingearth]

» Read more

Free Translator from Windows Live now in Beta

Another free online translator has been released. It is reported that Microsoft has released its own online translator. Microsoft is now trying targeting online services as Google did, this time is to compete Google translator.

Windows Live Translator is a free online translation service from Microsoft which is powered by Systran. It will compete with existing translation services such as Google Translate and the famous fish, Babelfish.

The service is still in beta stage, some upgrades and improvements would be needed to make the service even better. For the time being the service can be reached through the following urls:

• translator.live.com
• translate.live.com
• windowslivestranslator.com

[via]

» Read more

September 12, 2007

Altec Lansing unveils new iMT521 SoundBlade Stereo speaker system

Altec lansing has announced their new series of portable speaker systems. One of them is iMT521 SoundBlade Stereo Bluetooth speaker system. It's features dual 2" full-range high output speakers and stereo bluetooth. for wireless connectivity with most stereo bluetooth mobile phones and computers. Equipped with AVRCP for two-way remote volume, mute, track forward/back controls from a cellular handset.

It also has built-in echo-canceling microphone for wireless speakerphone capability. The slim design measures 6.125"H x 11.125"W x 1.0" D and support AC and AA type battery power source.

This iMT521 SoundBlade Stereo Bluetooth will be available in November 2007 at $130.

[via]

» Read more

September 11, 2007

BBC iPlayer for Mac OS X soon

BBC has planned its BBC iPlayer to be developed for Mac OS X. This is a step-forward to give broader support of BBC iPlayer to go beyond Windows XP, which is currently BBC iPlayer beta is available.

This plan is a response to a petition called on British government to go beyond Windows XP. The petition said "The BBC,should not be allowed to show commercial bias in this way, or to exclude certain groups of the population from using its services "

The BBC say that they provide 'services for everyone, free of commercial interests and political bias'.

BBC iPlayer is an internet TV software from BBC which allows users within UK to watch tha last seven days of BBC tV on their computer. However users are not allowed to save permanent copies of the show locally. The software is otherwise free.

[via]

» Read more

September 10, 2007

Free Internet TV from BBC

Now we have more choices of news source, the growth of the Internet has made conventional TV now can be viewed where we want, even on handheld devices, anywhere any time.

BBC has launched free Internet Service for people in UK only. Dubbed BBC iPlayer, "this ervice available not just over the Internet, but also on cable and other TV platforms, and eventually on mobiles and smart handheld devices", said the BBC's Ashley Highfield, Director of Future Media and Technology.

People accessing this service will be able to choose from 400 hours of programs, including hit shows such as "EastEnders, "Doctor Who" and "Planet Earth". This service is runs on Microsoft XP and users will not allowed to save permanent copies locally.


[via]

» Read more

July 30, 2007

World fastest home internet connection owned by a 75 years old Swedish

A 75-year-old Swedish is believed has the fastest residential internet uplink in the world. Yes, a latecomer to the information highway is now able surfing the internet with a dizzying speed.

Sigbritt Lothberg of Karlstads has a 40 gigabits-per-second fiber optic connection at her home. With this speed she can downloading a full movie is less than 2 seconds. Sweet ....

[via]

Technorati Tags: Technology

» Read more

July 19, 2007