[From

Cocorobo intelligent vacuum cleaner robot communicates with its owner

8 May 2012

Sharp has developed a vacuum cleaning robot called Cocorobo, which uses the Cocoro Engine artificial intelligence capability. This product is the first in a planned series of robot appliances which can communicate with people.

Cocorobo features a speech recognition engine developed by Raytron, so it can be controlled by voice, as well as using its buttons or the remote control. It has also been given the ability to say simple greetings, with the idea being that a vacuum cleaner can communicate like a pet robot.

“For example, if you use Cocorobo every day, or speak to it every day, it gets in a good mood. Depending on how it feels, its words and movements vary a lot, so you can gain a feeling of closeness with it. Regarding Cocorobo’s learning capability, we’re planning upgrades that will make it evolve rapidly.” Read more on Cocorobo intelligent vacuum cleaner robot communicates with its owner…

[From

Make Any Web Page 3-D With 3-D It!

Developer Edan Kwan created a program that, when bookmarked, uses CSS to convert any website to glorious 3-D. Glasses optional.

By Joe Berkowitz
May 9, 2012

It started as a fun little experiment, in three dimensions.

Edan Kwan, a developer at New York-based digital agency, Firstborn, had the thought that others might share his fascination with what websites would look like with a 3-D makeover. Lo and behold, pretty soon he’d created a program that uses CSS to do just that, turning 3-D into a verb in the process.

Users can simply drag the script to their bookmark bar and use it to click and transform any typically flat site into one that gives the illusion of containing a Z-axis. Read more on 3-D It converts any web page to 3-D…

[From Wired’s GigaOM]

Beyond Smart TV: ‘Surfaces’ Prototype Reveals the Television of Tomorrow

By Christina Bonnington
May 8, 2012

We’ve seen the future of television, and we want it now.

NDS, a company that develops DRM security and DVR technology for pay-TV providers like Cox and DirecTV, has developed a proof-of-concept called Surfaces that shows how television could become the center of a much more compelling, immersive living room experience.

The prototype jettisons the single, static screen that’s been a hardware mainstay since the golden age of television. In its place is a slick, highly customized room-sized desktop that hosts not only a traditional widescreen TV image, but also windows for a plethora of digital accoutrements.

It could be exactly what the TV industry needs to stay relevant.

“In a few years’ time, you’ll be able to buy a TV that covers an entire wall, acting like wallpaper,” NDS chief marketing officer Nigel Smith told Wired. In this way, the TV could take the form of a gigantic canvas, providing layers of additional information, as well as different levels of immersion. Read more on Beyond Smart TV: ‘Surfaces’ prototype reveals the television of tomorrow…

[From here]

This Sunday Bombay Sapphire Presents the Edible Cinema

Posted on May 11, 2012

Wow! we’ve had Secret Cinema, scratch and sniff cinema, film scores re-imagined by DJs and musicians. But as yet, no-one has truly enhanced a cinematic experience with food… until now! On Sunday 13 May, the Electric Cinema in Portobello Road and Bombay Sapphire Gin are proud to present ‘Edible Cinema’; a collaboration between the team at Soho House, renowned experience organiser Polly Betton, experimental food designer Andrew Stellitano and Bombay Sapphire’s brand ambassador Sam Carter.

The concept is simple: the audience are given a series of numbered ‘packages’ before the start of the film which contain food and Bombay Sapphire specially created tasters. At specific points during the film large placards with corresponding numbers will be shown to the audience instructing them to consume the contents of the packages. Read more on ‘Edible Cinema’ features corresponding foods to heighten sensory experience of film…

[From

[Image: A new look combining the depth camera of Kinect gaming console and a video from a digital SLR. Credit: Screen capture by Martin LaMonica/CNET]

‘Point cloud portraits’ bring ghostly 3D images to movies

by Martin LaMonica May 2, 201

Carnegie Mellon University’s Studio for Creative Inquiry creates distinctive 3D video effect by hacking together the depth camera of the Kinect gaming console with video from digital SLRs.

In yet another example of the amazing things possible with the Kinect gaming console, filmmakers have combined the depth camera of Kinect with a digital SLR to create a haunting new look in video.

Fellows at Carnegie Mellon University’s Studio for Creative Inquiry this week posted video, spotted by The Verge, from a filmmaking workshop which shows some of the potential of this type of 3D imagery. Read more on ‘Point cloud portraits’ bring ghostly 3D images to movies…

[From

Assemble a Holographic GE Jet Engine—No Engineering Experience Required

As part of Creative Week, agency BBDO New York has collaborated with special FX, sound, and gaming technology companies to create Throttle Up, an immersive experience that lets you see, hear, and feel what it’s like to build and launch a GE jet engine.

By: KC Ifeanyi
May 8, 2012

The same holographic technology that’s sending departed music stars on tour is allowing civilians to assemble a jet engine in Dumbo.

GE’s expansive array of innovative technologies have made the company a pioneer across numerous sectors of everyday life–particularly in the area of commercial aviation. And in an effort to showcase the mechanics behind one of its creations, GE has teamed up with agency BBDO New York to create Throttle Up, an immersive, holographic sensory experience running during Creative Week in New York.

Using a holistic suite of motion-control and projection technologies, Throttle Up allows participants to assemble a life-size 3-D rendition of GE’s eco-friendly and energy-efficient GEnx jet engine using only their hands. Read more on Assemble a holographic jet engine in GE/BBDO’s Throttle Up exhibit in NY…

[From MIT’s here]

[Image: Sound waving: SoundWave uses the Doppler effect and the microphone and speakers in your computer to sense and interpret gestures. Microsoft Research.]

Gesture Control System Uses Sound Alone

SoundWave lets an ordinary laptop function like a Kinect sensor.

Monday, May 7, 2012
By Rachel Metz

When you learned about the Doppler Effect in high school physics class—the wave frequency shift that occurs when the source of the wave is moving, easily illustrated by a passing ambulance—you probably didn’t envision it helping control your computer one day.

But that’s exactly what a group of researchers are doing at Microsoft Research, the software giant’s Redmond, Washington-based lab. Gesture control is becoming increasingly common and is even built into some TVs. While other motion-sensing technologies such as Microsoft’s own Kinect device use cameras to sense and interpret movement and gestures, SoundWave does this using only sound—thanks to the Doppler Effect, some clever software, and the built-in speakers and microphone on a laptop. Read more on Microsoft Research’s SoundWave: Gesture control using sound alone…

[From

Virtual Reality Sheds Light on Learning with Autism

UC Davis is using virtual reality to learn how autistic adolescents manage to think, talk and interact at the same time. They hope the study will help the estimated 740,000 autistic kids in public schools get more from the classroom.

By Pauline Bartolone
(Sacramento, CA)
Monday, April 30, 2012

Sixteen year-old Matthew Nystrom describes himself as someone who likes to learn everything he can about the world.

“My personal passion is animals, the natural world and how our… how the planet works basically,” says Nystrom.

Nystrom has autism. The diagnosis hasn’t diminished his intellect, but it does leave him challenged in some ways.

“There are some areas where I do not do the greatest, and those would actually be like in math, because I can’t do algebra very well,” he says.

Nystrom’s learning behavior is what UC Davis researchers want to study. They’re using technology to simulate a classroom to see how autistic children between the ages of 8 and 18 perform in it. Read more on UC Davis researchers using VR to study how autistic teens learn…

[From here]

Researchers at Disney and Carnegie Mellon Develop Disruptive New Technology (Touché) – [Video]

By Bill Klump | @TheKlumper | May 5th, 2012

A doorknob that knows whether to lock or unlock based on how it is grasped, a smartphone that silences itself if the user holds a finger to her lips and a chair that adjusts room lighting based on recognizing if a user is reclining or leaning forward are among the many possible applications of Touché, a new sensing technique developed by a team at Disney Research, Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University.

Touché is a form of capacitive touch sensing, the same principle underlying the types of touchscreens used in most smartphones. But instead of sensing electrical signals at a single frequency, like the typical touchscreen, Touché monitors capacitive signals across a broad range of frequencies.

This Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing (SFCS) makes it possible to not only detect a “touch event,” but to recognize complex configurations of the hand or body that is doing the touching. An object thus could sense how it is being touched, or might sense the body configuration of the person doing the touching. Read more on Disruptive technology Touche developed by Disney, Carnegie Mellon researchers…

[From Discover’s Magazine’s blog

Cheap Soul Teleportation, Coming Soon to a Theater Near You?

April 10th, 2012

Mark Changizi is an evolutionary neurobiologist and director of human cognition at 2AI Labs. He is the author of The Brain from 25000 Feet, The Vision Revolution, and his newest book, Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man.” Also check out his related commentary on a promotional video for Project Glass, Google’s augmented-reality project.

Experience happens here—from my point of view. It could happen over there, or from a viewpoint of an objective nowhere. But instead it happens from the confines of my own body. In fact, it happens from my eyes (or from a viewpoint right between the eyes). That’s where I am. That’s consciousness central—my “soul.” In fact, a recent study by Christina Starmans at Yale showed that children and adults presume that this “soul” lies in the eyes (even when the eyes are positioned, in cartoon characters, in unusual spots like the chest).

The question I wish to raise here is whether we can teleport our soul, and, specifically, how best we might do it. I’ll suggest that we may be able to get near-complete soul teleportation into the movie (or video game) experience, and we can do so with some fairly simple upgrades to the 3D glasses we already wear in movies. Read more on Cheap soul teleportation, coming soon to a theater near you?…