by stephanlange on May 8, 2012
That is the basic model behind the wearable camera that blinds a user until he is touched by someone else.
The project was created by Artist Eric Siu and is called Touchy.
With Touchy, Siu wants to highlight social anxiety, which he believes is caused by the increased reliance on communication mediums like Facebook and Twitter. He says that the helmet emulates the isolating experience of over-reliance on social networks, and turns the wearer into a social device.
Touchy has two giant shutters that remain closed without human contact. Once the helmet’s sensors detect touch, the shutters open and illuminate the wearers eyes, the blindness is temporarily lifted until the connection is broken. If someone maintains contact for ten seconds, a photo is taken by the camera mounted on the front of Touchy, which is then displayed on a screen round the back.
Check out the heartwarming video below
@maniac13
by stephanlange on April 11, 2012
Remember the days when you were sitting in front of your CRT TV playing with your Atari 2600 playing Asteroids by yourself? I do.
Now that is all in the past as the new version of Asteroids here is a massively multiplayer online (mmo) game and instead of chasing asteroids you shoot other players from all over the world.
It’s a relatively simple arcade-style game in which you attempt to rack up as high a score as possible before running out of lives, and you can sign in with Twitter to put a name to your score.
@maniac13
by stephanlange on March 22, 2012
The smart peeps at MIT have created a camera that can look around the corner.
To do this, the system uses a so-called femtosecond laser to send out extremely short light pulses that are aimed at a nearby wall, then bounce around, hit the object hiding and then bounce back to the camera.
Then smart software figures out what is lurking behind the wall by determining how long it took those pulses to return to the camera.
This happens over and over again at different angles, meaning that the system will ultimately be able to get a general idea of the object hidden.
check out the video below
@maniac13
by stephanlange on March 21, 2012
How do those 2 fit together you ask? Microsoft has teamed up with Lionsgate to show off the latest HTML5 techniques (movie-like effect: stream, lens flare and video projections) and to promote IE9.
Check it out here
I had some issues getting onto the page, but I think it is because it is making the rounds in the internet and everybody is checking it out.
Nevertheless it is a pretty nifty and beautiful site and you have the ability to connect it to your facebook and your friends appear on billboards and screens.
The site also gives you some exclusive movie content and there are 2 easter eggs that reveal 2 never before seen clips.
- 1. In the Control Room you can type in "ivolunteer" on your keyboard after clicking on the map section
- 2. In the Avenue of Tributes you can click on Katniss and then Peeta to reveal a clip from the training center
I can’t wait for the movie to come out as it looks great and it looks like HTML5 is being pushed to its boundaries on this site.
Check out the trailer if you haven’t seen it.
@maniac13
by stephanlange on January 31, 2012
What is WiGig you are asking? WiGig is an alliance that completed a multi-gigabit 60Ghz wireless specification.
It means that WiGig enables wireless transfer rates more than ten times faster than today’s fastest wireless LAN, and it’s completely backward compatible with existing WiFi devices.
Panasonic is now in the process of jamming the functionality into SD cards set to arrive next year and they already have a working prototype that they showed off at DigInfo.
Photos and videos were effortlessly send to secondary displays and played without any glitches. According to them a whole DVD can be transferred in under a minute.
But check it out in action here and be surprised by how much it looks like Amnesia Connect 
@maniac13
by stephanlange on January 20, 2012
German Photographer Marcus Reugels takes pictures of water droplets refracting an image behind them, making them each appear to contain a world or Batman or Spiderman.
How he says on his website, every droplet is a unique piece of art. Pretty amazing
Check out his other work, which he says was not manipulated with Photoshop at all.
@maniac13
by stephanlange on November 17, 2011
Amnesia is always happy to support local talent and we are proud to show you a concept from one of our Interns, David Montero
David has been helping us with one of our Kinect internal projects while he was working hard on his own university project called dOh
Ever had a doh! moment?, that moment when the door slams behind you and you slap your forehead realising you left the house without taking the keys with you?
dOh will help you remember your keys, wallet, phone or anything else you could possibly forget.
All you have to do is “tag” your items and when you try to leave your apartment your doorknob will tell you, by flashing a coloured light at you, that you forgot a tagged item.
A really nice idea and I am sure it will help people in the future not to forget their things anymore. It could potentially even tell you that you lost your phone when you come back to your home 
@maniac13
by stephanlange on October 19, 2011
Today Google and Samsung finally had their Nexus event where they released the next version of the Nexus phone series as well as the announcement of their new iteration of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich.
So let’s start with the phone: Samsung Galaxy Nexus
Obviously it will be running ICS and it will have some very impressive specs:
- a huge 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720
- 1.2 Ghz dual-core processor
- 5 Megapixel rear camera with LED flash
- 1.3 Megapixel front facing camera
- 1080p full HD video recording
- 1 GB of RAM
- Wireless N network
- NFC capabilities
- the usual accelerometer, compass, gyro, proximity sensor
- a barometer
and to power it all a big 1750mAh battery
It will be released in November, but so far we haven’t heard any carrier announcement or if it even hit AU shores any time soon. No price yet either.
So what about Ice Cream Sandwich?
Better known as Android 4.0, the update offers a massive redesign to the user interface and adds a lot of new features. Mostly developed to bridge the gap between handsets and tablets it is the first step to fight the Android fragmentation.
Some of the highlights include an NFC-enabled feature called Android Beam, that allows 2 NFC enabled devices to share information by simply touching them together.
Offline search in Gmail, new lock screen features and a fancy unlocking method called "Face Unlock," which uses facial recognition to obviously unlock your phone.
Ice Cream Sandwich also includes enhancements in almost every native app within Android itself. E.g. the camera interface is completely new, it is faster and easier with instant access from the lock screen, no more shutter lag which means photos are taken immediately, new panorama features, touch to focus etc etc.
The gallery app now has “Instagram” like filters and there is an inbuilt photo editor. Sort your shots by location or by person (if you tagged them) and video can now be captured in 1080p. And to really stress your battery you can now create time lapse videos right out of the box.
A Siri competitor or just a newer version of Google Voice?
The SDK is already available for Android 4.0 – here
so what are you waiting for, get developing
@maniac13
by stephanlange on April 15, 2011
then maybe you should try and get hired at Inventionland – no I am not kidding, this place really exists.
I have seen some cool workplaces in the past, just think about Google Headquarter or the old Amnesia office next to the brothel 
, but George Davison really put some effort into this place.
He created multiple different environments for his employees to get the creative juices flowing – e.g. work on a Pirate Ship
It seems to be working too as they are pumping out over 2000 inventions per year.
Here are some more of their workplaces
the concept kitchen
the race track
or the tree house
You Can check it out here, but be warned they have some weird theme song on their site
or check out their flickr stream here
pretty awesome
@maniac13
by stephanlange on April 9, 2011
3D is cool, but I do not want to put on glasses every time I watch something in 3D.
There are plenty of glasses free TVs out there, but let’s face it I do not want to be confined to 3-5 spots in my living room and if I move a little bit the picture will look sh*t.
However, Japanese researchers have devised a new type of hologram technology. They work with normal light and can produce full-coloured 3D images.
This new technology works by hitting a thin metal film with three beams of white light, each from a different angle. Each beam excites a different colour of light, which then passes through an RGB hologram, combining to form a full-colour 3D image.
These holograms wouldn’t require glasses or viewing angles and how awesome would it be to have real life holograms acting out movies in your living room.
I can’t wait for it.
@maniac13
