Gizmo Watch

We’ve seen rotating heads on identification cards in many sci-fi movies over time, but to see reality go thus far, we thought there was time still. Samsung’s surprised us on many counts and here the company with its latest prototype of an e-passport featuring AMOLED display, has brought on to us just another one. With a rotating picture for a 360-degree view of the person, the flexible card has a 2-inch QVGA display with resolutions of 240×320 pixels. Flaunting a contrast ratio of 10,000:1, the AMOLEDs on the card can be powered wirelessly via an RFID reader, and where a reader is not available, holding the card close to a scanner is good enough to power it up. No idea when this could go into production, or will it ever make there, but what is sure is the fact that security obsessed would surely be looking for alternatives to get this thing real to minimize security lapses.

Solid State Drives had been a fast alternative until now, but with this latest development from British developer DataSlide, these could soon find a faster and perhaps a better alternative in non-rotating discs dubbed the Hard Rectangular Drives (HRD). With two-sided media layer and millions of read-write heads created using the lithography process, these discs are presumed to be 4x faster than the HDD and only half as power hungry as SSDs, which actually means transfer rates of 500 MB/s, stuffed well inside a 3.5-inch drive. Multiple heads suggest that multiple points of data can be read in parallel – which according to the makers is 64 heads read or written simultaneously. Developers have used piezoelectrics to assist the head to read a selection of bits clubbed in sectors. It may be a far-flung venture yet, but surely has a potential for real.

Via: RegHardware/Gizmodo

HP has introduced the Photosmart Premium printer with Touch Smart Web and this development ushers in a new era of printers that would no longer be dependent on the computer. This is thanks to a Wi-Fi enabled touchscreen that would let you print directly from the web. Come September, the Premium Printer would become the flagship model for HP, and in a way it would be the flagship for all printers we’ve known until date. HP has teamed up with the likes of Google, Fandango, Snapfish, DreamWorks and Disney (to name a few) so that users could have easy access to printing maps, coupons, movie tickets and so on.

Now that Transformers is back in its all new avatar, Revenge of the Fallen, it is just fitting that we relived our Transforming craze. Most of us would have our own little souvenirs to show, but nothing as explicit as Tom Rhodes’ heroic Autobot that stands 18ft tall in Rhodes’ front yard in Lemoore, California. A breathtaking replica of the Transformers bot, churned out in an old Volkswagen Beetle, this 1,200-pound Bumblebee robot is on exhibition in the same yard where it was created, so you can walk in and see why this is actually so special.

The pancake turners would love to add this modulator controller to their kitty. The Lemur V2 from JazzMutant adds a new domain to the world of spielers, offering them a modulating experience on a touch where they could bring in all 10 fingers to use. From a uniform base (touch operative) you can together control virtual equipment, lights and even synthesizers. Lemur V2 is vested with the ability to utilize open source software and the users can create a custom interface using the Jazz Editor. Before taking the plunge of housing the Lemur V2 modular controller, I would suggest you judge your skill level, for it does demand a hefty $1,999 price.

Having seen a lot of guys flirting around with games, peripherals, consoles and just about anything to make the gaming experience novel and exciting, we often don’t think there is further scope. Therefore, these guys who’ve got a 7-inch Active Matrix TFT display mounted onto a gun surely deserve credit for their hack in madness. Onto this gun mod, known as the PC VR Game Gun, the hackers have fixed a gyration mouse and a keyboard for tracking and buttons respectively. With a near perfect screen res and configuration, every game is 100% compatible with the modded outcome, so the user can just plug-and-play any game at will. For the benefit of the interested, a new version of the game gun is absolutely wireless. Jump down for video demonstration of both versions.

The plugging types cannot see their worn-out gadgets getting ignored, and that is where they resort to remodeling. A similar-natured Australian, Josh, chose to redeem his iPod mini using nothing more than wood and screws. The choice of wood, though, was special as Josh chose Australian red cedar for the exterior casing. The click wheel was recast in camphorwood laurel. The other major constituents were brass plates and screws, and Josh despised glue lest for the wheel that was double-taped on the original.

It wasn’t just the iPod that went through this makeover; Josh complimented the wooden iteration with an iTrip Mini he owned. The mini was cased in cedar wood to match the wooden enthusiasm of its companion. The camphorwood laurel also resurfaced to engulf the docking station, though he expanded the dimensions to accommodate the wooden iPod. More images after the jump.

For all regulars here – thanks for appreciating the coverage of the Damnation-themed PC case mod. Jake of All Trades had that morphed it as a prize for the launch of the game; it was an excellent creation and we know that. But what we have been unaware of is that a Sony Playstation 3 received a Steampunk treatment too. The PS3 from a sleek and black was recreated in the phenomenon most regard as a cult and others as a ramification of the Victorian era.

Without the intrusion within, the modder got wood veneer finish trimmed with brass wedged onto the curved surface of the Sony delight. The wood veneer was the decorated with an old radio valve, a pipe valve, a pressure gauge, assorted brass plumbing parts and some trim and then it was finally varnished. The remaining shades of plastic were covered with Porter’s “Instant Rust” and the 3D Damnation logo fixed to suit the best. And this is how this charismatic PS3 mod was created.

If you suffer from a chronic disease, it is important that you live a healthy lifestyle, giving you the best chance to live normally. What instead happens with all those diagnoses and instructions from the medics is that a patient tends to disregard stipulations and therefore suffers all the more.

To keep such chronic patients content with their life and yet ensure the medical routine is met with, Olivier Blanson Henkemans of TU Delft and TNO suggests a personal computer assistant using interactive computer programs. It is because the patients can maintain their healthy lifestyle within the comfort of their home. Another proposed theory is e-health, with facilitates medical care with internet-based support.

A group of scientists from the University of Toronto have succeeded in developing light sensors which could help overcome the limitations faced by digital cameras in dim light circumstances. So far, the digital cameras have suffered under poor lighting conditions and a major reason is that the image sensor chips inside the camera gather only a single electron worth of current for each photon that strikes the pixel. The latest developed light sensor uses a process called the multi-exciton generation (MEG).

Inside a digital camera, the MEG on a single photon can do wonders for an image clicked in dim lighting. Sadly, there isn’t anything else reported on the research but once the electronic giants become aware of this achievement, it would be us benefiting with better equipped cameras that could even lighten up the dark.

Via: UToronto