Friday, December 11, 2009

Poster Board Presentations!

Today was the last day for the Poster Board presentations. Overall I think they went well and that it was a really cool idea to do something like this. The set up was great and the fact that the audience would be tweeting about our boards was a great idea too.

I presented my poster on the Bionic hand as blogged about earlier, I did manage to get a few people interested and talked about it with them, explaining what the new technology was all about, however I didn't get as many tweets as I would have liked!

Today was the day I was the audience, and got to see alot of really cool ideas that people presented, I especially like skylar's, it was on the Bionic Contact Lense, a really neat idea that was somewhat closely related to mine, so it did spark my interests to say the least.

The set up was really cool too, we have rows of presenters and we would walk through and stop to ask about any board that caught our attention, behind the boards was a large wall that showed all the recent tweets about the posters and to the side were computers for those who didn't have a mobile device from which they could send their tweets.

Overall it was a great experience and I learned a lot from everyones boards and this class too, a lot of the things discussed in class could be seen through the posters and the way people presented too.

To check out the tweets, please go to twitter and search for com435.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Barnes & Noble Nook e-Book reader

Barnes & Nobles is coming out with a device called the nook. It is basically a book that can be read on a screen, more of an electronic book to say the least. It is powered but Android 1.5 and will be featuring the familiar e-Ink text display. It will benefit from a 3.5 inch color touch screen so that you can browse a library and order books too. It is wireless and has access to over a million eBooks, magazines, newspapers and so on.

Check out the video below for a little bit more info!

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

GE Vscan portable ultrasound scanner unveiled

Wow! We've come along way.

Can you believe, that the guys at General Electrics have come out with a portable ultrasound scanner!?

It unveiled its pocket-sized ultrasound scanned in San Francisco at a Web 2.0 Summit.
It allows physicians to scan any part of the body without the hassel of a huge computer and system attached to it. A microphone wand attached to the main body of the device will send and recieve sound wave data when it is in contact with the body. This is then obviously translate into a picture onto the screen. It can do all the things a normal ultrasound scanner can do, but just in a small more compact size.

Not only will it empower doctors to make quicker decisions on the spot with faster diagnosis', the size of the device will also be extremely useful to medical professional in remote areas.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Bionic Hand

Well basically today we had our poster board presentations on an emerging technologies. I chose to do the Bionic Hand and thought I would let you guys know, what it's all about. I basically chose this because we talked about cyborgs in class and also had to write a paper on it, it was pretty interesting. Below you can watch a video of what our paper was based on and also the inspiration for my poster board.



Basically the Bionic hand is created by
Touch Bionics, the leaders in advanced upper-limb prosthetics.

The hand looks like a prosthetic, however the only difference is, it moves around, electrically. The hand has myoelectric controls that use electrical signals generated by the muscles in the remaning part of the patient's limb to move the hand around.

The signals are picked up by electrodes placed on the surface of the skin, traditionally on the forearm and at the bottom too.

It's a really cool technology, that fortunately allows people who are missing the limb to resume a normal life style. Around 400 patients worldwide current use it and I believe it really improves the well-being as whole for the individual.

If you want to know more, check out:
http://www.touchbionics.com/i-LIMB

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Apple is introducing the world’s first wireless multi-touch “Magic Mouse”. This mouse is a sleek and great new invention. It has a minimalist design and has no buttons, scroll wheels etc. It is aluminium-based and has a hard acrylic multi-touch surface that allows users to navigate using finger gestures and so on.

It is exactly the same as using an old mouse, yet it is wireless and free of all the buttons or nooks and crannies. One would use it like they would an old mouse, touching the same areas to get the same result.

The mouse’s Bluetooth wireless connection has a range of up to ten meters (33-feet), whilst its power management system automatically switches the mouse to a low power modes when it is not being used. The mouse is however charged by 2 AA batteries and usually has up to a 4 month battery life.

The mouse is currently available for $69.

Personally, I think it's worth a go!

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB829LL/A?fnode=MTY1NDA1Mg&mco=MTMzNzY2NTE

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The iPOD Is Taking Over Everything!

It doesn't seem to be enough that Apple created an iPod that now also has a built in camera to record and capture pictures, watch videos, view files, listen to music and much more, NOW they are moving into households in different ways.
I read on a friend's blog http://kristin-merrill.blogspot.com/ that Apple came out with new green powered sliding speaker accessories that you can attach to your iPod so that you can listen to music whereva you are without the hassel of earphones. Also iPod has travel speakers too, youc an take them wherever you go, in the bathroom, on a plane, to class, you name it, you can take them there to blast your tunes for everyone to hear.
Getting to the point Apple has now decided to go ahead with built-in docking stations of kitchen accesories such as measuring scales!
It is a cool idea, allowing you to listen to your music while cooking a meal in the kitchen, but isn't that what the iPod travel speakers are for? What is the need for there to be a docking station on kitchen equipment too?
iPod OVERKILL is my reaction!

What do you think?

Monday, November 16, 2009

Apple TV

Apple has gone ahead and created a new "must have" device. It is the APPLE TV! Another easy-to-use sleek device that allows you to do numerous things. It looks like a small DVD player that you connect to your entertainment system, however the content will come from the internet, computer, ipod and so on.

You can wirelessly play all your iTunes songs, movies and pictures from your home computer onto your widescreen TV. This makes it an easy and convenient option for most, allowing you to browse through your entire collection of digital media from across the room.

The device has a 40GB hard drive and sells for about $300 a piece.

Thoughts?


Check out the link below to find out more.

http://www.apple.com/appletv/what-is.html