Advocates of the iBot wheelchair – a ‘personal mobility device’, with Segway gyroscopic technology, which can climb stairs and, transformer-like, balance at eye level on two wheels.

The iBot was developed at huge cost in the US by Johnson & Johnson. J&J has decided to stop making it, for commercial reasons and, after fulfilling a statutory number of years, will withdraw support entirely at the end of 2013.

Facebook | Save the iBot & http://www.savetheibot.org/

Mobile phone microscopy : Neurophilosophy.

RESEARCHERS at the University of California, Berkeley have developed a microscope attachment which enables a standard mobile phone with a camera to be used for high-resolution clinical microscopy. It can be used to capture high quality bright field images of the malaria parasite and sickle blood cells, as well as fluorescence images of cells infected with the bacterium that causes tuberculosis. The device could potentially become an important tool for medical diagnostics in the developing world, where resources are limited and laboratory facilities scarce, but where mobile phone networks are ubiquitous.

Visible Sound: Graph Stitching Sewing Machine

An electronically enhanced sewing machine [soundsbutter.com], able to represent sound through the height of the stitches it creates. The resulting stitch pattern thus becomes visually similar to an equalizer timeline. Unfortunately, currently a non-working prototype only.

Via SwissMiss.

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(via information aesthetics.)

About an intriguing urban computing assemblage

The recent story of Google cars causing stir in Rome still makes me wondering about the perception of so-called “urban computing” and citizens. To put it shortly, the problem was basic: Google recently brought in black cars in Rome that take pictures for the Google Streetview project (yes at some point you have to physical artifacts taking PICTURES of streetviews, it’s not just virtual). BernhardWarner for the timesonline hence reports the following people’s reaction to these black cars:

“On cue, pedestrians shuffled off the street and into bars, out of sight of the offending vehicle, no doubt wondering if these are the new intrusions that must be endured after a sudden shift to the right. Your correspondent managed to snake through a queue of cars at a traffic light to get a better look at the vehicle that upset so many mid-afternoon espressos.
(…)
Just then the Google car swung left and I followed, in a very slow pursuit. The identical scene unfolded before me: Romans stumbling into shops and bars, hoping to be out of view of the camera’s lens“

In a sense, they perceived it as “a new type of video surveillance vehicle”. I won’t enter into the details of the explanation provided by the timesonline (the election of a right-wing mayor… who wants to promote tough-on-crime platforms) but this situation seems certainly revealing of a troublesome relationship between technological assemblage.

The picture of the google cars in the Netherlands made by Lars van de Goor shows how the whole pack can be intimidating:

Why do I blog this? what I find interesting here is less the perception of a service (that can be articulated as “urban computing”) but instead the sort of experience of the infrastructure needed to provide a service. A flock of all-similar black cars wandering around the city with huge camera-devices may indeed by an intriguing experience as it may came out from the blue. Will we see more of this sort of encounters in the city of the near future?

Btw, Mauro were in you in Rome? have you seen this?

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(via pasta and vinegar.)

vivez, plus intense: ”

Depuis mardi, le défibrillateur de ce patient transmet immédiatement la moindre anomalie de son coeur à son médecin par e-mail ou par SMS.
“

Since Tuesday, the ICD is transmitting immediately any abnormanl data from its heart to the patient’s doctor via email or text messages.

(Via 20 minutes CH, via Amandine.)

Emotiv to make mind-controlled games a reality by Christmas: “

Filed under: Gaming

The idea of wearing a funny hat to mind control software is certainly nothing new ’round these parts. Now Emotiv Systems returns with an update to their Project Epoch USB headset. Crave went hands-on with the system which required a short, six-second calibration before entering the first ‘game.’ At that point, Crave was able manipulate a simple cube on the screen with varied success at making it disappear or pull forward. Oooh, what fun! Mind you, it’s just a prototype and we’ve seen this tech applied to old-school arcade games like Pong and Space Invaders to great effect. You’ll get your chance soon enough as Emotiv plans to launch the first thought-controlled, consumer gaming device this Christmas for $299 with at least one bundled PC game. One more picture of that Alien face-hugger of a headset after the break.

Continue reading Emotiv to make mind-controlled games a reality by Christmas

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(Via Engadget.)

1986 Seiko Speedmaster by Giorgetto Giugiaro: ”

If you’ve ever asked yourself, ‘What was that amazing watch Lieutenant Ripley wore in the 1986 movie ‘Aliens?” I have the answer for you. It was a Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed Seiko Speedmaster Chronograph. The vertical stopwatch pushers placed inside the asymmetrical case extension are what makes the watch entirely unique. Personally, I think he may have been influenced by the design of the 1973 LIP Mach 2000 that came out 12 years earlier. Many of Giugiaro’s other designs for Seiko between 1985-86 had asymmetric qualities as well, which you can see on Watchismo.

For those of you who don’t know, Giorgio Giugiaro was one of the most important car designers of the 20th century. Credited with the ‘folded paper’ car designs of the 1970s and ’80s, he was responsible for such classics as the Lotus Esprit, De Lorean DMC 12, Maserati Merak, Bora, Quattroporte, BMW M1, and most interesting to learn, my first car, the Volkswagen Scirocco.

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(Via Cool Hunting.)

iPods won’t crash your pacemaker says the FDA: “

It turns out that 17-year-olds probably aren’t that good at studying electrical interference — and its effect on pacemakers — created by iPods. Unlike the data presented to the Heart Rhythm Society last year by a high-school student, which demonstrated the music player’s ability to interfere with heart-regulating devices, the FDA now says that the gadgets are completely safe for use. Researchers measured magnetic fields produced by four different models of Apple’s ubiquitous device, and found no reason why your grandmother can’t keep jamming to her South of Heaven reissue. Said FDA researcher Howard Bassen, ‘Based on the observations of our in-vitro study we conclude that no interference effects can occur in pacemakers exposed to the iPods we tested.’ We hope the FDA will follow this up with a definitive study on the effects of boomboxes on hip implants.

‘

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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(Via Engadget.)

Turn an old cellphone into a robot’s brain: “ From New Scientist:

‘Software engineer Jatinderjit Singh built a simple robot out of Lego Technics parts, a cheap micro-controller, and an infrared interface, then attached a cellphone so that it could control the robot’s wheels and arms via the IR link.

His ‘tele-operated mobile internet robot’ or TeMo can be controlled from anywhere in the world where there’s cellphone network coverage, using a tiny web server and a graphical interface installed on the phone.

The robot also sends images from the phone’s camera back via the web link to let the controller see what they are doing, and Singh hopes to have video running soon.’

Watch the video.

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(Via textually.org.)

No WiFi!

Seen in Grenoble today:

“no wifi”… as if it was important to indicate that this area is not covered? It’s not the case here, if you read the lines under that sign. Sometimes, 802.11b cannot be employed… some context prevent people from making it available and sometimes it’s even worse: you’re required to deactivate your wifi-enabled devices!

Also, think about the fact that I’ve seen this sign in France, and there were not french translation at all around it.

(Via pasta and vinegar.)