Posts Tagged ‘technology’

Conceptual Corky mouse gets charged through motion

If you have use a wireless mouse before you will know that either the mouse is too heavy or it get disconnected once the battery is run out. This may be a past problem if this cork-based mouse get commercialize. This new type of mouse is a kinetic energy-harvesting mouse that is powered with a flick of the wrist. The Corky mouse uses piezoelectric elements to generate energy every time you click or move it around on your desk – even rolling the scroll wheel will generate a few watts. Moreover the whole mouse is made from easily recyclable material.

via engadget

How many oranges does it take to charge an Apple?

The answer is approximately 2380 orange slices is needed to charge an iPhone. This simple experiment is similar to using Lemon as a battery which i have posted few months back.

via engadget

Augmented Reality Cosmetic Mirror

Giant Shiseido has come out with a Digital Cosmetic Mirror that can be used to test make-up and recommendations without even having to pick up a mascara brush. Using augmented reality to do sampling is a novel way to involve consumers, and can be a useful technology for saving on waste. All you do is sit down and let the camera scan your face. The terminal then gives you tailored recommendations. Pressing a few buttons on the touch-screen will paints the make-up onto your image in real time, allowing you to see the results instantly. You can also try out make-up that is currently making waves, along with printing out before and after photos with product information for you to go make the purchase of whichever colors caught your eye the most. Currently this machine is station in Takashimaya department store in Shinjuku. Hopefully it will ship to worldwide soon.

via japantrends

Robot babies

Researchers from the Machine Perception Laboratory at the University of California, San Diego have teamed up with Japanese robotics firm Kokoro Co., Ltd. to create a sophisticated humanoid robot modeled after a 1-year-old child.

The baby robot was created to study how infants develop motor skills during the first year of life but no reason was give for the gigantic head design. In addition to providing clues about how infants interact with the physical world, researchers will also use the robot to explore how babies acquire and refine the ability to use nonverbal communication such as gestures and facial expressions. Maybe researcher can get more information from conducting survey on mother, nanny and child care teacher.

As for now the baby is still in the developing stage. I prefer them to come out with a more realistic robot to train inexperience mother. That will be more useful.

via botjunkie

Have you seen a 80 ports usb hub before?

Thanko just introduced an 80-port USB hub to charge all of your gadgets from a single location. The bad thing is this device only allow charging, you cannot use it to transfer file or perform synchronization.

So this 80 ports usb hub is it suppose to help you solve your problem (lack of usb ports) or to introduce you with another problem. (Messy cable). The board is sized at 200×200×19mm and obviously needs to be plugged into a wall socket to work (100V). The picture below shows it with just 40 of the 80 ports used and it is already so messy.

The 80 Port USB Hub is available for $165 in Japan. For those living outside Japan and wish to get one, can check at Geek Stuff 4 U website. It is offering for $208.68 plus shipping.