The Humanthesizer is a joint collaboration between electronic musician Calvin Harris, Sony Music UK, and Bare conductive body ink. And damn is it cool. Engadget: “Each patch is triggered by one of the girls closing a circuit with her hands or feet — you can see the “wires” painted on their arms and legs if you look closely…” There are ladies in bikinis.; they are covered in conductive body paint. On the floor there are pads on the floor that are connected to eachother by electricity. When they ladies step on the pads with their “conductive” feet, sounds are played. These sounds can be played to create beats or perform a choreographed song. Check it out for yourself in the videos above. As you will see, there are many different ways this tech can be used to create music in an innovative fashion. I can definitely see something like this become a very successful attraction in Vegas or even make its way into music videos and musician’s tours.
The Contortionist was created by Dominic Hargreaves, a 24-year-old student from London. The idea to make a collapsable bike came easy to him: “I couldn’t find a folding bicycle I liked. I wanted something that could take a bit of punishment and that you could have fun with. So I made one myself.” He is in talks with manufacturers about getting this concept idea onto shelves in the near future. Check out the video above to see how it works.
Designed by Seungkyun Woo & Junyi Heo, the Leaf was inspired by our good friend, photosynthesis. The concept is simple, and genius. Where ever you are outdoors, your cell phone is charging. The Leaf contains solar cells on its front panel, allowing the sun to keep the battery at full levels on a consistent basis. And of course, if it happens to be a dark and gloomy day, you can use a trusty electric source to charge the phone in a more traditional way. The phone itself is very basic; it does calls, messages, and that’s it, really. And yes, it is made of flexible materials so it can bend to your wrist. However, the main objective of the phone does not lie in its functionality; its aim is to “remind people that they can contribute to energy efficiency.”
User tdarnell: I’ve recently discovered an animation that was rendered using the measured redshift of all 10,000 galaxies in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image.
It’s official–Netflix’s streaming capabilities will only live and breath on Xbox 360’s. Microsoft struck a very smart deal with Netflix (and squashed previous rumors) when they announced that their Xbox gaming system will be the sole game console provider to allow Netflix streaming with the Netflix Watch Instantly feature. This is big news on the streaming movies/TV shows front. If people are looking to stream Netflix contentto their TVs, they only have one option when it comes to buying a game console. Another point for Xbox, cha-ching! See the full press release after the break.
Above is a quick tour of some of the new features of the new Xbox dashboard update. See here & here for full details. What are you waiting for? Turn on your Xbox and download the update. Now!
The next iteration of the Guitar Hero franchise has finally been made official, along with the first trailer and the entire track list to-boot. See above for the trailer, look below for part of the VH track list. Peek after the break for the entire track list, which includes more songs by VH as well as other influential, related bands. GH: Van Halen is due out on December 22, 2009.
Van Halen Songs
“Ain’t Talkin Bout Love”
“And The Cradle Will Rock”
“Atomic Punk”
“Beautiful Girls”
“Cathedral” (solo)
“Dance The Night Away”
“Eruption” (solo)
“Everybody Wants Some”
“Feel Your Love Tonight”
“Hang ‘Em High”
“Hear About It Later”
Coca-Cola has unveiled its latest creation with the “Coca-Cola Freestyle” soda fountain. What’s so special about this soda dispenser is that it can provide over 100 different types of soda flavors in one machine (compared to today’s cap of around 6-8 flavor valves). The machine has a user-friendly touch screen interface. A customer simply selects a “parent brand” like Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite, Diet Sprite, Fanta, or Powerade and chooses a specific flavor within the brand. For example, one can select Sprite and choose to drink peach-flavored Sprite. That’s right–this machine dispenses many unknown or rare flavors of your favorite soda drinks. There’s “strawberry, grape or peach Sprite (which is very tasty), seven kinds of Fanta, seven kinds of Powerade, six flavors of Vault energy drink, and just as many flavors of Dasani water, or its carbonated counterpart Dasani Sensations.” So how does it hold so many different kinds of drinks, you ask? Read on.
Shelley Kench, a Coca-Cola rep: “In traditional machines, the syrups have to be mixed with CO2 and water in a larger scale. The ingredients that are in the cartridges are no longer what we call ’syrups.’ Now the ingredients are based on individual recipe for each drink based on that user’s selection.” Coca-Cola is using its own proprietary technology called “Pure Pour.” SDDN: “[They] Coca-Cola developed the machine by using small, highly-concentrated containers of ingredients. Those ingredients are then mixed with water and sweetener to create each individual drink.”
The Coca-Cola Freestyle is currently in a testing stage. A fully operational unit can be used at a Jack-In-the-Box in Vista, San Diego. Oscar Hurtado, store district manager: “It’s much easier to maintain, and it’s a time saver and it saves storage. It would take about 14 of the old fountain machines to do what one new unit can do.” For now, the machine will be limited to restaurants and other eateries in Southern California. Coca-Cola aims for a nationwide release in 2010. Check out the videos above for (1) a quick preview of the device and (2) a bunch of kids stumbling upon it in a restaurant; and see below for a gallery of product images.
Following the recent news of the upcoming pressure sensitive keyboard is this new way to input information on a computer screen or some other device. The video above shows off the implementation of creating sound by scratching a surface with your fingers that, in turn, generates sound waves which are picked up by a receiver. The receiver sends the signal to the device it is connected to and viola! For example, you can “write” a letter on a flat surface, and the sounds waves from your scratching will output the desired letter on screen. Or, you can create your own personal gestures to answer a phone call, enable speakerphone, and close out your email application all at the same time. Cool stuff. Keep it coming, innovators.
You’ll start seeing this logo in malls all across the country in no time. It is the official logo for Microsoft’s retail store. According to the patent filing, the logo represents “retail store services and online retail services featuring computers, computer hardware, software, computer games, computer peripherals, portable music players and accessories, personal digital assistants, cell phones and accessories, video game consoles and accessories, webcams, books, clothing, back packs, messenger bags, computer bags and novelty items”.
