Category Archives: Video

Glee club battle: Jimmy Fallon crew vs. Parks & Rec cast

Hilarity, Music, Television, Video, , , , ,

This is a must watch for Glee, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and Parks & Recreation fans alike!  Last week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy introduced a new segment he calls 6-Bee.  It’s a story that follows the LNWJF crew on the road to sectionals.  Clearly Fallon & co. are big fans of Glee (who isn’t?).  In this episode, Jimmy Fallon crew (including Jimmy, staffers, and SNL’s Abby Elliot) face off against the cast of Parks & Rec and The Roots in a Glee club battle of epic proportions.  A major amount of hilarity and musical genius ensues.

Look after the break for episode 1; Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ On a Prayer” is the song of choice. Continue reading Glee club battle: Jimmy Fallon crew vs. Parks & Rec cast →

Microsoft demos new pen & touch input on Surface

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Microsoft Research is back with a new way to interact with their Surface multitouch table.

Manual Deskterity is a prototype digital drafting table that supports both pen and touch input. We explore a division of labor between pen and touch that flows from natural human skill and differentiation of roles of the hands. We also explore the simultaneous use of pen and touch to support novel compound gestures.

The combination of pen and touch input makes for a wide range of gestures like holding, tapping, dragging, and crossing that can be used in ways you likely have never seen before.  Check it out in the video demonstation above.  I smell a hint of Courier here.

[Via MyMicrosoftLife; Engadget]

iPad gets turned into a laptop

Technology, Video, , , , , , , ,

The LapDock turns your iPad into a laptop. Just dock your iPad into the LapDock, add a wireless keyboard, and bingo – instant laptop!

Besides the addition of being enclosed in a wooden case, you could bypass this less than intriguing alternative and simply purchase Apple’s iPad Keyboard Dock which comes with a keyboard and stands it in the upright position.  The iPad is not a laptop, and so you shouldn’t treat it that way.

[Via iPadLapDock; Engadget]

Meet pCubee, a personal, interactive cubic display

Design, Technology, Video, , , ,

pCubee is a research project designed at the University of British Columbia.

We have designed a personal cubic display that offers novel interaction techniques for static and dynamic 3D content. We arrange five small LCD panels into a box shape that is light and compact enough to be handheld. The display uses head-coupled perspective rendering and a real-time physics simulation engine to establish an interaction metaphor of having real objects inside a physical box that a user can hold and manipulate. We have demonstrated four types of interaction techniques with pCubee: viewing a static scene, navigating through a large landscape, playing with colliding objects inside a box, and stylus-based manipulation of objects.

I think the Nintendo 3DS has met its competition in pCubee.  If they’d just make a slot for game cartridges, I can totally see something like this becoming a viable portable gaming device.  Can’t you?

[Via University of British Columbia]

LookTell brings “artificial vision” to smartphones for the blind

Technology, Video, , , ,

LookTel combines the power of a Smartphone with advanced “artificial vision” software to create a helpful electronic assistant for anyone who is visually impaired or blind. You can use LookTel to automatically scan and recognize objects such as money, packaged goods, CDs, DVDs, and medication bottles, as well as landmarks. Point the device video camera at what you wish to “see” and it will pronounce the name very quickly in clear and easy to understand speech. LookTel can be taught to recognize all the objects and landmarks you wish to identify. With a small amount of help from a sighted assistant one can easily teach LookTel to be your helpful assistant for many tasks where vision makes a difference in your independence. LookTel also incorporates a text reader allowing users to get access to print media.

This advanced software from LookTell is absolutely stunning.  If the final product is anything like this beta demo, it is going to be a major technological leap forward for helping the blind interact with every day objects around them.

[Via LookTell; Gizmodo]

STYPE typewriter brings ‘Fringe’ technology to life

Technology, Video

STYPE uses a mechanical system of belts and pulleys to enable two-way text-based conversations to magically take place.  The user inputs a message onto a piece of paper using an old-fashioned keyboard.  After a short pause, the user receives a response as the keyboard magically types it out.  For now, STYPE allows for exchange with a chatbot named Eliza, which automatically generates answers to the user’s inputs.  However, the goal is to one day hook this system up to the Internet to make human-t0-human conversation a reality using the Skype service.  Neat!

Fringe fans, the STYPE should ring a little bell inside your head.  Remember that mysterious room in the back of the gun shop where shape shifter Agent Charlie Francis used a typewriter to communicate with someone about Olivia?  Maybe this image will jog your memory.

[Via Engadget]

Biometric Coke machine uses pulse identification, says “order up!”

Technology, Video, , ,

The future of vending machines is quickly becoming a fun place to explore.  The latest blip on the radar comes from a Hitatchi, a Japanese company.  Their vending machines employs a technology they call VeinID, or “finger vein authentication.”  The machine uses near-infrared light to scan your vein and recognize your indentity.  Your virtual user account includes e-money and personal preferences.  Using the maching is a snap; all you have to do is place your hand on the reader and once it pulls up your account your free to select your beverage of choice on a touch screen.  You can even apply for discounts and rebates if you like and have free beverage samples mailed to your home address (which you are asked to share, along with your email address).  A future where your identity is linked to your body; I always imagined this would come true one day.  I mean, who likes to carry around wallets anyway?

[Via JapanTrends; Gizmodo]

Creative explosion of live objects & animation

Design, Video, ,

Lautlos, by Feedmee Design.

Staying true to the ideals of creativity and innovation, with a theme of “Truth vs. Deception”, 20 directors came together to create a ground-breaking collection of short films that use live-action, effects, animation, comedy, action and verité. Twenty 120 remains dedicated to the definition of creative – an original product of human invention or artistic imagination – by celebrating the work of artists around the world.

MIT students watch Minority Report, make the “glove mouse” a reality

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Controlling a computer using nothing but your hands.  A feat we’ve all seen done before by Mr. Cruise in Minority Report.  As part of a final project in a digital media course, a couple of MIT students have created an extremely crude version of what we saw in the sci-fi movie.  Using gloves with LED tips and a webcam, the students demo how an on-screen image can be manipulated with various hand gestures.  So we’re not there yet, but at least we’re moving forward.  Take a look at the gloves in the gallery below.

[Via MIT; Engadget]

Colbert hosts Dean Kamen and his advanced prosthetic arm

Technology, Uncategorized, Video, , , ,

Dean Kamen is known to many as the inventor of the failed Segway transportation vehicle.  But now he’s clearly moved on to bigger and better things.  In conjunction with the Defense Department and DARPA, Kamen’s been developing an advanced prosthetic arm internally called “Luke” (named after Luke Skywalker).  Luke is being made specifically for injured U.S. troops who tragically lose their arms in battle.  It is by for the most impressive prosthetic I’ve ever seen in practical use.  See for yourself in the video above.

[Via Engadget]