The newest iPod patent says that the “touch” and the “screen” don’t have to go together. The next gen iPod will have a normal display covering the front, and a separate touch surface on the back. Here’s how it’ll work.
The front screen of the iPod or iPod nano shows everything, but is no more touchy-feely than your iPod’s screen today. When you touch the backside, however, transparent “ghost” controls appear on the front. You’d then use your finger on the backside of the device to navigate your way through the transparent controls up front. The key to the equation is force sensitivity. As you run your finger along the backside, the cursor hovers, but when you press harder, you can click on things.
Apple’s patent covers not just music and video navigation but phone controls and more. Follow the jump for details.
Technology Review has rounded up a bunch of objects that it feels are design classics from the past 30 or so years and got a bunch of industrial designers to talk about them. And you’ve gotta admit they’re right—on some of the candidates, at least. First up is the Polaroid SX-70, which dates back to 1972.
Polaroid’s first fully automatic, motorised camera was an instant design classic. Detailed with tan leather, it folded into a rectangle the size of a paperback book. Andrew Logan, principal designer at Frog Design, admires it for the “immediacy of a favourable output.” He explains: “Instead of waiting days to see if you took a good photo, you could take it again right away.”
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– Ad Dugdale
Objects of desire [Technology Review]
We really like the idea of ebooks, but their low contrast and pokey refresh rate just about ruins the experience when using devices such as the Sony PRS-500 Reader pictured above. Now, Cambridge, Massachusetts, company E Ink, the inventor of this tech, has decided to spruce it up with a higher-performance imaging film it calls Vizplex.
If what the company is saying is true, expect to see ebook displays refreshing twice as quickly, with 20% better contrast, too. The company’s also planning to roll out a wider variety of screen sizes other than the single 6-inch size it currently offers, from 1.9 inches aimed at cellphones and MP3 players, up to 9.7 inches for bigger ebooks. We might be seeing the results of this latest technology as early as this summer. – Charlie White
newVideoPlayer("rewake_gawker.flv", 520, 410); Here’s another NYU project, where student Vincent Dean Boyce has figured out a way to send mechanical and motion data from a skateboard (or it could be a snowboard or surfboard) via Bluetooth to a mobile phone. Imagine the possibilities if you hook this up to an Xbox 360! – Charlie White with video by Richard Blakeley
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We showed you a few still pictures of him as a sneak preview yesterday and you can see them again in the gallery below, but now here’s Andrew Schneider in all his full-motion glory: the one-man band picture-taking guy whose invention leaves us nonplussed.
His graduation project for NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program involves hooking up wires to his eyelids which trigger the camera’s shutter. “Every picture’s a bad one,” he says. Andrew, we don’t think there are going to be many takers for this dubious technology, but it’s entertaining nonetheless. – Charlie White with video by Richard Blakeley
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The iSave is a rather simple gadget that has just clinched the runner-up prize in Metropolis Magazine’s 2007 Next Generation Awards. Attach it to either your sink or a showerhead and it will show you just how much water you are using for your morning’s ablutions/scrubbing last night’s taco melt off your plates. Designed by Reamon Yu, it’s not going to save any water, but it will make you conscious of just how much is used/wasted, and hopefully will push you to further reduce your consumption.
The iSave is powered by a small turbine embedded in the waterflow, so greenies among you need not worry about expending any more energy than you have to. It’s not available as yet, but fingers crossed and faucets tight. – Ad Dugdale
The 2007 Next Generation Design Competition Winner and Runners-Up Announced [Metropolis Magazine via Inhabitat]
Remember the Xilt, the hack to Wiimotize your Xbox 360 controller? Well, this is not it. At least, it seems that while Xilt 360 is still coming soon, Total Console has released the Bestilt 360. Same concept: “simply” solder it to the bottom part of your Xbox 360 pad, activate it with a switch and have fun awkwardly controlling games that weren’t designed for motion sensing in the first place.
The Bestilt 360 will start shipping on May 14 from New York City and is available now for pre-order for $37.99. Wii Sports, Zelda and Mario Galaxy are not included and will never be. – Jesus Diaz
Product Page [Total Console]
Motorola’s not taking falling sales and iMpending competition lying down, as CEO Ed Zander let it be known that next week Motorola’s unveiling a phone that’s a “media monster” which is able to churn out video at 30 fps. (They have a news conference Tuesday, do the math.) The as-of-yet-unnamed phone is all about video, apparently, which you’ll be able to watch from SD cards, though we’ll withhold judgment about the “unbelievable quality” of the vids until we see them. Which will be in Europe only, at least initially.
The out-to-slay-the-iPhone drive keeps looking like the best thing to happen to the mobile market in a while, but of course, we’ll be more sure next week. – Matt Buchanan
Motorola To Unveil Phone With 30-Frame Per Second Video; Movies On SD Cards [Barron's via Seeking Alpha] Motorola to introduce phone with ‘unbelievable’ video [Chicago Tribune]
The least tempting thing about 3′s X-Series so far has been the handset range: for such an inspiring network concept, the handsets were what I like to call Minogues… as in Danni. Nice enough, but there are others you’d rather spend your time with. But NOW! Things are looking a little more Kylie…
The line up has now got some of the best smartphones around on board, with the Palm Treo 750, the RAZR V3xx, and — my personal fave — the DoPod 838Pro (I just loves me the side sliding full QWERTY smarties). Other current lust objects, the Nokia N95 and the LG Shine, get a “will be announced shortly” tag.
X-Series is hot. When they get Skype to do In/Out (they swear it is purely a software issue right now, not some block on over the air VoIP), it will be … more hot. Question is, can you handle it? Okay, the real question is, do you have the right reception? I can, and I do, so I do. -Seamus Byrne
OK, you’ve heard way too much about Intel’s new chipset today. But do you ever think about tomorrow? What if you suddenly really want to know about Santa Rosa then? Don’t laugh. One day, soon, Santa Rosa will pop back into your head, and you will want the facts. Fast. Well, guess what? They’re all here in this post.
We start you off with the importance of being rosy, that is, everything you needed to know about Santa Rosa. If you did your homework, you know that the Mobile 965 chipset has an 800MHz front side bus with better power management, graphics jacked to 500MHz that can handle the Vista Aero experience and score a 95 on the really tough Silicon Optix HQV display test. You also know that the chipset supports Intel Turbo memory—optional NAND flash that boosts performance when DDR2 RAM is in short supply—and that it’s got the Draft-N wireless, for disturbingly high-quality streaming video.
We showed you our favorite notebooks, and singled a few out:
