These lenticular lens floor tiles are designed to organise pedestrian traffic flow, forcing people to walk on one side of the thoroughfare. It’ll work, if only because people will need to step to the side to puke. More »
Today we celebrate the 50th anniversary of Echo 1, history’s first passive satellite. NASA’s Echo mission began rather poorly. A test launch had exploded so brightly, so spectacularly, that it prompted frightened calls up and down the entire eastern seaboard. More »
When we started our campaign to see Senator Kate Lundy move into the Communications portfolio, there was some critics who argued that despite the fact Conroy has been pushing an unpopular filter down our throats, he’s still unlikely to lose his position thanks to his performance around the NBN and his influence within Labor. More »
If you haven’t caught on to the phenomenon that is Google Wave, it’s probably about time you did. It’s Google’s game-changing application combining email, live collaboration and messaging, which goes only a small way towards explaining its potential. About 100,000 people have been invited to its beta workout. Here’s a snippet from Attack of the Show, via Techcrunch, that might help bring Wave’s potential into focus.
If you want to build a skyscraper 2,275 feet (693 metres) tall, you will face engineering challenges comparable to those of the Space Shuttle just because its sheer size. One of them is communications. When the unbelievable Burj Dubai started to get really high, the construction workers discovered one problem that seems obvious now: their walkie-talkies stopped working as they climbed the structure.
The FuChat concept phone is pretty, and kind of half-phone, half-Chumby as its surface is a concealed display used to show widgets: from weather displays, to showing a “keep out” sign on your door. But the emotional-sensing aspect got me intrigued. FuChat would be able to analyse your voice and body temp and guess at your emotional status… then display it back to you, supposedly enhancing the emotional aspects of communication. That sounds appealing, until you wonder what it’d be like to have a damn phone telling you you’re bloody angry in the middle of an empassioned rant to the ex. As well as being designed to hang on door handles or stand on desks, this thing would have to be “smashed onto the floor-proof” too. Just a concept. [Tuvie]
RhythmFish is a suction-cupped USB webcam concept that sticks to the side of a fishbowl, tracking the movements of your little shiny-scaled compadres. Sensors inside the bowl measure the “currents” made by fish swimming, and your computer combines both data feeds into a visualisation meant for “inter-organism communication.” Talking to goldfish? From the looks of the invention, I thought designer Sangmin Bae had seen one too many Terry Gilliam flicks, but on second thought, he may just be addicted to American Dad. [Coroflot via OhGizmo]
