A vibration in your pocket only tells you that an email or text message has arrived, not what it’s about. So researchers at the Nagoya Institute of Technology have developed a unique communication system that lets written messages be felt on someone else’s hand, without any physical interaction. More »
Good news, worldly Giz readers: Google’s translation technology has been integrated directly into Gmail. By enabling “Message Translation” from the Labs tab under Settings, Gmail will translate emails between 41 languages.
Error in the space-time continuum of SMS? Less than no friends? IS SOMEONE TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING?
Hand-writing letters to Santa is so 20th Century. These days, Santa has a Gmail account and an iPhone running the Santa Mail App. If you’ve got the app too, you can send the bearded.gift-giver messages that he will respond to individually. While that may not hold too much appeal for you as an adult, it will give you a certain level of street cred with your kids, especially when they get individualised responses. More »
What happens when you ask a guy to translate something for you into a language you don’t understand? This. The top part of the sign is in English, but when they emailed someone to translate that English into Welsh, the response actually said “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.” That’s right, it’s an out of office message, which subsequently made it onto the road sign undetected. We hope those residents are getting used to Welsh truck drivers carrying heavy goods. [BBC - Thanks Christopher!]
My first thoughts on seeing this USB mouse with in-built fan-powered palm cooler and rotary LED message scroller: “Holy moly that’s one craptaculous bit of gadgetry!” But then I reconsidered. First, who wouldn’t like a less sweaty palm when mousing for protracted periods? And second, that message scroller (which even has its own remote control) could carry some incredibly useful phrases. “Mum…Don’t Turn on The Monitor. AT ALL”…life-saving stuff like that. Wonderful, and yours in green or red for $US35. [Gadget4All]
Are your coworkers always giving you a hard time about being away from your desk and not knowing where you are? Grab this US$27 LED Message Board from Brando and always have a sign showing where you are. Sure, a Post-it or a mini-whiteboard would accomplish the same thing, but are they USB? Do they light up with red dotted letters? Are they that much more hilarious when the words “Fuck off Phil” scroll across their body? We think not. [Brando]
There’s no official confirmation yet, but TMONews says that T-Mobile is working on a system to let its users block SMS, MMS, email and IMs from other users one at a time through a call to customer care or a visit to a retail store. It’s unclear whether you can block calls, which would be even better thanks to annoying automated calling systems that somehow call you for days on end but don’t say anything. Is T-Mobile the first provider to activate call and message blocking? Why don’t more providers do this? [TMONews]
