nextfest
Gadgets
Xerox Solid Ink Looks Like a Crayon, Feels Like Plastic
3:40AM Mark Wilson | Over at NextFest, we came across an entire tree’s worth of Xerox’s cartridge-less solid ink, a technology we’d heard about but never seen in person. They feel more like a hard, textured plastic than a waxy crayon (which is its most touted analogy), and the ink doesn’t rub off in your hand at all. And yes, Xerox, we’ll be happy to buy your product that reduces ink waste by 90% if you’d kindly release it to the market. More »
Games
Winning Brainball Requires Years of Destroying Your Mind with Booze
3:20AM Mark Wilson | This is Jeff. He’s losing to me at Brainball, which is on display at Wired’s NextFest. It’s sort of like soccer if numbing your mind could score a goal. I asked the creator, why not reward the player who can think the hardest? He responded, “because the best games are the ones that you don’t think to play.” And it actually works. As Jeff contemplated actuarial probability, I crushed him with Zen-like concentration on nothing. Also, I think he may have hemorrhoids or something. More »
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Video of a Blonde Being Smashed by a Shovel (While, Thankfully, Wearing D3O Body Armor)
8:15AM Brian Lam | Here’s a video of an attractive blonde woman being hit by a shovel by another blonde. I swear, this is not merely lesbionic, but gadgety, too. She’s wearing a knee brace reinforced with that D3O body armour gel/foam/flubber that gives her a +10 bonus against blunt weapons. No damage! [D3O via NextFest] More »
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Me Being Run Over by a Mars Rover Prototype
7:43AM Brian Lam | Motorcycle crashes aside, here’s another case of Man/Machine collision: The JPL designed NASA Mars Rover climbing over a viscous, blubbery, greasy surface known as My Back. The JPL lady said this thing only weighs 10-pounds, but it kind of felt heavier. The final Mars rover has six wheels, but the first prototype had eight as shown here. All wheels are independently driven. (They went to six because it was just as effective at rolling over boulders and love handles, and saved weight so they could arm the turret with stuff like sensors an miniguns.) [JPL via NextFest] More »
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‘Cell Phone Disco’ Boogies Into NextFest
6:31AM Ben Longo | This is the Cell Phone Disco by Informationlab at NextFest ‘07, it’s basically a large wall covered in LED’s. These LED’s only turn on when in the presence of the same electromagnetic interference (EMI) that comes from a cellphone. So when you use your cellphone in the presence of the Disco you can “see” the EMI noise emanating from your phone. [Product Page via NextFest] More »
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Jeff Han Talks Multitouch, iPhones, and Lame Minority Report Jokes
5:51AM Brian Lam | Bumping into Jeff Han, who some would call the father of multitouch interfaces (or at least someone highly obsessed with them), was a highlight of my Nextfest fly through. He was showing off Perceptive Pixel’s 16 foot long multitouch system and I got a chance to ask him about the UI, what he thinks of and the iPhone and other systems, and how much he must hate Minority Report jokes. (Including the one I happened to crack.) No one laughed. Couldn’t help it, Jeff, sorry. [Perceptive Pixel via NextFest] More »
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Killacycle Inventor Crashes at Nextfest
3:45PM Brian Lam | I forgot to tell this story. Apparently one exhibitor on an electric motorcycle took his ride out for a spin, and his throttle jammed. That’s bad on any motorcycle cough*joebrown*cough but really bad on an electric drag racer with a zero to sixty time of 1 second. Creator Bill Dube hit a bus, possibly a school bus, but no one was inside. The guy? He’s in the hospital, and his machine is in bits. Anyone know more or have photos/videos? UPDATE: Dube actually hit a minivan. TG Daily even got a video of the whole thing. In an interview given to editor Humphrey Cheung, Dube claimed “More powerful than anything else, they last longer, they’re safer than anything else out there”. While the batteries may be safe, I’m not sure Dube can say the same about the rest of the bike. It is the world’s fastest electric motorcycle, after all. But seriously, we hope he gets well soon. [TG Daily] More »
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Best of Wired Nextfest 2007 Walkthrough
9:58AM Brian Lam | Before I catch my flight back to SF, here are a few choice shots of my favourite fun at Wired’s 2007 Nextfest down in LA. Notable things include nano ferrite “magnetic fluid” solutions, prototypes of JPL’s Mars rover running over Justin from Justin.tv (above), a giant disco wall that comes to life when your mobile phone EMI hits its wiring system, Jeff Han’s latest multitouch systems, a Japanese robot that looks like a samurai, complete with sword, armour, and glowing red eyes, a few rainbow touch instruments like the laptop orchestra, some UAVs, one blonde wearing body armour being hit with a shovel by another blonde, hyper efficient solar cells that can collect light from multiple angles, a supercomputer efficient enough to be powered by a team of cyclists, a bipedal robot with Albert Einstein’s head. Lots of stuff, and I’ll have videos of the rest, tomorrow. Mega-gallery here: More »
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