prototype
Screens
20 iPods Cluster Into One, Big, Interactive Display
12:53AM Mark Wilson | The neatest thing about this demo isn’t that 20 iPod touches have combined to make a giant touch display; the neatest thing is that the technology can scale. More »
Phones
Fresh Shots Of The Nokia RX-5 Tablet Prototype
5:00AM Dan Nosowitz | From the wilds of the Indonesian jungle message boards come these new shots of a mysterious Nokia tablet (or MID, or large phone) with a sliding QWERTY, labelled RX-5. More »
Design
Recycling Meets DIY With IPhone 3GS “Water Resistant Prototype”
Phones
Sony Ericsson Kiki Concept
5:30AM Brian Lam | Mobil delivered this rendering of Kiki, a Sony Ericsson phone with a projected display and um, presumably, somewhere, a keypad. I like green. People need to make more green handsets. [Mobil via Engadget] More »
Computers
CrunchPad Prototype Caught Taking Off Box And Baring All
10:30PM Jack Loftus | This is a rumoured “extremely recent” look at a CrunchPad prototype. What do we learn? First, the demo man says the tablet will be out by this year, “for sure.” The other is that the video guy is a klepto. More »
Computers
Photos: Red OLPC Limited Edition
6:33AM Benny Goldman | Wilson caught this limited edition Red OLPC at the company’s headquarters near MIT’s campus in Cambridge today. The limited edition run of 100 is made for developers working on the dual boot Sugar Linux and Windows XP system, and has specs identical to the regular OLPC, except 2GB of RAM 2GB flash memory—the minimum required for Windows. As you can see, the colour scheme is the inverse of the all-red prototype you may have seen before. There are no plans for a public release, so the closest you’ll get to seeing this may be in the gallery below. More »
Science
gCubik is Palm-Sized 3D Display Everyone Can See at Once
8:50PM Gizmodo US Edition | Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology has created this prototype physical 3D display that works a little differently than the other 3D tech out there. Those bright spots aren’t LEDs, but a complex array of lenses arranged on top of LCDs, forming the sides of a cube. By a kind of optical parallax trick, and something called “integral photography,” it makes it look like there’s an object in the box. Best of all, gCubik is a naked-eye tech and can be viewed simultaneously by a group of people. The team’s working on making it wireless and higher-res, and even hopes to commercialise it within three years for use in design, education or games devices. You can see it in person at the SIGGRAPH show in August. [Fareastgizmos] More »
Robots
Robot Hand Can Sense Objects Before Touching Them
1:26PM Adrian Covert | Over at Intel’s R&D fair, Wired got to play with a robot hand that is able to sense an object it’s about to come in contact with before actually touching it. Using electrolocation, the fingertips of the robot hand send out a weak electrical impulse, and approaching objects interfere with that impulse, which allows the hand to form to the object before touching it. More »
Screens
1:50PM Nick Broughall | Alongside the Blu-ray recorder and new TV range that Panasonic unveiled the other day were a couple of prototype TVs that showcase the upcoming technologies in their future plasma screens.
The first example was their “World’s Thinnest” plasma, a 50-inch monster which measured in at 24.7mm thick and weighed just 22kg. Although we’re pretty sure the title of world’s thinnest actually goes to Pioneer, having a TV measure in at less than half the thickness of the current range – and at a fraction of the weight – will give consumers a whole new range of mounting options.
Panasonic Prototype TVs Show It’s Cool To Be Thin And Cheap
1:50PM Nick Broughall | Alongside the Blu-ray recorder and new TV range that Panasonic unveiled the other day were a couple of prototype TVs that showcase the upcoming technologies in their future plasma screens.
The first example was their “World’s Thinnest” plasma, a 50-inch monster which measured in at 24.7mm thick and weighed just 22kg. Although we’re pretty sure the title of world’s thinnest actually goes to Pioneer, having a TV measure in at less than half the thickness of the current range – and at a fraction of the weight – will give consumers a whole new range of mounting options.
Vehicles
