smart
Design
An Inside Peek at Microsoft’s Future Smart Home
7:00AM Andi Wang | BBC has a video tour of Microsoft’s new smart house—a future home that runs on technology to help with daily tasks, including an interactive mirror that gives laundry directions for specific clothing. More »
Vehicles
Tesla-Smart Collaboration Produces Underwhelming Electric Car
6:30AM Dan Nosowitz | The Smart fortwo seems like a perfect candidate for the electric makeover, and with Tesla lending its expertise to the project, we all expected an impressive showing. But to be honest, we’re not thrilled. More »
Home
Panasonic Smart Home Probably Won’t Try to Kill You like HAL 9000
8:00AM Gizmodo US Edition | Panasonic demoed their Smart Home concept at CEATEC this week. Smart Home seems to be an integrated system that controls the electronics in your house, from lighting to air conditioning to multimedia. Even the television will slide to follow you around, which actually looks sort of creepy and desperate. More »
Design
Brainstorming Room Accelerates Ideas to Warp 9
6:00AM Gizmodo US Edition | This is Kage Roi, a room that listens to conversations using speech recognition. It identifies keywords and constantly searches the web for related material, displaying information and images to help brainstorming sessions. In theory, combined with lighting that simulates the changes in sunlight, boosts people’s creativity. An amazing idea that, for obvious reasons, we would never be able to use here at Giz. [Pink Tentacle] More »
Vehicles
SMART Car Vending Machine Only Dispenses Marketing Materials, False Hope
5:30AM Gizmodo US Edition | Here I was, credit card in hand, ready to fly across the Pacific and purchase my very first SMART Car from a vending machine, when I’m told it’s just some advertisement. Sure, SMART Cars can’t float (they can barely survive the SUV-congested streets of the U.S.), and the Japanese steer on the opposite side of their automobiles than us Yanks, but this was the promise of a car via a vending machine. I would have figured out a way to bring it home and make it work. To paraphrase the late, great comedian Mitch Hedberg, things are just better when they fall. More »
Vehicles
Ford’s Self-Driving Hybrid DARPA Car Now Available for US$89,000
10:00PM Gizmodo US Edition | If you are looking for a self-driving car, now you can buy the ByWire XGV, the modified Ford Escape that got third place at the DARPA Urban Challenge for just US$89,000. Torc Technologies—who collaborated with Virginia Tech to develop this smartypants SUV hybrid—is going to sell the car as a research platform so other researchers can tune and add new contraptions to make it work better and look more menacing than the current version. The specs are loaded with ports, sensors, and even optional accessories, like vibration isolators. Whatever that is, we want it. More »
Gadgets
EPA Dress Wrinkles Up to Show it’s a Bad Air Day
10:56PM Gizmodo US Edition | Currently showing at the 2nd Skin Exhibition at San Francisco’s Exploratorium is this piece of smart clothing by designer Stephanie Sandstrom. Inside it hide a bunch of sensors that measure the nearby air quality, along with drivers that can adjust the fabric. The idea is that on bad air days the dress detects the problem, and adjusts itself to look all rumpled and messy, and raising environmental awareness. Does that wrinkling mean it raises the hemline? I’m not sure… but if it did, that might work to take your mind off the damage being done to your health by all those airborne pollutants. [Inhabitat] More »
Peripherals
Smart Dog USB Hub Has Four Paws, Four Ports and a Radio
7:55PM Addy Dugdale | This Smart Dog USB hub is a bit of a three-in-one marvel. As well as the four USB ports, the bow-wow acts as a shonky computer speaker. Then, if you rip the head off this iridescent puppy, you’ve got yourself a portable radio with autoscan capability. Cost is US$19.15. [Gearlog via UberGizmo] More »
Software
Next Gen Zune Could Have Smart Shuffling
9:51AM Brian Lam | At Microsoft’s Techfest, a researcher was showing off a smart shuffle system that uses tags and meta data like tempo and genre to direct playlist creation in a portable music device. The demo was being done on a first generation Zune. More »
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