Gizmodo Australia » smart

An Inside Peek at Microsoft’s Future Smart Home

Andi Wang — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:00:00 +0000

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.

A teenager’s bedroom is wallpapered in a smart display that works somewhat like a computer desktop, letting you not only change your decorations, but also bounce things off the walls and create a playful environment. A touch-enabled kitchen counter also gives out reminders and can pull up information from items place on it—including medication directions from medicine bottles and contacts from cell phones. Head over to BBC to see the full video tour. [BBC]

Tesla-Smart Collaboration Produces Underwhelming Electric Car

Dan Nosowitz — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 20:30:00 +0000

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.

The fortwo is a tiny, tiny car, and we’re sort of surprised it took so long to be fitted with electric guts. But the Tesla-Smart version still only has a range of 160km, and promises to cost even more than the gas or diesel versions, which already retail for about $US20,000. Our brothers at Jalopnik estimate this version will come in even pricier. It’s got a ton of power, since it’s featuring the same motor and gearbox as the Tesla Roadster, but in this kind of car we’d expect to see a little economy of power rather than superfast acceleration. [AutoblogGreen]

Panasonic Smart Home Probably Won’t Try to Kill You like HAL 9000

Gizmodo US Edition — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:00:00 +0000

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.

The mirror isn’t a mirror at all but a huge touch-based LCD equipped with cameras, so you can touch icons of clothes and see an animation of how you would look without having to try them on. This is the first step towards robopocalypse, if you ask me, but the models in their pristine all-white apartment don’t look too scared.

Brainstorming Room Accelerates Ideas to Warp 9

Gizmodo US Edition — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:00:00 +0000

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]

SMART Car Vending Machine Only Dispenses Marketing Materials, False Hope

Gizmodo US Edition — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:30:00 +0000

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.

[PlaySmart.jp via Trends in Japan]

Ford’s Self-Driving Hybrid DARPA Car Now Available for US$89,000

Gizmodo US Edition — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 12:00:00 +0000

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.

Vehicle Interface

Relay: (16) 5A SPST
Digital IO: 24 Channels, 3.3V and 5V compatible
Analogue Input: 32 Single-ended/16 Differential, 16-Bit Resolution, +/- 10V Range, 250 Khz Max Sample Rate
Analogue Outputs: (4) 12-bit resolution, +/- 10V Range
Timer/Counter: Variable reluctance speed sensor
Serial: (2) RS-232, (2) RS-232/422/485 (2 optional), Ethernet (1) Gigabit, USB (2) Version 2.0, CAN (2) Version 2.0B (optional)
Electrical: BW-100 Input Voltage 10-32 VDC
Power Consumption: 25 Watts

Environmental
Dust / Water Resistance: IP65
Operating Temperature: -20°C – 70°C
Operational Shock Rating: 10g

Optional Accessories
BW-100-VBI Vibration Isolators
BW-100-41P 41-pin cable harness
BW-100-79P 79-pin cable harness
BW-100-ETC Ethernet cable harness
BW-100-GPS GPS Receiver Module

[Torc Tech via CNET—Thanks HawkSkater]

EPA Dress Wrinkles Up to Show it’s a Bad Air Day

Gizmodo US Edition — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:56:00 +0000

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]

Smart Dog USB Hub Has Four Paws, Four Ports and a Radio

Addy Dugdale — Fri, 09 May 2008 09:55:00 +0000

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]

Next Gen Zune Could Have Smart Shuffling

Brian Lam — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 22:51:04 +0000

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.

The system is being developed in direct response to the huge number of songs people carry around on their media players, and specifically the millions of songs a Zune library can stock using a Zune pass. The system automatically recommends new songs based on songs played, and the logic is continuously “steered” by voting tracks up and down.

‘Smart Closet’ Helps You Dress Yourself

Adam Frucci — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 14:45:05 +0000

Are you so helpless that you can’t even dress yourself without assistance? Is your mum making you move out, giving you no one to help you with the tough decisions that face you each morning as you stare at your closet? Well, never fear, you sad excuse for a person, because technology is here to bail you out. Sort of. Meet the “Smart Closet.”

The closet senses what clothes you wear each day by tracking embedded RFID tags placed in the collars of your shirts. It knows that you just wore your silk button-up with a giant picture of a tiger on it on Monday, so you should probably not wear it again until next week. Or ever.

It can also help you make more difficult fashion choices. “It can also be connected to an autonomous fashion butler on the Internet, which can suggest clothing choices for casual or formal outings with accessories to match.”

Which is all well and good, but unless you actually have some nice clothes to begin with, this thing isn’t going to do anyone much good. But I guess if you’re a rich guy in the business world who can afford nice clothes but are too lazy to pay attention when you’re putting them on, it could be sort of beneficial. Those of you who just wear sweatpants every day, well, not fancy closet can solve that problem. [Business Edge via The Raw Feed]