Highway consultant firm Atkins´ came up with a new kind of speeding-sign. A sign that , on top of showing you your speed and asking you to slow down, if your speeding that is, also shows you your licence plate number.

We've all seen them alongside the road and we might even have accelerated a little bit just to increase the number a bit, knowing you won't get a ticket anyway, but this might give the speeders a different kind of experience. According to autoexpress.co.uk “almost half of drivers breaking the limit slowed”. They don’t give any figures as to how many drivers slow down seeing a normal speeding-sign but I imagine it to be a lot less. They do say that "Trials have shown that drivers get the 'back-off' message quicker when they see their own registration shown below the speed limit". So it seems to be working at least a bit, i'm looking forward to seeing some statistics from these trials.

Showing your license plate makes it a much more personal experience. It’s like somebody says: “hey you, with license plate Y317MPU, you’re speeding! Slow down!”. It causes  people to feel more involved and might give them a feeling of shame towards other drivers.

If they take it a bit further they could link it to the registrations database and state your name while you’re speeding past but I guess that would cause some protests.

Berlin, Germany – Building on its leading position in rollable displays and drawing on its considerable heritage in personal electronics, Philips Polymer Vision is revealing its Concept Readius at the Internationale Funkausstellung (IFA) in Berlin, Germany, September 2-7. Philips Concept Readius is a prototype of a connected consumer device for business professionals unwilling to sacrifice readability, mobility, performance, or weight in a pocket-sized, e-reader concept.

Polymer Vision does not intend to commercialize this concept as a product in the market. Instead, it is demonstrating the fitness of its rollable displays for use in the mobile devices of tomorrow.

The Readius is the world’s first prototype of a functional electronic-document reader that can unroll its display to a scale larger than the device itself. With four gray levels, the monochrome, 5-inch QVGA (320 pixels x 240 pixels) display provides paper-like viewing comfort with a high contrast ratio for reading-intensive applications, including text, graphics, and electronic maps. Using a bi-stable electrophoretic display effect from E Ink Corp., the display consumes little power and is easy to read, even in bright daylight. Once the user has finished reading, the display can be rolled back into the pocket-size
(100 mm x 60 mm x 20 mm) device.

Based on Philips Polymer Vision’s PV-QML5 rollable display reference design, the Readius was created in order to demonstrate the viability of the rollable-display concept in mobile applications and to gain customer feedback at the IFA 2005.

“Making displays thinner and flexible will have advantages in power and weight. But the only way to add the key advantage of size—allowing larger displays in smaller, pocket-size mobile devices—is by actually making the displays rollable,” says Polymer Vision CEO Karl McGoldrick. “The Readius demonstrates this, as well as showing that we have taken this technology a major step further towards product and market.”

What is it?

A pre-fabricated wall unit supporting a urinal is installed in an existing gallery toilet. The urinal is sensitised to allow participants (both male & female) to draw using their urine. The resulting drawings are displayed in real-time in the gallery space, then automatically uploaded onto the internet.

The work Pissoir celebrates the private, intimate, DIY act of pissing as a creative activity. This work provides all participants with a virtual canvas, giving them the opportunity to draw/paint their own works of art. Urine incident upon a sensor is sampled for its unique pH level; thus each participant leaves his/her own colour pH signature. In addition to the installation apparatus, the artists provide a small device to assist women in urinating precisely.

Pissoir embodies the DIY culture in its most intimate & naive form.

Digit devised and executed an interactive installation, MotoGlyph for the exclusive nightly Sunset Sessions at Miami's M3 Festival. The innovative installation and related website were developed to represent Motorola's sponsorship of the 2004 Miami Music Summit.

The installation comprised of three glass panels within the MotoGlyph unit, each possessing its own unique library of sounds. Guests were invited to create their own unique digital signature or illustration upon the wall from which the variables of the marks and strokes were translated into the author's own sound and animation.

Users were then able to go to the MotoGlyph website where they could download an MP3 of their unique ringtone to their mobile phone.
www.hellomoto.com/motoglyph

Digit developed a technology so users were could write on the walls with a custom made 'virtual spray can', the movements tracked via ultrasound. The movements were back projected onto glass panels, creating a virtual graffiti wall and the sensation of writing in 'light'. In real time the movements affect and create sounds.

The three panels each have a unique sound effect. The first changes the pitch along the Y axis (from your initial registration point) and adds layers of sound loops dependent on acceleration. The second layers a number of sounds loops together depending on acceleration. The third constructs at random a beat pattern from a number of libraries. It then plays this forwards and backwards depending on direction along the X axis. The speed of playback is connected to the acceleration so for example is the user "scribbles" back and forth you will hear a "DJ scratching" effect.

Visitors had to 'sign out' from the wall, indicating that the signature or illustration had finished for it to be stored on the database. Every autograph and scrawl was filed for the author to listen to on the spot or visit the website and download as a unique ringtone, MP3 or desktop wallpaper.

Please visit the related website www.hellomoto.com/motoglyph to listen to a few examples of authors' sounds. Any one of the following codes can be entered on the homepage to proceed:

Technical Description of Motoglyph

• The user interface is a director/flash movie, which communicates via a socket connection to PD(pure data) - a sound processing application. Once a user begins a signature, the sound production and recording begins. A spray of light is produced on the screen taking the colour and distance information from the spray can.
• PD uses the messages passed from the movie to manipulate sound in real-time. The audio information is passed…
• to the 4 in 4 out sound card, which simultaneously outputs the audio to the speakers/headphones and back to its own audio inputs - required to record the soundfile…
• Once a user pauses for a predefined period of time (currently 3 seconds), the sound recording is paused, and the user has to make a decision to save their work, continue, or start again.
• The incoming audio is recorded directly from the soundcard, and the start/stop/pause process is controlled via an activeX control by the director movie.
• Once a signature is completed, a textfile is created which contains all the coordinate information for the signature, a label is printed which includes the created signature and a unique code, and a jpg is produced.
• At the end of an installation session, soundfiles are converted to mp3s (recorded as wav files), and all text files, and related media are manually uploaded to the website.
• The user takes their unique code to the website, and their signature is recreated as an animation with their accompanying audio file. The signature can be downloaded to their mobile phone as an mp3, or as a jpg wallpaper for their phone.

Software requirements:
The Director projector plus all associated Xtras and additional Flash movies.
ActiveX control to record sound files
MP3 codec to convert sound files
Mimio tracking hardware and software
PD and all written patches
All raw soundfiles to be used within the patches

All superheroes and superheroines have to find a place to hone their fighting skills. Many times these places are high tech installations full of traps and tests to push the hero or heroine to the edge of their ability. A true superperson will be able to confront their fears and weaknesses and conquer them. Unfortunately, most offices aren't set up for superhero fight training. Until you break out the Mazu Kan, that is. 

Mazu Kan is a two-player, superhero(ine) training, virtual fighting simulation. Huh? By squeezing the palm button and punching the air, you will send an attack toward your opponent. If they do not block (by a simple hand movement), you score a hit and their chest unit vibrates. You can play in beginner or advanced mode, depending on your skills. Advanced mode opens up new attacks (like Double Power Punch) and new defenses (like Force Field). And because Mazu Kan uses virtual attacks, you can literally punch though walls to score a hit. That sort of power is very addicting - everyone who has tried it at ThinkGeek HQ has become a Mazu Kan Maniac. Begin your training now - super latex/spandex costume and cape not included.

What happens when you mix those sumo wrestling fat suits with arty digital media? The answer is Ho Fatso, a new interactive installation by artist Rania Ho. Made of rip-stop nylon, high powered leaf blowers, and motion detectors, Ho Fatso is comprised of inflatable fat suits corralled by an inflated wrestling ring. Participants gear up and get "fat," folds of air-pumped flesh jiggling whilst engaged in battle. As long as there is movement, the suits and ring stay puffed with air. However, without activity, everything deflates. Ho Fatso was most recently shown at ISEA 2006, but you never know, it may be coming soon to a venue near you.

BUFFALO, N.Y. — With the tap of a single finger, computer users soon may be drawn deeper into the virtual world using a new device developed in the University at Buffalo's Virtual Reality Lab.

UB researchers say their "Fingertip Digitizer," which users wear on the tip of the index finger, can transfer to the virtual world the meaning and intent of common hand gestures, such as pointing, wagging the finger, tapping in the air or other movements that can be used to direct the actions of an electronic device, much like a mouse directs the actions of a personal computer, but with greater precision.

What's more, the Fingertip Digitizer can transfer to personal computers very precise information about the physical characteristics of an object — and even can sense the shape and size of a human gland or tumor — when a user taps, scratches, squeezes, strokes or glides a finger over the surface of the object.

"The gesture-recognition function of this device, in particular, has great potential for a wide range of applications, from personal computing to medical diagnostics to computer games," says Young-Seok Kim, who received his doctoral degree in mechanical engineering from UB in May. Kim created the Fingertip Digitizer with Thenkurussi Kesavadas, director of UB's Virtual Reality Lab and associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

According to Kesavadas, the Fingertip Digitizer will help bridge the gap between what a person knows and what a computer knows.

"With this device a computer, cell phone or computer game could read human intention more naturally," he explains. "Eventually the Fingertip Digitizer may be used as a high-end substitute for a mouse, a keyboard or a joystick."

Kim and Kesavadas will demonstrate a prototype of the Fingertip Digitizer at the SIGGRAPH2006 technology conference July 30 through Aug. 3 in Boston. They expect the Fingertip Digitizer and related software to be market- ready within three years.

The creators of the year's best research innovations in computer graphics and interactive techniques are invited to SIGGRAPH2006, the largest conference of its type in the world. For information, go to http://www.siggraph.org/s2006/main.php?f=conference&p=etech&s=fingertip.

The Fingertip Digitizer is a major enhancement in haptic technology, an emerging field focused on bringing a sense of touch to technological devices, according to Kim and Kesavadas. Most haptic tools on the market are designed as probes and are gripped like a pen. They can be difficult to manipulate and therefore may not give a precise representation of the object the user is feeling.

The Fingertip Digitizer's design, the researchers explain, is modeled after the biomechanical properties of a finger, which means it can more accurately and intuitively sense the physical properties of an object. To sense touch and movement, the device uses a force sensor, an accelerometer and a motion tracker — all contained in thimble-sized device that fits comfortably on a user's finger.

A real-time, multi-rate data acquisition system used with the Fingertip Digitizer reads the force feedback exerted by an object as it is touched by the user. To read hand gestures, the system tracks the acceleration and location of the fingertip device as the finger moves and gestures.

A touch screen is not required. With the device attached to the fingertip, the user simply would gesture in the air as he looks at a computer screen where a software program or computer game may be running. In this way, the user can direct the opening or moving of an electronic file, for example. Using the device as a computer-game accessory, the user could imitate the squeezing of a trigger or the stroking of pool cue, for example, say Kim and Kesavadas.

A provisional patent application has been filed on the device.  

The researchers are developing Touch Painter and Touch Canvas software to accompany the Fingertip Digitizer. Using this software and the Fingertip Digitizer, the user will be able to apply digital paint to a computer-screen canvas with a few flicks or taps of the index finger.

For more information about the UB Virtual Reality Lab, go to http://www.vrlab.buffalo.edu.

The University at Buffalo is a premier research-intensive public university, the largest and most comprehensive campus in the State University of New York.

By - Chris Davies

After Apple’s drearily uninteresting Bumnote, sorry, Keynote earlier this month, I’ve been waiting for my electronic twiddly bits to get perked up by some exciting tech news. I think today might be the day…

“The real meaning of this product is about opening up the channels between hand, eyes, and device, and giving people access to actions and information in a way not possible with conventional buttons” [Brian Conner, Pilotfish]

To call the Onyx touchscreen-based is to do it a disservice; in fact, it uses Synaptics innovative ClearPad technology, the first transparent touch-sensitive capacitive sensor. ClearPad is capable of recognizing not only points and taps but also shapes and complex movements, together with multi-point input. At 0.5mm thick, the sensor layer can recognize touch and gestures through up to 1.6mm of plastic, making it far more durable and optically clear than traditional multi-layer touchscreens. And above and beyond those touchscreens it can recognize one or two finger contact, a finger used on its side, or even different body parts; a phone call to Onyx can be answered by simply holding it to your cheek, messages sent by swiping them off the screen with the whole finger.

Digital Information Development (DID) has developed a highly portable virtual piano that is played with a keyboard consisting of projected laser beams.

The box-shaped device measures about 10 x 3 x 3 cm (4 x 1 x 1 in.) and weighs about 100 grams (3.5 oz.). Using a red semiconductor laser module and holographic optical element, the device projects a 25-key 2-octave keyboard onto the surface in front of it (black surfaces don’t work because they absorb the light). A CMOS camera module and infrared (invisible) red semiconductor laser module detect which keys are touched, and the corresponding notes are emitted from speakers built into the device. Chords can also be played, and DID claims it is technically possible to reproduce weighted notes (but presumably not with this version).

The keyboard has 3 other voices in addition to piano — organ, pipe organ and harpsichord. It is scheduled for release in Japan in November 2006 and is expected to cost around 15,000 yen (US$130).

DID says that a virtual 88-key grand piano can be created by increasing the size of the device.

More gentle than the jarring noise of traditional alarms, this clock uses a gradual increase in ambient light, stimulating aromas, and peaceful sounds from nature to awaken sleepers. Easy to use, simply set the desired wake up time, place some aromatherapy beads (included) into the aroma bowl, and choose a natural sound setting. Thirty minutes before wake-up, the clock's light begins to glow softly, subtly brightening over the next half hour. As the light increases, the warmth from the lamp releases faint aromatherapy scents into the air to stimulate the olfactory senses, speeding the waking process. Fifteen minutes before wake up time, the clock's speaker generates the sleeper's choice of soft, yet lively nature sounds, and at the set wake up time a buzzer sounds to finish the cycle. The alarm can also be used to awaken using only sound, or just the buzzer. Sound selection includes Nightfall, Thunder Storm, Zen Melody, Mountain Stream, Songbirds, and Ocean Surf. Four packets of aroma beads (Energy, Morning Caf, Stress Relief, Lavendar) are provided, as are 10 removable felt disks that can be placed in the aroma bowl which allow you to use your own aromatherapy oils. The clock can also be set to operate in reverse, gradually diminishing light, scent, and sound at night to usher sleepers into a relaxed slumber. The nature sounds can be heard at any time by simply pressing any of the sound buttons, and the light has a night light setting as well. The clock has standard time readout, snooze, headphone jack, and volume control. Plugs into a standard household outlet, and uses two AA batteries for backup power, ensuring that time and alarm buzzer functions remain operable in the event of power loss. UL listed. 7 1/2" H x 5 1/4" W x 6 1/4" D. (3 1/2 lbs.)