Pranav Mistry`s SixthSense

Pranav Mistry`s

                                                                                              integrating information with the real world

SixthSense' is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

We've evolved over millions of years to sense the world around us. When we encounter something, someone or some place, we use our five natural senses to perceive information about it; that information helps us make decisions and chose the right actions to take. But arguably the most useful information that can help us make the right decision is not naturally perceivable with our five senses, namely the data, information and knowledge that mankind has accumulated about everything and which is increasingly all available online. Although the miniaturization of computing devices allows us to carry computers in our pockets, keeping us continually connected to the digital world, there is no link between our digital devices and our interactions with the physical world. Information is confined traditionally on paper or digitally on a screen. SixthSense bridges this gap, bringing intangible, digital information out into the tangible world, and allowing us to interact with this information via natural hand gestures. ‘SixthSense’ frees information from its confines by seamlessly integrating it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer.

The SixthSense prototype is comprised of a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera. The hardware components are coupled in a pendant like mobile wearable device. Both the projector and the camera are connected to the mobile computing device in the user’s pocket. The projector projects visual information enabling surfaces, walls and physical objects around us to be used as interfaces; while the camera recognizes and tracks user's hand gestures and physical objects using computer-vision based techniques. The software program processes the video stream data captured by the camera and tracks the locations of the colored markers (visual tracking fiducials) at the tip of the user’s fingers using simple computer-vision techniques. The movements and arrangements of these fiducials are interpreted into gestures that act as interaction instructions for the projected application interfaces. The maximum number of tracked fingers is only constrained by the number of unique fiducials, thus SixthSense also supports multi-touch and multi-user interaction.

The SixthSense prototype implements several applications that demonstrate the usefulness, viability and flexibility of the system. The map application lets the user navigate a map displayed on a nearby surface using hand gestures, similar to gestures supported by Multi-Touch based systems, letting the user zoom in, zoom out or pan using intuitive hand movements. The drawing application lets the user draw on any surface by tracking the fingertip movements of the user’s index finger. SixthSense also recognizes user’s freehand gestures (postures). For example, the SixthSense system implements a gestural camera that takes photos of the scene the user is looking at by detecting the ‘framing’ gesture. The user can stop by any surface or wall and flick through the photos he/she has taken. SixthSense also lets the user draw icons or symbols in the air using the movement of the index finger and recognizes those symbols as interaction instructions. For example, drawing a magnifying glass symbol takes the user to the map application or drawing an ‘@’ symbol lets the user check his mail. The SixthSense system also augments physical objects the user is interacting with by projecting more information about these objects projected on them. For example, a newspaper can show live video news or dynamic information can be provided on a regular piece of paper. The gesture of drawing a circle on the user’s wrist projects an analog watch.

 

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 To know more about Pranav Mistry-click here

The HTC Rezound

hTC Goes Loud and Proud With New Rezound Android Phone

HTC's latest phone is the Rezound, a 4G Android showing up on Verizon's network. Perhaps the most standout feature of the new phone is its Beats Audio technology. Also built in is a camera that can record and play back video in slow motion. The Rezound ships with Android Gingerbread, but its makers promise an Ice Cream Sandwich update will arrive early next year.

HTC on Thursday announced its latest smartphone, the Rezound, an Android handset for Verizon's 4G LTE network.

The phone offers several features, most notably a collaboration with musician Dr. Dre and record producer Jimmy Iovine's start-up Beats Audio.
A similar phone, the HTC Sensation XL with Beats Audio, has been available in Europe and Asia, but this is the first U.S. phone to run with Beats Audio.

The phone will arrive running Android's 2.3 Gingerbread platform, though the company stressed it is "Ice Cream Sandwich ready," and the upgrade to the newer platform should follow in early 2012.
A Rezound will sell for US$299 with a Verizon contract and will be available online, in Verizon stores and at Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) on Nov. 14.
HTC didn't respond to TechNewsWorlds' requests for further commitment.

 Feature-iffic

HTC announced the partnership with Beats Audio in August, and it says that since then the companies have been working together to bring an audio experience to the smartphone world.
Beats-branded headphones are included with the phone, and they can also be used as a headset when making calls. Normally, the headphones can go for as much as $180.
As the smartphone market continues to tap into a younger, music-focused crowd, the Beats partnership could be a huge draw for the Rezound.
"I suspect that will be the big marketing angle for this handset and what consumers respond to. The included Beats headphones will help to make this stand out as a music phone, and I expect that will be what the salespeople emphasize in the stores," Bill Morelli, director of mobile technologies & convergence at IMS Research, told TechNewsWorld.
The phone also comes equipped with enhanced screen quality on a 4.3 inch 720p HD touch display, a dual-core processor, and a camera with a low-light sensor designed to take better photos in dark areas. An option exists with the camera to record and also play back video in slow motion, which could prove to be a draw to customers.
It will also run on Verizon's 4G LTE network, although outside of tech-savvy consumers, 4G hasn't necessarily proven to be alluring enough to draw consumers away from competition.
"I don't think the average consumer has any idea of the difference between 4G HSPA+ and 4G LTE. So really, on that front, this handset will just be competing in the stores with all of the other 4G-labeled handsets," said Morelli.

Standing Out From the Crowd

As smartphone use becomes more popular -- many research companies, such as Gartner (NYSE: IT) and IDC, project around a 55 percent growth in smartphone sales from 2010 to 2011 -- HTC and other handset makers are constantly competing to differentiate themselves from the crowd.
"HTC is looking to differentiate. We're reaching the point in the market, especially in the U.S., where there needs to be some kind of singularity when you release a phone, because it's gotten to be almost an arms race," Nick Dillon, analyst at Ovum, told TechNewsWorld.
One way Android phones previously tried to distinguish themselves were through the large screens. Customers responded well and Samsung followed suit, (unlike Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPhone, the screen size on which hasn't changed), but it seems screen size has reached its upper limits.
"There's a limit on how big you can make the screen without turning it into a tablet. When you can't fit it in your hands or pockets, there's kind of a diminishing utility there. Now, what we're seeing with the Rezound, is keeping it around 4.7 inches or so and increasing the pixels on the screen, trying to cram more and more in there," said Dillon.
The Rezound has its distinguishing features, such as the Beats audio experience and supposed enhanced imaging capabilities, but now there are so many Android phones on the market it's tough to see the Rezound as making a significant splash.
"Consumers have been so saturated in Android marketing that one more Android smartphone does not make a difference in and of itself," said Morelli.

Research team has developed a fully functional flexible memory

This is a schematic of a fully functional flexible memory array on flexible substrates. Credit: KAIST

The team of Professor Keon Jae Lee (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, KAIST) has developed fully functional flexible non-volatile resistive random access memory (RRAM) where a memory cell can be randomly accessed, written, and erased on a plastic substrate

Memory is an essential part in electronic systems, as it is used for data processing, information storage and communication with external devices. Therefore, the development of flexible memory has been a challenge to the realization of flexible electronics.

This is an image of flexible memory wrapped on quartz rod. Credit: KAIST

Although several flexible memory materials have been reported, these devices could not overcome cell-to-cell interference due to their structural and material limitations. In order to solve this problem, switching elements such as transistors must be integrated with the memory elements. Unfortunately, most transistors built on plastic substrates(e.g., organic/oxide transistors) are not capable of achieving the sufficient performance level with which to drive conventional memory. For this reason, random access memory operation on a flexible substrate has not been realized thus far.

Recently, Prof. Lee's research team developed a fully functional flexible memory that is not affected by cell-to-cell interference. They solved the cell-to-cell interference issue by integrating a memristor (a recently spotlighted memory material as next-generation memory elements) with a high-performance single-crystal silicon transistor on flexible substrates. Utilizing these two advanced technologies, they successfully demonstrated that all memory functions in a matrix memory array (writing/reading/erasing) worked perfectly.

Prof. Lee said, "This result represents an exciting technology with the strong potential to realize all flexible electronic systems for the development of a freely bendable and attachable computer in the near future."

This result was published in the October online issue of the Nano Letters ACS journal.

Provided by The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

New Duqu virus linked to Microsoft Word Documents

 

A new virus has cropped up in various countries across the world and its target appears to be corporate networks. The Duqu virus, first noted last month by a laboratory at Budapest University, has now been spotted in several other countries and appears to be sent via Microsoft Word documents attached as emails. Microsoft has announced that it is working on a fix.

The point of the new virus seems to be to gather corporate information and then send it to some as yet unknown site. Thus, it’s a form of corporate espionage. Chillingly, researchers at Symantec, the giant antivirus company, say it looks like some of the code in the virus is the same as was found in the Stuxnet virus that wreaked havoc on Iran’s nuclear program, indicating that the perpetuators were either able to obtain the code from that virus, or, are the same people.

The virus is activated when a person to whom an infected Word document was sent, opens it. The virus infects that computer then seeks out other computers through the corporate network. As it goes, it collects data and then apparently, seeks a path out to the Internet where it can send the data it’s collected to a predefined destination. Thus far it has relied on a so-named zero day exploit to take advantage of a previously unknown weakness in the Windows kernel, which means getting in and doing its dirty work before victims have a chance to come up with a means of defense against it.

Thus far, it appears that the virus has been targeted at specific types of companies, as the data- collecting part of the virus seems to seek out information pertaining to industrial control-systems. So it’s likely that whoever unleashed the virus, did so in hopes of gaining information on how companies are designing and manufacturing their products; not something the average person would need to worry about, but still enough to cause concern about the growing sophistication of computer viruses.

So far, instances of the virus have been seen in Iran, India, France, Ukraine, the UK and at least eight other countries that have not been specifically identified.

Helio Display Interactive Mid Air Display

Over the last fours years IO2 Technology have been developing the Heliodisplay. Originally shown as a prototype back in 2003, the Heliodisplay third generation (M3) model is now on the market. Like a computer monitor or television, this mid air display can project any video signal coming from most sources with one main difference, there is no screen.

A projector is focused onto a layer of mist in mid-air, resulting in a two-dimensional display that appears to float. This is similar in principle to the cinematic technique of rear projection but with no screen to display the image, the Heliodisplay produces an effect much like a hologram.

IO2 Heliodisplay

Images are visible under typical indoor lighting and are about as bright as the first-generation rear projection TV’s. The display works best under controlled lighting such as in museums, movie theaters, and most office spaces, although it is not recommended for outside use IO2 does build outdoor systems for enterprise solutions.

The Heliodisplay’s default resolution is 800 x 600 but supports up to 1280 x 1024, depending on the model, a 22 to 42 inch image can be projected floating above the device, this can be viewed from 150 degree viewing angle in front of the projector or from both front and rear, again depending on the model.

Another amazing feature of the Heliodisplay is the ability to be used as a touch-screen monitor to navigate and interact with content. When connected to a PC using a standard USB cable and the software provided you can use your finger, pen, pencil or any object to select and navigate as you would a conventional touch-screen, the only difference is that there is no physical screen.

 

Check out the video to get more of an idea >>