OLPC 2.0.dual touch screen

This is an intersting development. The new OLPC has 2 (multi)touch screens. So you can use 1 as a keybord and the other as a screen but even cooler you can fold it to 1 big (ok, relatively spoken) screen taht act as 1 screen. great for multi touch apps (google maps will be even more fun this way and when combining with a GPS you have back your paper map but in a 2.0 version and interactive)

Not sure if the screens can act like 1 multitouch screen and hope they can ke the border around the screens a bit smaller (this is pretty thick in between the 2 screens) but definately a great development

Thanks to http://www.netbooknews.de/ a nice picture of the mockup (yes it's not in the shops yet unfortunalely)

3d screen in ..............Phone

Ok, it's not here yet but on sale in april in Japan. It still lacks some features I like to have but there is a cool feature that delivers them a bonus. The phone has a 3D screen (and an integrated TV receiver, not sure about 3D tv on the mobile)

the WOOO Ketai H001 featuring a 3D display for both video and photos. The LCD is made by Hitachi with integrated the IPS Technology, and has a 845x480 resolution on a 3.1” screen.
 The H0001 has a 5Mpix camera module with AF, supports microSD cards, 1Seg TV tuner, ewallet, VOD... at a size of 51 x 111 x 18.6 and weight of 145g.

an energy friendly car can be cool, affordable and fast

Loremo (low resistance mobile), a German car manufacturer is redesigning cars. As a reasult they will enter the market with some traditional fueled cars but with an exceptional low fuel consumption and great looks and as a bonus (or main buying criterium) a low price.They claim to have a GT on benzine and an LS on diesel
The GT has an 850 cc engine delivering 61 HP but with a fuel consumption of about 1 liter on 33 km and a top speed of about 200 km/h (0-100 in less that 10 sec). All of this for only 20.000 euro

The LS version is a bit slower (top around 160 km/h, 0-100 under 20 seconds) but it has a fuel consumption of only 1 liter on every 50 km and it will costs you around 15000 euro

And this is not all. Wach the youtube video here and see how cool the car looks (love the entry)

Last but not least they are working on an electic version as well (this will finally kill the prius, love the concept but the looks are horrible, still don't know what the front or the backside is when looking at it from outside)

This could be my next phone (or brower in the living room or .................)

Ok, since a few months I decided not to work anymore in the living room but work in my home office. This left me with a clean living room and a much better phisical health since I have to walk up to the 1st floor anytime I need to check something stupid on the internet. So a living room friendly device to browse the web and do some other basic tasks would be great, specially if it looks good as well (although this is a personal thing)

I obviously could use the webbrowser on my mediacenter for this but this has one major disadvantage............My girlfriend or me can not watch tv at that same moment

So then this might be an option:

iriver Brings a Hot New Look and Feel to Networking With the All-Inclusive WAVE-HOME Multimedia Communication Device

Next Generation Networking Base Station and Handset Keep You Connected and In Control Of Your Home and Office Life

Las Vegas, NV -- iriver, a global leader in innovative digital devices, is bringing its award-winning ingenuity to the networking space with the game-changing WAVE-HOME. More than a home networking device, the WAVE-HOME is the ultimate all-in-one solution that provides advanced multimedia, web and phone capabilities – a comprehensive communications hub that keeps you totally connected and in control at home, at the office and in your life. Featuring a sleek and minimal base station and portable handset, the WAVE-HOME manages and integrates all your phone, Internet, home entertainment and lifestyle needs.

iriver's WAVE-HOME and all of its new networking devices will be on display at the iriver booth (#7935, Central Hall) during the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center, January 8-11, 2009.

Myoung Woo Lee, CEO, iriver, said, "The WAVE-HOME is a milestone introduction for iriver as we expand our product innovation and design into exciting new areas such as life and home networking. Our mission has always been to help consumers easily connect with the things they value most in life. Our new networking devices take this concept to the next level by providing a stylish and powerful way to stay completely connected to every aspect of your home and business life and relationships."

The WAVE-HOME comes with a stylish base station with a 7" color LCD touch screen and is designed to integrate all of your personal digital content such as music, photos, movies, digital photo frame, hand drawing, Internet and phone services. Music, video, and FM radio can all be enjoyed in pristine sound thanks to the WAVE-HOME's built-in, high-quality stereo speakers.

WAVE-HOME is not just a simple VolP telephone, it's an internet multimedia communication device that combines a wide variety of activities at home or in the office. It can be used privately or in a broader context, such as creating new business opportunities via broadband internet such as VoIP. When connected to broadband Internet, the WAVE-HOME offers Web surfing, and also supports Internet phone service at home and in the office with VoIP Phone, VoIP Video Phone, SMS/MMS, MMCID/MMRB, live Phonebook sync, and more. Phone calls can be made by using either the internal speaker phone or the wireless handset that also supports a remote controller. WAVE-HOME also features a 1.3M pixel CMOS camera for taking sharp photos that can be instantly presented via the photo viewer.

Another exciting feature is the intelligent Widget that provides instant weather, stock and traffic updates, as well as web and multimedia services that users can enjoy without a computer since the device is connected to broadband internet. The Widget utilizes a graphical user interface (GUI) and displays an individual information window or a text box. The defining characteristic of a Widget is to provide a single interaction point for the direct manipulation of a given kind of data. Therefore, the user can arrange his or her data with several Widget functions such as Widget Connector, Widget Icon, Widget Manager and Widget Gallery. It provides endless options on the 7" color touch screen. Due to its simplified navigation, it creates an intuitive and easy-to-use interface.

WAVE-HOME catches the eye with its sleek, minimalist design that enhances any interior and creates style at home while changing the way we communicate.

Just hope this works nicely together with my other address books on the home network and the video card is good enough to show the pictures from the (security) cameras around the house from a webpage or even better a widget

The average web developer can now easily create multi touch apps using flash

When reading through the blogposts I monitor I came accross a pretty nice one. Fingertapps is working on a SDK to enable people to create multitouch applications in Flash (linked here). The great thing about this is that there are many many flash developers out in the field and the now can create multitouch apps. This could definately help in bringing multitouch to the masses

For those too lazy to click the link I also copied the post below:

Multi-Touch Applications using Adobe(R) Flash(R) & Fingertapps

We've been busy working away on a number of new capabilities and one all consuming project, looking forward to being able to write about those soon. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview of our new integration with Adobe(R) Flash(R) which enables a Flash application to run within the Fingertapps platform and access touch events.

That enables any developer using Flash to add multi-touch gestures to their new or existing Flash applications and just for fun we've also exposed access to full screen, high definition video playback and our real time 3D engine.

We're planning to extend this capability even further in the near future so that more of our Fingertapps widgets can be used directly from within ActionScript, making it an option for developing Fingertapps applications (in addition to the native Fingertapps script itself).

the portable projection screen will be the projector as well:)

It's sad we have to wait for about 10 years but this would be great. The projection screen will become the projector as well so no more ugly devices in the design interior. Just roll up the TV:) Besides of this there are plenty other great applications you can think about when being able to use flexible OLED. I wish they would sell it on rolls just like wall paper. This is the article as published on InAVate

Technology breakthrough paves way for flexible OLED

Highly flexible displays are just round the corner, following a breakthrough in the use of carbon-based graphene. A group of South Korean researchers, headed by Byung Hee Hong, developed a way to “spray” graphene, a material derived from carbon nanotubes, on thin pieces of nickel that are dissolved before attaching the film to a PET polymer.

Graphene structure. Image courtesy of Wikipedia

The graphene is tipped for use in OLED screens, adding momentum to the technology that originally took off in 2007 when it started to be selected for screens in popular gadgets, such as mobile phones and MP3 players.

Although graphene, a material that is one atom thick and maintains electrical conductivity, was orginally produced in 2004 it was extremely cumbersome to make in bulk. However, Byung Lee Hong‘s team claim, in a paper published in prominent scientific journal, Nature, their new technique can produce strong, flexible, conductive sheets, suitable for mass-production.

And whilst scientists are busy working on ways to commercially produce flexible displays, a quick look at Las Vegas‘ CES show demonstrates that major industry players are also ploughing money into flexible OLED technologies. Sony showed off concepts that included a video bracelet and a one screen laptop, with touch screen keyboard. Not to be outdone Samsung unveiled a PDA that opened up into one large screen for watching video.

Finally, the US Army is backing flexible display technology, funding research at Arizona State University's Flexible Display Center. The military want to create small, portable, flexible screens that can provide its soldiers with situational information on a battlefield.

Although projections suggest we won’t see this kind of technology commercially developed, on a large scale, for perhaps another 10 years the research and funding dedicated to the technology indicates people are serious about bringing flexible displays to market.

CES2009 roundup delayed due to.............newborn son

Ok, I did a bad job in keeping my blog up to date but last week our son was delivered so I had to spent my time on other things than being a nerd:) However I will still do my roundup, not because it's the latest technology (ok most is, some might already be old due to the speed of change in the gadget world) but because these are the things I loved to see and read about

For those curious about the son:
Ruben Maxime Loos is born on the 14th of Januari at 20:08 and he is the most beautiful baby in the world (as would all the parents say). This is how he looks like:

CISCO now entering your home - Sony, Philips, Samsung, Onkyo etc watch out!!!!!

After moving into the enterprise AV market as discussed here Cisco is also moving into your living room. They already had a nice entry point with their wireless access points, routers and other network devices but now they really show off with some products not designed to hide away

They just announced at CES it's Wireless Home Audio line up and some NAS devices for home use. This is a nice start to compete with Sony, Philips, Samsung, LG, Pioneer, Onkyo etc. The way they do this is a smart one. They do not start with the entry from the consumer electronics site being a direct competitor from sony, philips etc when showing their AV systems but taking a d-tour via the network

The digital living room is slowly becoming reality since we all have our live reduced to some bits and bytes (digital pictures, DIVX movies, MP3 music, IPTV (remember CISCO already has an IPTV platform), DVR etc) but integration and implementation into a living room is still not easy. Microsoft does a nice try with Windows home server and Mediacenter (I have both and really like my them but there is still some room for improvement, also from the content and service delivery parties to work together to give the consumers an great offering). However these initiatives are still not there for everybody and you need to be tech savy to manage this infrastructure.

Maybe CISCO can elevate the digital living room to a new level that can be used by anyone (including older people that did not grow up with computers). So the big questions are:

• Can they provide an easy to implement infrastructure
• Can they handle all media formats nicely (some standardization would be nice but I guess we are not there yet)
• Is it open enough to work with other devices in the home
• Do they have the rigth partners to make it a great offering for the consumers (I still hate it that my digital TV from UPC can not be integrated into my mediacenter (or MCE/VMC alternative) in a nice way)
• Do they provide the right applications so it will be an integrated experience (how will they fit in their line of home monitoring cameras for example)

At least they start of with a nice lineup and they support the most important standards. Hope they are easy to upgrade in terms of functionality and support of standards. The line up is:

The WHA is a whole-house, multi-zone audio system using Ethernet and draft 802.11n wireless networking and DLNA 1.5. The lineup includes three players, powered speakers, a wireless touch-screen controller and iPod dock, all scheduled to hit stores this quarter with pricing starting at $300 for the entry-level player.

The DMC350 Conductor Wireless-N Digital Music Center is an all-in-one wireless music system with integrated speakers, seven inch LCD touch screen, integrated CD player and IR Remote. Pricing was not announced and it appears that this will be the last family member to become available.



The DMC250 Director Wireless-N Music Player with Integrated Amplifier ($449.99 MSRP) drops the CD player and speakers and adds a 50 W amplifier.

The DMP100 Player Wireless-N Music Extender ($299.99 MSRP) is the entry-level player. It has stereo line outputs and all the functions of the more expensive player options, but no display, CD player or amplifier.

The DMWR1000 Controller Wireless-N Touchscreen Remote ($349.99 MSRP) features a large color touchscreen and thumbwheel and can be used to control all players and a docked iPod The other components available include the DSPK50 Stereo Speaker Kit ($149.99 MSRP), MCCI40 iPod Dock ($79.99 MSRP). Additional DMRIR500 IR Remotes (that come with all players) can be purchased for $29.99(MSRP).

For your purchasing convenience, Cisco has kindly assembled three kits:

• Premier ($999.99 MSRP)Two-room starter kit with Director and IR Remote, Player and IR Remote, and Wireless-N Controller.


• Trio ($849.99 MSRP)2 Players, 2 IR Remotes, and a Wireless-N Controller, for adding the WHA to existing audio systems.


• Executive ($549.99 MSRP)Single room kit with Director, IR Remote and speakers.
  

Along with the WHA, Cisco also kicked loose a new line of NASes that put its previous NAS200 to shame. The Media Hub line consists of three two-bay NASes with a very friendly Flash-driven web interface, UPnP AV / DLNA and iTunes servers, photo slideshow, remote access and NTI Shadow-bundled backup (for Windows only).
The NMH405 (500 GB) and NMH410 (1 TB) models both include a front panel LCD display and 6-in-1 card reader. The NMH305 does not have the LCD or card reader and sells for $50 less than the 405. All versions come with one drive—you add the second to either expand capacity (JBOD) or increase security (RAID 1).

MSRPs are $429.99 for the NMH410, $349.99 for the NMH405 and $299.99 for the NMH305. All will be available shortly.

Windows 7 - bad news for hardware manufactures

I was thinking about starting off the new year (and yes, happy new year to all of you) by doing a small investment. I thought my old laptop was ready for replacement so I was looking for a new one but after all reviews of Windows 7 I might just install a beta of windows 7 on my laptop to get the performance improvement. Just have to wait till it's offered by my MSDN account and then I can invest this money in other gadgets (I have to support the economy, don't I)

On ZDNet there is a nice test on how windows 7 outperformed both Vista as well as XP SP3 big time in real life scenarios. I think the only reason to upgrade to a new machine would be the multitouch capabilities of Windows 7 that are not supported on my tablet PC