Centaur, the New Segway 4-Wheel Prototype
Here we go again!!
Quote:
Like the mythical half-horse, half-man of Greek lore, Concept Centaur combines the best of several technologies to create an innovative whole. The result of exploration by Segway LLC’s product development team, Concept Centaur will challenge the way you think about four-wheeled transportation.
From time to time Segway’s product development team devotes days, or even weeks, to creating new product concepts with the goal of finding a prince among frogs. It’s a product exploration process they call “frog kissing.” During this time, engineers and designers are encouraged to use any available materials in a very short time frame to prove a concept will work.A sketch of the Centaur concept.
Recently, the product development team demonstrated that Concept Centaur was a prince—a concept that passed this initial feasibility test, but is not yet ready to become a product. Concept Centaur demonstrates Segway’s continued commitment to breakthrough innovation and the innumerable possibilities for the future of personal transportation.
New Wifi-Finder
This one isn’t confused by microwaves!!
Japan’s Location-based Cell Phone Item Collection Game
From Wired:
It sends players out and about in Tokyo searching for virtual treasure by using the GPS technology built into their phones.
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Items like flowers, fruits or creatures are “hidden” around Tokyo, and are visible on a city map on players’ mobile phones. Players form teams, comb the city and try to find each item in various “collections.” They also try to find players from other teams working on different collections with whom to trade.
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“What’s astonishing about Mogi is that it provides a system for people to coordinate and team up and inhabit cities in ways they never have before,” Hall suggests. “It’s dispatching. It’s recreational dispatching, like a cab company, or police or the fire department. It’s fabulously fascinating, this idea that, hey, I’m sitting on my computer at home looking at the Mogi map, and that thing our group wants is over on the west side of town. You’re the closest, so (you go get it) because it’s important for the group.”
From thefeature:
For now, Mogi runs on Japanese carrier KDDI’s phones with built-in GPS capacity.
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Mogi is a collecting game – “item hunt”. The game provides a data-layer over the city of Tokyo. As you move through the city, if you check a map on your mobile phone screen, you’ll see nearby items you can pick up and nearby players you can meet or trade with.
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“some items only appear at certain places, at certain times.” For example, Castelli cites the creatures in the game: “We used the map to give creatures some interesting behavior. Some creatures only hunt at night. Some hang around close to parks.” If a player wants to find that creature, they’ll have to travel near a park[IN THE REAL WORLD] in the evening hours.
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Desktop internet players have access to a larger map. Newt Games’s idea is to have the desktop players guiding the mobile internet players, a goal of collaborative play, team work.
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Players can run around the landscape collecting things, or they can remain in one place and trade with other players.
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Kigen [THE EVENTUAL PRODUCT THAT MOGI IS THE FIRST INSTALLMENT OF] resembles Mogi, with additional layers of complexity added: combat, technological evolution, conquering neighborhoods.
Pattern-Matching CamPhone Images of City Buildings to Determine Location
Holy cow.
“Two researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK are currently working on a brand new technology that will allow the owners of cameraphones to easily make their way through an unknown city.
Roberto Cipolla and Duncan Robertson have developed a program that can match a photograph of a building, taken by a low-res camera integrated into many modern cell phones, to a database of images on a remote server. Containing a three-dimensional model of the street, the database can work out precisely where you are and send back directions to help you get to your destination.
Unlike GPS receivers and positioning using cell phone base stations, the new technology cannot be shielded, has a precision of one metre, and can also tell which direction you are facing.
When a new photograph arrives, the system starts identifying vertical and horizontal edges. Next, the image is distorted so that it looks as though the photo was taken face-on. The software then locates key points, such as the corners of buildings, windows and doors, and looks through the database for matching data, using the positioning info from the nearest cell phone base station as a guide.
At the moment the researchers are building a prototype to cover all the buildings in Cambridge city center. However, it is not known yet whether the system will be commercially available in the end.”
Chordite
I’ve been paying a lot of attention to chordic keyboards. These are typically one handed and portable, these devices let you press button combinatins to express which character you are typing. Most of the attention chordic keyboards get is based on their utility for wearable/portable computers and their ergonomic advantages.
So far, I haven’t seen any chordic keyboards with PDA drivers and that is a shame because I’d love to try one in that setting.
One to keep an eye on is my favorite, John McKown’s Chordite – http://www.chordite.com and check out the movies at http://www.chordite.com/moviepage.html. John retains the rights to sell these devices commercially, but all of his specs and construction tips are available on line for you to build your own. PS2 and USB(using an adapter).
A mechanical engineer just started looking at John’s prototypes and build descriptions/tips. His impressions are here.
A year ago, I built one of these(as did Gordon and Craig), but we never mounted the switches on anything close to ergonomic. I’m hoping that the solution to the fully adjustable, lightweight chordite unit will be made possible by some soon-to-be-discovered kids building toy(legos, technic, erector, k’nex, etc).
John Tokash 