yaledailynews.com - Jet lag? Try shining light behind a knee, study says

yaledailynews.com - Jet lag? Try shining light behind a knee, study says: "But scientists have recently developed a way to reset the biological clocks of travelers such as Lee -- not with a pill or a patch, but with the light emitted from four halogen lamps.

The new innovation got its start when Yale psychiatry professor Dan Oren '79 MED '83 set out a seemingly radical hypothesis -- that human blood acts as a carrier of the light signal that resets the human biological clock. "

New Scientist Premium- Energy diary helps correct bad habits - Technology

New Scientist Premium- Energy diary helps correct bad habits - Technology: "BY OFFERING consumers instant feedback on the amount of energy they are using, a system trialled in Japan is helping people cut their fuel bills and carbon emissions.
The Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry in Tokyo set up monitors in 10 houses in Kyoto and Osaka to gauge electric power use and check on room temperature every 30 minutes. Residents were able to monitor their overall consumption of electricity, gas and in some cases kerosene for heaters, via a linked PC. The computer also displayed the power consumption of individual appliances.
'We wanted to see if the installation of such a system would have an influence on the energy saving awareness of the householders,' says Ueno Tsuyoshi, who led the project. And as they had hoped, residents quickly became accustomed to checking on their consumption and regulating their energy use accordingly.
'Total power consumption decreased about 18 per ..."

Steve's Commentary
I've been wanting to have instant feedback on power for a long time. Every power outlet could have a cheap LCD display that shows the power draw. If you could watch your kilowatt hours adding up, I bet you'd turn a few things off.

A terabyte iPod - and other Apple predictions - Nov. 14, 2005

A terabyte iPod - and other Apple predictions - Nov. 14, 2005: "Muster said that within five years, Apple could release an iPod with one terabyte of storage -- that's almost 17 times the maximum amount of iPod storage Apple currently offers.
Munster envisions a one terabyte iPod as a portable, 'coffee table' media center that would allow users to store hundreds of movies and thousands of photos and songs. Munster wrote that fellow Piper Jaffray analyst Les Santiago, who covers data storage technologies, thinks Apple could feasibly release a $500, one terabyte iPod in the next five years. "

A Tiny Windows Laptop With a Sense of Fashion - New York Times

A Tiny Windows Laptop With a Sense of Fashion - New York Times:
"A Taiwan company called Dialogue has placed a new dot along that curve with an intriguing micro-laptop called the Flybook. It's a full-blown Windows XP computer, complete with touch screen and stylus, that's not much bigger than a DVD case (9.3 by 6.1 inches, 2.7 pounds). Despite its size, the Flybook packs in more features per square inch than a Where's Waldo poster.
... CUT ... the first authorized dealer is, of all places, Barneys New York, the high-end clothing store. (You can also buy the Flybook from flybookstore.com.)
So what does all that money buy you? Just about everything. The laptop's tidy back panel bursts with every jack known to man, sometimes in duplicate: it has a fax/modem jack, a pair of U.S.B. 2.0 connectors, Ethernet networking, a video output, a TV output, two FireWire ports for external hard drives or a camcorder, headphone and microphone jacks, a PC card slot and probably a partridge in a pear tree.
YOU can get onto the Internet or an office network using the laptop's wireless Wi-Fi antenna. You can also connect to palmtops, printers or headsets wirelessly using its Bluetooth transmitter. Strangest and most wonderful of all, you can insert the little security card from a Cingular or T-Mobile cellphone or BlackBerry (that is, the SIM card, which stands for Subscriber Identity Module).This ingenious feature means, first of all, that your laptop can get online anywhere there's a cellphone signal. No longer must you desperately hunt for a coffee shop that offers a wireless "hot spot."

Second, it means that you can actually make voice calls with the Flybook. When you click a taskbar icon, a weird little two-dimensional cellphone appears on the screen. You can click its number buttons to dial, and presto: you're chatting on your laptop-turned-speakerphone.
"

Phatic Technology Commentary on Gizmodo

frog Design Mind - Gizmodo: "Phatic communication, a term first coined by anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski, is the international linguistic phenomenon of �small talk;� that is, exchanges meant to provide a social connection rather than transmit information. Think about your last ride in an elevator: did everyone suffer silently, or did someone attempt a connection by offering some idle chatter about the weather? That man was engaging in a bit of phatic communication.
The need to connect phatically is almost, but not quite, universal. A recent study from the University of Kansas, for example, found that Germans don�t typically engage in phatic rituals. But the researchers found that phatic gestures are commonplace in the United States, Japan, and even Iran. And our tendencies to exchange social niceties influence the sort of products we design and use.
Some of today�s most successful products have phatic properties that allow us to connect socially."

Steve's Commentary
This is the first time I've heard the term "phatic", but the concept is not new. This translates over to the "watercooler" idea in a work setting. People bump into each other serendipitously and make social connections. These phatic technologies are one approach to bringing that experience to the digital arena.

holograms, transparent screens and 3D laser projections

holograms, transparent screens and 3D laser projections: "The TransScreen from Laser Magic is a whole new way of creating the illusion of life-size, full color, Holographic 3D images. Our Para-Holographic illusions appear more real and have more impact than true holograms which are actually quite limited in capability.
While often featured in Science Fiction movies, there is actually no such thing as true 3D Holographic Projection. In the movies, these amazing illusions are simply film special effects that can not be repeated in the real world.
Now there is a new way to create large, real world, 3D projections in space using Laser Magic's TransScreen. The TransScreen is a large scale transparent imaging medium that efficiently displays projected video images but lets you see right through to view real objects beyond. TransScreen installations give an audience a 3D experience of high resolution, projected, video images that appear to float in the air with completely convincing 3D depth cues."

ThinkGeek :: PIX Sports (Wearable LED Display)

ThinkGeek :: PIX Sports: "This tiny little LED device is a bit like Frankenstein - it has aspects of a bunch of our products all shoved into one body! Unlike Frankenstein, however, PIX Sports is mega-portable and high stylin'. If you ever find time to wrestle yourself away from the latest console title, or if you are sick of programming and choose to venture away from the computer, don't leave home without PIX. It may not save your life, but it will die trying."

Steve's Commentary
Well this isn't particularly high-tech, but it is an interesting iteration of a wearable display technology on the cheap.

EyeTap Personal Imaging Lab

EyeTap Personal Imaging Lab: "Our group designs, invents, builds and uses wearable computers and digital prosthesis in ordinary day-to-day settings. Cybernetics draws upon electrical engineering, mathematics, control theory, biology and psychology to build feedback loops that include both technology and humans. "

Steve's Commentary
This looks like an interesting site for wearable computing technology.

FLY� Pentop Computer

FLY� Pentop Computer

Steve's Commentary
Here is another smart pen.

Research money crunch in the U.S. | Tech News on ZDNet

Research money crunch in the U.S. | Tech News on ZDNet: "At the two-day event, attendees voiced concern over the state of technology research in the United States.
'I think we are in trouble,' said Leonard Kleinrock, professor of computer science at the University of California at Los Angeles and creator of the basic principle of packet switching. 'Years ago, people took a long-range view to research. There was high-risk research with the potential for big payoffs. That's no longer the case.'"

Steve's Commentary
This article discusses the lack of aggressive research in the US. Economic distress seems to have made research budgets shrink. People aren't willing to go out on a limb to invest in a risky, but potentially disruptive innovation. Should the government step in and provide better incentives for companies to innovate?