Anonymous strikes again

The social activist group, Anonymous, is putting together their lastest project: Anontune. The idea behind this is to create a service that seamlessly pulls up songs streaming from all around the Internet. Its designed to pull songs from third-party sources (like YouTube), and let anonymous users put them into play lists and share them (while keeping the service from being shut down by the music industry)

This might be the next big way for us all to illegally download music, Thanks anonymous.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/19/tech/web/anonymous-music-service/index.html

Writing in chocolate

Whatever happened to our parents telling us “don’t play with your food.” Well now we can play all we want! In fact, we might even need our tastiest food in order to be productive!

A new printer has been developed (thanks to the minds of some British fellas), and its 3-D! It can build images right before your eyes. But even cooler then this is that it writes/builds in chocolate!! 

The printing device is called: ChocALM, for Chocolate Additive Layer Manufacturing. It uses the principles of rapid prototyping to layer molten chocolate, rather than plastic, into any shape imaginable without a mold. The machine costs $3,300…but can you really put a price on your own chocolate machine/printer!? This thing can make a chocolate replica of your head on demand…HOW COOL!

Personally I think i’m saving up for one of these

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669574/the-worlds-first-commercial-3-d-chocolate-printer-is-on-sale

Writing in chocolate

Whatever happened to our parents telling us “don’t play with your food.” Well now we can play all we want! In fact, we might even need our tastiest food in order to be productive!

A new printer has been developed (thanks to the minds of some British fellas), and its 3-D! It can build images right before your eyes. But even cooler then this is that it writes/builds in chocolate!! 

The printing device is called: ChocALM, for Chocolate Additive Layer Manufacturing. It uses the principles of rapid prototyping to layer molten chocolate, rather than plastic, into any shape imaginable without a mold. The machine costs $3,300…but can you really put a price on your own chocolate machine/printer!? This thing can make a chocolate replica of your head on demand…HOW COOL!

Personally I think i’m saving up for one of these

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669574/the-worlds-first-commercial-3-d-chocolate-printer-is-on-sale

Too much time on your hands?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/13/tech/gaming-gadgets/draw-something-app-appeal/index.html

Check out this article, the image is an actual picture the someone played in a draw something game! I feel like all the iphone users have been sucked into the draw something addiction, but this guy has taken it to a whole new extreme!

Imagine if you were the player this picture was sent to. How long would you have to wait for his image to be done “being drawn.” Games like this are fun, but are they a waste of time?

Think of the amount of time this guy spent on drawing an image no one will ever see again. How many hours have you wasted in total on draw something? If you were to look in a room full of iphone users I’m sure at least 1/3 of them would be using the draw something app.

So what about this game is so addictive/appealing???

Newest iphone app

The newest iphone app came out last week. Its called “CarrierCompare” and it allows you to see which carrier offers the best service for your iPhone in any given location. The app works by analyzing your network for signal strength, response time and speed. It then compares your result with other nearby results on the other two national carriers’ networks. (It compares Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint)

Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint have been desperately trying to keep the news of this app under-wraps. Up till now, these fortune 500 companies have released their networks “coverage maps” but strategically in a way for the general public to not really understand it. This app will be the first step for consumers understanding the data the companies are supplying. Which is a step in the right direction, for us!

To learn more about the app visit: http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/12/technology/carriercompare/index.htm

Webpage search

We were told to find a webpage we found aesthetically pleaseing….I came across Charlotte Russes (while doing some harmless online shopping) and found it to be really interesting.

The first notable thing is that the entire background is photos! They made a photo-collage type thing and I found that to be really cool! I would love to have a giant photo or multiple photos across my webpage background (we learned how to attach a photo to the webpage, so maybe its a similar concept?) I also think it would be neat to learn how to “watermark” these background photos, so they’re there but less bold/obvious.

They also have a “banner” across the top that changes every couple of seconds. It goes from saying “$5 off when you spend $30″ to “Lets cure spring fever!” I think it would be awesome to add a changing banner into my webpage. That’s something that causes attention (your eyes to notice it) and it’s just plain cool.

Lastly at the top of the page there is a button you can click and the button itself is green and the words in the button are pink. I think it would be cool to make our navigation bar like this!

 

here’s the website if you want to check it out! http://www.charlotterusse.com/home/index.jsp?searchdef=2589724&affcode=242958&k_clickid=78da3bd1-d189-9f08-9379-000056a0c32e&cm_mmc=Brand-_-Bing-_-Brand%20Exact%202-_-Exact&004=777237000&002=2589724&005=8272455933&006=955545778&009=e&011=charlotte%20russe%20&020=15555276230

 

The next iphone generation: Invisible

Most people know their phones so well that they can use them without even looking down at the screen. This is the premise for the next big development: the invisible iphone. Essentially the person touches the palm of their hand (as if it were their actual phone) to direct commands to their actual phone (located in their pocket, or on the table etc).

The concept relies on a depth-sensitive camera to pick up the tapping and sliding interactions on a person’s palm,  software to analyze the video, and a wireless radio to send the instructions back to the iPhone

This concept is thought to be really useful, and has a surprisingly high probability of working! Apparently 80% of people can accurately identify where apps would be located on the palm of their hand!

Here’s more information: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37611/

The next iphone generation: Invisible

Most people know their phones so well that they can use them without even looking down at the screen. This is the premise for the next big development: the invisible iphone. Essentially the person touches the palm of their hand (as if it were their actual phone) to direct commands to their actual phone (located in their pocket, or on the table etc).

The concept relies on a depth-sensitive camera to pick up the tapping and sliding interactions on a person’s palm,  software to analyze the video, and a wireless radio to send the instructions back to the iPhone

This concept is thought to be really useful, and has a surprisingly high probability of working! Apparently 80% of people can accurately identify where apps would be located on the palm of their hand!

Here’s more information: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/37611/

It’s like a mirror image

The US Navy is building human robots!

The US Navy Research Lab is creating a “human-like” robot to help ensure ship safety. “The Shipboard Autonomous Firefighting Robot” or SAFFiR is being created  to combat fires in the cramped conditions of a ship; to not only save lives but to save the expensive equipment as well! The robot will be battery powered and will have cameras and a gas sensor. To combat fires it will throw an “extinguishing grenade.”

The robot will be “human-like” in the sense that it will be capable of walking, balancing and traversing obstacles, and it will be able to interact with humans as part of a wider firefighting team!

Pretty cool! To read more, visit http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/13/tech/innovation/robot-fire-us-navy/index.html?iid=article_sidebar

Cell phone chargers are SO last year!

This is REALLY cool! (I highly recommend you read the article to learn more about this)

There’s a new thing called “Power Felt” which uses temperature differences to create a charge. Essentially its going to allow us to do some pretty awesome things, like charge our cell phones/ other technologies just by walking around! (If your in class and your computer dies, no worries, just take a sprint around the room!)

You can put the felt on the back of your phone while its in your pocket or in your hand, and your body heat (while walking/moving) will be higher than the temperature outside, thus creating a “differential” and the felt will put off more heat turning it into electrical power.

This literally could be the most useful invention EVER! No more having to go home because your phone is dying, you can spend the night places without creepily bringing a charger over (“for those of you who like spontaneous sleepovers”), No more expenses to buy a phone charger for your moms house, dads house, boyfriends house, and of course the car charger. Just buy one piece of felt! Personally I’m pretty excited for this, I think it sounds awesome!

http://whatsnext.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/30/nanotube-fabric-could-let-you-charge-your-phone-by-walking/