This mecha is very impressive, it’s taken from the last issue of IEEE Spectrum in which there is an article about the rise of exo-skeletons:

The colossal, 5.5-meter-high, 1360-kilogram Mecha exoskeleton sits in Carlos Owens’s backyard in Wasilla, Alaska, its legs locked into position to prevent the hydraulic fluid that helps move the monster’s limbs from losing all pressure. Powered by an 18-horsepower (13.4-kilowatt) Briggs & Stratton engine, Mecha cost Owens US $25 000 and took about a year and a half to build. This past May, Owens climbed into the pilot seat and took Mecha for its first walk: half a dozen steps, each measuring about 20 centimeters.

There is also a website about this project with some video footage.

A very good review of the existing exo-skeletons in the IEEE Spectrum: The Rise of the Body Bots by: Erico Guizzo and Harry Goldstein:

Today, in Japan and the United States, engineers are finally putting some practical exoskeletons through their paces outside of laboratories (…) At long last, exoskeletons, the stuff of science fiction, are on the verge of proving themselves in military and civilian applications. Strap-on robotic controls for the arms and hands—used to remotely operate manipulators that handle nuclear material, for example—have been around for quite a while. But the new anthropomorphic, untethered, and self-powered exoskeletons now strutting out of labs aren’t just a bunch of wearable joysticks. They marry humans’ decision-making capabilities with machines’ dexterity and brute force. They’ve got the brains to control the brawn.

What’s relevant is that they mention the limits:

These efforts ran into fundamental technological limitations. Computers weren’t fast enough to process the control functions necessary to make the suits respond smoothly and effectively to the wearer’s movements. Energy supplies weren’t compact and light enough to be easily portable. And actuators, which are the electromechanical muscles of an exoskeleton, were too sluggish, heavy, and bulky.
(…)

You’re not likely to see exoskeletons battling extraterrestrial monsters anytime soon. But before long, it might not even occur to you to gawk at the sight of a person strapped to an exoskeleton bringing home the groceries or going for a stroll in the park.

Check this impressive example developed in Japan by KANAGAWA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY:

>Why do I blog this? This is an interesting trend in HCI and the article is a great summary of people like me who just wanted to know more about this. I like the fact that the introduction starts with mentioning Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troop because it’s for me the first reference I ran across about exo-skeletons.

Via strange new products, this crazy application: a wireless access protocol (WAP) version of Guidepoint™ that: allows subscribers to track their vehicle, unlock doors, start the engine and honk the horn with a wireless device or cell phone. (…) The vehicle tracking service displays a map pinpointing the vehicle location, as well as a text readout of the street address where the vehicle is located.

Here is what says the website:

“The addition of WAP and our recent move to digital reflect our drive to deliver value innovation to customers. Our goal is not to create bleeding edge technology. Instead, we are focused aligning innovation with utility, price and costs to deliver a unique experience,”

“Aligning innovation with utility?”, ” deliver a unique experience”… mmmh are those the promises of location-based services people expressed in the last 5 years?

Nokia and MIT are establishing a common research lab according to this press news:

“By carrying out long-term research in these fields, including novel uses of hand-held devices, MIT and Nokia will make new communication opportunities and services available for people around the globe.”
(…)
The collaborative work of the Nokia Research Center Cambridge will center on a view of the future where small handheld devices such as mobile phones will become parts of an “ecosystem” of information, services, peripherals, sensors and other devices. Research will address new user interfaces that incorporate speech and other modalities, new mobile computing platforms - including low power hardware platforms and wireless communication, as well as new software architectures. Researchers will also address new ways of managing information: The use of Semantic Web technologies - an extension of the current Web developed in part at CSAIL and at the Nokia Research Center - will enable devices to more intuitively and automatically understand interconnected terms, information and services.

Time will tell.

Via infogargoyle, this ultra-cool Mac Mini robot (in german, so check the english translation) :

Mini psi - in such a way our small friend is called - orients itself with one iSight and thinks with a MicroPsi Nodenetz. Three strong Servos turn a omnidirektionalen drive - thus the robot can itself, without having to change its adjustment, move in each direction.

More information on the project page. It’s a project carried out by Kay Berkling, Armin Zundel, Nile Appelhans, Jessica Tin, Holger Heine, Tim Kietzmann, Roland Hafner and Ronnie Vuine.

I was just wondering about the market of smart phones: via Networks Silicon:

Smart phone shipments are continuing to grow steadily, according to research firm Canalys, up from 3.6 million devices shipped in the first half of this year to 9.6 million in the first half of 2005. (…) Canalys is predicting that for the first half of 2006, 13 per cent of all mobile devices will be smart phones. Of those devices sold so far this year in EMEA, the majority are still using the traditional input method. The analysts found that 80 per cent of smart phones are based on Symbian’s Series 60 platform and use a normal phone keypad, while Series 80 phones – which tend to use keyboard-type interfaces – make up another 13 per cent. UIQ devices represent four per cent of the market.

An odd news on Ananova today: musical breast implants:

Computer chips that store music could soon be built into a woman’s breast implants. One boob could hold an MP3 player and the other the person’s whole music collection. BT futurology, who have developed the idea, say it could be available within 15 years. BT Laboratories’ analyst Ian Pearson said flexible plastic electronics would sit inside the breast. A signal would be relayed to headphones, while the device would be controlled by Bluetooth using a panel on the wrist.

A fully intangible interaction… wtf!?

More about it: The future of breast implants
by Ian Pearson:

Silicone sounds a bit like silicon, which of course is used in many electronic chips. That’s because silicone gel is based on silicon. In fact, it is possible to make some electronic circuits based on silicone, though they are not well suited to heavy computing tasks. Other kinds of plastic can even be used to make organic displays (using organic LEDs). So knowing this as an engineer, it is now very hard for me to think of breast implants as purely decorative. I just can’t help feeling that if a woman is going to have something implanted permanently, it might as well do something useful. (…) So why not still use a combination of silicone and other plastics in the implant, but do something useful with them? One implant could house a range of gadgetry such as an MP3 player and the other store the woman’s entire music collection – we call this concept mammary memory! God provides her with two beautifully designed control knobs to select the track and adjust the volume.

This last point is utterly crazy… hopefully the end is better: “of course, there are now a wide range of medical monitors in use“

Research Proves Mobile Phones and Sleep Do Go Together, astudy conducted by Swinburne’s Brain Sciences Institute examined the impact of mobile phone use immediately before bedtime on the brain and sleep patterns:

The quality of sleep for Australia’s 12 million mobile phone users is not affected by calls on mobiles before bedtime, according to the world’s largest independent study into mobile phones and sleep quality.
Although the results showed there were differences in the brain’s electrical activity in the initial part of sleep as a result of using a mobile before bedtime, this had no affect on sleep variables such as the time it takes to get to sleep, the length of time asleep or whether the person slept lightly or deeply and therefore does not affect the overall quality of a person’s sleep. (…)

PhD student, Sarah Loughran, undertook the study and said the results indicate that using a mobile phone before going to sleep does not appear to influence whether a person has a good night’s sleep. (…) The study confirms the results of a previous study carried out in Switzerland involving a smaller number of participants.

Fabien just sent me this tool that seems highly interesting: MyStrands, a kind-of ‘social itune‘:

• Explore Recommended Songs: Songs are recommended based on the song that is actively playing and recently played songs. You may read about a song and in most cases listen to a clip by clicking the arrow which will take you to the songs homepage at the MusicStrands website.
• Explore Recommended Tags: Tags of interests are recommended realtime based on recently played songs. You may explore music related to the tag by clicking on the tag of interest.
• Publish Playlists: You may tag and publish your active playlist by clicking the edit button next to your playlist tags. When you tag a playlist, the playlist is uploaded to the website and published.
• Tag songs: You may add/edit tags for your active song clicking the edit button. When you add a tag, the tag is also added to the MusicStrands community for others to explore.

Why do I blog this? I am interested in social sharing phenomenon like this, besides I find it could be a powerful way to discover new something. I believe a lot in social navigation recommender systems like this.

Technorati Tags: mystrands

(via yahoo news), this amazing device:

A model demonstrates NTT DoCoMo’s wearable handset device ‘Yubi-Wa’ at the CEATEC JAPAN 2005, a technology trade exhibition, in Makuhari, east of Tokyo October 4, 2005. The prototype handset which the company believes is the world’s first wearable handset, features a bone conduction transceiver, and is used by inserting a finger with the device into the earhole, the company officials said. The exhibition runs from Tuesday until Saturday and feature around 700 companies in this year. REUTERS/Issei Kato

Why do I blog this? it’s a good example of a product (and not a prototype) using a bone conduction transceiver!

Dunno whether you remember who is Johnny Five but here is an good topic: >Want to build your own fullsize, working Johnny Five? :

Would you like to own a radio-controlled Johnny Five like those seen in Short Circuit 2? Want to build your own fullsize, working Johnny Five? If you answered “yes” to either question, then head to this messageboard post and put your “order” in.

It’s not for sure, but Eric Allard, the man who originally built Johnny Five, is considering reproducing the toys and creating blueprints of the big guy for fans. It will only happen if there is enough support for it. So, show your support by posting on the board and maybe someday soon this will be available.

A relevant application using the social network concept is described in this article in the IEEE Pervasive Computing Journal:
Social Networks as Health Feedback Displays by Margaret E. Morris from Intel (September/October 2005 (Vol. 9, No. 5) pp. 29-37):

Social networks have thus far served primarily as analytic tools for social scientists. Leveraging pervasive computing, this new research transforms social-network models into behavioral feedback displays. These ambient displays, which reflect data on remote and face-to-face interaction gathered by wireless sensor networks, were intended to raise awareness of social connectedness as a dynamic and controllable aspect of well-being. An interdisciplinary health technology research group at Intel recently developed and tested prototypes in the homes of older adults and their caregivers. This article reviews the psychological rationale for the project and highlights some reactions of participants to the displays.

Why do I blog this? I think it’s an highly pertinent and innovative usage of such technique!

(via kathryn kramer’s insightful blog) Wolframtones is a compelling new tool based on the wolfram-esque “new kind of science” idea (developed by the Wolfram Research Labs)

WolframTones works by taking simple programs from Wolfram’s computational universe, and using music theory and Mathematica algorithms to render them as music. Each program in effect defines a virtual world, with its own special story–and WolframTones captures it as a musical composition.

It’s all original music–fresh from “mining” Wolfram’s computational universe. Sometimes it’s reminiscent of familiar musical styles; sometimes it’s like nothing ever heard before. But from just the tiniest corner of the computational universe WolframTones can make everyone on Earth their own unique cellphone ringtone. It’s a taste of what it’s like to explore the computational universe–and a hint what’s to come…

Technorati Tags: wolfram, puppy

An impressive list of weird keyboards can be found here. My favorite is definitely this one (patent here), it’s crazy!!!

An ergonomic, efficient unitary pyramidal-shaped data entry device includes left and right hand members separated from each other by a thumb control surface. Each hand member is formed with four cavities for receiving the four fingers of the left and right hands, respectively, of a user, with the user’s thumbs being juxtaposed with the thumb control surface. Each cavity contains three switches, with one switch being operated when the user extends the appropriate finger, a second being operated when the user depresses the finger, and a third being operated when the user retracts the finger. Each switch generates a signal representative of a character of a character set, with thumb switches being operable by the user’s thumbs to invoke one of a plurality of sets. The sets include a character set that mimics the conventional QWERTY layout, and also include sets which represent language-optimized layouts. The device can also assume the function of a telephone and a cursor control pad.