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Archive for the ‘New technology’ Category

Future kitchen top – new HCI design

19 Jan

We have all been there – you open a fridge and there is only a packet of cheese and some eggs in there, so what can you make for dinner?

Intel have come up with a new kind of human computer interface for use in kitchens or any other flat surface. You place the items on the kitchen top and the system will work out what they are and suggest some recipes for you.

It works with three devices – a 3D digital camera, combined with a small projector and a computer. The computer will recognise more and more items as you teach it over time. The projector will display information about each item. For example you could place a banana on the top and it shows you the calories. It could then be added to that diet you are following.

At the moment the devices are fairly chunky but if it catches on, then the system could be made as slim as a mobile phone and located underneath the cupboards, for example.

An excellent example of development in HCI design to discuss in class

video below

 

 
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Posted in Human Computer Interface (HCI), New technology, Sensors, Smart Homes

 

‘Disruptive’ technologies for 2011

18 Jan

A ‘disruptive’ technology is one where it suddenly changes the way people do things. For example, for hundreds of years people used a slide rule to calculate, then seemingly overnight in the 1970′s the electronic calculator appeared. Everyone went Wow! and just threw away their old slide rules.

 

A whole industry had to change their ways or disappear. Same thing happened with electronic watches.

The leading technology research firm IDC are prediciting 3 disruptive technologies for 2011.

Going mainstream will be:

  • Web connected TV
  • Mobile devices
  • The ‘cloud’

Mobile devices (smartphones and tablets)

It is predicted that 2011 will be the year when there will be more mobile devices sold than PCs for connecting to the Internet.It will be the end of the PC centred computing experience.And driving this change is the rise of the ‘Apps’. For the first time there will be over a million apps out there compared to only 10′s of thousands of PC applications.

There are over 2 billion people connecting to the Internet now and more than half of them do so through mobile devices.

Web connected televisions.

It is predicted that over half of TVs over 40 inches will have a network connection. And at the other end, many companies are springing up to provide content – the programs – Google TV, Apple TV, Roku and so on.
So entertainment and leisure will shift from terrestial to internet based delivery. A whole industry will begin to change the way it does things and new companies will emerge that threaten the old status quo.

The cloud

This is where companies off-load their expensive IT infrastructure and instead choose to let a cloud company host their applications and data. Over 80% of new software will be cloud based and by 2014 over a third of all software spending will be done for delivery through the cloud.
All the major IT companies are preparing the ground – IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, VMWare, Google. Think of how this will change the IT departments in large companies – no more data centres or hundreds of IT support staff needed to look after things. So the cloud is a technology that changes the way we do things.

Disruptive technologies

 
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Posted in Applications & software, Entertainment, Impact of ICT, Mobile phones, New technology, Social effects of ICT

 

The printed future of Christmas dinner

24 Dec


Much as I love Christmas and all of the festive traditions I have to admit that the thought of cooking Christmas dinner always fills me with dread. There has to be a better way of spending Christmas morning that peeling sprouts and washing out the innards of a turkey whilst the rest of the family sit watching comedy reruns on TV.

Well for those of you who also wish you had a bit more R&R time on Christmas morning then if US scientists have their way all you might need to do in the future is sit by your new 3D food printer and wait for it to create a full roast turkey dish with all of the trimmings.

The scientists tell us that most ingredients might be available as raw food inks and the most cooking skill that will be required is to load the recipie or ‘FabApp’ and let the printer do all of the preperation for you.

I wonder what the chances are of it being ready in time for next year’s celebrations!

An interesting story to bring up in class when talking about output devices or technology developments in the future.

Read the full story here

 
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Posted in New technology, Output devices

 

Access database helps Motor Neurone Disease sufferers speak.

11 Nov

You may think that the Access database that comes with the top end Office suite is only useful for mundane things such as stock control but you would be wrong.

Patricia Ruckoff was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in 2009 and her daughter Melissa of course wanted to help. MND gradually destroys upper and lower torso muscle control which includes being able to speak. Stephen Hawking is perhaps the most well known sufferer of MND and his robotic speech is almost part of his persona. But many people want to be able to communicate with more emotion and personality if possible, perhaps even speak with an accent to reflect who they are.

After trawling the internet, she found a small company called Time is Ltd. Ian Schofield is a director of the company and he is the inventor of a system called JayBee. The name is quite personal as Jay was a friend and Bridget was his mother-in-law and both succumbed to MND. He – also – wanted to help his friends communicate but the present systems were extremely expensive and had very limited predictive speech power. It took ages to type out ‘pillow’ or ‘water’ when  perhaps only one muscle could be controlled.  There had to be a better way, and so he set about developing a new system.

To keep costs down, he needed to use off-the-shelf software as much as possible and this is where Access proved to be so helpful. When running on a modern computer, Access is an extremely fast and powerful data processing application. This would be the backbone of the predictive speech and artificial intelligence programme that is JayBee. Mind you, it was not a trivial task – over 2,500 hours of effort was invested in developing the Visual Basic (VBA) code. Once the processing engine was in place, they worked with another company called CereProc who can create voices that sound like the original person if they have enough material to work with.

In the video below, Ian Schofield explains JayBee to Vitali Vitaliev of IET.tv.

This is an Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) clip. I am a long-time chartered engineer with the IET and encourage any of your students aspiring to be professional engineers to look into what it can offer in terms of professional development.

This clip would be an excellent introduction into how ICT helps overcome disability.

 
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Posted in Communication, Databases, Disability, Impact of ICT, New technology, Social effects of ICT, Software

 

Lack of iPhone programmers

26 Oct

With the explosion of ‘apps’ for the iPhone, Cirencester College has recognised that there is a huge demand for iPhone programmers in this country.

iphone

To that end they are putting together BTEC, IT and A level modules to show students how to build apps and games.

This is an example of how education organisations need to keep a constant eye on the IT industry to ensure that young people learn the most relevant skills at the time.

Full story here

 
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Posted in Education, Mobile phones, New technology, Software

 

Will physical and virtual life blur?

12 Oct

I was recently pondering the further blurring of the line between our life in the physical domain and our life online. Is there a distinction any more? Is an online friend whom you have never met any less valid than your best buddy?

Back in the day (around the 1980′s) I was exploring this thing called the Internet with a Hayes smartmodem running at 300 baud. At the time there was CompuServe providing a walled garden online experience and in the wilds you could visit text based bulletin boards. I could even indulge in a bit of text based MUDs for entertainment and some creative of ASCII art to fulfil the artist in me.

So at that time there was a clear on-line / off line life. Then two decades or so later there was ‘cyber’ this and ‘e-’ that cropping up in the media, which is now starting to sound quaint, like your old uncle calling the DAB radio in the kitchen a ‘wireless’.

Wind forward to today and it is a completely different ball game. Milllions are happily playing on-line, perhaps connected to a World of Warcraft server and a real-time audio server such as Ventrillo so a group of you can chat away for a bit of escapism and goblin bashing.

Even politicians are recognising that the internet is becoming as vital as water as a basic resource. And they have a point. I was recently unable to go online at home due to a wonky telephone connection and it was not a pleasant experience. No banking, no gaming, no social networking, no blogging, no research. I even had to dig out my old CDs from the attic as the music service streaming into my living room no longer worked.

Hollywood are also recognising the concept with its recent Bruce Willis film Surrogates where they reverse the concept of avatar and physical presence.

Let’s move on a few years when I think the lines will blur even more. Consider augmented reality. Devices will be available that overlay on-line data with what you see.

In a recent BBC interview with the SF author William Gibson opined that our grandchildren will see no distinction between on-line and off-line. He has a point.

 
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Posted in Impact of ICT, Internet, New technology, Social effects of ICT

 

Smart specs unite world and data

08 Oct

It seems like yet another technology previously only seen in science fiction films is about to become a reality. 

A lightweight pair of glasses has been developed which allow you to see and use them as you would a normal pair of glasses.  But these are no ordinary glasses, they are a pair of augmented reality glasses which overlay what you are seeing with digital content. 

Although there have been attempts to make AR glasses in the past they have usually been too heavy to wear comfortably or the digital data being projected interferes with everyday normal life.  These glasses are the first to add a minature projecting retinal display which doesn’t cause problems to the wearer.  The retinal display projects text and images directly into the user’s peripheral vision so they can carry on walking about whilst seeing data about their surroundings.

Even more clever is the use of an acceleration sensor and a direction sensor which is able to detect what you are looking at and then provide the relevant information related to what you are doing at that moment.

No release date has been given so you will have plenty of time to save up those pennies.

Read more here

 
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Posted in New technology, Sensors, Virtual & augmented reality

 

Sony reveals plans for a 16m pixel camera phone

08 Oct

Sony have proclaimed the world’s first 16 Megapixel camera sensor to be launched in a product in 2011. This will allow a mobile phone to shoot 1080p HD video for the first time.

Technology just keeps on marching on it seems. However is there a point at which adding more features gives you less and less advantage. Do we need HD video on a mobile phone? Will the memory now have to increase to cope with the larger file size?  Will file transfers be that much slower? Internet uploads are still slow, so will this make it even slower to upload video to online sites such as YouTube?

An useful article to discuss the relevance of new technology in gadgets that may be already ‘good enough’.

Mind you, I will probably be in the queue to get one!

 
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Posted in Digital images, Mobile phones, New technology