Comcast Is Bringing Skype to TV Soon you might be heading to the television to take a call instead of the phone. Comcast has partnered with Skype, a video-calling service that was recently purchased by Microsoft, to offer the service for TVs sometime next year. Subscribers who rent a video kit from Comcast will be able to use their TVs to make and receive calls from other Skype users — regardless of whether those people are also using a TV for the call. The kit will also come with a remote that has a keyboard to allow chat. Although Skype-enabled TVs have been available since last year, this is the first time that Skype will be available to Comcast subscribers regardless of which TV they own. Comcast hasn't yet announced what it will charge for the kit, but presumably it will be less expensive than purchasing a Skype-enabled television. "Your television is ringing" might become a new household phrase. [via Associated Press]
'Paper iPhone' could be next mobile revolution - Technology & science - Innovation A pocket-sized computer as thin and flexible as a sheet of paper is set to be unveiled next week. While it's just a prototype, the researchers say the bendy souped-up smartphone could revolutionize the way we interact with computers. Called PaperPhone, the new device is a flexible version of e-ink, the digital ink screen found in e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle. "This computer looks, feels and operates like a small sheet of interactive paper,” said lead PaperPhone creator Roel Vertegaal, the director of Queen's University Human Media Lab. The researchers have built a prototype phone -- a 3.7-inch (9.5-cm) diagonal e-ink display -- and taken it for a test drive. The PaperPhone isn’t available for purchase quite yet, and it will be five to 10 years before you can buy one, said Audrey Girouard, a postdoctoral student at the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University. The new bendy computer is made of two layers: the e-ink display and a flexible printed circuit with five bend sensors.
Ouya game console smashes funding target 9 August 2012Last updated at 10:08 ET The finished console will be much smaller than existing living room gaming gadgets. A plea for funds to help build a cheap games console has ended with nine times more cash donated than had been sought. Ouya asked backers to pledge $950,000 (£606,000) via the Kickstarter website to turn designs for the console into a finished product. By the time the pledge period ended on 9 August the total promised had hit $8,596,475 (£5.8m). The Ouya console is expected to go on sale in March 2013 and cost $99 (£63). Pirate play The gadget will be built around a processor made by graphics firm Nvidia that usually appears in smartphones, and will run Google's Android mobile operating system. The link to Android means it will be able to play any game written for the mobile operating system. Games companies including Square Enix, maker of the Final Fantasy series, and Namco Bandai, creator of Soul Calibur, have pledged their support.
Flying Car Gets Green Light From Feds Flying car company Terrafugia, whose website conveniently includes a pronunciation guide (say it with me: “Terra-FOO-gee-ah”), has announced that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has granted the company specific exceptions regarding their Transition vehicle. The Transition aims to fulfill the dream that we’ve been promised since the earliest days of prognostication: The flying car. Unlike other projects like the Skycar, the Transition is meant to function as both a street-legal car and a light aircraft. The idea is that you could drive it from your home, right onto the airfield, and take off. But to balance the requirements of the stresses of flight, the Transition needed heavy duty tires and a heavy-duty polycarbonate windscreen. Both of these required special exemptions from the NHTSA, which Terrafugia has now secured. For Terrafugia, receiving these exceptions is a great accomplishment but it is by no means the last hurdle for the Transition.
New invisibility cloak hides objects from human view Public release date: 27-Jul-2011 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] Contact: Michael Bernsteinm_bernstein@acs.org 202-872-6042American Chemical Society For the first time, scientists have devised an invisibility cloak material that hides objects from detection using light that is visible to humans. The new device is a leap forward in cloaking materials, according to a report in the ACS journal Nano Letters. Xiang Zhang and colleagues note that invisibility cloaks, which route electromagnetic waves around an object to make it undetectable, "are still in their infancy." Although the study cloaked a microscopic object roughly the diameter of a red blood cell, the device demonstrates that it may be "capable of cloaking any object underneath a reflective carpet layer. The authors acknowledge funding from the U.S. [ Print | E-mail AAAS and EurekAlert!
The age of information overload Victoria Belmont finds out who is really in charge - our technology or us? From reading emails to managing status updates on mobile devices 24/7 with an all-you-can-eat data plan - we are consuming information like never before. Forget about describing bytes as mega and giga, think exa and zetta because by 2016 there may be the data equivalent of every movie ever made hurtling across the internet every three minutes. While that may seem like way too much for a person to watch, an academic study by the University of California, San Diego, suggests that current data levels are the equivalent of each US citizen consuming 12 hours of information - or media - each day. An average US citizen on an average day, it says, consumes 100,500 words, whether that be email, messages on social networks, searching websites or anywhere else digitally. "In principle, you can have more than 24 hours of consumption in a day." Tasered with a text And that is a problem that is beginning to get noticed.
List of emerging technologies Agriculture[edit] Biomedical[edit] Displays[edit] Electronics[edit] Energy[edit] IT and communications[edit] Manufacturing[edit] Materials science[edit] Military[edit] Neuroscience[edit] Robotics[edit] Transport[edit] Other[edit] See also[edit] General Disruptive innovation, Industrial Ecology, List of inventors, List of inventions, Sustainable development, Technology readiness level Nano- Molecular manufacturing, Neurotechnology Bioscience Human Connectome Project Ethics Casuistry, Computer ethics, Engineering ethics, Nanoethics, Bioethics, Neuroethics, Roboethics Other Anthropogenics, Machine guidance, Radio frequency identification, National Science Foundation, Virtual reality Transport List of proposed future transport Further reading[edit] IEEE International Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation, & Fuertes, J. References[edit] External links[edit]
10 Incredible Cutting-Edge Technologies In Development Technology Don’t give up on flying cars or hoverboards just yet! As technology marches relentlessly on, everything goes into development sooner or later—as demonstrated by the existence of these things, which we’ll almost certainly see within our lifetimes. 10 Artificial Gills Inventors have long sought an underwater breathing apparatus that doesn’t store oxygen, but extracts it from the water the way gills do. The device, aptly named LikeAFish, works by using a centrifuge to lower the pressure of water within an airtight chamber. Such a system would obviously allow for longer “bottom time” without the need for refilling oxygen and would decrease the amount of nitrogen the diver is exposed to. 9 Agricultural Robots Agricultural robotics are, somewhat surprisingly, still in their infancy. But the technology is coming along, and it’s easy to imagine it implemented on a wide-scale basis before too long. 8 Sunscreen Pills 7 Paper-Thin, Flexible Computers and Phones 6 Tooth Regeneration