Technology posts

What happens when you take your ordinary floor and turn it into a jumbo-sized multi-touch trackpad? Awesome happens. A few students at Hasso Plattner Institute have come up something that could have significant impacts in the future with regards to how we interact with applications and games. And they call it Multitoe. It works by tracking a user’s shoes in relation to the floor. It also detects the location and pressure applied from these shoes to allow a great amount of control over the interactions with the floor displays. Interactions like tapping your toe or leaning on your heel can be detected….

Though we have, over the past few years, become accustomed to rather strange, aggressive ideas from those who run the movie and music businesses, the latest move from the RIAA and MPAA is a little astounding. Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization dedicated to defending internet users’ rights, outlined some of the suggestions made by the media conglomerates for protecting their content. They, along with many other players, were asked to weigh in on how intellectual property should be treated in a changing, networked world. And you know what the MPAA and RIAA suggested?…

Toshiba is working quickly to launch their new line of tablet computers that will hopefully be available in North America later this year. If the model isn’t ready by the end of the year, the tablet is expected in early 2011. According to a report by Reuters, the tablets will offer Windows 7 and Android. The Windows 7 model is rumored to include higher-end features but the Android model is closer in similarity to the Apple iPad, which has been hugely popular since it’s release. The tablet is expected to feature a 10 inch screen and each model will range in cost – prices are unknown as of yet. “We definitely…

Does anyone remember Jaiku? Many Twitter users today don’t know this, but Jaiku was far superior to Twitter in numerous ways. It was better in every single way, and it deserved to be the product that everyone was talking about today. It still, to this day, shocks me as to how Jaiku allowed Twitter to take over. But the reason that this happened was simple: the company failed to open itself up to third-party developers. Even after I urged the owners of Jaiku to open itself up to compete with Twitter, the company failed to do so. Twitter was announcing new APIs and incentives to developers while Jaiku continued…

There isn’t much that could be said about the traditional clock: it tells time. Some have tried to make claims that certain watches look better or that a thousand-dollar price tag somehow makes a watch better — it’s all the same. All it does is tell time, for crying out loud. However, this clock is truly something unique. It is actually cool and innovative, but, yes, it still actually tells the time. Sander Mulder created Continue Time, a clock that looks nothing like any other clock you have ever seen. It is a completely open design that displays the three pointers in a unique way. Each pointer rotates…

Sick of internet advertisements? Like it or not, banner, contextual, and even pop-up ads have become an integral part of nearly all modern websites. While it’s understandable that all of our favorite websites need a way to subsidize server costs, and web-based businesses must maintain profits in order to survive, where is the line drawn? When does a website become more of an advertisement and less of a source of information? More importantly, when do advertisements compromise the security and integrity of the site that they are displayed on? Just when you got used to the standard forms of internet…

Even though 2002 wasn’t that long ago, when Minority Report launched then, the futuristic interfaces it showed seemed decades off. But it seems like they’ll be here much sooner than we think. Case in point: this video of the prototype Bonfire uses a system of cameras, lasers and mirrors to create to basically turn the space on your desk next to your laptop into a usable interface. What makes the Bonfire project so interesting is that, rather than being a standalone interface like a touchscreen, it’s instead meant to augment your existing keyboard and mouse. The system projects images onto your…

Wouldn’t it be really convenient to be able to check up on sports scores, news or even your favorite t.v. show on-the-go? MobiTv Inc. has a  new app, MobiTV for the iPhone, that will let you do just this. This is the first shift toward mobile media for the company but the MobiTV app, like many of the thousands available to chose from, should gain popularity quickly because of it’s complete mobility and convenience for users. “MobiTV for iPhone truly showcases the capabilities and scalability of our technology platform and delivers a highly entertaining customer experience,” said Charlie Nooney,…

Best Buy has announced that it will be teaming up with the popular company Barnes & Noble and releasing the Nook ereader next week on April 18, 2010. The Nook will be available in Best Buy stores. The Nook is similar to the Kindle, which was designed and developed by Amazon.com and has seen major success since it’s debut in 2009. Barnes & Noble describes that using the Nook ereader is a better reading experience. The device has 2GB of storage and holds up to 1,500 eBooks, eMagazines and eNewspapers. Without the clutter of actually housing the bulky items, readers can browse over one million…

For every great gizmo that is created, there are dozens of flops that surround it. However, we rarely hear about the failures. Instead, we hear about all the great gadgets of the year, the decade, the millennium, and so on. But what about the flops? What about those truly remarkable failures that will stand the test of time in technological history? That’s why Techi is here to the rescue. So let’s take a stroll down memory lane and recall some of the best of the worst, in no particular order: Furby Furby is, by far, the most annoyingly cute gadget that has ever been created. From the fact that you had to…