Vampire Power Awareness from iGo

Growing Up - Infographic

Dot. The world's smallest stop-motion animation character shot on a Nokia N8

Professor Fletcher's invention of the CellScope, which is a Nokia device with a microscope attachment, was the inspiration for a teeny-tiny film created by Sumo Science at Aardman. It stars a 9mm girl called Dot as she struggles through a microscopic world. All the minuscule detail was shot using CellScope technology and a Nokia N8, with its 12 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics.

from China

Launched in May 2010, the Umeox is a solar powered, waterproof, shockproof and dustproof mobile phone. http://www.umeox.com/productshow.php?productID=84

from South Africa

Great Guide is a GPS triggered audio tour that hooks up to car radios and broadcasts stories and facts when driving past points of interest. The system is booked through the website and collected with a hire car, it costs ZAR 99 per day. http://www.greatguide.co.za/dnn/Home.aspx

Uninvited DIY exhibition at MoMA NYC

http://site.layar.com/company/blog/uninvited-diy-exhibition-at-moma-nyc/

The future of smartphone

The new frontiers of touch.

Nokia N8 1, N900 has developed a prototype that lets you feel the consistency and texture of what appears on the screen.

The basic principle is the electrovibration: passing the finger on an insulating layer of a metal surface at alternating voltage, you can "trick" the receptors of the skin to simulate a tactile experience. The researchers placed two thin layers on the screen: a transparent conductor (indium-tin oxide) and an insulator (hafnium dioxide). When the handler is activated at certain frequencies, the finger is drawn to the screen by forces of varying intensity, which gives precisely the sensation of touching different textures. So far the feedback has not yet multitouch (the prototype can generate only one frequency at a time), but similar technologies are being studied in various laboratories.Toshiba, for example, has teamed up with Senseg 2, Finnish startup that focuses on the development of electrostatic display.

The bionic ear

the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has just launched the Cell-All 5. The aim is to provide the cell with a suite of sensors that detect the presence of molecules in the air toxic chemical. The beneficiaries, according to Stephen Dennis, director of the initiative, will be both individual users that the entire community. The device is in fact designed to do two different types of "sneezing" in case of threats to personal health (such as a gas leak), the phone will make a "ECCI" as a message, ring tone or vibration, so to warn the individual concerned; in the event of potentially catastrophic events (terrorist attacks on the basis of nerve gas or highly toxic organic substances) all mobile phones will begin to send signals to the public emergency relief, so as to speed up operations to tackle and reduce the risk of false alarms.The project team already four major manufacturers of mobile phones: Qualcomm, Apple, LG and Samsung.

Like a second skin.

A flexible smartphone to wear like an electronics skin. The project is a collaboration between Nokia Research Center and 4 University of Cambridge, and is called Stretchable Electronic Skin. Using evaporated gold as a conductor, the researchers created a kind of electronic touch patch that can be pulled, bent and expanded to take various forms. Applications - explains Tapani Ryhänen, head of the trial - are potentially very large: in the future, mobile devices can be worn around the arm or a finger, and become part of our wardrobe. "

phone watch concept

more info @ http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/8/view/11548/johan-loekito-samsung-proxima.html

I Was Lovin It

The spot was created by the "Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, an American nonprofit.

D-Town: African American Farmers, Food Security and Detroit

“D-Town farmers’ reject the government’s efforts to control food because of its ineptitude and its lack of care about the Black community...........D-Town activists challenge the White privilege embedded in the food security movement...........Urban farming is only part of a much larger mission to create structures that end relationships of dependency.” by Monica M. White, Ph.D. Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Wayne State University

more at http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/d-town-african-american-farmers-food-security-and-detroit

Healthy Food In Detroit

With no major grocery chain store in Detroit, many depend on suppliers like Peaches and Greens, one of three involved in a Michigan pilot program to deliver healthy food.

CBSNewsOnline September 03, 2009

Food Among the Ruins

Image by Jonathan LaRocca

Current Access to Quality Food in Detroit

" .........In the city of Detroit, the most accessible food-related establishments are party stores, dollar stores, fast-food restaurants and gas stations. Although most neighborhoods may have a grocery store within a “reasonable” distance, the quality and selection of food items is exceedingly lacking. Most city stores have a very limited variety of unprocessed (fresh) vegetables and fruits. Most foods are canned, boxed, frozen and/or highly processed. Highly processed foods are nutrient-poor, with excessive salt, sugar, and harmful fats. These stores also lack food alternatives for persons with the chronic conditions, such as heart disease, hypertension and diabetes, who require low-salt, sugar-free, healthy carbohydrates and healthy fats. These and other chronic health conditions exist and are growing at alarming rates in the African-American community."

more at http://www.detroitfoodpolicycouncil.net/Page_2.html

DPS teachers spend their summer mapping dangers

@ http://detroitdataguru.wordpress.com/2010/08/23/dps-teachers-spend-their-summer-mapping-dangers/

Detroit Hard to Count areas

Data Driven Detroit and the Community Research Institute at Grand Valley State University have teamed up to help community outreach efforts for the 2010 Census. Using data from the 2000 Census, Hard to Count areas were calculated for census tracts across the state.

Welcome to the second year at MFA Design!

interactive musical project- arduino ant farm

vermont based artist adam franchino created this interactive musical project that changes based on
activity inside an ant farm. the project utilizes infrared sensors that act as gates for the ants inside the
farm. the sound of the device alters based on how many ants pass through the gate and at what pace.
an arduino program provides the computer power to create the soundtrack. the gates are all magnetized
so that they can be moved around the ant farm.

multi-touch display - atractable

Viral marketing for Samsung Camcorder

Check out the YouTube viral marketing video for the Samsung H205 Camcorder. The business cards have the name of the camcorder on it, but the tricks the man does with the cards is really amazing.

table-touch screen

Restaurant Inamo, London, UK. From the touchscreen system on the surface of the tables you browse the menu, you can read information on individual ingredients, you see pictures of the dishes to scale, you order directly into the kitchen. The interactive system is housed in futuristic projectors placed on each table.You can change the "virtual" tablecloth with different colors and graphics, playing board games with friends and watch the chefs in the kitchen through a webcam placed in the kitchen.