Apple’s secret to selling.
Flash an exotic prototype, then—Presto!—get people to buy your more boring stuff. That kind of thinking still rules at most electronics companies. Apple under Steve Jobs only shows off actual products. The difference? Apple’s arcane secret to success.
3-D Technology Behind Avatar
James Cameron is stubborn. He decided nearly a decade ago to film his humans-versus-aliens sci-fi adventure Avatar in 3-D, but he refused to start production until technology could convince the viewer that he or she could step through the screen and pick up a bow alongside the Na’vi, the film’s 10-foot-tall, blue, cat-faced alien protagonists.
To [...]
Reading Brain Signals
Plastic tendrils are clutching my temples, reading electric signals from my brain. I’m sitting in a conference room in San Francisco looking at an orange box floating on a large flat screen. My goal is to make it disappear using nothing but thought. “Cheshire cat,” I think, and the box starts to fade.
No, I haven’t [...]
Flexible Readers
One product that already looks set to evolve out of all recognition is Plastic Logic’s much-anticipated electronic reader, the Que, which the Mountain View, Calif., company plans to release in January 2010.
On the surface, much about the Que seems familiar. Like Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500)’s Kindle — a $350 e-reader that has sold more than 500,000 units [...]
Invisible Power
Marin Soljacic couldn’t sleep. The problem was his wife’s Nokia cell phone. The tyrannical device beeped on the bedside table when it needed to be plugged in. It could not be disabled.
Instead of taking a hammer to the phone, Soljacic marveled at the fact that this device, and billions of others like it, was sitting [...]
Invisible Sound
At the offices of Emo Labs in Waltham, Mass., the receptionist’s desk and the meeting rooms look like an afterthought. The real action goes on behind a glass wall in a warehouse space where most of the 15 employees are soldering wires or fiddling with knobs on machines with sine-wave displays. For a visitor used to [...]
Next Little Thing in 2010
It’s 8 a.m. in a San Diego hotel ballroom, and the annual DEMOfall conference is under way. VCs and journalists stifle yawns and peck at laptops. After a morning of scripted pitches by startups that promise to “integrate smartphone remote mobile applications” or “monetize social networks by enabling live social interaction around content,” the coffee [...]
Samsung Behold II: T-Mobile
Hey, look! Someone forked Android again. The Samsung Behold II, going on sale next week at T-Mobile for $229.99, will be T-Mobile’s most powerful Google Android phone when it goes on the market. But this Android phone doesn’t look or work like other Android phones, and that may be a minus.
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Flash an exotic prototype, then—Presto!—get people to buy your more boring stuff. That kind of thinking still rules at most electronics companies. Apple under Steve Jobs only shows off actual products. The difference? Apple’s arcane secret to success.
James Cameron is stubborn. He decided nearly a decade ago to film his humans-versus-aliens sci-fi adventure Avatar in 3-D, but he refused to start production until technology could convince the viewer that he or she could step through the screen and pick up a bow alongside the Na’vi, the film’s 10-foot-tall, blue, cat-faced alien protagonists.
To [...]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Ordinary paper could one day be used as a lightweight battery to power the devices that are now enabling the printed word to be eclipsed by e-mail, e-books and online news.
Scientists at Stanford University in California reported on Monday they have successfully turned paper coated with ink made of silver and carbon [...]
Plastic tendrils are clutching my temples, reading electric signals from my brain. I’m sitting in a conference room in San Francisco looking at an orange box floating on a large flat screen. My goal is to make it disappear using nothing but thought. “Cheshire cat,” I think, and the box starts to fade.
No, I haven’t [...]
One product that already looks set to evolve out of all recognition is Plastic Logic’s much-anticipated electronic reader, the Que, which the Mountain View, Calif., company plans to release in January 2010.
On the surface, much about the Que seems familiar. Like Amazon (AMZN, Fortune 500)’s Kindle — a $350 e-reader that has sold more than 500,000 units [...]
Marin Soljacic couldn’t sleep. The problem was his wife’s Nokia cell phone. The tyrannical device beeped on the bedside table when it needed to be plugged in. It could not be disabled.
Instead of taking a hammer to the phone, Soljacic marveled at the fact that this device, and billions of others like it, was sitting [...]
At the offices of Emo Labs in Waltham, Mass., the receptionist’s desk and the meeting rooms look like an afterthought. The real action goes on behind a glass wall in a warehouse space where most of the 15 employees are soldering wires or fiddling with knobs on machines with sine-wave displays. For a visitor used to [...]
It’s 8 a.m. in a San Diego hotel ballroom, and the annual DEMOfall conference is under way. VCs and journalists stifle yawns and peck at laptops. After a morning of scripted pitches by startups that promise to “integrate smartphone remote mobile applications” or “monetize social networks by enabling live social interaction around content,” the coffee [...]
Google, probably the most prominent advocate of moving traditional productivity software such as word processors online, acquired a small company called AppJet whose EtherPad service fits into that agenda.
AppJet announced the Google acquisition Friday. “The EtherPad team will continue its work on real-time collaboration by joining the Google Wave team,” the site said.
AppJet offered free [...]
“Wii Fit” is the only game I can think of that’s ever made my muscles burn, yet a research study finds that the popular game and its wireless balance board yield “underwhelming results” when it comes to burning calories.Gamasutra (via Kotaku) reports that researchers with the American Council on Exercise and the University of Wisconsin [...]
