New Apple iMac 2009 - Movie Magic

Apple's latest take on its iMac, which integrates the CPU with the monitor features bright LED-backlit 21.5 and 27-inch widescreen displays in a new edge-to-edge glass design and one-piece all-aluminium bodies.
The iMacs are also tuned for speed with Intel Core 2 Duo chips from 3.06GHz up to Core i5 and i7 quad-core sizzlers.
Watching the high-definition movies will be easy on the 1,920 X 1.080 pixel 21.5-inch iMac and 2,560 X 1,440 pixel on the 27-inch model - that is 60 percent more pixels than the previous 24-inch iMac.
each new iMac comes with a wireless keyboard and the new Magic Mouse which is all touchy-feely kind of mouse (forget the buttons, wheel and ball of the standard mouse).
Apple has reinvented the pointing device with the Magic Mouse. Its entire top shell is a multi-touch surface. Think iPhone ease-of-use ported to a mouse. use it as a single or two button mouse.
Use one finger to scroll up and down or two fingers to swipe from left to right. The gizmo, which is powered by two AA batteries, uses Bluetooth wireless magic so you can work from up to 10m away from your Mac. Pretty cool huh!


Multi-Touch Magic Mouse

Wacom Bamboo Tablets - Fingers welcome

Now you can not only write and draw on your Wacom Bamboo tablet, but also poke and prod it.
Japan-based Wacom has added multitouch to the tablets in its Bamboo range, so you can navigatemenus or manipulate images using finger flicks.
The line comprises four models - Bamboo, Bamboo Fun, Bamboo Pen & Bamboo Touch.
The tablets automatically detect whether you are using a pen or your fingers, so they can turn on the pen input or touch function as needed.
bamboo Pen, which does not have multitouch, comes with ArtRage, a painting program with dozens of brushes to choose from.
The tablets work on Windows & Mac operating system.

3M Mpro 120 Portable Projector

You can watch a movie almost anywhere, as long there is wall or screen nearby, with the MPro120 Portable projector.
It can scale images up to 50 inches wide, which means you can connect your media player to the projector & watch movies with it as if you were using a 50-inch flat screen TV.
The projector connects to most media players, laptops, digital cameras and even iPods (with an optional adapter).
Its advances liquid crystal on silicon electronic images enhances image quality. The projector which comeswith a flip stand, tripod and stereo speakers, also boasts battery life of two to five hours - long enough to watch a movie.

Robot Love

If advances in artificial intelligence continue, your next lover may have an on/off switch. Robots will become so human-like, having conversations, displaying and responding to emotions - that they will be very much like a new race of people.
Japan robots are taking over more and more jobs in the workforce. Some suggest that the Japanese society is more open to having robots run parts of their society.Honda engineers has created Asimo with 34 degrees of freedom that help it walk and perform tasks much like a human. Lightweight materials are used and combined with powerful computers with 34 servo motors throughout the body.
One of the latest advance creation of Japanese roboticist is the Actroid models. The skin is composed of realistic silicone that has internal sensors which allow the robot to react.
Communication: How it is done;

1. Microphones record the speech and this sound is filtered to remove background noise.
2. Speech recognition software is then used to convert the audio stream into words and sentences.
3. A verbal response is then given through speakers external to the unit. The robots also respond in limited ways to body language and tone of voice by changing their facial expressions, stance and vocal inflection

Kokoro's Actroid DER2 was developed with cutting-edge technology, including Advanced Media, Inc.'s voice recognition 'AmiVoice' support. The robot has an astonishingly human-like appearance and a great range of gestures and facial expressions.

Geminoid Hi-1 was built to look like its male co-creator, roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro. It is controlled by a motion-capture interface and can imitate Hiroshi's body and facial movements. It can reproduce his voice in sync with his motion and posture. Hiroshi hopes to develop the robot's human-like presence to such a degree that he could use it to teach classes remotely, lecturing from home while the robot interacts with his classes at Osaka University.

Other interesting invention is the robotic fish that has been developed by scientists from Essex University which was shown in this video tested in a special tank at the London Aquarium. It works via sensors and has autonomous navigational control.

Supernova Chic - Just Dandy for a Woman's night out

Together with two candy-bar models and one fliptop version, the Nokia 7610 Supernova rounds up the Supernova family. With the mirrored surfaces, curves and colour options, the Supenova series seems aimed at the female set. First, there is X-press-On back cover in a different colour, so that you can change the look of the phone. In other nod to women, the front of the phone, with its display screen dimmed, has a smoky mirrored finish that can easily double up as a makeshift mirror for a quick lipstick touch-up.
One of the most interesting features of the 7610 is the theme colouriser. This application detects the colours of objects viewed through the phone's camera and goes on to create 16 different shades of the colours detected. For instance, when you point the camera at your brown desk that has a red book and black mouse pad on it, the application will pick up those hues and randomly churn out 16 shades in all those hues.You can save the 16 shades as a wallpaper or screensaver in just a couple of clicks. What is really neat is that even the backlight for the centre navigational pad changes to a matching colour as well.
From a multimedia perspective, the 7610 is well-equipped. You get a 3.2-megapixel auto-focus camera with dual LED flash and 8X zoom, and a music player with a dedicated hardware button.
There's even a TV-out function to zip the video clips you have shot directly to the google-box. The down side ia that the TV-out cable is not supplied.
The Nokia 7610 Supernova is a chic, eye-catching phone that will be just dandy for a women's night out with her girlfriends

Theo Jensen - Kinetic Sculpture experts inventing Wind Powered Monster

This Dutch's scientist is also an artist who uses a very light materials like plastic electrical conduit tubes and builds large works which resemble skeletons of animals and are able to walk using the wind on the beaches of the Netherlands. Jansen is dedicated to creating artificial life through the use of genetic algorithms.

According to his website (Strandbeest.com):

"Since about ten years Theo Jansen is occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind. Eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives".

This video shows presentation by Theo Jansen himself

Intel brings Internet to TV

INTEL has teamed up with Yahoo to bring the Internet to TV sets.
The collaboration will see the launch of a new Widget channel where viewers will be able to receive email, check sports scores and even search for Web videos while watching TV.
Yahoo, which already offers a similar software platform for mobile phones & PCs, will provide the software for the interactive TV applications while Intel will provide the hardware.
The chip maker has developed the Intel Media Processor 3100 chip (which they called it 'TV chips') that can be used in TV sets, DVD players and set-top boxes which can be embedded in television sets to bring Internet capability to the tube. Gigabyte’s Media Processor CE 3100 box will be the the first device with the chip embedded. It combines memory, graphics processors and applications into a single chip. All these are handle by different chip now. This partnership might finally help to bring the interactivity of the Internet to TV screens without changing the viewing experience. Companies have been trying for years to bring the Internet to TV screens by transplanting the PC into the TV but without much success. With the Intel-Yahoo way, it is only parts of the Internet that will make it to the TV via applications. With everything handled by the US$35 Intel chip, electronics makers will also be able to lower costs for TV sets and set-top boxes