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The most interesting latest news on the topic: Inventions |
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Apple filed a patent that allows listeners to control devices using audio cues, giving users a new way to navigate music players without looking at their device. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company's patent, titled "Directional Audio Interface for Portable Media Device," produces sounds that let users move in a direction to select options. For example, when selecting a music genre, the user might hear rock music coming from his left, jazz in front, and country on the left. Gesturing to the left could then bring up music from three rock artists. Instead of actual music snippets, the system could use synthetic voice cues as well. Runners and joggers, who don't want to slow down to fiddle with their devices, could use this technology. The unusual technology may soon join other new interfaces on mobile devices that go beyond the standard touch screen. A company called Tobii recently worked with Lenovo to develop an eye-tracking laptop that "lets users click" on screen items by looking at them, a technology that may be adapted to smaller mobile devices as well. Before these next-generation interfaces arrive, device makers are likely to refine voice input methods. Apple is reportedly integrating Nuance's Naturally Speaking voice recognition into iOS with a "personal assistant" feature called Siri, for example. Google's Android already offers dictation for text messages and e-mails. |
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A British professor has turned a traditional red British phone booth into a 21st century video conference stall, as new-school technology gets an old school feel. Professor Michael Shaughnessy of Language Resource Center at the Washington & Jefferson College removed the telephone from his retro phone booth, replacing it with a trendy iPad 2 tablet. The iPad comes equipped with Skype, allowing booth visitors to make video conference calls inside the red wooden stall. Shaughnessy latched the iPad against the wall of the booth and installed Skype and a "World Unlimited Account" on the tablet so his students could call their friends and families in their home countries. "I had a blast converting it," Shaughnessy said. "It serves a good function as our students use our international unlimited account a lot to call home, and now they have a bit more privacy." People enjoy the nostalgia they get from seeing old products, but may not be able to live without today's luxuries. Luckily, there a several products on the market to allow users to get the old-school feel out of their new-school products. In April, South Korea-based Kee Utility released an iPhone desk dock that transforms an iPhone into a traditional wired desk phone. The accessory has built-in stereo speakers, a microphone, a volume control, instant mute and works off USB or AC power. The company has described the dock as a blend of "Mad Men" and "2001: A Space Odyssey." People use their smartphones to capture pictures more than ever, and there's also an app allowing users to get a retro 80s feel out of their digital images. Hipstamatic processes iPhone photos so that they look like they were taken with an old toy camera from decades past. The company even offers the "HipstaCase" to give the iPhone the look and feel of an old toy camera from the 80s. The further away society moves from the "old days," it appears the more it wants them back. Luckily, there are people and companies who are blending the old-and-new schools together as one. |
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Lenovo has developed an eye-tracking laptop that lets users "click" on screen items just by looking at them, making mobile devices easier to use. The company, which worked with Tobii to develop the eye-tracking prototype, demonstrated how the technology works by monitoring users' pupils with image sensors, in addition to using near infrared light to calculate gaze direction. The system could be used to sidestep touch pads, and extended to a range of applications beyond computing. "Within a couple of years we'll see eye-tracking in consumer products, like consumer computing and cars," said Jenny Grant, Tobii's strategic business development manager. Despite the dominance of the mouse and keyboard combination in the PC world, and touch displays for smartphones and tablets, there's still demand for better ways to interact with mobile devices. In addition, there's renewed interest in voice input as mobile chips become powerful enough for the task; Android already integrates dictation, and Apple is rumored to be integrating Nuance's Naturally Speaking voice technology in iOS. Google also recently expanded voice-powered search from Android to its Chrome browser. Eye-tracking, however, has the advantage of being private and silent. To date, the technology has been used by marketers to study what catches people's attention, both in stores and when looking at a computer screen. That data informs how products are placed on retail shelves, packaging design, and webpage layout. Eye-tracking also lets physically disabled people communicate by "typing" out words with their gaze. |
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A t-shirt that charges mobile phones will be tested out at a European music festival over the weekend, the latest innovation in charging the devices so they can go anywhere without fear of a dead battery. The prototype, designed to power phones using noise-response technology, should be ideal at England's popular Glastonbury concert festival. Sound vibrations, especially bass frequencies, produce electricity from piezoelectric film on the shirt. The result can be harnessed to charge a mobile phone. Music fans who find their batteries fading can plug the phone into the shirt for a quick top-up charge, and telecom Orange will conduct live tests as to which music gets the best charge. The search to rid the mobile phone of the necessity of a conventional charge is ongoing. Earlier this year, fashion icon Ralph Lauren introduced a carry-all that uses a solar panel to generate enough power to charge a phone in about three hours on a sunny day. The convenient and environmentally friendly accessory is stylish, too, with a buckle-closed top, water resistant construction and soft shoulder strap. The Japanese, meanwhile, invented a phone-charging pan that uses power generated from boiling water, either on a stove or over a campfire. These ideas may have impact beyond their initial "wow" factor and can come in handy in unexpected ways. If the movement to solar takes off, it may alter design of phones since they won't need to set aside so much battery space. And, as the boiling pan and t-shirt show, some of the ideas which seem quirky at the time can become invaluable in emergency cases, such as when power is cut due to a natural disaster or other reason. |
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For moments when keeping a pot boiling for three to five hours is more practical than plugging your iPhone into an outlet, the Hitochaja HC-5 saucepan offers a solution, proving that alternative energy sources aren't necessarily practical. The HC-5 turns heat into power, creating a 400 milliamp trickle that will juice up an iPhone in way more time than it takes to boil an egg. The USB output will work with most mobile devices, and to be fair, it should charge devices with smaller batteries like the iPod Nano faster -- probably by the time your stew is ready to eat, anyway. The $285 pan is available in Japan, and one has to assume that the scars of this year's earthquake and tsunami are responsible for the appeal of a product that will keep gadgets working when everything else has stopped. Campers who want to charge a GPS device (or music player) might constitute another market for the product, though a solar charger would seem to be a more practical choice. Ralph Lauren makes a backpack with a solar panel built-in for the fashion-conscious rugged outdoors man. For sharing tunes with the rest of the camp (or band of survivors), there's Eton's Soulra XL, a solar-powered speaker set that also charges an iPhone or iPod. In the near future, gadgets may actually power themselves with the sun. A French company is developing a screen coating that could trickle charge a device. But handsets with conventional integrated solar panels haven't really caught on, though Samsung tried with its Blue Earth feature phone two years ago. Most mobile technology requires functional infrastructure to be relevant, which may explain why off-the-grid power sources for them haven't gained much traction. If there's no plug around for days, or the power is down in a big way because of a disaster, network coverage isn't likely to be on the menu either and most people will have more pressing things on their minds than listening to music. |
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Project Rimino's handset prototype aims to make human-mobile interaction more intuitive, joining other such models that hint at the future of mobile phones. Rimino, headed by Amid Moradganjeh of the Umea University in Sweden, has come up with a design that resembles nothing on the market so far. The project's website says the unique prototype is inspired by print posters and strives to bring human perspective back to technology. "Rimino represents a future that is envisioned to be more aligned with what we need and want as people instead of our needs and wants being dictated by technology," the project's site states. The prototype is bendable, can be used as a virtual pen on a hard surface, and responds to such unique commands as blowing on its surface, putting it in a pocket and shading it from light. It even captures information like location, time, temperature, light, moisture and air flow, translating this data into a readable form. For those who want to send virtual kisses or give friends a sneak preview of freshly baked cookies, the phone can capture and transmits vibrations as well as smells. Rather than being app-centric, the Rimino phone is goal-oriented. It eliminates the necessity to think of which app would best be suited to a specific task; rather, the phone presents users with the most helpful options possible after it receives data. For example, if someone takes a picture, normally she needs to upload it to Facebook via an app, but the Rimino phone would let her do this in one smooth motion. Besides the Rimino phone, the Origami phone created by Chengyuan Wei promotes a simpler future for mobile devices. The 2D paper handset folds into 3D shapes, stripping the phone down to bare essentials. The "invisible phone" goes even further, as researchers from the Hasso Plattner Institute in Postdam have created a prototype that transforms users' own hands into phones. By wearing a camera on their foreheads, people can trace a finger on their palms and dispense with plastic or paper phones altogether. Transparent phones also pare down handsets to their basics, like the completely clear sapphire design by Aston Martin and LG's GD9000 with its transparent keyboard. Research teams like Rimino and Hasso Plattner are stretching the boundaries to create handsets of the future. From their designs at least, it seems phones are likely to get even smarter and more intuitively simplistic. |
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A U.K. boy has created a device that calls homeowners whenever someone rings their doorbell, continuing the trend of home security integration with mobile devices.
Laurence Rook, 13, of Whyteleafe, Surrey, invented the Smart Bell for a school competition. Smart Bell calls the person's mobile phone whenever the doorbell rings and connects them to the person outside through the intercom. The device even has built-in white noise to give off the effect the person is talking into the intercom.
Less than a year after developing a prototype, Rook sold Commtel Innovate 20,000 units, selling it for about $65 each. He also has a deal in place with a second unidentified company to produce another set of Smart Bells. The two deals will land him about $400,000.
Rook said his mother, Margaret, was the inspiration for the Smart Bell. She would complain about driving to the Post Office to pick up deliveries she was not home for. The Smart Bell now allows her to tell delivery men to leave the packages outside the home.
The Smart Bell is also designed to help prevent burglars from entering homes. Burglars often ring a home's doorbell prior to entering to confirm whether the house is vacant. Smart Bell can ward off burglars after they are greeted with a voice on the other end of the intercom.
Rook's device joins a growing list of other wireless and social services designed to help manage homes even when the owner is away.
The "Home Elephant" app combines social networking with the ability to report suspicious neighborhood activity through Facebook. Users add others on Facebook and are presented with the "My Neighborhood" list and can begin posting events like parties or even criminal activity going on in the area. The service is also available for Android and Apple mobile devices.
Homeowners even have the ability to lock and unlock their doors through their smartphones. Apigy's Lockitron allows users to control their doors through their smartphones. After installing the system at home, a user can send a message to the door to lock or unlock itself. Users can even make "copies" of their virtual house keys to give to friends and family who need access to the home when the owner is not around.
Google also has plans to introduce Android@Home, which would allow people to control electronic devices like lighting and stereos through Android devices even when the owner is not home.
For Rook, keeping his home and family safe is great, but he's already moved on to deciding what to spend his newfound fortune on. Down the road he plans to play for his college education, but right now he wants to have fun.
"When I found out I was going to make a quarter of a million pounds, I thought, 'Wow, that's a lot of computer games,'" he said.
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The Origami phone handset has arrived, the latest in a trend towards unusual -- yet innovative -- phone designs.
Created by Chengyuan Wei, the paper Origami handset comes flat, and then like a pop-up book, changes into a 3D handset with a few key folds.
Wei was inspired to create the recyclable handset after taking apart a standard telephone headset and realizing just how simple its construction was. The designer was also mindful that new phones come to market on a weekly basis, but don't demonstrate much in the way of design changes.
The concept phone does away with the plastic and over-sized circuitry to make a paper phone with a few spare electronics, and joins a few others in leading innovation in mobile devices, with a particular emphasis on stripping down phones' form to its essentials.
The "Paper Phone," a thin piece of translucent film similar to a conference badge was recently announced by a Canadian research team. The prototype features a touch-sensitive bendable surface that may one day replace today's standard flat touch screen. One benefit of this type of innovation is its ability to be embedded in clothing.
And, taking the "paper-thin" lesson one step further, other researchers have developed an invisible phone, whose prototype can serve as a shortcut to free hands from the necessity of having to actually retrieve the physical phone to communicate.
While there are obstacles to overcome with this idea, researchers hope that one day, for example, a person can just press a finger on their palm to silence a call's ring, rather than have their activity be interrupted by having to attend to the device.
Developers and innovators are constantly looking at new ways users can interact with their devices, and the Origami phone is an example of one very artful, elegant possibility.
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A new GPS iPhone patent from Apple has surfaced, but Congress may halt it before it even hits the market.
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office made public a patent from Apple, detailing a new GPS system Apple entitled "Dynamic Alerts for Calendar Events." Using GPS technology, the alert system would scan a person's event calendar for meetings and locations, and then send the person the best and fastest travel routes.
The GPS feature could also alert the users of current and historical traffic conditions, such as rush hours and other times a route has an increased number of vehicles, and could then re-route the users to avoid these hazards. The system would also take into account weather and road conditions such as construction work and public transportation schedules.
Apple may also use crowd-sourced data to locate external factors such as sporting events, concerts and public gatherings, alerting the customer that their route may be delayed or suggest alternatives. For example, if a person's route calls for him or her to pass Yankee Stadium on game day, the system will alert the customer of the impending traffic and re-route them to avoid the gridlock.
The feature is promising and would give an edge to the phone maker, especially as smartphones become more integral to navigation. But the Cupertino, Calif.-based iPhone maker may run into some roadblocks due to the methods they use to gather information.
In April, the company admitted to tracking Apple device users' location data without permission for the purpose of improving traffic services, but Apple insisted no outside parties were given access to the information, saying the data was collected anonymously.
The matter created a firestorm in the media, prompting lawmakers in Washington to question Apple, along with Google and Facebook, on the way each company gathers users' location information.
"I believe that consumers have a fundamental right to know what data is being collected about them," said Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee. "I also believe that they have a right to decide whether they want to share that information, and with whom they want to share it and when."
The controversy surrounded Apple, Google and Facebook and their handling of private data may spearhead legislation, which could dampen patents like Apple's, which rely on establishing large databases of information.
Apple's GPS feature greatly depends on crowd-sourcing information, which by their very nature, collect data through users. If Apple is hampered or prevented from compiling this data, the future of the GPS patent could be put in doubt unless another means of data collection is implemented.
The patent was first filed by Apple in November 2009, and is credited to Geoffery G. Stahl and Teck Yang Lee.
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Apple has renewed a patent that would let it function as a cellular carrier, offering even greater control of the user experience for iPhone and iPad customers, but market realities make it unlikely to happen soon.
The patent describes a novel way to run a Mobile Virtual Network Operator, or MVNO. MVNOs operate as carriers but lease their network from one of the "real" operators -- the Best Buy Connect service uses Clearwire's network, for instance. Apple's patent defines an MVNO that can access different carrier networks, with the operators bidding to offer Apple the best rate.
For example, if AT&T's network was saturated in a given area but Verizon had excess capacity, it could offer Apple a better deal to profitably take the slack out of its network.
Such a system would make Apple the only point of contact for iPhone users, which from a consumer perspective would likely be a good thing. Apple has used strong customer service as a selling point, while many people have decidedly less rosy relationships with their carriers -- problems that then make Apple look bad.
The MVNO model would also give Apple total control over the user experience, which is in keeping with the company's overall strategy. Handset makers generally have to share the spotlight with carriers, who like to load their own revenue-generating apps on phones, whether users appreciate it or not.
It sounds like a good deal for Apple customers and the company itself, but it's a nightmare scenario for the carriers. Not only would they be relegated to "dumb pipe" status, simply carrying data with no chance to profit from their own additional services or market new offers to customers, but they would be put in a new and uncomfortable position of competing with each other on a wholesale level, which would almost certainly drive down prices.
The two operators who would likely embrace such a deal are already wholesaling network space: Clearwire and the nascent LightSquared. But although Apple's iPhone 5 is rumored to be a dual-mode device that will work on incompatible networks on both sides of the GSM and CDMA divide, there's no indication that it will also include Clearwire's outlier WiMax technology. And LightSquared hasn't even opened its doors for business yet.
The fact that this is a renewal of a patent issued in 2006 suggests that we probably won't see Apple offering an end-to-end package anytime soon. But a lot's changed since then, and if Apple does deliver a multi-mode handset and LightSquared gets off the ground, the whole mobile industry could be in for a shakeup.
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