Saturday, July 31, 2010
DIY Wearable Computer Turns You Into a Cyborg
Someday humans and computers will meld to create cyborgs. But instead of waiting for it, Martin Magnusson, a Swedish researcher and entrepreneur, has taken the first step and created a wearable computer that can be slung across the body.
Magnusson has hacked a pair of head-mounted display glasses and combined it with a homebrewed machine based on an open source Beagleboard single computer. Packed into a CD case and slung across the shoulder messenger-bag style, he is ready to roll.
A computer is a window to the virtual world, says Magnusson.
“But as soon as I get up and about, that window closes and I’m stuck within the limits of physical reality,” he says. “Wearable computers make it possible to keep the window open. All the time.”
Magnusson’s idea is interesting though one step short of integrating a machine inside the body. In 2008, a Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence decided to embed a tiny video camera into his prosthetic left eye. Spence, who is still working on the project, hopes to someday record everything around him as he sees it and lifecast it.
For his wearable computer, Magnusson is using a pair of Myvu glasses that slide on like a pair of sunglasses but have a tiny video screen built into the lens.
A Beagleboard running Angstrom Linux and a Plexgear mini USB hub that drives the Bluetooth adapter and display forms the rest of this rather simple machine. Four 2700 mAh AA batteries are used to power the USB hub. Magnusson has used a foldable Nokia keyboard for input and is piping internet connectivity through Bluetooth tethering to an iPhone in his pocket.
Magnusson says he wants to use the wearable computer to “augment” his memory.
“By having my to-do list in the corner of my eye, I always remember the details of my schedule,” he says.
Check out photos of his gear:
The innards of the homebrewed machine are glued to a CD case. The CD case is slung across the shoulder by attaching it to a strap using velcro.
Here’s what the homebrewed computer looks like.
See Also:
- BeagleBoard Gives New Power to Open Source Gadgets
- Why Arduino Is a Hit With Hardware Hackers
- Tech Specs: Less Geek, More Chic
- Wired 11.04: Wrist-Top Revolution
Photos: Susanna Nilsson
Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/CyQ5r-eKE_g/
70-Gigapixel Photo of Budapest Offers a Great View
Supersized panoramic photos of cities are the flavor of the season. After Prague and Dubai, it’s the turn of Budapest to get a detailed online photo that you can zoom in and out of and play around with–almost like Google Earth.
The photo shot over four days has 70-gigapixels. If the finished picture is ever printed, it would make a a poster 156 meters (511 feet) long and 31 meters (101 feet) tall. The amount of paper it would take would cover two apartment blocks at least 10 floors tall.
To shoot the photo, two 25-megapixel Sony A900 cameras were fitted with a 400mm Minolta lens and 1.4 X teleconverters and placed on a robotic camera mount. 20,000 test images later, the file was processed to create a single interactive photo.
Check out the Budapest photo here. It’s a tad blurry and sometimes pixelated if you zoom in too much but still fun to play around with.
See Also:
- Gigapan Robotic Camera Rig Goes Pro
- World’s Largest Panoramic Photo Is the Size of 1200 Billboards …
- 18-Gigapixel Panorama Offers Breathtaking View of Prague
- Hands-On With the Gigapan Epic 100 Panorama Robot
Photo: 70 Billion Pixels Budapest
[via Engadget]
Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/65VyMwcjcSY/
LoveFilm gets DRM and video optimisation technology
Dawinderpal Sahota, Computing, Friday 30 July 2010 at 16:47:00
Widevine's solution will allow video to be streamed across a broad range of
devices
Postal movie rental service
LoveFilm
has signed an agreement with US-based digital media solutions
Widevine
to provide DRM across its catalogue.
Widevine will provide a solution that allows the company's digital content to
be streamed on a broad cross-section of devices.
The agreement will see LoveFilm further develop its digital content to be
playable on a number of new devices. Widevine's DRM, adaptive streaming and
virtual-DVD-like trick play technologies will ensure the video remains secure
with viewing quality unaffected, according to the company.
Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2267395/lovefilm-gets-drm-video
Area on Mars could hold fossilized remains of life
Full story at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38494792/ns/technology_and_science-space/
Another ugly reminder to check your Facebook settings ? NOW!
Full story at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38474945/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/
Is WikiLeaks An Editor-In-Chief Or Prolific Source?
WikiLeaks' latest disclosure relied on journalistic heavyweights to do the lifting of sorting through and presenting documents. WikiLeaks' executive editor sees the unveiling as collaboration between peers, but some journalists still consider WikiLeaks a source and not an objective partner.
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Full story at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128870288&ft=1&f=1001
Friday, July 30, 2010
Android App?s Data Collection Raises Mobile-Security Questions
An Android app that offers free wallpapers is allegedly gathering data about its users, including their phone numbers, carrier subscriber identifiers and phone number of their voicemail accounts. The app then sends this data to a website based in China, says mobile security firm Lookout.
The Android app, called Jackeey, is estimated to have anywhere from 1 to 4 million downloads.
“While the data accessed are certainly suspicious coming from wallpaper apps, we’re not saying that these applications are malicious,” Kevin Mahaffey, founder and CTO of Lookout wrote in an e-mail to Android Central. “There have been cases in the past where the applications are simply a little overzealous in their data-gathering practices, but not because of any ill intent.”
The Jackeey app does not touch the SMS and browsing capabilities of the phone. Lookout made the disclosure at the ongoing Black Hat conference in Las Vegas. (See Wired.com’s Threat Level blog for more coverage of Black Hat.)
Wired.com was not able to contact the developers of the Jackeey wallpapers.
While one Android app has been singled out, many iPhone apps also intrude into the users’ privacy, says Lookout. A survey of 300,000 applications for both the iPhone and Android OS found twice as many free applications on the iPhone have the capability to access the user?s contact data (14 percent) as compared to Android (8 percent).
“Ultimately, the device OS makers should focus on better security,” says Dimitri Volkmann, a vice-president at Good Technology, which provides mobile security and device management for businesses. “It’s more about the maturity of the vendors rather than control vs. open source.”
How the data gathered from users is handled has been a minefield for phone makers. In 2009, a developer found the Palm Pre’s operating-system webOS sent his GPS location back to the company every day. Palm was also monitoring the webOS apps he used each day, and for how long he used each one. The outcry forced Palm to change how it handles data gathered by the OS.
Android app Jackeey’s missteps in handling user data has hurt and embarrassed them. But with thousands of apps in the Android app store and little supervision, it’s just a matter of time before a bigger mobile-security risk has major consequences for consumers.
See Also:
- Apple’s iPhone Security Gets Better, But Still Not BlackBerry
- Google Flips Remote Kill-Switch on Android Apps
- Hacker Says iPhone 3GS Encryption Is ‘Useless’ for Businesses
- Want to Fool Apple’s App Store? Plant an Easter Egg
Photo: (marketingfacts/Flickr)
Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/gakCGG4ALZ4/
Gallery: How to Build an Earthquake-Resistant Bridge
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Few engineering projects have the scope, costs or risks involved in building a new bridge.
San Francisco Bay Area residents got a peek at what’s involved Wednesday, when builders set in place the first segment of a tower that will soon hold up a brand-new span of the San Francisco Bay Bridge.
Wired captured photos of the event, as well as many inside photos of the new bridge that we shot on a recent tour of the massive construction project.
More than 250,000 vehicles pass over this bridge every day, carrying people and freight between San Francisco and the east side of the bay. You can’t exactly ask that much traffic to wait patiently while you tear down the existing bridge and replace it with a new one.
Complicating matters is the fact that the San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most seismically active regions of the United States. Any bridge built here has to be able to withstand a massive quake — since some big shaker is almost certain to hit sometime during the bridge’s expected 150-year lifespan.
In fact, engineers are designing the new Bay Bridge segments to withstand the largest earth movements predicted for the next 1,500 years. The specifications call for the bridge to be open to traffic within hours after such a massive quake, with minimal repairs required.
No wonder it has taken two decades to come up with a replacement for the Bay Bridge’s damaged eastern span.
This page: What locals call the Bay Bridge is actually three bridges: a pair of suspension bridges leading from San Francisco in the west to Yerba Buena island in the middle of San Francisco Bay; and an eastern section made out of steel girders, leading from the island to Oakland, on the east side of the bay. Connecting the two is a 76-foot wide, 58-foot high tunnel — the largest bore tunnel in the world — going through the heart of the island.
It’s the eastern span, shown here, that took a hit during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. A section of the upper roadway collapsed in that quake.
Photo: Stefan Armijo/Wired.com
Full story at http://feeds.wired.com/~r/GearFactor/~3/VXzPd2oveaw/
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