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Communications

Submission + - RIM Doesn't Want 200 Fart Apps

Submitted by andylim
andylim writes: Just when you thought it was safe to dev a fart app for a BlackBerry, RIM's VP of platform product management, Alan Panezic, is making it clear that that's not want RIM is looking for. "We don't need 200 fart apps in App World. Those are apps you'll use three or four times then never open again. You're not looking at ads, clicking on ads or buying premium upgrades, and the app isn't adding any value to your device." Turns out RIM wants 'SuperApps', ones that keep you coming back for more because they add something to your life — be it ongoing entertainment value or doing something for you. Most importantly for developers, these are the apps that will garner the most revenue; whether it comes from premium upgrades, in-app advertising or additional-cost content.
Power

Submission + - Rubber boots designed to charge your mobile phone

Submitted by andylim
andylim writes: UK wireless provider Orange and renewable energy experts GotWind, have come up come up with a prototype pair of power generating rubber boots. Inside the power generating soles of the boots there are thermoelectric modules constructed of pairs of p-type and n-type semiconductor materials forming a thermocouple. These thermocouples are connected electrically forming an array of multiple thermocouples (thermopile). They are then sandwiched between two thin ceramic wafers. When the heat from the foot is applied on the top side of the ceramic wafer and cold is applied on the opposite side, from the cold of the ground, electricity is generated.
Communications

Submission + - BlackBerry Predicted A Century Ago By Nikola Tesla

Submitted by andylim
andylim writes: According to the Telegraph, the BlackBerry was first predicted more than a century ago, by Nikola Tesla, the electrical engineer. Seth Porges, Popular Mechanics' current technology editor, disclosed Tesla’s prediction at a presentation, titled “108 years of futurism”, to industry figures recently in New York. Recombu.com has published the original Popular Mechanics article in which Tesla predicts a mobile phone revolution.

Submission + - Arduino Assisted Mind-Controlled Television (wordpress.com)

Submitted by andylim
andylim writes: Dcept905, aka Paul, has interfaced an EEG headset and an arduino with an IR LED to control his television set with thought alone. "I have finally gotten around to re-writing some of my old code and re-recording a proper demo of controlling physical objects using thoughts by interfacing an EEG headset with an Arduino. While this technology is interesting and exciting, before anyone sees this as an endorsement for this particular EEG headset, I strongly recommend reading my full review of the device."
Input Devices

Submission + - Multimodal Multitouch Gaming Gaining Traction

Submitted by andylim
andylim writes: Several universities and commercial entities are developing multimodal multitouch games, such as a a card game with iPhones for individual hands and an iPad for public information and an iPad Scrabble game that lets you use your iPhone to see your letter tiles. Of course, it's an extremely expensive setup right now but over time it will become cheaper and it's also pretty cool so why wouldn't you want to play board/card/strategy games like this?
Operating Systems

Submission + - Multi-Platform App Created Using Single Code Base

Submitted by andylim
andylim writes: Christian Cantrell, a technical product manager at Adobe, has created an app for multiple platforms including OSX, Windows 7, Ubuntu, Android, iPhone OS, iPad OS. What's amazing is that all the apps use the same code base. "The application is called iReverse, and it's is a fully functional Reversi game (complete with a pretty decent AI). Although iReverse is fun to play, the most amazing thing about the project is the fact that it runs in all these different environments completely unchanged. In other words, the exact same code base is used to build versions for five different environments. There's no other platform in the world that can boast this level of flexibility — not even close."
Google

Submission + - Android's 'flea market' needs urgent attention

Submitted by andylim
andylim writes: According to Barry O'Neil, ex-President of Namco Bandai Network Europe, Google needs to understand that a constantly evolving "beta" product doesn't cut it. It has to learn from the mistakes of the Java business in order to save Android. "If Google is to present a threat to the Apple App Store ecosystem, it needs to address discovery and purchasing as a matter of urgency, or abandon control and hand over the entire management of the Android Market to carriers, OEMs and trusted publishers."
Iphone

Submission + - iPhone app developed to control NASA robot

Submitted by andylim
andylim writes: At EclipseCon 2010 attendees were challenged to create a robotic control system to drive a NASA-provided robot across a prototypical Mars landscape. To win the EclipseCon e4-rover Mars challenge, developers could either prove their e4 programming skills by creating the best e4-Rover client, or use an e4 client to operate the Rover through a series of tasks to collect points. Software architects Peter Friese and Heiko Behrens built an iPhone client for the EclipseCon challenge which controls the robot around NASA's Mars landscape using the iPhone's accelerometer.
Iphone

Submission + - How To Make Your Own iPhone RFID Reader

Submitted by andylim
andylim writes: It's been rumoured for some time now that Apple will include RFID technology in a future iPhone. An RFID-packing iPhone could interact with various objects including opening doors and it could even be used in shops to register items at the checkout. Beating Apple to the RFID punch, last year a company called Wireless Dynamics announced an iPhone RFID accessory called the iCarte but if you'd rather make your own reader then a research assistant at University College London has managed to build his own RFID iPhone accessory.

Submission + - Next-Gen Augmented Reality Rears Its Unreal Head 1

Submitted by andylim
andylim writes: Separate teams at Oxford university and Zentium, a South Korean company, are working on next-gen augmented reality solutions, which make it possible to fuse real and 3D computer-generated visuals on the fly using mobile phones. The team at Oxford university has named its solution Parallel Tracking and Mapping (PTAM) and it has licensed its technology to QderoPateo LLC, which has ambitious plans to grow the mobile augmented reality market and create an augmented reality search and gaming engine running for its 'Ouidoo' smart phone. Zentium's solution is called D-Track and is being used to develop the first markerless mobile augmented reality pet, called iKat. D-Track's mapping technology is very similar to PTAM and allows your phone to recognise the space in front of the camera and create an appropriate space for an augmented reality object or pet.
Science

Submission + - Popular Science Looks at Cellphone Radiation (popsci.com)

Submitted by pgn674
pgn674 writes: Popular Science has published a feature article looking at the current state of cellphone radiation and its research. It touches on people who claim to be electro-hypersensitive, "who are reluctant to subject themselves to hours in an electronics-laden facility" for studies. The limited research on that is still showing that sufferers are unable to detect radiation in blind tests. Electromagnetic fields causing cancer is also reviewed, with the conclusion that while it seems likely that high frequency fields in consumer devices don't directly cause cancer, they might promote it, and may also indirectly cause other health detriments beyond simply heating nearby tissue.
Wikipedia

Submission + - Why Do Wikipedia Articles Vary So Much in Quality?

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "RedOrbit reports that a new study shows that the patterns of collaboration between Wikipedia contributors have a direct effect on the data quality of an article. "These collaboration patterns either help increase quality or are detrimental to data quality," says Sudha Ram at the University of Arizona. Wikipedia has an internal quality rating system for entries, with featured articles at the top, followed by A, B, and C-level entries so Ram and graduate student Jun Liu randomly collected 400 articles at each quality level and applied a data provenance model. "We used data mining techniques and identified various patterns of collaboration based on the provenance or, more specifically, who does what to Wikipedia articles," says Ram adding that they identified seven specific roles that Wikipedia contributors play: Casual Contributor, Starters, Cleaners, Copy Editors, Content Justifiers, Watchdogs, and All-round Editors. (PDF starting on page 175) Starters, for example, create sentences but seldom engage in other actions. Content justifiers create sentences and justify them with resources and links. Some users – the all-round contributors – perform many different functions. "We then clustered the articles based on these roles and examined the collaboration patterns within each cluster to see what kind of quality resulted," says Ram. "We found that all-round contributors dominated the best-quality entries. In the entries with the lowest quality, starters and casual contributors dominated." To generate the best-quality entries, people in many different roles must collaborate and that software tools could help improve the overall quality of articles. "A software tool could prompt contributors to justify their insertions by adding links," says Ram, "and down the line, other software tools could encourage specific role setting and collaboration patterns to improve overall quality.""

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