Top 10 Tech This Week [PICS]
By Charlie White, Mashable, 12 May 2012.
One of our favourite things tech can do for us is to streamline everyday tasks - improving them by making them easier, more pleasurable, more entertaining and more aesthetically pleasing.
That seemed to be a theme running through the top 10 tech we found this week, with gadgetry galore that will improve your quality of life. If you’ve ever suffered from a broken smartphone screen, awkward faucet gymnastics when all you wanted to do was rinse out your mouth, or recoiled at that rat’s nest of wires leading from your computer to its monitor, do we have a useful list for you!
We finish off the list with an easy way to get you into outer space, and we found a brand-new pic of our lovely blue planet from way out in space - the sharpest and most dramatic photo of our big blue marble ever taken.
Strap yourselves in for an exciting excursion, taking you from a more pleasurable and comfortable life here on Earth, into space and beyond as we separate the coolness from the lukewarm, right here on Top 10 Tech This Week.
1. Instagram Socialmatic Camera Concept
Even though the trick of Instagram is to take "lo-fi" pictures on smartphone cameras and use its creative filters to enhance them in a structured sort of way, what do you do when you want to pass out pictures to your pals in meatspace?
Enter Instagram Socialmatic, a camera design concept solving that problem, printing your pictures on the spot while giving you 16GB of storage space to store your pics, with Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity allowing you to send them online at the same time.
Back view: Instagram Camera Concept
Instagram Socialmatic's designers would like each print to have Post-it note-like sticky stuff on one side so you can place pics on a wall for all to see. Perfect for parties.
This is a design concept thus far, but printing technology has been sufficiently miniaturized to make it all possible. Could it be as explosively popular as Instagram itself?
2. Dish AutoHop: Holy Grail of TV Viewers
I was already impressed with the Dish Hopper when I reviewed it last month, a satellite digital video recorder that lets you play different videos simultaneously in four different locations in your house, and record six channels at the same time. Now, the company's rolled out a unique feature it calls "the Holy Grail of television viewers for 40 years." It's called AutoHop, a commercial-skipping capability that literally makes the ads disappear.
Unlike other DVRs, this is not a 30-second skip-forward button that lets you jump through commercials - no, this removes the commercials entirely, and I was astonished at how easy it is to use. It's almost too good to be true. When you use Hopper's Prime Time Anytime feature to record all primetime shows (on CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox) every night, starting at 1 a.m. the next morning they're all available for AutoHopping. As you begin to play a video, it asks you if you would like to skip the commercials. Would I? Duh!
Then, when a commercial break is supposed to begin, it's as if it were never there. Sometimes, you can see the first few frames of a commercial, but usually, the screen goes black for about a second, and you can see a little kangaroo graphic along with an icon next to it, indicating you are skipping over those commercials everyone else has to watch.
How can Dish get away with this? Won't the advertisers and networks that profit from them be up in arms? At a press event, Dish CEO Joe Clayton defiantly told us, "What we're trying to do is fairly simple: We're trying to give the consumer what he wants. If anybody wants to fight that, there might be a fairly large battle." All I can say is, if something seems too good for it to be true, it probably is. Meanwhile, I'll enjoy this wonderful new feature while I can - until that "large battle" begins.
ReplayTV tried this in the early 2000s, and got so tied up in legal battles it went bankrupt. Good luck, Dish.
3. Fuel Cell Charger
Fuel cells were used in spacecraft in the '60s, but they've been too expensive to provide power for mobile devices. That could change with this fuel-cell USB charger that will be sold by Brookstone stores, perhaps by the end of this year.
With a small dose of lighter fluid that its maker says will cost about as much as a cup of Starbucks coffee, you can gin up enough power to charge a USB device. For instance, the company says you could charge an iPhone more than a dozen times on one refill of lighter fluid.
The key point: How much will it cost? Lilliputian, the maker of the device, isn't saying. That will be the deciding factor, as it has been for the past 50 years. But if it costs less than a hundred bucks, I think it will be a huge hit.
4. Audi Electric Bike
If you've ever ridden an electric bicycle, you'll agree with me that it's a thrill. Now Audi is set to debut its prototype Wörthersee e-bike, said to be "a high-performance e-bike for sports and trick cycling." The 24 lb bike's lithium-ion battery charges in 2.5 hours, and this two-wheeler can zip you along at near-motorcycle speeds - 50 mph - with a range of between 31 and 44 miles.
Its internal smarts can help you pop a wheelie - even if you're not really good at that sort of thing, which seems like cheating. But the idea of an electric bicycle that goes 50 mph and lets you program its energy use and tricks with a smartphone is compelling.
Audi Electric Bike illustration
Now if its makers could just install a more comfortable seat, and reveal how much this little electro-hotrod costs, we'll have a better idea if this is a viable product or merely a show-off prototype.
5. Unbreakable Smartphone Screen
Never again will you gaze at the ground at your freshly dropped smartphone, its screen shattered beyond repair - not if LG has its way, creating an "unbreakable" flexible OLED screen that might be available by early-to-mid 2013.
It's about time. Couple this with that LiquidMetal that's on its way to a smartphone near you, and you could soon be carrying a phone that's made of materials that would seem at home in an alien spacecraft. But will they be indestructible?
6. iPad Mini
We've heard rumours of a smaller iPad many times before, but now reports are getting even more specific. As the story goes, we'll see the 7.5-inch iPad Mini in October, selling for somewhere between US$200 and US$250. The coolest part of this rumour: It will still have that Retina display like its 9.7-inch brother, the new iPad.
I'm an avid reader on my iPad, and would rather have a slightly smaller device, one that's about the size of a paperback book. That 7.85-inch screen would be just about right.
7. One Wire Does It All
Until we can have completely wireless computers, this single-wire all-in-one PC will do. It's the HP t401, revealed in Shanghai this week, and its single Ethernet cable supplies power as well as network connectivity.
Alas, this US$430 computer is a low-power "thin client" that's targeted at schools and small businesses, but it points the way to a future where fewer wires rule the day and a spaghetti bowl of cables is a thing of the past.
8. Duo Tap Faucet
Wouldn't it be convenient to have a water fountain right there at the sink when you brush your teeth? This design concept is called Duo for good reason: Pull up on its handle, and it operates as a normal faucet, perfect for hand washing...
Duo Tap, Fountain Mode
Press down on its handle and the water fountain mode is activated, letting you rinse your mouth with no need to use cups, your hands or placing your mouth next to the faucet.
Duo Tap Diagram
Check out the mechanics of this clever idea in this illustration. It's so practical, let's hope some enterprising plumbing company decides to build it. Kohler? You reading this?
9. Private Space Taxi by 2015
The private space race is heating up, and now Alliant Techsystems, the company that provided solid rocket boosters for the U.S. space shuttles, unveiled its launch system that will fly paying customers into low Earth orbit. The most amazing part of this news is the bold prediction of its makers: It'll be launching in about three years.
Liberty Rocket Origins
The vehicle is an amalgam of the company's space shuttle boosters and its Ariane 5 expendable rocket it built for the European Space Agency. Atop that stack is a capsule that will hold seven astronauts and plenty of cargo.
The company's not talking cost-per-pound yet, but says it will be a whole lot cheaper than the big bucks the U.S. is paying the Russians to get astronauts into space today.
10. Stunning New View of the Earth
Speaking of the Russians, take a look at this glorious view of the planet Earth, taken in a single click by Russia's new weather satellite, Electro-L. Most of the other pictures of our blue planet are composites - resulting from numerous photos stitched together - but not this one.
The satellite camera captures full-colour images, and also has a near-infrared channel that makes the vegetation in this picture look red.
Technology aside, seeing that orb hanging there, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, is certainly awe-inspiring, reminding us that we are all space travellers.
Top image: Flexible OLED displays (left) and HP t410 All-in-One Smart Zero Client (right).
I agree that Auto Hop is the Holy Grail for TV viewers because I’ve had the Hopper for a few weeks now and Auto Hop compliments the Primetime Anytime feature already in place. It is very rare that I would like to watch commercials so I like how I can just plain skip through them after turning on Auto Hop. I initially found out about the option to Auto Hop because I work at Dish, I know it has only been a couple of days now, but so far it has worked out great for my whole family.
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