Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:00a.m.
Okay there are a few things this week that caught my eye, one of them being some of the more cutting edge Augmented Reality stuff.
Augmented Reality generally refers to overlaying what you see with markers, pointers, writing, etc or other information about what you are looking at.
Imagine going to the Museum and looking at a painting and seeing arrows pop up, pointing things out and explaining things.
Driving the car and seeing directions overlayed on the windscreen or similar. This is a fairly early technology at the moment, mostly directed at PDA's, iPhones etc.
However it seems that they have got it going on a contact lens now, and even are already trialling it!
http://spectrum.ieee.org/.... . They are calling this Second Sight (great name!)
Second item on the agenda, is the Surf Shelf. It’s a shelf that you clip onto your treadmill, and pop your laptop onto it. I'm unsure how you would actually type whilst going up and down, so I’m guessing that the exercise one is the better option in this case! It’s only $40USD so not too much of a budget killer!
http://www.surfshelf.com/
In updated news about Asus, they have finally released the updated eeeBox, this is still very sexy looking hardware, tiny, and ideal for a PVR style box. The newer version comes with Ion Graphics, 1080p and HDMI output.
http://usa.asus.com/pro...
Back into the sports gadgets, I see Garmin has a new release of their GPS cycle computer. This looks WAY better in blue, however its looking rather chunky compared to the previous models, and I do wonder how well it will look in a couple of years (presuming you keep it that long!)
I love my previous model which had everything from streets, directions, course plotting, cadence, HR, and being able to race my 'shadow', to the transmitting course maps etc whilst standing in queue at the beginning of a race! Check it out at
http://garmin.blogs.com/....
And in gadgets that probably shouldn’t have been invented I’m going to throw the Mac Table in there.
This reminds me of something from a 60s school house with its horrible plastic moulded look, and has embedded holes for your laptop to ensure you are always looking downward at your PC to get your neck into the correct position for a permanent hunch.
http://www.smartdesks.com/....