iPhone controlled dog treat dispenser

[Stephen Myers] has been toying around with some beta ioBridge hardware. He decided to build a remote control dog treat dispenser. ioBridge’s hardware is built specifically to make web enabling projects easy. The main controller board has four I/O channels that speak to addon modules. It has an ethernet port on the main board and an easy to configure website.

[Stephen] used a servo addon board for his project. The dispenser is built from a scrap CD spindle attached to a servo. He can issue commands from his iPhone, which shows live video of the kennel. He’ll be building several other automation projects based on this system.

cell phone of the future

You think your Razr's cool? When it comes to mobile phone design, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Clamshells and candy bars be gone. Tomorrow's cell phones may bear little resemblance to the snap-open handsets or even the sleek, flat rectangular phones we sport today.

Visionaries from design firm Pilotfish and sensor maker Synaptics have created a phone that has no buttons. It's operated with gestures. Designer Manon Maneenawa has built a phone that can be converted into an alarm clock or a wrist watch. Sweden's GoldVish just began selling a phone for $1.26 million that features diamonds and a secret compartment.

8 Coolest iPhone Apps at iPhoneDevCamp

iPhoneDevCamp took place this weekend in San Francisco, serving up dozens of new apps for the iPhone. The quality was mixed to say the least, but we’ve picked out 8 of the coolest apps to emerge from the gathering…

Telekinesis - Access your Mac remotely through apps on your iPhone. Stream music and videos from your Mac, browse your files and control iTunes remotely. Currently available for alpha testing.

Telemoose - This one is actually useful: browse and shop Amazon.com from your iPhone. See Mashable’s fuller review of Telemoose from earlier today.

GasApp - Another really useful one: find the cheapest gas prices in your area by entering your zipcode. Features Google Maps integration for driving directions, and a diesel version is available.

MoviesApp - Enter your zipcode and a date/time to find movies in your area. Also play the trailers (from Apple.com) and buy tickets (through IMDB).

iEventful - Find events in your area thanks to this iPhone interface built on the Eventful API.

iBrick - Three words: Tetris for iPhone.

Newsmatch (warning:resizes browser if you’re not using the iPhone to access) - A news quiz by Laszlo Systems: match the photo to the news item to read a news article. Great design, but it’s a catch-22: you need to know what the news story is about before you can read the article.

Applists - Explore new iPhone apps…on your iPhone. How very meta. You can also rate, share and submit apps, although there aren’t that many listed right now.

Create friends group on Google SMS channel and Send SMS to your friends for free

Recently Google India team launched an interesting service called “Google SMS channel“. Using Google SMS channel you can send SMS text messages to your friends for free. Even you can get SMS alerts on your mobile for news, cricket scores, Jokes, Job alerts and lot more, all for no cost! (Image credit: katielips)

How it works? Create a group on Google SMS channel. Invite your friends to join this group by providing their mobile numbers. That’s it. You all can send SMS text messages to this group, which will reach to all registered phone numbers in your group. Isn’t it that simple?

Another interesting use of this service is to get daily jokes on your mobile. Just search all the existing public Google SMS channels for your favorite subject and subscribe to that channel or group. For example if you want to get latest cricket updates or score, just search the group names like “cricket updates” and subscribe to appropriate group. You will get all cricket score updates for free on your mobile through SMS text alerts. If you subscribe to any jokes channel and if you don’t want spammed by messages during busy hours then you can set the SMS message frequency per day like only 4 text messages per day between 6 pm to 10 pm. You can unsubscribe from any channel at any time.

Publishers can use this service like RSS feed subscription. Publishers can send blog updates to their readers via SMS.
This SMS service is currently available for Indian phone numbers only. Soon may be available for other countries. Other than English some local Indian languages like Hindi, Tamil etc. are also supported to compose the SMS test messages.
How to start?
Head to Google SMS channel, register your phone number with Google and get your favorite channel content on your mobile all for free.

T-Mobile G1 teardown

In our Dev Phone 1 excitement last week, we somehow overlooked phoneWreck’s teardown of the T-Mobile G1. The complex slider mechanism is certainly worth looking out. One of the major oddities they point out is the inclusion of two vibration motors. One is mounted next to the SIM on the mainboard. While the other is mounted in the frame next to the earpiece. We wonder what was gained/solved by using two. The phone also includes a digital compass module. We’d like a more detailed explanation of how the Xilinx CPLD is used. From this article in 2006, it seems HTC uses them to generate custom clock signals and switching off devices for power management.

Cellphone operated robot

If you can get through the cell phone text speak, you’ll probably enjoy this cool tutorial on how to build a cell phone controlled robot. This bot decodes the key tones, similar to the automated phone systems we’ve all experienced. It uses a chip called a MT8870 DTMF decoder to translate the signal for the Atmega 16 controller. The circuit diagram is pretty hard to read, maybe we missed a downloadable one somewhere. The source code is available.

It would be nice to get some feedback from the robot, so you aren’t driving it completely blind. This is similar to the Lego cell phone rover that we showed you before. Next, he should make it recognize voice commands.

Panasonic unveils KAR robot arm that handles all your dirty dishes

Not very often does technology help us so much to the extent that it helps us out around the kitchen (the very thing that we’re all so lazy about). Now Panasonic thinks their latest creation might just do the trick. The KAR robot arm developed by a group of researchers from Panasonic and the University of Tokyo appears to do the sole task it was designed for relatively well. This is brilliant especially on a busy day when you come home from work, exhausted and just want to sit down on the couch for some tele. Though the KAR robot arm doesn’t exactly wash the dishes for you, it has been designed so that it is able to pick up your dishes gently without making a mess, rinse them and load them into your dishwasher - which is good enough for me!

The researchers apparently aren’t satisfied with things just yet, however, and they say they eventually hope that robot will be able to clean up after a family of four in just five minutes.

Wednesday, August 6, 2008 Upcoming Coolest Cell phones

The highly anticipated Nokia N96 mobile phone will be released in the UK on Wednesday, 1st October 2008. The handset will be available via 3,Carphone ware house

, Orange, Phones4U, T-Mobile and Vodafone. As a reminder, the N96 features HSDPA, Wi-Fi, a 5MP camera, 16GB flash memory, 2.8 inch LCD display, and DVB-H tuner. The phone also sports for MPEG 4, Windows Media Video and Flash video formats.This iscoolest gadget ever made by nokia

Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 In The UK ?

The coolest Cell Phone of Sony Ericsson is now in the UK
According to rumors, the much-awaited sony Ericsson Xperia X1 phone will be released in the UK in October for £599.99 ($1140). FYI, the phone has a 3.2 MP camera with flash and autofocus, 3 inch touchscreen display sliding QWERTY keyboard, and an external microSD slot for expansion. Other features include FM radio, Track ID music recognition and MP3/AAC/MPEG4 player.

216 Megapixel Camera

Microsoft has developed 216 megapixel camera. The UltraCamX collects 216 megapixels per trigger to produce 14,430 across track and 9,420 along track pixels, the largest image format available, with a sustained collection rate of three gigabits per second. The UltraCamX, a large Format Digital Aerial Camera, uses CCD technology, employing 7.2 micrometer pixels thus achieving an even larger image format at 14,430 x 9,420 pixels without sacrificing radiometric performance.

Vexcel Imaging GmbH, a Microsoft® company, has signed a purchase agreement with Aerodata International Surveys, a Belgian-based airborne surveying and mapping company - for an UltraCamX (UCX) large format digital aerial camera system.

“Aerodata is a long standing UltraCam customer and has significant experience operating the camera,” said Rob Agee, Microsoft Group Business Manager for the Vexcel Imaging GmbH business. “The company understands the clear benefits provided by the UltraCam technology and the added value afforded by the advancements available through the UltraCamX. We value their commitment to providing their customers high-quality aerial imagery, quickly and economically, and congratulate them on this purchase.” For more information about UltraCamX visit vexel Imaging, a microsoft company.

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Latest Laptops

Intel had a great idea too, after collaborating with Ziba Design, and came up with this 0.7 inches thick laptop having a width of 17.7 inches and a weight of 2.25 pounds (1Kg).
Again we encounter the e-ink material for an external display that would show a photo, the calendar, or your daily schedule.


The Intel Mobile Metro notebook meets the following requirements: it is modern, supports all wireless network types and the latest mobile computing capabilities.
According to Roger Kay, the president of consultancy Endpoint Technologies Associates, for this concept, Intel used high quality resistant materials such as champagne-colored magnesium and decorated it with gold accents.

In Ziba’s view, this notebook is like a jewelry.
Intel Mobile Metro has a diary-like folder attached to it via magnets, capable of wireless charging.

2. Compenion prototype is on the 2nd place because of its two OLED touch-sensitive displays from which one would be used as keyboard, while the other one as an additional display.
Felix Schhmidberger wanted it to have a slider design and to serve as a series of docking stations.
The home dock would have a projector for viewing videos, and the office would have an ergonomic keyboard for example.
The multi-touch screen would be accessed with both fingers and a senstylus.
This notebook could have many different functionalities and has a great look too but we had to put it in the same balance with the Vaio Zoom concept, and you will see why Compenion remained on this position.

1. For this beautiful glass display that becomes completely transparent when the laptop is not in use, the touch-sensitive keyboard that becomes opaque when not in use, and it’s extremely thin shell, the Vaio Zoom Holographic Concept notebook deserves the first position in top 10 coolest laptop concepts of all times.
We think that this concept is showing us how future laptops would look like, while the designer wanted to create something that satisfies the requests of people for a perfect designed notebook.
Such a system would be extremely thin, the lightest, and would look exactly like in these pictures.
Eno Setiawan designed it after he gathered the latest statistics about how people would want their laptop to look like.

Samsung F480 Tocco

This phone is one which is designed for the fashion-conscious buyers. This exquisite handset has a pocket-friendly weight of 91 grams and has dimensions of 11.8 x 55 x 95.9 mm which enables the user to carry the phone conveniently. The phone has a commendable display and the main beauty of this phone is its large and dynamic screen exhibiting bright and vibrant display. It gives its users a grand viewing experience. Moreover, the handset is complemented with a wide 2.8 inches. TFT display which has the potential of displaying 256K colours and offering a resolution of 240 X 320 pixels.

Moreover, this exclusive phone is integrated with a 5 megapixel camera which brings out the photographic skills of the user and completely stuns the user and makes this phone a camera focused phone. Moreover, the Samsung F480 is equipped with video capabilities which enables the user to play-and-record video footage. In order to enhance video recording, the camera is equipped with video editing features. The video footage can be captured in different formats like H264, H263 and MPEG4. The flash of this phone is also capable of illuminating shots which are captures in a dull and hazy environment. Moreover, the autofocus feature promises a clear and focussed shot whenever a image is captured. Moreover, this unique handset offers a wide range of messaging options which enables the user to either send or receive messages, songs and images as well. Hence with messaging option of SMS and E-mail, a user can consistently keep in touch with his near and dear ones.Another alluring feature of this phone is its media player. This phone is integrated with a FM radio with RDS feature which enables the user to listen to their favourite radio channels and also view information on their phone screen. The sophisticated media player of this phone supports the playback of MP3, AAC and AAC+ files and the users can smoothly access the files the aid of with touch screen controls. In order to experience a catchy and musical ringing tone, the user can set polyphonic ringtones.

The mobile phone has an internal memory of 130 MB which can be further expanded with the support of microSD (TransFlash) memory. Hence, the user can enjoy good storage space and can also download different multimedia and other contents without much difficulty. Moreover, this handset offers flawless connectivity with various connectivity options such as GPRS, EDGE, HSDPA and Bluetooth. Moreover, the user can access internet with WAP 2.0 xHTML and HTML browsers. The Samsung F480 Tocco also allows the user to experience a good roaming coverage anywhere in the world. This elegant handset works efficiently over the Triband networks. Moreover, the phone has a reasonably good battery life which offers a talktime of up to 6 hours and a stand by time up to 220 hours.