Stanford builds super-stretchy skin sensor out of carbon nanotubes (video)

An artificial skin that senses pressure, pinches and touch sounds like a macguffin from The Outer Limits (the episode "Valerie 23" if we recall correctly), but that's what a team from Stanford University has cooked up on the back of its pick-up truck. Sensors made of silicon films with a matrix of liquid carbon nanotubes ensure the material snaps back to its original shape no matter how frequently it's pulled about. When compressed, the electrical conductivity of the skin changes, and by measuring where and by how much, it knows the location and pressure of where you jab your fingers. The team wants to combine this super stretchy film with a much more sensitive sensor and if it can do it, then the technology could end up as an artificial skin for burn victims, covering prosthetic limbs or even replacing your multitouch display -- just be careful, you might hurt Siri if you pinch-to-zoom her too hard.

Continue reading Stanford builds super-stretchy skin sensor out of carbon nanotubes (video)

Stanford builds super-stretchy skin sensor out of carbon nanotubes (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 13:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink EurekAlert  |  sourceStanford University  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/25/stanford-builds-super-stretchy-skin-sensor-out-of-carbon-nanotub/

Michel Rohr Hilde Baaden Hartmut Theobald Nicholas Graul

Gladinet maps Amazon Cloud Drive to your Windows desktop

amazon cloud drive
Amazon's recently-introduced Cloud Drive is a great place to store your files online. It offers 5 gigs of totally free space, and U.S. users also get access to the handy Cloud Player app (for Web and Android!) which streams music you upload to your Cloud Drive.

The service could be a little easier to use, however. Until Amazon releases a desktop client, Windows users might want to take another look at Gladinet. The multi-service cloud connector has now added Amazon Cloud Drive support and will let you map a network drive letter to your account with minimal fuss.

Once you've added your credentials to Gladinet, just pick the letter you want to assign to the drive and you're good to go. You can then copy files to and from your Cloud Drive, rename items, and manage folders like you would any local hard drive in your system.

The only downside is that the free version of Gladinet gives you a limited number of cloud interactions. Once you use those up, you'll need to upgrade to the paid version, which costs $49.99. If you work with a number of cloud-based storage providers, however, it could be well worth the price tag.

Gladinet maps Amazon Cloud Drive to your Windows desktop originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/map-amazon-cloud-drive-to-windows-local/

Sabine Kinzler Frieda Falkner Hans-Joachim Kammann Antonio Fellberg

Want folders on your Windows Phone? There may soon be a way (video)


Take that, live tiles. The idea of having folders on a Windows Phone Start menu has long been a dream that may soon come true. Successfully demonstrated in the above video by WindowsPhoneHacker, these folders look just like live tiles, but pressing them will instead take you into a customized menu full of whatever apps you want. Of course, the project's still in early stages and has a ways to go before it's ready for primetime, but it's supposed to be released sometime soon. Go ahead, click those heels together three times and make a wish -- just make sure your device runs Mango and is developer-unlocked first.

Want folders on your Windows Phone? There may soon be a way (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Oct 2011 08:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink SmartKeitei  |  sourceWindowsPhoneHacker  | Email this | Comments


Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/dscd1joqtFk/

Oliver Büdenbender Christa Eymann Ingrid Schur Emily Trautmann

O'Reilly helps Japan, offers entire e-book catalog for 50% off, today only

O'reilly make some of the best computer books in the world. They also sell them as DRM-free e-books in a bunch of formats, including PDFs and Mobi for Kindle.

They usually offer one "Deal of the Day", which is a 50% discount code for a book chosen for that one day. But just for for today, they've created a discount code -- DDJPN -- that gives you a 50% discount on their entire catalog, and they give a part of the proceeds to aid Japan relief efforts.

So far they've raised over $60,000, and the day is still young. So if you've been recently hankering after some nerdy book (or three), now would be a great time to grab one.

O'Reilly helps Japan, offers entire e-book catalog for 50% off, today only originally appeared on Download Squad on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/03/22/oreilly-helps-japan-offers-entire-e-book-catalog-for-50-off/

Heinrich Peller Viktoria Barz Emma Sauter Rosemarie Ramsauer

Taiwanese Animators Distill Steve Jobs? Bio Into 93 Seconds of Funny

Those kooky Taiwanese animators from NMA.TV have reached a new high in campy 3D synthesis of real-world events: They've boiled down all 630 pages of Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs bio into a 90-second joyride through the book's most juicy revelations.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/10/taiwanese-jobs-bio-video/

Sascha Dörr Kristin Gehrmann Annette Lechner Margarethe Lachner

Clip-On HUD For Any Glasses

Sportiiiis from 4iiiis (geddit?) is a small HUD (heads-up display) which can be used with almost any pair of specs. The clip-on unit fits to the arm of your glasses and seven colored LEDs sit in your peripheral vision, just below your right eye. These LEDs can be programmed by computer or smartphone app to readout [...]

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/10/clip-on-hud-for-any-glasses/

Franziska Spanier Erna Van den Hout Laura Pauli Janna Löhnig

Linux kernel hits 3.1, adds support for NFC and Wiimotes

Linux kernel 3.1
In May Linux finally saw the release of kernel version 3.0, an evolutionary update to the popular open-source platform that was nearly 15 years in the making. Today, version 3.1 is making its debut, once again primarily offering small tweaks like better support for Intel's Ivy Bridge and Cedar Trail chips and improved power management. But there are some new features getting baked in, including support for NFC and drivers for Wiimotes. The brave amongst you can download the sources from Git now (it hasn't been posted to Kernel.org just yet), but we suggest you hold out until your distro of choice releases an official update.

Linux kernel hits 3.1, adds support for NFC and Wiimotes originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink Softpedia  |  sourceLinux Kernel Newbies  | Email this | Comments

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/24/linux-kernel-hits-3-1-adds-support-for-nfc-and-wiimotes/

Wilhelm Klassen Nathalie Füllgraf

Six Tools to Carry Out a Successfully Spooky Ghost Hunt [Toolkit]

Halloween is just about here, but that doesn't mean you have to wait a week to go ghost hunting. Those things scare the shit out of people year round. That's why we've picked six essential tools to help you prove they exist. More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/3m5AnPBsbRE/

Elsa Alexander Furtmann Siegrid Holstein Michael Vollmar Robin Jones

The Waterproof, Dustproof, Shock Proof iPhone 4S Case [Iphone Cases]

Lifeproof iPhone cases are badass. They'll survive everything from drunken drops to extreme sports to war—well, maybe. The Generation 2 case adds additional protection for the buttons on all new iPhones 4/4S models. You clumsy bastard.[Lifeproof] More »


Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/wEmnkixNhbk/the-waterproof-dustproof-shock-proof-iphone-4s-case

Oliver Büdenbender Christa Eymann Ingrid Schur Emily Trautmann

Sand Trap is a fun and difficult physics maze game

Sand Trap
Sand Trap is one of those games that at first seem too hard to bother with, but when you try to stop playing it you discover you're hooked.

The goal is to get as much sand as you possibly can out of the maze and into the bucket at the bottom of the screen. You need to rotate your maze every which way to get the sand rolling around it. You then try to direct the sand to one of the exits of the maze, and hopefully into the bucket. It took me several tries to actually get sand into the bucket, but that might be due to the fact that I didn't even realize the bucket was there at first. Things improved significantly after that.

As you level up, the mazes get more complicated, with moving parts and other things making your life more difficult. Once you manage to get through all these obstacles and get enough sand into your bucket, you can move on.

As I mentioned, this is not an easy game, but it's highly addictive. The graphics remind me of some long lost game from the 80s, but this just proves that you don't need super graphics and crazy sound to make a game work. There's a soothing guitar track playing in the background and that's it, as far as I could hear, and you can enjoy it just as much with no sound at all.

If you like a fun physics challenge, don't miss out on this one!

Sand Trap is a fun and difficult physics maze game originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Source: http://downloadsquad.switched.com/2011/04/04/sand-trap-is-a-fun-physics-maze-game/

Alexander Berner Oliver Büdenbender Christa Eymann Ingrid Schur