A Sony scientist filed a patent for brain interface that uses ultrasound to create sensory experiences – This stuff is cut straight out of the Matrix movies.
Sony does not comment on details, besides that the patent is a “prophetic invention” and they did not test it yet – that sucks… The patent is available on USPTO (Method and system for generating sensory data onto the human neural cortex). More details on the New Scientist.
Reading the newspaper on a handheld during the morning commute makes perfect sense, if only for the convenience of not having to origami newsprint while standing on a bus. Soon — this year, in fact — portable electronic readers will take the technology into reality. The New York Times (registration required) reports that “e-paper” devices are being tested in Belgium by a financial daily. As opposed to the doomed e-readers of the late ’90s, new devices in development by both Sony and Philips have screens that reflect light rather than transmit it, making them look more like paper, says the Times. These second-generation readers are also enabled with Wi-Fi and Internet connectivity, making it possible to download updated information — crucial for up-to-date (and up-to-the-minute?) news. Additionally, publishing companies (including the Times) will be offering up content specifically formatted for e-readers. Of course, anyone with a smartphone or Internet-enabled PDA has likely been checking out up-to-the-minute news via the Web for some time now, but just wait for these e-readers to reach paper-thin proportions.
The Scarpar is a futuristic board that “apparently gives you the best of snowboarding, surfing, skating and motocross”. It’s slated for a 2007 release. Pricing has not yet been announced.
I happened to come across this interesting Nintendo-style logo maker — simply type in your desired text and Logo54 does the rest. Try it out here.
It looks like with Boot Camp, Apple just jumped into the gaming market. The Unofficial Apple Weblog has a post about how the author installed World of Warcraft on his 17″ iMac Core Duo, and no surprises here, it runs better than on a normal PC. This brings up an interesting point, while we’ve heard that Apple’s hardware is clearly out-performing its counterparts designed to run Windows XP, are game enthusiasts going to make the leap to Apple’s hardware?
Mac users can now buy the “PC Only” titles that they couldn’t in the past, and more importantly, Apple can compete with other high-end PC makers, such as Alienware, which was recently snapped up by Dell, within the gaming market. The market is saturated with low cost PCs, but I believe there is some room for one more in the high-end market. Apple’s name is synomous with high-quality products, looks like the competition has someone else to worry about.
More on Intel-Mac/Windows XP game performance at TUAW.com
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