Kelly Dobson is a former student at MIT and she invented a device for anyone that just feels like screaming without causing a commotion. The device is called the ScreamBody, “a portable space for screaming.” The only problem with the device is that it is the size of a pillow and it makes you look fat. After screaming in the ScreamBody, you can play back the scream through the built-in speakers. Its pretty weird, but I give it points for creativity.
Another interesting project made by MIT students is an art display called “The World’s Eyes” which uses Flickr to float images that are taken based on geographic locations.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced on Tuesday that the city of New York will be installing automated water meter systems. This is because the city failed to gather tens of millions of dollars in overdue water bills because of an inefficient record-keeping system. Sometimes the meters that were installed are never read.
The whole water system will be powered by wireless technology. The water meters will send data wirelessly on a monthly basis. Through this new technology, the city of New York will be able to get rid of a contract that costs about $3.6 million per year.
Residents could save a lot of money because the water system will be able to report if there are leaks that need repair. Individuals and businesses will be able to save $90 million annually. The whole system will cost about $250 million altogether. The new water system has started being built Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens.
Quick note: Earlier today I mentioned the name Sat Nav in this article. It was a slight misinterpretation. The Sat Nav I referred to is slang for “satellite navigation system” and has nothing to do with the India-based GPS company.
Robert Jones paid attention to his GPS while driving, perhaps a little bit too much attention. His car was left on the edge of a cliff as he followed the directions on the GPS down a narrow steep path. The GPS told him that this steep path was a road and his car was stopped only when his BMW hit a fence above the Gauxholme railway bridge.
The police charged Jones with driving without due attention. He was attempting to visit his friends in Todmorden and referred to this whole incident as a nightmare.
“Officers received a call at 11:18am on Sunday March 22 reporting that a BMW was hanging off the edge of a cliff off Bacup Road,” stated a West Yorkshire police officer. “The driver was a 43-year-old man from Doncaster. He has been summoned to court for driving without due care and attention.”
Honda has put together an interesting commercial using the headlights of their Insight line of cars. The commercial is known as “Let it Shine” and it features the cars turning on their headlights at designated times to create an LED display of icons such as two smiley faces kissing and a heart. The idea for the commercial was put together by Wieden+Kennedy in Amsterdam.
A bunch of Insights are parked near a mountain and when the sun goes down, the lights begin to flicker. This commercial will not air in the U.S. so you’re lucky that YouTube has it and I embedded it above. The background music is “This Little Light of Mine” by Berend Dubbe. The commercial was directed by Erik van Wyk, Jeff Kling, John Norman, and Sue Anderson. The commercial first aired two days ago in Belgium.
Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE:EK) stated today that anyone that does not order $5 per year worth of pictures will see them get deleted from the online Kodak Gallery service.
The company decided to change its terms of service to add that detail today. People that are storing less than 2GB of photos are required to spend at least $4.99 and those storing over 2GB are expected to spend $19.99 per year. “Failure to meet this requirement may result in your photos being deleted from the Gallery,” stated Kodak.
People that use the Kodak Gallery can check how many days they have left to make an order within the My Account section of the Kodak Gallery.
At the Game Developer Conference there were several students from the Rochester Institute of Technology showing off their banjo controller used for games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero. The students gutted the wires and buttons out from a guitar controller and moved it into the banjo.
The students involved in the project include Michael Ey, Sela Davis, Alex Lifschitz, Joe Pietruch, and Dominick D’Aniello as a project for Professor Schwartz’s Alternative Controllers Seminar. The project was called “Oh No! Banjo.”
All you need to complete this picture is the guy to be wearing overalls and have him chewing on a weed.
Western Digital Corporation announced today that they have acquired SiliconSystems for $65 million in cash. SiliconSystems is a small manufacturing company of solid-state drives (SSDs). This instantly brings Western Digital into the solid-state drives market. SSDs are commonly found in netbooks developed by Acer, Lenovo, HP, and Dell.
SiliconSystems develops SSDs with SATA, EIDE, PC Card, USB and CF interfaces. “SiliconSystems’ intellectual property and technical expertise will significantly accelerate WD’s solid-state drive development programs for the netbook, client and enterprise markets, providing greater choice for our customers to satisfy all their storage requirements,” stated Western Digital CEO John Coyne.
SiliconSystems was started in 2002 and has about 65 employees. So far, they have sold about 4 million SiliconDrive units to companies of various markets.
Seagate Technology LLC, the world’s largest hard drive company has not yet produced a solid-state disk drive, but after Western Digital made this acquisition, they may start looking into it.
ITT Corporation (NYSE:ITT) has filed a lawsuit against Verizon Wireless, Nokia, Motorola, Qualcomm, Kyocera, and LG Electronics for infringing on their GPS patent. The lawsuit was dated March 23 and it was filed at the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware. ITT stated that Verizon Wireless and Vodafone Group Plc is infringing their patent by selling mobile phones that assist with GPS technology and the phone can automatically detect the user’s location.
The patent in question is #5,365,450, “Hybrid GPS/data line unit for rapid, precise, and robust position determination.” ITT asked the court for a permanent injunction against violation of the patent except to the extent to support 911 emergency services. ITT wants damages equivalent to a “reasonable royalty” and interest.
A Nokia spokesperson stated that the company “will vigorously defend itself in this matter and ensure its rights are fully protected.” Other companies related to the lawsuit were not available for comment.
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