Category: Hardware

How to illustrate the future? How to illustrate the mediacompletion trend which dominates all trends until 2020? Apple shows us the future.

Hard to imagine that also this awesome invention is just a step into the future. We’ll have 3D rendering, we’ll have build-in camera’s which will turn these kind of screens into portable windows to virtual rooms, spaces, worlds.  And the iPad will respond to our gestures in front of the screen (instead of touching it), to our movements, to our expression, to our voices. It’s all just an evolution.

But it’s great anyway!

3D webcam by Minoru:

Tanita's BC-1000 Body Composition Monitor is a sophisticated scale, collecting measurements on muscle mass, overall physique, daily caloric intake, metabolic age, bone mass and visceral fat. From there, the unit can either send those details wireless to your watch, or it can beam them to any PC. The device will be shipped for $279.99 with a USB stick or $399.99 with an FR60 watch.

The Spark Nano GPS tracker is the smallest available GPS tracker in the world today. It's about the size of a 9V battery. Its enhanced GPS sensitivity using GPRS and GSM networks allows it to work in places where traditional GPS Trackers fail. After activating the tracker, it starts to send location data that can be monitored online within 40 seconds, and sends instant alerts via e-mail or text message at the moment the GPS Tracker goes outside of a designated area. Promo video below the break.

All products will be monitored, all products will be connected, so this is just a step. It’ll be used for monitoring small children in our neighborhood, as well as monitoring employees using company cars, teen drivers or even our life partners. This invention will lead to some serious privacy discussions.

Fujitsu has at last released its color e-book Flepia (or e-paper mobile terminal, as they'd like you to call it) to the masses. Featuring an 8-inch XGA screen capable of displaying 260,000 colors, along with Bluetooth, WiFi and up to 4GB of storage via SD card, and measuring less than half an inch thick, FLEPia's not just getting by on color alone. Fujitsu promises 40 hours of continuous use, and the unit can be operated by its touchscreen or the assortment of function buttons. Naturally you can do the regular e-book thing, but the Japanese version of the device also includes full-on Windows CE 5.0, which would probably be a bit of a chore to use with the relatively slow screen refresh times of e-ink (1.8 seconds for a single wipe), but undeniably retrofuturistic. FLEPia ships in Japan for 99,750 Yen (about $1,010 US).

Scosche Industries announced that it's developing noise-isolating earphones with a miniature microphone built into the back of the control surface. This allows users to record voice memos on the latest iPod.

The new iPod Shuffle has the ability to read out song titles. Now, it’s able to listen and will also recognize commands in the next step.

The Mimi Switch is uses an earbud containing infrared sensors that measure the inner ear movements resulting from various facial expressions. "An iPod can start or stop music when the wearer sticks his tongue out," says the inventor, Kazuhiro Taniguchi of Osaka University. The device can also be used to monitor your facial expressions for the appropriate levels of cheerfulness. "If it judges that you aren't smiling enough," the inventor goes on to say, "it may play a cheerful song."

Electronics manufacturer Philips will launch a new solar powered reading light, which enables people to read (and write) after dark. The light – called ‘My Reading Light’ – was developed specifically for the education sector in Africa and will allow a new generation of school children to continue with their homework after sunset.

Developments like this will have a tremendous impact on third world countries. Even the most rural areas will be connected by solar lighting and solar internet connections. The world will experience cultural clashes like never before, but it will also balance the knowledge in the world. Combined with the young demographics, Africa will finally be the future continent.

Samsung has created the Blue Earth, a touch screen device that works on solar energy, made from recycled plastic (PCM). The device comes with an energy efficient charger: in stand-by mode it takes up less than 0.03 W.

A device from which third world countries, very poor people and the homeless, will profit from the most, when the prices have gone down enough. It’s not a nice gesture; it’s a very important development. It’ll lead to a fundamental change in the world’s balance. And that the Western world wants to call ‘green’ is completely beside the point, but we like to stress it a little.

The newest Sony Bravia tvs allow widgets. In a widget, an application that appears on screen, a company can show specific (personalized) information. By making a choice of the widgets that can appear we can determine what we want to see on our opening screen.

And this gives the concept ‘multimedia’ a whole new meaning for brands. Where first we spoke of text, in combination with pictures, sound and moving images – we think that’s normal now and see it everywhere – now we’re switching to a situation in which text, images and sound are transmitted across a series of difference devices with different properties. The tv is the biggest (consumer) screen, and brands have to earn a place there too. Because the time that you could simply buy 30 seconds in a consumer’s evening is now finally going away.

This phone with picoprojector, the Samsung W7900 'Show', is for sale in Korea. The image can be projected onto a wall or screen a good 50 inch, or 1 meter 25 centimeters and a resolution of 480x30 pixels. Furthermore the device has a 3.2 inch OLED display which stands for sharpness and high contrast. Below you can view a videopreview of this Samsung. The projector is demonstrated at the end.

With comparable technology we’ll be able to cheaply equip all walls with images, project virtual worlds and give us (brand) experiences which we can only dream of currently.

This phone, the Hitachi Wooo H001, has a stereoscopic IPS display which can show 3D images. It'll appear in Japan in April 2009.

Everything will become 3D. The content of the traditional producers won’t be at the top anymore, but internet content. That can ensure a fast and flexible break-through. Eventually every screen will become 3D, every screen will start to react to the position of our eyes so that it’ll seem like we’re looking through the telephone. This is a push in that direction.

This thermometer, the RMR500 Eco Clima Control, of the Australian Oregon Scientific can work for three months in a row after charging in sunlight. Available in the spring for US$99.

We’ll start to see more and more products that can take care of themselves: connect to networks on their own, power themselves, so that we can take it easy (not so much to save power, that’s not our motivation). This kind of devices (and then maybe not a thermometer) will conquer the third world, where there’s no lack of sunshine but of good electricity facilities, rapidly.

The Flip Mino HD recorder is an extremely simple device, as big as a cell phone, weights 93 grams, has a built in usb-connector (no more looking for cables) and sends movies to your favourite website with the press of a button. It only has one physical button (the on-off switch) and the other buttons are touch-buttons that light up when necessary. Despite its small dimensions and simple design it makes qualitatively excellent images with High Definition-resolution (720p) and you can even edit movies on the fly.

Every camera can be equipped with your own design. We're not talking about stickers or click-covers, but a real print. There are hundreds of designs available from which you can choose one, but you can also get to work with all sorts of patterns and your own pictures to determine your camera's look all by yourself. Furthermore you can release your design to others and have it added to the gallery of the online shop. Every time a camera with your design is sold you get $10,- commission. The price of the camera is the same no matter what the design.

There are all sorts of trends hidden in this example.

All traditional marketing Ps are under pressure.
Product and Price: everything is becoming personal again. Currently the price is the same, but later we’ll get a ‘free’ customised design, but if we want something really special, especially designed for you, or maybe a limited edition, or with the designer’s name/logo on it, then we’ll pay (a lot) more. This is how photo and video cameras become part of your identity, brands with a true symbolic function.

Beside that the involvement of the consumer,  the more open attitude of brands and taking the consumer seriously is standard in this. A nice example of brand coming-out.

And finally everything is becoming simpler, simpler, simpler. Technology is disappearing and interaction with a virtual world is left.