My Summer Emerging Technology "Wish to Play" List!

Yes, it is summer, and I need new sunglasses. But not the usual kind.

I just had to post this picture from the Optical Vision Site. Too bad "iShades" are just in the prototype level of development.



There are other fashionable options:



Maybe this prototype would look better:

Photo from the Wired Gadget Lab

Or perhaps this pair?

Human Media Lab at Queen's University

I guess the glasses will help me interact with the next in emerging technology: the organic user interface!

Twp guys and their flexible "gummi".

And here is the next-gen version of Readius, a flexible pocket e-book from Polymer Vision. (I posted a video clip of the earlier version of "Readius" on YouTube two years ago.)













(Photo from Engaget: "Polymer Vision has Readius ready to go, needs case to get it out of the door".)

You can learn more about organic and flexible user interfaces from a video on the Daily Planet Discovery Channel. Organic user interfaces allows computers to take any shape or form. The concept reminds me of the flexible haptic interfaces I've dreamt about.

So what what else is emerging?

Here are a couple of pictures of a Google Earth browser on a spherical screen:



And here is a smaller, collapsible multi-touch sphere from Moxia:









More to come!

CNN's Holographic Technology: Wolf Blitzer and Jessica Yellin, Anderson Cooper and Will.I.Am, and the music video.

CNN is doing a good job of exposing the masses to emerging technology!

Here is a video clip of CNN's holographic technology used to transmit a 3-D video image of Jessica Yellin, speaking with Wolf Blitzer on Election Day, November 2008. A partial transcript is included below. Before you get too excited about this technology, know that the correspondents see the image on a plasma TV, not in "real" 3-D, according to Gizmodo.



Jessica Yellin:
"There are 35 high-definition cameras ringing me, in a ring around me, I'm in the center, and they shoot my body at different angles, and I'm told that transmits what looks like an entire body image back there to New York. These cameras, I'm told, talk to the cameras in New York. So they move, and they know when to move when the cameras in New York move, and it looks a little different from a real person there, but it is pretty remarkable."

Wolf Blitzer:
"It's still Jessica Yellin, and you look just like Jessica Yellin, and we know you are Jessica Yellin....You're a terrific hologram, thanks very much Jessica Yellin is in Chicago, she's not here in New York with us... but you know what, it looks like she was right here with us, it is pretty amazing technology."


Here is the clip of Anderson Cooper interviewing Will.I.Am's hologram, beamed in from from Grand Park in Chicago.



Anderson Cooper:
"Let's see if we can beam him in now. There we go. Will, thanks very much for being
with us. How is this night for you?"

Will.I.Am:
"Ah, this is great. We're at an eve of a brand new day in America, and it feels great being here in Chicago. All this technology, I'm being beamed to you, like in Star Wars and stuff..."

Anderson Cooper:
"Yeah, it looks like, especially like, exactly like in Star Trek, when they'd beam people down, that's what it looks like here....We are doing this interview with you this way because it is a lot quieter than having you in the crowd, its very hard to hear in this crowd, and we appreciate you being with you..."

Will.I.Am goes on to discuss the song he created from an inspirational speech by Obama.

Related
How the CNN Holographic Interview System Works
-Gizmodo

Election Night TV: Networks Aim to Dazzle With Gagetry
-Edward C. Baid and Jon Swartz, TechNewsworld

Behind the hologram:
Vizrt
"Vizrt creates leading-edge content production tools for the digital media industry - From award-winning 3D graphics & maps to integrated video workflow solutions."
SportVU


FYI: Here is the video of the song, We Can Change- (My first view of this video was today, after the election.)





picture via engadget