Hardware

  • Of all the images to come out of the iPad announcement, the one struck me the most was less about the device and more about the experience of it: Lying back on the sofa — isn’t that a nice way to be? And sitting or lying on the sofa with a 9.7 inch screen means…

  • I’m learning the hard way that presenting concepts may mean giving them to someone else to show on an unknown laptop across the world somewhere. I can control for many factors by simply making a video of my design concept, with voice over. But that laptop won’t get the audio loud enough, and no one…

  • Concept 1 – Electronic Ink over Tactile Switches. Source: IDEO It’s not often we get to peek inside anyone’s concept design process, so this blog from IDEO has me starting up my reverse-engineering machine…. An open project between BugLabs and IDEO, this deep-dive exploration of the BUGbase UI is focused on re-envisioning the BUGbase interface…

  • This study — Who Captures Value in a Global Innovation System? The case of Apple’s iPod — is one of the best I’ve heard of in a long time. The researchers traced the parts and assembly of the iPod and attributed the value generated by each step by part and by country. A few key…

  • Johnny Chung Lee at Carnegie Mellon shows how to enhance a Wii remote to build user interface tracking hardware. Here’s the multi-touch video:

  • Moore’s Law is alive and well I confirmed recently while shopping for an external hard drive. You can now buy a name brand 1TB (terabyte, or 1000 gigabytes) drive for about $400. That’s 40 cents per gig. I can remember when under $10/MB was pretty good.

  • In the past I’ve observed that as processor speed increases, software replaces dedicated hardware. For example, in music or video production programs like GarageBand and Final Cut Pro and a stock Macintosh can replace dedicated rack systems and DSP chips. Now with Web 2.0-ish advances on the Internet, we can go further and say as…

  • I’m seeing two different approaches to the $100 laptop. MIT is starting from scratch and — as you would guess — focusing on technology to simplify the current platform: …we will get the fat out of the systems. Today’s laptops have become obese. Two-thirds of their software is used to manage the other third, which…

  • Details are emerging on IBM’s “supercomputer on a chip”, which essentially seems to take the logic that distributes operations to multiple chips that used to be done in applications or the operating system and integrate it at the chip level. This has the potential to exponentially speed up everything that’s not already a supercomputer, as…

  • While microwave-powered WiMAX is getting more attention these days, I was fascinated to learn on Thanksgiving of a relative’s plan to simply use a hi-gain setup instead. His plan is to go to markets that don’t already have wired broadband internet access — in his case rural Virginia — and put hi-gain antennas on the…

  • Drive + Mouse

    IOGEAR put 64MB of RAM into a mouse. Now that’s smart convergence: take two devices that already plug into the same port and that you have to carry around with your laptop, and combine them, taking advantage of all that hollow space inside the mouse. There’s still a challenge to help customers form a mental…

  • I recently signed up for Vonage, an Internet phone service in the US and Canada, and love it. Also known as Voice over IP, it uses your Internet connection rather than a phone line to connect. Here’s some highlights of why I like it: Cost: By far the best reason to switch is the savings.…

  • The fingerprint biometric device for $49 was inevitable, I’m just surprised it arrived this soon (should we thank the demand generated by the Dept. of Homeland Security for the accelated development?). I predict within two years someone will build this into a laptop, sitting beside the trackpad. Update: Josh points out that fingerprint biometrics are…

  • I’m working on a project where I can influence the platform used, a rare opportunity. So I’ve been researching some of the current mobile platforms I didn’t know much about… Ultra-personal computers: OQO is working on a full-powered PC – including Wi-Fi – that will fit in your pocket. Also see IBM’s Meta Pad. Nice…

  • Last year I wished aloud for a hardware volume knob for my Mac. Griffin Tech has released what may be the coolest volume knob ever, essentially a function-assignable rotary USB controller. The Wired article has more. Links courtesy Jerry Kindall. Combining the Powermate’s software with the Oxygen 8‘s USB controls could result in a whole…