Gadzooki

Samsung, Apple and Google All Eyeing Wearable Health Tech

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Technology continues to advance and a growing number of companies that manufacture electronic devices have gone beyond the mobile. The growing trend today is on wearable technology.

Research firm IDC foresees shipments of wearable computing devices this year to reach 19.2 million, triple the figure of 2013. By 2018, it predicts global shipments to hit 111.9 million with a yearly growth rate of 78.4 percent.

Wearable health tech products can be purchased conveniently online. Medisave, a global supplier of medical equipment and accessories operating in the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand, is just one of the many suppliers that also sell wearable tech items online.

Google has created its Google glasses and the others are following suit. Some have developed gadgets that can be worn on wrist in a similar fashion as the wristwatch or cuff while the others have come up with double purpose clothing.
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PlugHub Organizes your Cords

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High tech gadgets and gizmos are cool – uber cool in fact. But consider this: You may have all of the coveted gadgets in the world right there on your desk, but if you workspace is one chaotic mess I’m definitely sure it will detract from you totally enjoying those high tech devices.

I consider myself a neat freak of sorts when it comes to my workspace. I want everything organized because it makes me think more clearly. That’s why I love the PlugHub. [Read more…]

The Mogees Mini Mic Is The Evolution of Touch Screen

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Touch screens have revolutionized how we control gadgets. It is a more intuitive way of manipulating something and it has practically no learning curve. Place a touchscreen tablet in front of a toddler and in no time they’ll be swiping and pinching away.

Despite the versatility of touch screens, it still does have certain limitations, especially when applied to certain tasks because touch screen displays are still quite fragile, escpecially for uses that require vigorous touching and pressing.

A team led by Bruno Zamborlin is currently in the midst of testing a new technology that specifically addresses the issues of interface alternatives. The team’s project is called the Mogees mini mic. [Read more…]

Verbatim Mobile Bluetooth Keyboard Is For The Real Keyboard Warrior

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I consider myself a very capable touch typist. I can type at a fast clip without having to look at the keyboard. But my typing speed drastically suffers whenever I use a tablet. They say that there is a learning curve for getting proficient when typing on a tablet. I believe them but even if I do spend a lot of time practicing I’m still no nearer to achieving a decent typing speed on tablets.

I really think that to be truly productive with tablets you need to use a keyboard. The problem is there are not a lot of good options out there. A lot of them are bulky or just not comfortable to use. Fortunately, Verbatim has released what could be one of the most ideal mobile keyboards in the market today. The Verbatim Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard is an extremely portable keyboard. [Read more…]

Bridge Universal Remote Being Developed

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One of the banes of owning a lot of tech devices for your home entertainment system is not the space that it occupies – true gadget geeks always find a way of fitting equipment into a room – but the growing number of remotes that one has to contend with. You’ve got remotes for your TV, BD player, receiver, media player, various legacy electronics. You get the idea.

The best way to really solve the remote control problem is to be able to use just one remote to control all of the equipment you have. But a universal remote does not usually perform as advertised. The usual universal remote will always have some feature lacking or will not perform as advertised. Even those expensive universal remotes that look like a daunting piece of future tech do stumble during real world applications. [Read more…]

Achievements in Games Mirrored in The Military

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Game achievements or trophies are a big part of video gaming. Introduced first in the game Halo 2, the concept of earning achievements or trophies has caught on in a big way that it has been implemented not just in PC games or console-based games but even in games that you can find in social media sites or on your smartphones or tablets. [Read more…]

iPhone 5 – a New Trend-Setter on the Horizon

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Apple have a tendency to need a few model versions in order to clean up all the small issues with their products – but once they do reach that “sweet spot,” they inevitably set a new trend. While some may argue that the iPhone is already there, others can still point out a few quirks with the device’s overall design which need polishing. It seems that with the newest addition to the iPhone lineup – the upcoming iPhone 5 – Apple are really going to hit everything right.

Reports indicate that even though the hardware powering the device hasn’t been upgraded much, the changes are there to address the long-standing issues that users have been complaining about. The processor has been buffed slightly, and according to first-hand accounts, there are no longer any antenna issues – a blessing for those who’ve had to endure the last version constantly dropping its calls.

The software is where the iPhone 5 is really going to shine though – it’s going to be the ultimate device for portable browsing, with a revamped interface to better accommodate multitasking, as well as various small additions to make the whole experience smoother. And even if you’re worried about having to pay too much at the end of the month when your bill arrives, there are still plenty of prepaid iPhone 5 plans out there to pick from, so this shouldn’t be much of an issue. Arm yourself and prepare for what’s easily shaping up to be the release of the decade – Apple sure know how to please the crowds!

Pushing the Boundaries of Science

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The scientific community has always been responsible for pushing the boundaries of our knowledge in order to improve the technologies that we have at hand. The scientific industry is itself a thriving market of change and improvement, where progression occurs at phenomenal rates. But what are the current boundary-pushing inventions and research is being carried out?

It is important to remember that scientific research does not simply relate to one particular area or field of the subject, but rather encompasses everything within its incredibly broad spectrum. Recent research and development has been made both in the technological fields and the medical, so here are a few examples of the latest breakthrough developments.

Mars Rover Landing Technology

The $2.5 billion Mars rover (named Curiosity) will utilise a new form of landing technique, known as sky crane architecture. The new architecture, which has not yet been tested, is named after heavy lifting helicopters which are implemented within the construction of skyscrapers.

The architecture itself works by the rover falling free of a parachute approximately one mile above the surface. A descent stage, which contains 8 small rocket engines, will then manoeuvre the rover to a safe landing zone.  Pulsating radar beams will constantly update the computer on the altitude and motion of the rover, allowing the two thousand pound (lb) device to be lowered safely.

The technology is designed to enable more precise landings of heavier cargos and will remove the need for a landing pad, placing the rover’s wheels directly onto the planet’s surface instead. Previous technology for Mars rovers have required landing equipment such as cushioning airbags and landing pads, so this is a prime example of scientific research.

The Diamond Synchrotron Facility

This impressive facility, based at Harwell Oxford Science Park, is capable of aiding research in everything from health care to archaeology, with recent developments bringing hope that it will be able to help speed up the diagnosis of cancer. The technology itself accelerates electrons in order to reach a rate near the speed of light. This therefore generates astounding beams of light which can be used for academic research as well as business development.

The beams of light created can be anything from Infrared to X rays and are applicable to a range of different scientific disciplines. The Diamond Synchrotron was opened in 2007 and currently has 18 operational beam-lines, with a further four under construction.

‘Smart Skin’ Technology

This innovative development is a small, electronic platform which attaches to the upper epidermis of human skin and acts much like an interactive computer chip. The device is comprised of micro-circuitry which is designed for medical purposes, such as monitoring heart rates. The device is capable of bending and stretching with the movement of skin making it far less obtrusive than traditional methods of monitoring such measurements. The technology is also seen to have huge potential, with predictions that it could become a human interface system already being made by its developers. If this was to happen, the possibilities for the technology would be endless and could see patients with muscular or neurological disorders using them to communicate their ideas directly to computers.

Rachel is a freelance blogger with a particular interest in space exploration.

 

Sony to develop “subtitle” glasses

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Watching movies has increasingly become accessible to the deaf because of subtitling. It is now a standard feature in DVDs and blurays and even downloadable video content has the option of getting subtitles either as a built in feature or downloading a separate subtitle file. But subtitling is not just within the realm of digital media. There are many theaters now that offer a subtitling service for those who need it.

The current system revolves around the use of a glass screen that is placed in front of the person, the glass then reflects text from a pixel board that is mounted at the back of the theater. This is an effective way of providing subtitles in theaters to those who need it but the difficulty of this solution is that those who want to get subtitles will have to seat themselves in a specific area in the theater to make sure that they get to see the subtitles.

Sony realized the limitation of this problem and has developed a new technology to provide subtitles to people who need them. The prototype are a pair of glasses that a person can wear when watching a #D movie. But the technology here is far different. The glasses allow for the subtitles to be projected on to the glass you are wearing, so this means the viewer can sit anywhere he wants to and still get to see the subtitles. The subs appear like it is part of the screen, which is a cool effect. Sony is still developing the glasses but expect the final product to look slimmer and svelte.