future tech on technabob...

NEC aims to overcome language barriers with the Tele Scouter, a system that will process spoken language and display a translation on a retinal display. To maintain the portability of the gadget, NEC split the Tele Scouter into three parts: an eyepiece, a small computer and a remote server.

Aside from the display, the microphone…

As we look for more ways to generate energy-efficient light, we’ve seen a gradual move away from the warm glow of incandescent light, to the ugly pinkish hues of CFL, to the strange blueish-white point-source light produced by LEDs. And frankly, none of those are nearly as cool as what awaits us in our futures…

Developed by researchers at MIT’s SENSEable City Lab in cooperation with Audi, AIDA (Affective Intelligent Driving Agent) is a drivers’ companion that offers useful information while interacting in a “socially appropriate and informative way.” AIDA will be mounted on a car’s dashboard, where it’s “face” will be visible to the driver.

As you can see…

Ah, software problems. We’ve all experienced them in varying degrees – sometimes it’s just a stupid online video that won’t load, and sometimes the operating system itself gives up. Now imagine a future where programs can still be compromised, or attacked, but will no longer crash or hang. A group of MIT researchers, led by…

The YikeBike is a new electric transport vehicle coming from New Zealand. The compact personal transporter features an innovative design that can speed you along through city streets and country roads without ever requiring you to stand up.

The sit-down electric YikeBike tops out at 20km/hr (appx. 12 MPH). An electric chainless drive powers the…

We can now add telepathy to the list of things that’s possible thanks to the Internet. Researchers at the University of Southampton in the UK have demonstrated that it is possible to transmit thoughts from one person’s brain to another person’s brain using nothing but pieces of tape, a couple of EEG amplifiers, some special…

This new technology from Hitachi automatically detects when you’re actually watching your television, then shuts the display off whenever you’re not looking.

By using advanced facial recognition technology, the monitor can tell when your eyes are on the TV screen, and keeps it turned on only when you’re actually watching. Jump to the 45 second…

Anything that starts out of a suggestion from Penny-Arcade’s Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins – aka Gabe & Tycho – is bound to be geeky, and this one is no exception. The duo visited the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University and ended up chatting with a bunch of students that were using a…

I’ve always wanted a robotic butler. You know, like the personal service ‘bots in Woody Allen’s Sleeper. Except without the sexual harassment part. Turns out that a team of industrious scientists at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute have already built one. And this one delivers snacks! Sweet!

CMU’s Snackbot is a roving wheeled ‘bot who’s…

Twitter lets people share even the littlest, most unremarkable things in their lives. This winter Vicon will release the Vicon Revue, a camera that promises to make “lifelogging” – making a photographic archive of your day – popular. Oh crap.

The Vicon Revue was originally called SenseCam. Some of you may have heard of SenseCam…

Those of us who spend more time in front of our computers instead of other humans know that the current keyboard and mouse method of interaction with our magic boxes are far from perfect. I for one, want a half-sphere, multitouch surface that lets me move stuff onscreen with my right hand (my mouse hand)…

Here’s another one of them MAVs that’ll soon be flying all over the place. A group of MIT students – Abe Bachrach, Anton de Winter, Ruije He, Garrett Hemann and Sam Prentice (I think I got +10 to my IQ after spelling their names) – developed an autonomous flight system that could sweep and analyze…