Tag: Intel

Intel is talking up a new drone made just for light shows called the Shooting Star. The drone will be available commercially and might usher in a new era of drone light shows around the world.

The Oakley Radar Pace is unlike anything I’ve ever used or seen before. Being a triathlete, I love numbers. I continuously look down at my Garmin to check my distance, speed, and splits. I’d spend the rest of my bike or run doing math in my head to figure out what my average pace is, how much longer I’d be active for, and what time I’d be done at.

The crazy inventor Colin Furze promoted Intel’s new TV series America’s Greatest Makers by making a flamethrowing guitar and a bass that’s literally smoking. He may be a Brit, but he’s a great maker all right. Colin actually made not one, not two, but four mods for this promotion.

Back in January, Intel set up a very cool nighttime drone program that had the flying machines festooned with colored lights and flying in unison. There were 100 drones in that show and they flew in tune with music played by an orchestra.

Instructables employee DJ aka Aleator777 – the genius behind the Apple II and retro phone watches – recently promoted the Intel Edison by creating the Miniature Autonomous Blimp. This brainy balloon can stay afloat and avoid obstacles on its own. It may not look like much, but this blimp is a high tech toy.

Intel and Ars Electronica Futurelab recently set a Guinness World Record for most UAVs flown simultaneously. They made 100 drones dance and put on a light show, set to music from a live orchestra. To accomplish Drone 100, Futurelab created their own software to choreograph the drones, control their lights and complement the live music.

It’s no Optimus Prime or Hot Rod, but the Segway Robot does have a vehicle mode and a robot mode, and maker Ninebot hopes it will be useful whether you’re on or off the machine. The Segway Robot is a variant of Ninebot’s Mini Pro, which works much like the trendy self-balancing “hoverboard” transport devices.

The following is a guest post by our good friends at Chip Chick. Be sure to stop by their site for in-depth coverage on gadgets, technology and geek culture. The good news is, it’s a great time to upgrade.

Earlier this year Intel unveiled Edison, its first low-cost system-on-a-chip. Its production version is now available for pre-order, and while it’s changed its form factor it’s still an interesting or useful platform for tinkerers, students and entrepreneurs. The Edison we saw earlier this year had the size and form of an SD card, but the production version is rectangular and slightly bigger than its predecessor.

If you like to run or workout and need to keep track of your heart rate, you might have used a chest strap before. Those chest straps work fine, but they are uncomfortable. Other sorts of wearable sensors for heart rate can be difficult to get to work accurately at times. 

Intel has announced the availability of a silly new app for iOS and Android users called Pocket Avatars. The app takes advantage of the front camera on your smartphone to capture your facial expressions and voice and combine them with an animated avatar.

Robotics is a very interesting field, but buying a decent robot that is already built can be well out of reach for many folks. To address this, Intel and Trossen Robotics have announced that it will be putting open source robot kits on the market later this year that are reasonably affordable.

At the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), voice recognition specialist Nuance unveiled Dragon Assistant, a voice-activated personal assistant for Intel-powered computers and laptops running Windows 8. It’s not as smart – or sexy – as Samantha from Spike Jonze’s Her, but it’s a start. Dragon Assistant works a lot like Siri, Kinect and other voice-activated assistants.

A few days ago we found out that some, if not all SD cards actually contain computers. At the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Intel unveiled an offshoot of those flash devices. The Edison is a computer that looks like an SD card and can be read by SD card readers. The Edison has an x86 dual-core 400Mhz Quark processor as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Low Energy connectivity.

In the future, we may not have any problems with carrying even full-sized tablets in our pockets because they’ll be as portable as plain old paper, as shown in this prototype technology called PaperTab. It was developed by Intel, Plastic Logic and Queen’s University’s Human Media Lab.

No matter how you feel about Apple, you have to admit that the company did change the smartphone world when it unveiled the first iPhone 5-1/2 years ago. Apple then came back and set the tablet world on its ear with the iPad.