By Sterling “Chip” Camden Contributing Writer, [GAS] At this week’s User Interface Software and Technology conference, Microsoft is presenting a new idea for touchscreen interface that doesn’t involve touching the screen. It’s called SideSight, and it uses infrared reflection to detect finger movement in the proximity of the device — up to 10 centimeters away. […]
by Casey Lynn Contributing Writer, [GAS] CNET News reports that this week’s ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology could reveal some interesting new developments in the area of computer interfaces. But is it time to abandon the mouse and keyboard for Star Trek levels of speech input technology? Maybe not just yet. According […]
by Casey Lynn Contributing Writer, [GAS] The USPTO recently awarded a new patent to Microsoft: automatic censorship of audio data for broadcast. Simply put, it’s a way to detect “undesired words or phrases” in a speech audio stream and automatically garble them. Just imagine! No longer must we live in a world in which our […]
Some electronic devices keep on drawing power, even when they’re “off.” While some of them have a function, like displaying the time or offering remote control functionalities, most don’t. Typical “vampire” appliances can consume up to 25 watts each, an amount that could make a significant difference in your electricity bill by the end of […]
By Jimmy Rogers Contributing Writer, [GAS] Today was the big keynote event Apple fanatics have been waiting for. Steve Jobs and his team graced the stage once more in order to update the Apple line and get it ready for the holiday shopping season. While the summer and spring were both big events for the […]
By Jimmy Rogers Contributing Writer, [GAS] As more and more people identify themselves as geeks, it’s important to remember that the geek voting block is growing too. While the economy, the healthcare system, and the wars weigh heavily upon the minds of everyone, technology issues are not completely forgotten. A new group of Obama supporters, […]
By Jimmy Rogers Contributing Writer, [GAS] If you’ve got a little time to kill (over 55 minutes, actually), take a look at this great video by an ethnographer about the web’s participatory nature. What is ethnography you ask? Well, as explained to me by someone in an actual ethnography course, it’s the study of a […]
By Jimmy Rogers Contributing Writer, [GAS] On Tuesday, October 14 at 10AM, Apple will be having a keynote to show off some new innovations for their notebook line. The question is: what will those innovations be? If the internet can be believed, the keynote will debut Apple’s next big bomb, a notebook that ranges from […]
by Casey Lynn Contributing Writer, [GAS] The idea of a space elevator isn’t exactly a new one, but CNN just published an article speculating that it may happen within our lifetimes. Apparently this “new space race” is being measured in stories rather than miles–one hundred thousand of them. Hundreds of engineers from all over the […]
By Sterling “Chip” Camden Contributing Writer, [GAS] When Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the “Mesh” (later renamed to the World Wide Web) to CERN back in 1989, the concept was much simpler than it has become today. The problem Berners-Lee sought to solve was how to establish links between the massive number of related documents generated world-wide by […]