Smartphone apps seem to be dominating headlines lately. A new app for the iPhone and Android, called Color, allows for the automatic sharing of videos and photos to other smartphones positioned within 100 yards of you.

Picture it: It’s spring in Central Park and you snap some photos of yourself sunbathing in Sheep’s Meadow. A lad near the fountain catches a glimpse and comments. You can see his photo stream of him rowing on the lake. You comment back. Sure, everyone else within a 100 yards can see the love affair unfolding, but love is in the air!

Color Demo from Color Labs, Inc. on Vimeo.

A team at Microsoft has developed a smartphone app that allows users to create 3D images in a virtual space. The user simply takes several photographs of an object at different viewpoints. Then, the photos are sent to a cloud server for processing. Afterwards, the app downloads a photo-realistic model of the object, which can then be viewed from any angle 360 degrees around.

For example, creating a 3D car requires the user to take 40 car photographs. The team also created a web browser plug-in that enables viewing on the Internet.

"You could be selling an item online, taking a picture of a friend for fun, or recording something for insurance purposes...These 3-D scans take up less bandwidth than a video because they are based on only a few images, and are also interactive."

Charleston County in South Carolina will be the first local government in the U.S. to replace all its paperwork with the iPad 2. The county expects a total savings of 50% off its normal paper and personnel costs of $27,000 each year.

The plan will involve buying 15 iPad 2's for its council members at a cost of $900 each.

I applaud their innovation, but why exactly are they buying iPad 2's at an 80% mark up? Then again, this fits the government stereotype of somehow always managing to spend more money than necessary.

My previous post made me realize I hadn't done one of these in a few days. Time for another round of Kinect goodness. You may always find the latest Kinect hacks at KinectHacks.net and Kinect-Hacks.com.

1) Tom Wyatt creates "Evil Genius Simulator" using Kinect to control Tesla coils.

2) Hacker uses Kinect to enable home automation.

3) Yves Quemener recreates Hans Rosling's TED talk interface visualizing live data sets. I went ahead and posted Rosling's talk below for comparison.

Professor Nikolaos Papanikolopoulos of the University of Minnesota saved his department over $100,000 by integrating a Kinect with his research. The Kinect is being used to observe and diagnose children who may be displaying symptoms of various mental disorders, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder.

With the Kinect, Papanikolopoulos hypothesizes doctors will one day be able to receive simplified data that can help with diagnoses...Initially, Papanikolopoulos envisioned purchasing a $100,000-plus system that would do similar observations of a child...

"Is a $100,000 system being outsmarted by a $150 toy?" Papanikolopoulos said of his initial reaction to the idea..."Indeed this is the case."

College student Amanda Foote converted her 41 hour wait in line to buy an iPad 2 into cold hard cash, selling her 1st place spot to an app developer named Hazem Sayed for $900. This isn't the first time, people have paid top dollar to get Apple products. Back in June, spots in line to buy the iPhone 4 cost up to $1,200. She had to endure rain, ate donuts and only slept roughly 3 hours.

Standing in line has become a bit of cottage industry on Craigslist, where people offer to stand in various lines for you in exchange for payment. Amanda plans on using her new windfall to buy Lady Gaga concerts.

In only 6 months, a student team from Okinawa has successfully created a pneumatic power-suit made from pipes and aluminum. They've called their project Skeletonics. Alas, the Skeletonics exoskeleton isn't a true power suit.  It functions purely through the muscles of the human operator, and doesn't rely upon any other power source.

Alas, the suit doesn't seem good for much beyond playing Rock, Paper, Scissors and chasing people through the streets.

As the project is still ongoing, the team plans to outfit their skeleton with armor plating. The daily article on the link above contains a nice rundown of current U.S. military projects trying to create a power suit for soldiers, which should appear on the battlefield within 5 years.

I've been trying to save Kinect hack updates for Saturday, since its usually a difficult day to find good sci-tech news. But, these were too cool, so I decided to go ahead and pull the trigger on them.

I'm sure there will be more. You may always view the latest Kinect hacks at KinectHacks.net and Kinect-Hacks.com.

1) Chris O'Shea allows Kinect users to swap bodies with the previous Kinect users.

2) Evoluce demos their incredible Kinect computer interface with Windows 7.

3) Synaptic Robots develops Kinect control of an ABB industrial robot.

First, GPS maps rendered most people lazy about learning how to navigate with a map. Now, students at Olin College have developed a robot, named LockCracker, that could do the same for burglars. Actually, they designed their robot to help people who have forgotten their combinations.  

But, you know...their device has tons more interesting applications.

(H/T PhysOrg)

Apparently, the touchsceen interface of an iPad is able to bridge the communication gap between autistic children and their parents struggling to understand them. The iPad allows autistic children direct control over its interface, as opposed to a normal computer's keyboard and mouse, which they can suffer immense difficulty with.

There already exist 3 dozen iPad apps for autistic children.

Experts say the Apple iPad lessens the symptoms of the disorder, helping kids deal with life's sensory overload -- in a sense "curing" the disorder, one parent says.

That's what Laura Holmquist believes, at least. Her son Hudson was having 8 or 9 violent meltdowns per day. One morning he started screaming in his bedroom -- and didn't stop until late that evening. The family of eight could not go to public events or out to dinner and had a hard time communicating with him.

"The iPad has ...

read more

Saturday's are often slow days to blog sci-tech news and today is no different. Many organizations hold off news announcements till Monday. So, let's take a look at what the (always reliable) Kinect community has cooked up over the recent week. 

You may always view the latest Kinect Hacks at KinectHacks.net or Kinect-Hacks.com.

1) A creepy humanoid robot in Germany uses motion sensing technology to interact with humans.

2) VJ in Argentina named Pixel Perez uses the Kinect in a live outdoor festival.

3) Enrique Ramos posts a Kinect Controlled Delta-Robot

The World Future Society is carrying a great article about the near future of 3D printing. For those still unfamiliar with the idea, 3D printers basically turn your private home into a mini-factory, allowing you to "print" any objects you wish, as long as you have the design and basic materials.

3D printing has been available over the last decade, but recently new 3D can now work with metals, not just plastics anymore.  In Europe, they already "print" airplane parts by fusing titanium powder with lasers.  Dentists now have the ability to "print" a crown custom fitted to each patient. 

Literally, anything can be made.  MIT's Peter Schmitt has even printed a grandfather clock that actually works.  3D printers are estimated to drop in costs 80% in the next five years.  If I remember currently, they debuted at $50,000, now you can find them today at $10,000 ...

read more

Japanese engineers have created a doll-shaped smartphone for all consumers who wish to be seen speaking to a tiny person. Dubbed the "Elfoid", the phone is a collaboration between Osaka University and mobile telephone operator NTT DoCoMo.

The creep factor doesn't just end with appearances. The Elfoid will wiggle and boast human skin style texture, and be able to mimic gestures of the person on the other end.

Alas, any one excited by this moving, gesturing, vibrating, androgynous phone doll must wait about 5 years before it gets to market. The creators need more time to build in image and voice recognition functions.

I can see the B-movie happening now...ROBOT PHONE DEMONS 4: THE DISCONNECTION

Computer maker Lenovo has produced 20 prototype laptops with the ability to scan your eyes for instructions. Lenovo hopes to head off Microsoft's attempts to drag society into motion detection with its Kinect.  Instead, their new computer uses a sensor bar to shine infrared lights into the user's eyes, which it uses to track eye motions.

They even put together a demo game where players blow up asteroids simply by looking at them. Engadget has given it a great review.  Unfortunately, the technology will take a few years to get to market.

The latest Kinect hacks are coming out so fast and furious that I might actually have to create a dedicated page. In the meantime, I found FOUR cool videos to highlight this time, instead of just three. There were just too many cool hacks to choose from.  You can browse more videos at Kinect-Hacks.com or KinectHacks.net.

1) Carnegie Mellon students led by Maya Irvine create comic book-style Kinect.

2) Samia Ahmed jeopardizes the jobs of thousands of spotlight operators by creating Automatic spotlight.

3) Timothy Sherman uses the Kinect to auto-create 3D virtual reality landscapes out of any objects.

4) David Stolarsky of Austria creates the Swimbrowser.

Well, technically it's not a submarine.  The EGO, built by South Korean manufacturer Raonhaje, is actually a boat with an underwater viewing dock.  Even so, the device looks awesome.  The new semi-sub will be all-electric and boasts extremely basic controls...a steering wheel, a standard throttle, a foot-pedal and a forward-backward toggle switch.

The EGO can run 8 hours at cruising speed or 4 hours at the top speed 4 knots.  The semi-sub requires 6-9 hour recharge time and will be available October 2011 at an unknown price.

Amazon wishlist!

You may view the latest Kinect Hacks at KinectHacks.net or Kinect-Hacks.com.

1) Children draw and then create their own immersive fantasy worlds using Kinect.

Little Magic Stories from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.

2) Microsoft engineers allow you to paint on table, manipulate a 3D mouse and turn your television into a window inside virtual reality. 

3) Peter Daukintis creates a drum set using Kinect.

USA Today has a neat demo of Microsoft Labs' latest avatar software. Currently, they can only create a head, but Microsoft's Chief Research and Strategy Officer Craig Mundie states they intend to give us full-body avatars in the near future. In particular, there's a high buzz floating around Microsoft about the Kinect and the great impact its having for researchers all around the world. They see the Kinect as a primary motion and voice activated controller for the home.  For instance, the Kinect already allows you to Pause/Play movies routed to your TV through Xbox Live with voice commands.

Augmented Environments has released an Argon iPhone app, a portable web browser that lays graphic content on top of your smartphone's video stream.  Similar to existing translation apps, Argon will allow users to scan their immediate environments to see if any related Internet content exists. For example, if you're visiting New York City, a "Sex and the City" fan may have created a visual guide for you to follow. The company hopes to crowdsource the creation of suitable web content.

This post is for Narv, our resident steampunk fanatic.  Now thanks to eBay, and an anonymous tinkerer, visitors had the opportunity to bid on an authentic steam-powered car for $1,500.  Alas, we're too late covering the topic, for the bidding has ended.