The human brain is an amazing organ, but it certainly has limitations when it comes to multitasking. That’s why it’s very dangerous to call or text while driving your car. Yet people do that, but in the future your vehicle might make sure that you do not.

In the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) guidelines released on Tuesday, the Department of Transportation is recommending the installing of electronic devices in the car which would block common cellphone functions unless the vehicle is stopped and in park.

The operations include:

• Manual text entry for the purposes of text messaging and internet browsing
• Video-based entertainment and communications like video phoning or video conferencing
• Display of certain types of text, including text messages, web pages, social media content

But they haven’t suggested anything regarding hands-free voice and texting apps which are also said to cause distractions. And nothing about in-dash controls, which could also be distracting to some.

These are non-binding guidelines, and even if such a tech which controls cellphone activity is developed it will take some time before manufacturers decide to add these into their vehicles. We wonder how this tech would recognize the difference between cellphones of passengers and drivers, since these guidelines don’t really make sense for passengers.

What do you think of the idea of enforcing a system that prevents certain cellphone functionality while driving? A good idea or not?

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Well, it takes the cake, but it won’t eat it. The VLC has to maintain its svelte and trim form, you see, as it tips the scales at a mere 830 pounds (376 kg). To put that in perspective, a super lightweight car like the Lotus Elise still weighs in at over 700kg, saying nothing of more conventional passenger cars. It also helps that the Edison2 VLC offers remarkable aerodynamic efficiency too, winning the Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize back in 2010.

The next generation VLC improves upon its predecessors in just about every way, getting even better aerodynamic efficiency, a roomier interior and larger wheels. You’ll also notice the unique in-wheel suspension, which improves handling, reduces mass and reduces the overall complexity of the vehicle.

No word on when a consumer-ready model will hit the roads, but Edison2 CEO Oliver Kuttner says the architecture has a “promising future” and that the car “opens up the possibility for a whole new type of car… in a much more responsible, sustainable way to the future.”

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Have you imagined how an iPhone of the future would look like? What you see above is from the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and that might be how Apple’s handset might look like sometime in the coming years.

According to the details available, it’s an “electronic device with wrap around display”. The device has a flexible AMOLED screen “rolled up” and placed inside a conical transparent enclosure. The screen real estate available will be way more than what is available with current smartphones and tablets as the device’s display wraps around it. Facial recognition tech will be used to make sure that content is displayed in the user’s field of vision.

Among other features, there will be no physical buttons and gestures will be used to perform actions such as unlocking the handset. Although they are talking about a transparent housing, it is very unlikely that the processor and parts will be visible to a user. And as you can see above, the folks over at Apple have several versions of the design in mind.

It’s a very innovative and cool design, but certainly don’t expect to see something like this anytime soon. There is also always the chance that others will beat Apple to it.

What are your thoughts on Apple’s new design idea, like it or not?

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The transport technology is fundamentally based on the pneumatic tubes that once shot telegrams around buildings. I’m sure you’ve seen them on TV and in movies. You put a canister in the tube and it goes shooting off to its destination. This was a future view we had at one point for human transport and we still see in sci-fi programming today.

The real world application of this idea to transporting people around is two-fold: first, you need a vacuum tube. This eliminates all the air in the transport tube and, thus, all of the air resistance. This is easily one of the biggest forces that is preventing us from going faster, as demonstrated by our cars, trains, and planes. The second part of it would make use of existing magnetic levitation (mag-lev) technology, virtually eliminating all friction. Combined, Terraspan’s theoretical vacuum tube train could reach speeds of up to 4,000 mph. Better still, the tubes would double as a superconducting power lines, making for an transcontinent power grid that could redistribute power across the country.

With those kinds of speeds, you could theoretically make it from New York to San Diego in about 45 minutes. So, why aren’t we doing it? There are two main factors again. The first is safety. There is an obvious risk for catastrophe if a train traveling at 4,000mph goes awry for any reason. The smallest break in the vacuum tube could be catastrophic. There’s also no saying what would happen when the train leaves the vacuum and re-enters normal atmospheric pressure. What would happen to the train and its passengers?

The second concern is cost. Mag-lev train lines are already incredibly expensive; the Linimo HSST in Japan is relatively low-speed and it cost around $100 million per kilometer. Considering that a theoretical line from New York to San Diego is about 4,500 kilometers, that’s $450 billion, not including maintenance costs, land acquisition, and the prohibitively expensive cost of the vacuum tube; although we have already spent twice that on Iraq.

In the short term, the vacuum tube train isn’t going to be a reality. Then again, people had many of the same arguments about airplanes–they’re unsafe and too expensive–but here we are flying from Tokyo to London on a daily basis.

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There is a limit to how big the display of a smartphone can be and it’s always better if we can watch photos and videos on devices with bigger screens. But in the future, a new LED projector being developed by the researchers at Fraunhofer could be able to help.

A smartphone in the future, like an iPhone 5, could be equipped with this projector to project images onto a surface and you will be able to interact with the projection with your finger the same way you would do on the phone’s screen. The projector is based on an insect’s compound eye and it actually consists of small microprojectors.

Researcher Marcel Sieler says, “Our projector consists of hundreds of tiny microprojectors in an array, each of which generates a complete image. This technology, known as ‚array projection, is modeled on nature – on the compound eye found in some insects – and with it for the first time we can create very thin and bright LED projection systems with tremendous imaging properties”.

Each microprojector will project the same image onto a surface and all the individual images will overlap to result in a very sharp and bright overall image. And based on how far it is from the surface, each microprojector can also independently adjust the focus of its image. The necessary data for this could be provided by the phone’s position sensor and camera. The researchers made the projected screen touch sensitive via the use of infrared beams.

But the system needs more work to be done on it and it won’t be available in smartphones sometime soon. But they will be showing it off at the Optatec trade fair in Frankfurt later this month.

The post iPhone 5 Could Have Kinect-like Micro Projector appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Wouldn’t it be convenient if you could just look up at the sky and you’d instantly see the weather report? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get walking directions overlaid with what you’re really seeing? All this and more will be possible thanks to Google’s Project Glass.

It’s like taking Google Goggles to a whole new level, providing users with an augmented reality experience via a pair of wearable transparent glasses. Yes, it’s just a concept right now, but the video below demonstrates that Google is very much taking this seriously and it in the works. You can use it to make phone calls, send messages, check your calendar, and so much more.

A group of us from Google[x] started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment. We’re sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input. So we took a few design photos to show what this technology could look like and created a video to demonstrate what it might enable you to do.

I’m still not entirely sure how Google will go about executing this. The user seems to be using a series of voice commands in the video, but how do the glasses know what icons to bring up under what circumstances? You’d also have to assume that the glasses are connected to the Internet in some way, though they could be tethering or connected to a smartphone. For better or worse, this is the future of communication. At least you don’t have to worry about people glancing down at their phones to check their messages during a meal; they’ll do it while staring at you right in the face.

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Liquid metal terminator from the movie

Liquidmetal Technologies has just licensed all their rights to their patents to none other than Apple. What this means is all speculation, but Apple will now have access to the companies technology for “future” developments.

The crazy plastic-metal that Liquidmetal has made is nothing but mind-blowing. In the video below you can see how stainless steel, Liquidmetal, and tried, tested, and true titanium respond to a bouncing metal bearing.

What makes this metal so special? Well, it’s an “amorphous atomic structure” that has a chemical composition which can be fine-tuned depending on the manufacturing objectives. In other words, future iPhones and even MacBooks could utilize this material which would allow you to drop it without any ill effects, to the exterior atleast. And it may even bounce back for you to catch.
Here are some of the Liquidmetal properties:

• 2.5 times the strength of commonly used titanium alloy with less weight
• 1.5 times the hardness of stainless steel with less weight
• 2-3 times more resistant to permanent deformation than conventional metals
• Non-corrosive
• Stain and rust proof
• Allows thinner walls in casings, with greater strength
• Allows for large surfaces maintaining thin skins without deformation
• Scratch resistant
• High thermal and electrical conductivity

And yes, you better watch the hell out for liquid metal terminators because this stuff is not bio-degradable.

[Gizmodo via Liquidmetal]

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