New Florence. New Renaissance.

Mouse 2.0

5 new mice From Microsoft for Win 7 and other multi-touch platforms - FTIR (Frustrated Total Internal Reflection) Mouse, Orb Mouse, Side Mouse, Arty Mouse

Electronic Connoisseurs

“One e-nose just came back from six months in space, where it sniffed the air on the International Space Station every few seconds. Various gases that provide lighting and help cool the station, like mercury, freon and ammonia, can be harmful to astronauts' health, so NASA wants to monitor for leaks. The shoebox-sized e-nose has 32 sensors that can detect a wide variety of chemicals; in the latest experiment, it sniffed for 10 contaminants, said Amy Ryan, the project's principal investigator at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The e-nose consists of several polymers, which react differently to various substances. When exposed to a chemical, the polymers change size, which affects the resistance of an electrical current running through them. The changes become a pattern interpreted by a complex algorithm -- our brains use similar pattern-recognition to decipher smells. “

Popular Science

Below on electronic tongue from Washington Post

Make your web search more visual

“There's got to be a better way to visually find media on the web. That's the mantra at Cooliris, a California start-up, that offers a small browser download to search for media visually, instead of just a list of links.

On Monday, Cooliris opened to the general public, with pictures and video searches presented with results on a video "wall," just like you see at Best Buy.  Instead, it uses the photos or videos from your hard drive, or a collection of clips from the Web”

USA Today

Gallery of User Interfaces

MIT Technology Review has a gallery of User Interfaces through the decades including an Augmented Reality interface - the Wikitude on a Google Android phone.

It's raining user interfaces

At the recent HR Tech show lots of folks were raving about the visual interface Sonar6, a New Zealand talent management vendor, showcased (click graphic to enlarge)

But that just makes more aesthetic the mouse and keyboard driven interface.

Lots more going on

• Charlie Bess points to an IEEE paper on Eyes-free interfaces
• Popular Science talks about Hands-free interfaces
• BMW brings out version 4 of its pioneering and controversial iDrive
• Microsoft rolls out Surface computing to its developer ecosystem
• and of course there is the revolution going on in mobile device interfaces via Apple, Google and others

Surface Computing at AT&T Wireless stores

AT&T plans to use Microsoft Surface computers to provide information to customers about mobile devices and other products being sold in its retail outlets. Customers can find out the particulars of a device simply by placing it on the Surface screen; the information will automatically appear on the screen by reading sensors in the devices.

New York Times

The Poor Man's Surface Computing

Courtesy of Dennis Howlett I saw this amazing video by Johnny Lee, a PhD student at Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute  (gets better in second half). Johnny is one heck of an innovator - also check out his "steady cam" and other projects at his site.

Now why would you spend much more on Microsoft's Surface offering?

CAPTCHA this!

Find the least real zero of the polynomial:

Calculate:

Q:

New Scientist Blog

Jeff Han on a better user interface

Jeff Han, the inventor of the multitouch screen that influenced the iPhone, displays his work in this MIT Technology Review video

The iPhone is just a preview...