The iPad made it possible to leave your laptop at home and still stay productive. You could write emails, watch movies, and surf the web all through a 9.7-inch touch screen display. It wasn't the first tablet, but it was one of the most popular. Apple sold 300,000 units on the first day and that hit a million in the first month. The cheapest model started at $499 and came with 16 GB of memory. Yikes!
The iPad made it possible to leave your laptop at home and still stay productive. You could write emails, watch movies, and surf the web all through a 9.7-inch touch screen display. It wasn't the first tablet, but it was one of the most popular. Apple sold 300,000 units on the first day and that hit a million in the first month. The cheapest model started at $499 and came with 16 GB of memory. Yikes!
The ungraceful death of the consumer version of Google Glass in 2015 may have had some grieving the early death of augmented reality. But the technology is being resurrected by companies on the manufacturing floor.
Take for example Lockheed Martin. Technicians at the aerospace manufacturer use Microsoft's Hololens headset to design and examine models of spacecraft such as the Mars lander ahead of it's 2018 mission.
Lockheed Martin Technicians at Lockheed Martin's Collaborative Human Immersive Lab in Colorado examine a model of the Mars lander using Micorsoft's Hololens augmented reality headsets.
Researchers at Binghamton State University in New York think your heart could be the key to your personal data. By measuring the electrical activity of the heart, researchers say they can encrypt patients' health records.
The fundamental idea is this: In the future, all patients will be outfitted with a wearable device, which will continuously collect physiological data and transmit it to the patients' doctors. Because electrocardiogram (ECG) signals are already collected for clinical diagnosis, the system would simply reuse the data during transmission, thus reducing the cost and computational power needed to create an encryption key from scratch.
Intel wants to level the playing field between online retailers and brick and mortar shops by introducing IoT technologies into physical stores. Currently, online retailers have access to information on what sorts of merchandise consumers look at, what they purchase, and what they don't. And Intel argues physical stores should have the same information.
In a Monday editorial on the company's site, Intel CEO, Brian Krzanich wrote:
What does it take to fly high in the world of drones? Is it convenience, safety, beauty, or adaptability? Our picks for the coolest drones of 2016 have it all.
DHL's Parcelcopter and Rakuten's delivery drone will distribute goods to the most remote regions, while Altus Intelligence's drones will sail to safety on a parachute.
And bumping into things? That's so last year thanks to obstacle avoidance systems developed by Intel and DJI. Intel's Shooting Star drones take the fire out of fireworks. Plus a drone that operates on land and water. What a year!
Apple had a tough 2016. Early in the year, the tech giant became entangled in a legal battle with the FBI over the company's refusal to help the agency unlock the phone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook. Apple argued that doing so would open a back door that would put other iPhone users at risk of privacy breaches.
Apple also had a somewhat disappointing financial year with annual sales dropping for the first time since 2001, when the company released the iPod. On the hardware side, Apple did release a refreshed version of the iPhone and the MacBook Pro, but both received mixed reviews.
Robots are becoming more and more ubiquitous in our daily lives, but these seven bots stole the show in 2016.
The Zenbo personal assistant robot can be a caretaker and entertainer. While Boston Dynamic's SpotMini will help you do the dishes, preserve the planet by recycling, and even bring you a coke. Got a pile of clean laundry? Laundroid will fold it for you...just make sure to give it a few hours to finish the job.
Feeling lonely on that long road trip? Kirobo Mini will chat with you, as long as your trip's shorter than 2 and a half hours. Amelia will show you the way at the airport and even take a selfie. And Sophia...wow she looks so human! As long as you disregard her giant see-through computer brain.
Google Home was released to consumers earlier this month, but some journalists got a chance to test out Google's favorite personal assistant before it hit store shelves.
So what did they think?
Most agreed that Google Home was generally smarter than the Amazon Echo, in part because it's connected to Google's omniscient search engine. In addition, many liked Google Home's rather responsive microphone, though having to say "OK Google" every time you wanted to interact with the device could get tiresome.
Oscar Curet is an assistant professor at Florida Atlantic University. For the past couple of years, he's studied the movement of the Knifefish, an animal native to the Amazon River, that uses a long ribbon fin to propel itself through the water and navigate its complex environment.
"As a engineer, we try to solve problems, and nature has solved some of the problems that we are facing, and one of them is mobility," Curet said.
Curet, along with other researchers from Florida Atlantic University (FAU), has created a robot fish to identify the differences between engineering systems and what occurs in nature. The prototype is composed of 3D-printed materials, 16 motors, and a number of sensors. The team also recently received a grant from the U.S. Navy to equip their prototype with a Volumetric Particle Image Velocity System, or PIV. The system, which uses four cameras synchronized with a laser light to capture currents in three dimensions, will help researchers measure how fluid dynamics interact with the flexible propulsors the team has developed to make underwater vehicles more maneuverable.
If you've ever looked up at a plane and wondered where it's headed, this simple project is for you. Thanks to cheap, miniaturized electronics, you can now build a receiver that connects to your smartphone and shows details about all the aircraft in the sky around you. It takes less than an hour and costs about $115.
The device receives and decodes ADS-B, a data broadcast from aircraft that transmits a callsign, location, altitude, speed and a few other bits of information. If you live near an airport or under a flight path, there's a good chance you can receive these transmissions easily.
Solar Roadways believes the road ahead should be paved with solar panels. The Idaho startup makes hexagonal solar panels that it's trying to get installed on U.S. roads. The goal is to generate enough energy to power homes and businesses, and the panels can even light up to display programmable road markings.
It's a lofty idea but the company has gained some early support. Solar Roadways has completed three rounds of testing with the U.S. Department of Transportation and in 2014 it raised over $2 million on Indiegogo. The project has also caught the attention of Missouri's Department of Transportation, which will install the panels, as part of a pilot program, on a sidewalk in front of the Route 66 Welcome Center in Conway.