The first summit in London, which is produced in partnership with Google’s Solve For X initiative, will focus on emerging tech such as the internet of things, 3D printing, artificial intelligence and sensors. Read more »
Google will use Arduinos to pick up on motion and sound at this week’s Google I/O conference. While it could help Google better use its conference space in the future, it could also inspire developers. Read more »
The Tesla CEO says he’s weighing a form of autonomous driving technology that would do away with the expensive laser tracking systems adopted by most automakers and instead uses cameras to sense the car’s surroundings. Read more »
Harvard researchers have created a working prototype of a robotic bee, although the next steps of making it wireless and giving it a powerful brain could prove challenging. Read more »
A montly look at where in health tech investors put their money. Read more »
Sensors, data analysis and connectivity can be a boon when it comes to preventing a variety of ills (and illnesses) but the combo can also be used in less benign ways. Do employees need more rights? Read more »
Danish weather app firm Robocat plans to move into hardware with Thermodo, a tiny digital thermometer for mobile devices. An SDK is promised, too, opening possibilities for new temperature-aware apps. Read more »
Sensors designed for the internet of things are promising today, but sensors designed to give humans extra abilities are further out, but even more exciting. Here are two researchers melding man and machine. Read more »
Max Levchin, who in his past life started PayPal and Slide is back at it again. He has started a new hybrid R& D Lab/Incubator (HVF) and his focusing on opportunities created by the digitization of our physical world and explosion of data. Read more »
What does a $200 dollar make-up mirror that uses LED lights, charges via a USB, and has built-in sensors have to do with the connected future? A lot actually. Read more »
It’s a color sensor, a weather station, a gas leak detector, a thermometer for everything around you, and so much more: Check out Node, the ultimate sensor device. Read more »
Can your current smartphone be any smarter? Sure it can, if the device knows how to better understand its surroundings with the help of internal sensors. Qualcomm’s Project Gimbal does just that for app developers. Here’s a peek at how Paramount is using the technology. Read more »
The takeover will not stop Overlay’s hush-hush work with handset manufacturers, which should see exciting new context-awareness features added to smartphones soon. Meanwhile, the choice of new CEO at rival Madvertise also highlights the important of tech innovation in the mobile advertising arms race. Read more »
Walking and running centric personalized health devices like Nike FuelBand and Jawbone Up will soon have company in the market place, thanks to Scanadu, which is making a vital health signs monitor, Scanadu Scout. Soon to follow, Scanadu Flu and other gadgets, FDA willing, of course. Read more »
Soon, your phone will know more about your health history and fitness goals than your doctor does. And according RunKeeper founder Jason Jacobs, when this plays out at scale, it will change the dynamic between you, your doctor and the traditional healthcare system. Read more »
Better sensors could change the way consumers diagnose and monitor their physical ailments. So maybe your smartphone becomes an EKG monitor, or perhaps you buy a device that measures 5 vital signs at once as opposed to a digital thermometer. We learn more in this video. Read more »
Nokia EVP Michael Halbherr thinks that the next set of sensors in our smartphones will track humidity and pressure, which will used to generate more accurate crowdsourced weather forecasts. He believes as our devices become more sophisticated, they’ll be increasingly enlisted to serve the public good. Read more »
Intel is betting that sensors will play a greater role in the city of the future to help manage and use resources, from water and power to communication and transportation systems, much more efficiently. Read more »
Five key technology sectors are enabling the smart city: smart grids, smart transport, smart water and waste management, smart building systems, and the enabling ICT platforms for the smart city. Key players like IT companies, telcos and utilities must learn how to harness those technologies, and quickly. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Microsoft made it easier to create robots on Thursday by launching the final release of its Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio 4, which moves out of beta status. Using the Xbox Kinect accessory, the free software can power moving robots that can “see” and understand their surroundings. Read more »
If you’re like many of us, you’re already thinking over some New Year’s resolutions that will make you a better “you” in 2012. But how are the tech industries’ thought leaders approaching the new year? We asked 12 of them for their resolutions. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Thin Film, a company that prints memory and logic circuits onto plastic films, has signed partnerships with three companies to create a cheap, disposable temperature sensor. The resulting product could be the start of the stupid web and an initial step to the Internet of Things. Read more »
Every year, IBM comes up with a list of five innovations it believes will become popular within the next five years. For 2011, it has come up with the following technologies it thinks will gain traction. I also look back at some of its previous predictions. Read more »
Tribogenics, which spun out of DARPA-backed physics project at UCLA, announced today it has raised $2.5 million from Flywheel Ventures and other angels to build X-Ray machines the size of thick iPhones. The company is using a new technology to create X-Rays from static electricity. Read more »
For those who ever wanted their own Street View car, similar to Google’s camera on wheels used to capture images for Google Maps, there’s now a small robotic version made out of LEGOs. It’s another example of the growing opportunities that connectivity and sensors bring us. Read more »
What happens when you place the equivalent of 1024 neurons in parallel on a chip? Well, you get a new form of computing for cloud computing and sensor networks as well as toys that can recognize cue cards, better artificial intelligence and pattern recognition. Read more »
Smartphones are packing more sensors these days, and application developers continue to find new ways to gain additional value from the sensors. Popular exercise app RunKeeper is the latest. Its software for iPhone and Android handsets includes an auto-pause function and new heart rate zone targeting. Read more »
Long-time GPS hardware maker, Garmin, released its first fitness app for $0.99 in the iTunes App Store and Android Market. Gone are the days when companies can focus on single-purpose hardware; thanks to smartphones, sensors and connectivity, software is where the real action is at. Read more »
As revolutionary as the mobile ecosystem is, it’s the interactions of more intelligent connected devices with people outside the context of phones or computers that will drive more innovation says Mark Rolston, the chief creative officer at Frog Design at an event on Monday. Read more »
New York Road Runners and MapMyRUN are collaborating to share real-time athlete data from this year’s New York Marathon, thanks to GPS sensors, RFID tags and software. This combination of sports, sensor and social brings a shared experience between athletes and spectators. Here’s why it matters. Read more »
Microsoft today adds Kinect support for its Robotics Developer Studio. Software and an SDK are helpful, but the real news may be in Microsoft’s 2010 purchase of Canesta, which has a chip-level pattern recognition solution. With it, Microsoft could shrink Kinect functionality to fit in smartphones. Read more »
Do we only want dumb screens: the ability to get whatever content and services you want over the web instead of locked to a device? Today, the answer is we want it both ways, but in the future, dumb terminals with one exception: the smartphone. Read more »
Devices like Fitbit and smartphone apps like Runkeeper have the ability to act as powerful health sensors. But one of the most promising ventures in this field is an upcoming product from Pulse Tracer called Basis, a watch monitor that packs in a bunch of sensors. Read more »
The biggest frustration I have with my iPhone is when the phone switches between Wi-Fi and 3G networks and just hangs. In solving this problem, MIT researchers used motion sensors, showing how mobile devices need to become an extension of us. Read more »
Many investors are seeing fund raising slow down, and the CalCEF Clean Energy Angel Fund is no exception. The fund, which in October said it had raised $9.3 million toward its goal of $20 million, is still working to raise the rest of the money. Representatives […] Read more »
