PC Inside Keyboard

All-in-One PC: Inside a Keyboard -

Product Overview:

This new generation All-in-One PC in a keyboard not only takes up far less desktop space, but also puts an Intel® Core™ 2 Quad CPU with all its features and performance at your fingertips. The new ZPC-GX31™ is a true innovation packing so much power, performance and compatibility inside a normal size keyboard. With features such as Dual Display capabilities, 4GB of DDR2/667MHz RAM, 1Gb LAN and DVI interface you now have a complete personal computer that takes up no more space than a typical keyboard. Simply place it on your desktop, plug in a monitor and you are done. [via- cybernetman]

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Amazing - Robot Solves Cube

A Lego Mindstorms robot that solves Rubik’s cube -

Tilted Twister solves Rubik’s cube fully automatically.
Just place the scrambled cube on Tilted Twister’s turntable. An ultrasonic sensor detects its presence and starts to read the colors of the cube faces using a light sensor. The robot turns and tilts the cube in order to read all the faces of the cube. It then calculates a solution and executes the moves by turning, tilting and twisting the cube.

The challenge was to build the robot using only the Lego Mindstorms NXT Retail-kit. And to make it completely independent, without need of being connected to a PC. The Lego Mindstorms NXT Retail-kit contains three servo motors and four sensors (touch, light, ultrasonic and sound).

How should I build the robot using only theese items?
After a lot of experimenting I came up with a solution - If I tilted the whole robot, it would be possible for it to tilt the cube using only one motor, leaving the other two motors for turning the cube and for positioning the lightsensor. Thus Tilted Twister.

Color recognition

While rotating the cube, the top face colors are scanned using the lightsensor. It is actually possible to see difference between colors using only the lightsensor. But some of the colors on the standard Rubik’s cube were hard to distinguish from one another. The blue and the green colors of the cube were very close to each other. Likewise were the red and the orange ones. To avoid confusion I replaced some of the colors on the cube. (Cubesmith.com has replacement stickers in all sorts of colors.) After that, it reads the colors of the cube perfectly. Only if you have a strong lightsource right above the robot it might fail.

Tilting, turning and twisting the cube
The tilter arm pushes the side of the cube until it tilts over and slides back. The construction of the tilter arm along with the sloping turntable enables this in one moment. The cube is turned by the motor connected to the turntable. Lego Mindstorm’s servo motor is very accurate, and the built in tacho counter makes shure it doesn’t ”hesitate”. There is no need for other easurements to align the turntable after turning it. To twist the bottom face, the tilter arm holds stil the upper and middle layers of the cube while the turntable rotates the bottom face.

Calculating a solution
I wanted the robot to be completely independent, without the need to connect to a PC. This puts some demands on the program. Of the size of the program and memory usage. And not least of performance. The performance of NXT’s processor is quite sufficient for typical robot-tasks. But when it comes to heavy calculations it is significantly slower than an ordinary PC. This rules out heuristic-algorithms (which generates sub 30-moves solutions). Instead I tried to find a method to solve the cube, whith limited number of algorithms but that still would generate a solution with not to many moves. First I implemented a quite simple layer-by-layer-algorithm. This gave a solution with an average of almost 100 moves. I have now implemented a corners-first method which generates a significantly shorter solution. The average is just below 60 faceturns (which I think is pretty good for a general solution).

Performance

• Scanning the cube: 1 minute
• Calculating a solution: 20 - 40 seconds
• Executing the moves: 1 - 5 minutes. Average 4.5 minutes (60 faceturns)
• Average total time: 6 minutes

[via - tiltedtwister]

Enjoy the Amazing Video Below -

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Amazing Text Scanner

Dixau Text Scanner Wikifies and Googlizes Your Reading -

Reading is such hard work without the internet at your disposal to cross reference anything that you don’t immediately understand. Until now, people had to read books while at the computer if they wanted to look stuff up, manually typing it in to Wikipedia or Google. It’s horrible, I know. The Dixau text scanner from Korean company Unichal makes is so that you only have to be next to the computer. It contains a little camera that is able to take pictures of text, recognize the characters, and then provide on-screen explanations via search engines.

The Dixau may seem totally superfluous (especially for $90), but what I think it’s designed for are Korean students who want to be able to translate words from English scientific texts on the fly. And with that in mind, it really could be useful even for native English speakers trying to decipher English scientific texts. I mean, I majored in geology, which is perhaps not the most technical of disciplines, and I still swear that half of those words were made up just to confuse people.

Dixau from Unichal is a device available on the Korean market designed to help you understand what you are reading and while you are reading.

If you are in the middle of a study related to medicine or you encounter specific terms that you are not familiar with, Dixau’s built-in camera captures the image with the sentence at the push of a button and searches through Wikipedia, Google or a dictionary you provided it previously.

It then finds the detailed explanations in your PC with the help of text recognition technology, and reveals them on the monitor. Such a device costs around $90 and if you understand Korean you might want to check all the details about it on the official product page. (dixau) [via - techpin ]

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Rechargeable USB Cell

USBCELL AA Batteries Can be Charged through USB -

If you thought rechargeable batteries were a good green idea, the USBCELL rechargeable battery will blow your mind- it plugs into any computer’s USB port to recharge. It’s a standard AA battery which will fit into all your every day uses. We’re not the only ones amped up about USBCELL- today at CEBIT, the green battery was awarded a Gold award at the IF Product Design ceremony. Produced by Moixa Energy, has a flip cap top that houses the USB port, and can be used like any regular AA battery. Not to mention, it cuts back on the nearly 15 billion Alkaline batteries made and thrown away each year.

The little power cells can also can be charged in approved NiMH chargers. USBCELL won a New Energy Entrepreneur of the Year award last Wednesday, too. We’re glad such a deserving product is getting the attention it deserves. [usbcell]

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Touchscreen Phone

Another Touchscreen Phone - Mooon+ Concept phone comes with integrated Bluetooth Headset, but wait, this one has a surprise!

Do you have a hard time keeping track of all your gadgets? Wouldn't it be nice if you were able to connect your Bluetooth headset directly to your phone? This way, you're much less likely to lose the handsfree side of the equation.

That seems to the be thinking behind the Mooon+ (the extra "o" is not a typo) cell phone concept. The top section of the phone detaches to reveal a fully functional Bluetooth headset. The rest of the phone seems to borrow some styling cues from the BlackBerry Pearl, but the interface is completely through the touchscreen display.

Seems like it could be a neat idea, but I'd imagine that the premium of the "free" Bluetooth headset will be integrated into the price of the phone as a whole. [mobilemag]

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Edge Fashion Phone

Edge Fashion Phone : Trendy People Need This Phone -

The Edge phone is designed for the style conscious fashionistas. The name has nothing to do with data speed. In fact we don’t even know what this phone is capable of because as with all fashion phones, looks rein supreme and the Edge phone makes sure you notice with its glowing glass keyboard.

To answer an incoming call, slide the glass keyboard out. An embedded LED illuminates the etched numerics via refraction creating a glowing effect. The only visible lines is the microphone wiring which designer Chris Owens has cleverly disguised as a keyboard border. [design]

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