Rival Cable Satellite

Pay TV? Says who? Sezmi aims to rival cable, satellite -

NEW YORK — A start-up is betting that people are tired enough of their cable and satellite bills to take a look at an alternative pay TV system that combines a number of different technologies to deliver programming.
Silicon Valley-based Sezmi is revealing a system Thursday that amounts to a way for phone companies and local TV broadcasters to team up for an end run around satellite and cable. Technical trials are starting shortly, with full-blown commercial trials in some markets, yet unnamed, later this year.

The carrot for consumers: monthly fees that are about half those of cable or satellite, according to Sezmi founder Buno Pati.

Sezmi's system takes some explaining. At its heart is a TV set-top box that receives video content in three different ways. Two are available through other means: digital over-the-air local broadcasts, the kind that are available to anyone with a digital TV and a rabbit-ear antenna; and Internet downloads through the home's broadband connection.

The third delivery method would be unique to Sezmi. It plans to have local TV stations use vacant portions of their airwaves to transmit basic cable channels like Nickelodeon and Discovery. Given the limited spectrum available, the stations won't be able to transmit a full lineup, and only some of it will be in high definition. Sezmi plans to mitigate that by having stations send out the most-watched shows and have the set-top boxes save them on their hard drives, making them available for viewing on demand.

None of these features are completely original. The set-top box combines the feature of a digital TV tuner, a TV-style digital video recorder and an Internet video box like the Apple TV. The additional over-the-air cable content is reminiscent of a service called MovieBeam, which was started by The Walt Disney Co. When it shut down in December after a four-year run, it had 1,800 subscribers. [source : usatoday]

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The Future of Books

The Future of Books -

With everything turning towards technology, we have adapted the out with the old, in with the new mentality. Designer Kyle Bean has created a design that illustrates the issues with “technology and the Internet, and the effect it is having on the way we source information”. We are becoming a society that is more virtual. We download music rather than purchase CD’s, we research on the net, rather than going to the library and reading books. According to Kyle, “Books also have personality - they have textures and smells which the internet can’t offer”. Kyle wanted to illustrate this issue by using a book turned into a laptop. The object is made from a book purchased at a discount bookstore for only £1.50, as well as a few electrical components to illuminate the screen.

The book/laptop, has a CD-Rom drive complete with CD, a keyboard that can be removed so as to access the battery, and a switch that turns off the screen light once the book is closed. The book when closed, looks just like a regular book until opened. The words, “The Future of Books” is inscribed on the spine. I think Kyle did a wonderful job expressing the changes the world is facing regarding technology. [kylebean]

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SMS Pen

SMS & Email Pen -

D:Scribe is a digital fountain pen that allows users to send SMS and email messages from paper. Just write out the message and circle the person’s name to send. This does away with a keypad and allows you to focus on communicating in a more personal way from anywhere as long as you have a bluetooth enabled phone and a surface to write on. The pen also records everything you write which can be accessed on a computer. Of course for the creative peeps, if writing doesn’t suit your fancy, the D:Scribe also works with genius and not so genius drawings of brilliance.

The design is loosely based on a quill and inkwell where by the quill is the writing apparatus and the inkwell is an electromagnetic induction charger.

Once a message is sent, the status is displayed on the built-in OLED screen. The designers have also expanded its capabilities beyond that of messaging. Should your home electronics and appliances be bluetooth enabled, you could potentially program the pen to input commands by writing in the air. A little abstract but lets pretend this idea is more a patent for possibilities. (source: via mail)

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Touch Keyboard

Optimus Tactus Touch Keyboard -

While we love touch surfaces, as people who type hundreds of thousands a word each week we know that there is a limit to them: keyboards. Like this Optimus Tactus, an extruded shape/touch surface/keyboard concept by Art.Lebedev. We really like the soon-to-be-released Optimus keyboard Art but, seriously, how often do you type on your computer?

I can imagine that artists, musicians and video editors would like something like this... however, there are solid LCD tablet displays and Tablet PCs on the market already. Experience shows that, for the time being, it's a limited market. Further limiting it to a keyboard replacement could be economically impractical at best, never mind how practical this could be. The issue of the price is the other key here: by the time a touch surface keyboard could be a commercial reality coming from China via Moscow, touch computing from Apple and Microsoft would be so ubiquitous that it won't make sense anymore.
(source : gizmodo)

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Compenion - Computer System

Compenion - Visionary Personal Computer System -
by Felix Schmidberger

Based on a personal computer that accompanies you through your day and context-oriented docking stations at personal spaces like in the office or at home. Those stations are matching the needs of the user in their particular surrounding, like home entertainment in the living room or conferences and multi-tasking at the office.The computer itself is a OLED-touchscreen slider, with a second hidden touchscreen underneath. This way, it gives you a similar working experience as with a 2-monitor setup. It is controlled per hand or via a “senstylus pen”, that you can use like a normal pen or twist it and use it as a 3d-sensor remote, with a sensor field under the thumb for precise menu controls. (source: via mail)

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Laptop Into a Desktop

Making That Notebook Into A Desktop
By: Yong-Seong Kim

(Source : via mail)

The whole idea of notebook docks was interesting 10+ years ago when we had to be frugal with our I/O ports and live with subpar LCD screens. Now that notebooks have pretty much caught up with desktops, do we really need another docking solution? According to designer Yong-Seong Kim, we do.

His go-anywhere desktop docking solution calls for a large slot behind the LCD display. This is where you slide your notebook in, allowing you to access all its information from a desktop form factor. The notebook’s screen also becomes your second display, in portrait mode of course. It’s an interesting concept but somehow, this makes as much sense as the Palm Folio.

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Tempo Trash

Cagnina Design has recently developed a unique external hard drive for Intech called Tempo. As files are deleted, they are automatically copied to the mini-trash can-shaped device, providing an extra safety net should the user accidentally delete important files. As the 250 GB of space is used up, embedded LEDs light Tempo's exterior surface from the bottom up, as if it were physically being filled.

Designed to mimic the look of a trash can, TEMPO is a unique hard drive storage device. Intended to protect the user from accidentally deleting files, it can also be used as an external storage device. As you delete files, they are automatically copied to the TEMPO. As it fills up, led's light the "can" from the bottom up, informing you of how much space is available. Tempo is just a concept. It hasn't been technologically designed.

Details -

• Client: Intech
• Product Type: Storage Device
• Design Team: Franco.
  (source: cagninadesigndotcom)

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