The innovation in prosthetics going on right now is phenomenal. With the Festo AG life-like arm an actual functional appendage for those without seems to be getting closer and closer. Dean Kamen and DARPA have revealed a little more in this peek inside the test lab at DARPA with Scott Kirsner of the Boston Globe.…
Things are about to get amazing in this box. That crumby video you currently see streaming online at sites like Youtube will soon be capable of using high definition technology. Social video site Vimeo has introduce High Definition to its onsite video capabilities and Adobe is about to release Flash 9, already in beta, that…
I would absolutely love not having a mess of wires wrapped around my computer desk. All-in-one computers come in different shapes and sizes. This one from Lumenlab comes in a 42″ streamline aluminum case with a 1080p screen on the front. Other feature include fanless 0db operation, 1TB of HDD storage, 2GB of ultra-fast ram…
While many of use would be happy with a No. 2 pencil and a blank sheet of paper, it just wasn’t good enough for Richard Ziade who decided to make it possible, and might I add easy, to do it online. Sketchcast.com eliminates that old pencil case and allows you to create and share sketches…
There’s nothing quite as cool sounding as Robotic or Bionic, unless you add Ninja on to the end. This Bionic arm developed by Festo AG brings us one step closer to something just like that. Airic Smash Rock Airics_arm is a bionic arm project initiated by Festo AG out of Germany. Their primary CAD package…
Philips has taken the idea of 3D displays, shaken it vigorously, added some marketing genius and have turned out a display that requires no glasses to see 3D content. Philips has been developing these for a while with the 42″ version being introduced in March 2006. Find out more here. Now they’ve taken one of…
A group from USC have created an Interactive 360º Light Field Display. I didn’t understand what was interactive about it until I saw the video. (below) These types of displays are called horizontal-parallax multiview 3D displays and this one is actually kinda scary. It’s basically a light field projected onto a mirror rotating 20 times…
At Siggraph this year, ATI announced its line of super-powered, new generation, 3D whooping, FireGL™ graphics cards. With features that lends itself to perform better with 3D applications, you would think it’s what everyone with slow graphics performance would want. So what kind of KILLER video card is this going to be? Here’s what Efrat…
It’s one thing to take 3D models and make 2D drawings of them. Sure it’s a lot of work and has it’s place, but what if you could take a bunch of 2D photos and turn them into 3D representations. Several companies are doing just that. Fotowhoosh constructs a 3D representation from a single photo.…
Graphic Systems has a recent post that discusses some considerations when moving ahead with Vista. I’ll address those here and touch on some others. I’ve written before on What You Need to Run SolidWorks on Vista. That post should help you determine if you can upgrade to Vista using your existing system, but if you’re…
Since their launch in March of 2007, SpaceClaim, out of Concord, Mass. has been making some waves with their new solid modeler. I’m even starting to hear more talk about it amongst the casual uninterested CAD users. Their assertions to a “highly flexible design environment” make some wonder if this is a fresh approach to…
Wouldn’t you just love to put a giant metal contraption on your hand and touch the stuff in your computer screen. Get ready to feel the warm buzz of the pixels against your skin with this very large 3D glove. Fellow blogger Ben Eadie of SolidMentor.com sent me a link to this story. The software…
You know that table Microsoft came up with? It’s just a big-ass table. This parody video explains it all. source: Techcrunch
Interface design is getting a lot more interesting lately. It probably has a lot to do that fancy Microsoft Vista coming out and the multi-touch interface craziness going around. Spacetime has jumped in headfirst with a new search/browse interface. What does it do? 3D Search and browsing with plans to implement email, music and RSS.…
Standing up at a wall or sitting at a fancy table to read your email? Working with one hand or two? Which would you prefer? Either way, within the next year or two, you may be performing your daily computing tasks in a much more interactive way instead of calmly hunched over your desktop. Two…
In the vein of new interface technology coming out, Sony is debuting a razor-thin display that can bend. People are already imagining the possibilities. One way I see this being used is to provide a more environmental interface with a larger resolution to work in, and I literally mean work IN. Imagine being surround by…
How many of you have a binder of design ideas lying around? Yeah, me too, and have always been discouraged when I try to get a prototype made or quoted. NOVEdge has put out another interesting interview with the CEO of Ponoko whose new approach to turning out product just may change how and who…
I first saw Jeff Han’s mutitouch screen on the TED website. Since then I’ve been keeping an eye out for what that guy is doing. I came across another video of him demo’ing the touchscreen. It looks like they’ve added some functionality since the previous demo. Imagining this in the context of 3D CAD usibility…
With an addiction to trying new stuff when it comes out, its been difficult finding what I actually need to get SolidWorks to work the best on Vista. So, when the Windows Vista native version of SolidWorks was made available as a pre-release download from the SolidWorks web site May 4th and thought I’d try…