MotionActivated
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Drop it like it's hot with Illumibowl's disco toilet light
Does your lack of cat-like night vision mean you make a mess when hitting the bathroom at 2 a.m.? Thanks to Kickstarter, that could become a thing of the past. The Illumibowl is an LED light that sticks onto the outside of your toilet and casts a beam of colored light into the commode. No, not a yellow one. The gizmo's motion sensor activates the light when you walk into your powder room and turns off after about a minute of inactivity. Why would you even need one of these? Because temporary blindness to empty your bladder isn't ideal.
WiSee uses WiFi signals to detect gestures from anywhere in your house (video)
Have you always dreamed of controlling your TV by flailing in the next room? Researchers at the University of Washington have just the system for you: WiSee, a gesture-recognition interface that uses WiFi to control things like sound systems and temperature settings. Since WiFi signals are capable of passing through walls, WiSee can detect gestures made from neighboring rooms, breaking free from the line-of-sight method relied on by devices like Kinect and Leap Motion. Unlike those two, WiSee doesn't require an additional sensor; the software can theoretically be used with any WiFi-connected device and a router with multiple antennae to detect Doppler shifts created by movement. The prototype was tested in both an office environment and a two-bedroom apartment, and the team reported a 94% accuracy with a set of nine distinct gestures. If you watch the video, embedded after the break, you'll notice that each user performs an identifying motion prior to the control gesture. It's a trick the team picked up from studying Kinect's solution for distinguishing between specific individuals in crowded rooms. Intrigued? Head over to the source link to read the report in full.
Ears-on with Sony Ericsson MH907 Motion Activated Headphones
What we have here today isn't just another pair of ordinary headphones: Sony Ericsson's MH907s are button-free, minimalistic headphones that activate upon the magical touch of your skin. Well, your ears to be precise. You must bear in mind that the MH907s are exclusive to Fast port-equipped Sony Ericsson phones thus excluding the forthcoming XPERIA X10 -- so chances are you're already not interested. That said, we shall see if Sony Ericsson is really going to change things forever with these gleaming buds featuring SE's SensMe Control technology, or by just stopping everyone from using their 3.5mm headphone jacks. Read on to find out how these €39 ($57) headphones fared. %Gallery-75958%
Sony Ericsson's motion activated MH907 headset could change things forever (update: or not)
See that? That's the device that will forever change the way you to listen to music. At least that was the promise made in the teaser running up to today's press event. The buttonless MH907 buds are the world's first "Motion Activated" headphones with Sony Ericsson's "SensMe Control" tech: bung them into your ears to automatically start listening to music, remove one bud to pause. The buds are activated by body contact and mimick the way we control sound now. What's cool is that the headphones seem to use your body as an electrical conduit (a Body Area Network) based on this quote from the webinar:"Requires conductive surface to activate the controls - i.e. your ears, hence it won't turn things on in your pocket by just squeezing the ear buds"If so, this is a first consumer application of this technology that we can recall. Available globally this week for any Fast Port equipped phone for just €39. Video fun after the break.Update: SE has further clarified that the technology is capacitive in nature. In other words, removing an ear bud isn't breaking the flow of current between buds (and across your noodle) -- it's destroying the dynamic capacitor formed by the touch of human skin. Right, this is technology we've seen before in capacitive touchscreens and trackpads. %Gallery-73591%
