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Insert Coin: The Kick, an iPhone-controlled camera light
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. Lighting in photography or movie making is often the reserve of pros who can either afford a studio's worth of equipment or who have the know-how to generate just the right effect with one light. Rift's Kick light mostly tackles the latter by using a control you (probably) already know how to use: your iPhone. If you opt for the WiFi-toting Kick Plus model, an iOS app can control one or more lights for basics like brightness and color temperature -- but it really comes into its own when you want a dash of color or to record video. A Kick can sample color from a palette, a video or directly from the iPhone's camera; temporal effects like a lightning storm can spice up an amateur horror movie. If you're only looking for a straightforward white light to back up production for a traditional camera, the Kick Basic will let you control the rudiments from buttons on the light itself. Unless you're just looking for a sticker reflecting your support, every pledge tier is directly tied to buying a Kick light in advance. Early buyers can put down $89 to get a Kick Basic in black or white, or $139 for the Kick Plus. The more you buy, the cheaper it gets: $180 or $280 will land a pair of Basic of Plus lights, and stores can pay $4,300 or $6,500 to get a hefty 50 units of either model. If you're starting on a small-scale movie production or just have to have properly-lit subjects for street photography, head on over to the Kickstarter source link and chip in.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: Jake Dyson's lamp, wooden light bulbs and weed-killing lasers
Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green. This week Inhabitat has been reporting live from New York Design Week, where we've witnessed countless innovative green designs from around the world. To kick things off, we were pretty impressed with this desk lamp designed by Jake Dyson (son of the vacuum god) that extends the life of its LED bulbs by a whopping 37 years. Also in the category of "bright shiny things we love" is QisDesign's Aurelia lamp, which bears a striking resemblance to a glowing jellyfish. We were also dazzled by UM Project's collection of retro, robot-inspired lamps, Light & Contrast's cute LED flower lights, and we were absolutely floored by Alessandro Jordão's larger-than-life LEGO chair. Can't get enough of NY Design Week? Check out all of our favorite green designs from this year's shows. Continuing with the topic of innovative green lighting technology, artist Ryosuke Fukusada has created the impossible: a glowing wooden light bulb. Confused? The light was created using a technique called Rokuro, and it consists of an LED light bulb wrapped with a very thin layer of wood. When the bulb is turned on, it illuminates the grain of the wood. As Fukusada's creation demonstrates, LED lighting technology has taken some incredible strides recently, and we took some time to round-up 24 of our all-time favorite green lamps that look great with LED bulbs.
Insert Coin: CordLite illuminated iPhone cable (video)
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. On average, North American consumers will spend a lifetime total of five days on failed attempts to pair their dock connector cable with an iPad or iPhone. Yeah, that's not true, but we can certainly sympathize with frustrated device owners -- fitting a tiny connector to any gadget can be a chore, especially in the dark. Scrap Pile Labs' CordLite sets out to point the way to a successful connection with its built-in LEDs. The illuminated cable is quite simple to use -- with no buttons or switches to fuss with, the connector lights up when you touch the aluminum plates, and powers off the moment it's secured to your device. There's really not much else to it -- CordLite functions identically to an Apple-manufactured cable, though the dock connector itself is significant larger than the OEM variety, at least in its current prototype form. The design team has turned to Kickstarter to get their project funded, with a $70,000 goal. If all goes to plan, they expect to ship black or white CordLites beginning in September at $35 a pop, but as always, getting in during the "pre-order" phase will net you a hefty discount. The first 200 backers can get an early-bird cord in the color of their choice with a $25 pledge, with the required amount jumping up to $30 from there. A $45 pledge gets you an exclusive laser-etched model, while $50 will be met with a pair of early-bird cords. As you may have gathered from the picture above, the first version will only function with Apple devices, though a microUSB cord is also said to be in the works. See it in action in the video demo just past the break.
Report: Amazon planning front-lit Kindle e-reader for July, new tablet later this year
Certainly it's no great shocker that Amazon's got plans for a new e-reader and tablet later this year. Nor should anyone be particularly surprised at the prospect of a front-lit reader from the retail giant set to compete directly with the latest Nook offering. Reuters, however, claims to have some insight into both, courtesy of an anonymous source. Apparently the aforementioned reader is set for a July launch, arriving in the customary Wifi and 3G varieties. The tablet, meanwhile, is set for a release "closer to the holiday season," according to the source. Amazon, E Ink and the like naturally refused to comment on the matter.
Panasonic sends 100,000 LEDs down Tokyo river, mates tech with tradition (updated with video!)
If you'd been by the shore of the Sumida River in central Tokyo this past weekend, you would have noticed that it was glowing a distinct shade of blue. That's because Panasonic decided to kick off the first-ever Tokyo Hotaru (fireflies) festival by sending 100,000 EVERLED light bulbs down the river, both to mimic fireflies as well as to pay homage to a Japanese tradition of floating candles on the water. Before you cringe too much at the thought of the environmental impact, rest assured that Panasonic minimized the footprint of its aquatic LED parade. All the bulbs ran on solar power (presumably, charged during the day) that kept Evolta batteries fed inside, and the entire lot was scooped up in a large net afterwards. We love the exhibition as a large-scale demo of sustainable lighting -- you may just want to avoid fishing along the Sumida's shoreline for awhile in case you catch a straggler. Update: We've found a video of this spectacular event -- check it out right after the break.
Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight shipping this week, B&N warns of limited supply
So much for waiting until May to get your hands on some glowing, Nooky goodness. Barnes & Noble let us know today that the admittedly somewhat clunkily named Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight is slipping out ahead of schedule. The light up e-reader starts shipping this week for those who've already pre-ordered a unit and will continue to ship throughout the month. Apparently in-store units will be a bit fewer and further between, however -- the company announced that the device will be available in "limited quantities" when it hits stores early next month. So, if you don't want to make your mom cry this Mother's Day, the company's recommending that you jump on the pre-order bandwagon soonish. Of course, it couldn't hurt to give our review a peek first, just to make sure.
Know Your Lore: Velen, the Prophet
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. "I failed long ago to turn my brothers from their course. And creation has paid the price." How must it feel to be ageless? To watch as millennia tick by, each century the span of a breath and gone in an instant? To the draenei, the lives of humans must seem incredibly short-lived. To the Prophet Velen, who is at least 25,000 years old, we must seem like motes of dust, winking in and out of existence so quickly that we can scarcely be recognized as entities before we cease to exist. Velen has led the draenei through terror and triumph, from world to world, always gently spreading the benevolent message of the Light to any who wish to hear. Yet for a being of such grace, purity and peace, Velen is also a creature of unfathomable sorrow. For Velen has been granted the gift of Sight, and with the gift he can see the infinite paths of futures that may not be, of worlds born and fallen in the blink of an eye. And despite that gift, Velen cannot prevent what is yet to pass. He cannot prevent that which has gone before, and will come again. And he could not prevent the path his friends chose, nor could he persuade them their new ally was in fact a monster so horrific that his hellish grasp would wreak havoc on immeasurable worlds. For one that treasures life in the way only the Light can teach, it is a heavy burden to bear.
Philips' L Prize-winning light bulb goes on sale Sunday, priced between $20 and $60
It's a little strange crowning a "winner" when only a single company enters the contest, but that's exactly what happened during the L Prize celebration in August of last year. Philips was the only outfit to take the US Department of Energy up on its offer, earning some $10 million to develop what might go down as the most radically designed, wildly expensive bulb your table lamp has ever seen. That said, the victorious bulb is a big fan of Ma Earth (and her of him), using just 10 watts of energy while outputting light similar to that of a 60 watt incandescent. It'll hit retailers like Home Depot this Sunday (Earth Day) for around $50 a pop, while some utility companies may subsidize 'em in an effort to hit the magical $20 price point. Hey, no one said saving energy would be remotely affordable, right?
The Road to Mordor: The truth behind weapon damage types
Part of the allure of Lord of the Rings Online is its surprising depth and complexity, particularly for those who like to get the best performance out of their characters. Part of the frustration of LotRO is its obtuse or absent explanations behind the many systems in the game. One of these systems remained on the outer edges of my attention span until one day I gave it my full focus. This was the field of weapon damage types, a subject I was vaguely aware of yet assumed I didn't have to know much about it to get along in the game. After some examination, I realized that while you don't need to understand weapon damage types to have an enjoyable play experience, it does affect the game in a small but important way. So if you've ever wondered what "Beleriand" or "Westernesse" in your weapon tooltip was all about, today's column is here to help you navigate the somewhat confusing area of damage types.
Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight hands-on
What's American's number one problem in the bedroom? Honestly, whatever you first guessed is probably the right answer. For the sake of this conversation, however, let's just assume that it's light, as Barnes & Noble suggests. People are keeping their partners awake at all hours by leaving the light on as they finish the final gripping pages of that Stieg Larsson novel. There's got to be a better way! Something like, say, the Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight (make sure to put little sparkly illustrations over the last word when you read it aloud, by the way). As you'd imagine, it can see in the dark. -- or, rather, you can see it in the dark, so you won't have to get kicked out of bed for reading The Hunger Games anymore. The clunkily named Nook Simple Touch with GlowLight is up for pre-order now at $139 a pop. Plunk down your information today, and it should be on its way to you in early May -- just in time for Mother's Day and with a bit of time to spare for 'ole pops. So, how does the reader stack up to its predecessor? Click on through to the other side to find out.
Snapshot: Waveform (PC)
There are so many games out there we couldn't possibly review them all. Welcome to Snapshot, where we tell you about games that might fall outside our usual coverage but are still something we think you should know about. Today: Waveform for PC. The games industry has entered a tense period of existence, with all the trash talk, petition-signing and next-gen jitters compounding into a nice, industry-wide hemiplegic migraine. We need something to soothe our psyches without boring our minds, a game that straddles the boundaries of "peaceful" and "challenging." That game just might be Waveform.Waveform offers a polished, pretty glimpse into the life of a light wave as it travels from Pluto to the sun, dodging dark matter and collecting light particles along the way. Players control the sine wave itself, straightening, elongating and bunching it up to guide the piece of light into the path of delicious particles, without crashing into any space trash.The endearing pomf pomf pomf of consumed light particles satisfies the senses like a far-away fireworks show, and the entire experience is ridiculously calming -- until the Singularity appears.
Insert Coin: Tabber lights up your fretboard, shows you the way to rock
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. The idea of a lighted fretboard isn't a new one by any stretch (how do you think the Fretlight got its compound name?), but there's something to be said for not having to buy a brand new guitar for that functionality. The folks behind Tabber are working to make that a reality, having tested a number of prototypes for a product that you can simply slip over the neck of your axe for a quick tutorial. The company is looking to create a slicker version of the concept that it can bring to the market. Tabber's creators need your help to "transform the guitar industry," so naturally they've taken to Kickstarter, with a little under a month to hit their $45,000 goal. The Arduino-powered LED guitar instructor will connect to a mobile device via Bluetooth, accessing information to let you play along with songs, figure out chords and bend your fingers around some scales. Click the source link to send some cash Tabber's way, or to find out a bit more about the project. Update: As a number of commenters have pointed out, there's a similar project currently awaiting your donations on Kickstarter. Great minds, huh?
MIT's laser-powered camera can detect objects hidden around corners (video)
One of the most thrilling things about human existence is that you never know what's lurking around the corner. It could be a newborn baby, a sweet job, a delicious churro -- doesn't really matter, because it's a surprise, and surprises are fun and surprising. Just don't tell that to the doldrum dwellers over at MIT, because apparently, they don't agree. The same team that created a camera with light-speed shutter rates has now expanded upon their project, with a camera capable of seeing around corners. Literally. To do this, the system uses a so-called femtosecond laser to send out extremely short light pulses -- so short, in fact, that their entire lifespan is measured in quadrillionths of a second. To capture an object lurking around a corner, the device aims its laser at a nearby wall, thereby allowing the light to bounce around the room before eventually landing on the concealed object. Once it hits the jackpot, the light will reflect back onto the wall, and eventually return to a detector, which can gauge the exact location of the object based on the distance the laser traveled. This happens over and over again at different angles, meaning that the system will ultimately be able to get a general idea of the hidden room's layout. Researchers hope that their system will eventually be used in emergency rescue situations, or to help drivers see what's around the bend, though there's no telling when any of that could actually happen. For a diagrammatic rundown, check out the video after the break.
IBM's Holey Optochip transmits 1Tbps of data, is named awesomely
Be honest: was there any doubt whatsoever that something called a "Holey Optochip" would be anything short of mind-blowing? No. None. The whiz-kids over at IBM have somehow managed to transmit a staggering 1Tbps of data over a new optical chip, with the fresh prototype showing promise for ultra-high interconnect bandwidth to power future supercomputer and data center applications. For those who'd rather not deal with esoteric descriptions, that's around 500 HD movies being transferred each second, and it's enough to transfer the entire U.S. Library of Congress web archive in just 60 minutes. Needless to say, it's light pulses taking charge here, and researchers are currently hunting for ways to make use of optical signals within standard low-cost, high-volume chip manufacturing techniques. Getting the feeling that your own personal supercomputer is just a year or two away? Hate to burst your bubble, but IBM's been touting similar achievements since at least 2008. Actually, scratch that -- where there's hope, there's Holey.
Know Your Lore, TFH edition: The true battle between Light and Darkness
The World of Warcraft is an expansive universe. You're playing the game, you're fighting the bosses, you know the how -- but do you know the why? Each week, Matthew Rossi and Anne Stickney make sure you Know Your Lore by covering the history of the story behind World of Warcraft. Even now, the true battle between the forces of Light and Darkness approaches. We will all be called to join, and in the face of this conflict, all mortal suffering will be meaningless. Cataclysm is an expansion about the struggle to stop the end of the world and the struggle between Horde and Alliance. But in the 1-to-60 zone revamps, there are fascinating little bits of lore to be discovered. Most of these involve the Alliance/Horde conflict, but every now and again, you'll find a quest chain that leaves more questions than answers, more mystery than resolution. One of these chains begins for Alliance players in the Swamp of Sorrows, and it seems to be harmless enough. A Broken draenei named Magtoor is on his deathbed, and Anchorite Avuun is desperately looking for a cure. In Magtoor's final moments, Prophet Velen appears and returns Magtoor to the embrace of the Light with a little speech, including the quote above. The quest chain is fairly straightforward ... until we start picking at the potential meanings of that phrase. Today's Know Your Lore is a Tinfoil Hat edition, meaning the following is a look into what has gone before with pure speculation on how it happened. These speculations are merely theories and shouldn't be taken as fact or official lore.
Light-based 'Metatronics' chip melts minds, not copper
Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have flipped the switch on a new type of computer circuit. Unlike conventional silicon, the new chip uses light -- not electricity -- to perform its logic. By creating an array of nano-rods, light-flow can be treated like voltage and current. These rods can then be configured to emulate electrical components such as resistors, inductors and capacitors. The benefits of the so-called "metatronic" system would be smaller, faster and more efficient computer chips, which is clearly a welcome prospect. Another curious property the team discovered, is what it calls "stereo-circuitry." Effectively one set of nano-rods can act as two different circuits, depending on the plane of the field. This means your CPU could become a GPU just by changing the signal. We can't speak for the light itself, but our minds are certainly bent.
Cornell scientists perform optical illusion, herald invisibility through bending of light (video)
Taken at face value, you'd almost think that Cornell scientists had successfully bent the fabric of time. With gobs of fiber optics at their disposal, the researchers have devised a method to distort light in a way that makes events in time undetectable to observers. Initial success in this Pentagon-backed invisibility project has cloaked an event for 40 trillionths of a second, leading Cornell scientists to tout, "You kind of create a hole in time where an event takes place. You just don't know that anything ever happened." The feat is performed by separating light into more fundamental wavelengths, first by slowing the red and speeding the blue. A resultant gap forms in the beam, which leaves a small window for subterfuge. Then, as the light passes through another set of fibers -- which slow the blue and speed the red -- light reaches the observer as if no disturbance had taken place at all. While the brilliant researchers ultimately imagine art thieves being able to pass undetected through museums with this method, the immediate challenge will be in prolonging the light gap. This could prove frustrating, however, due to the scattering and dispersion effects of light. As Cornell scientists dream of their ultimate heist, visual learners will most certainly want to check the video after the break.
Slime molds could hold key to new kinds of intelligence, help Statue of Liberty walk
See that yellow amoeboid slime mold? It's up to something. A team of Japanese scientists at Future University Hakodate led by professor Toshiyuki Nakagaki has found evidence that physarum polycephalum -- or grape-cluster slime -- are capable of navigating mazes and can organize their cells to find the most direct route. Nakagaki and others believe this could be the key to designing bio-computers capable of solving complex problems. According to Nakagaki, the slime's cells appear to have a kind of information-processing ability that allows them to "optimize" the route along which the mold grows to reach food while avoiding stresses -- like light -- that may damage them. Over at Kyushu University, researcher Atsushi Tero told the AFP news agency: "Computers are not so good at analysing the best routes that connect many base points because the volume of calculations becomes too large for them. But slime molds, without calculating all the possible options, can flow over areas in an impromptu manner and gradually find the best routes." Tero and other researchers have expressed hope that slime mold networks could be used in future designs of new transportation systems, electric transmission lines and understanding the human nervous system. Just remember, if you're going to coat the interior of the Statue of Liberty with some pink slime you found in the sewer, make sure you play some upbeat music to go along with it. It's just a good idea in the long run.
Insert Coin: Kapsule Lightstand puts your Kindle Keyboard in the spotlight
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. There are plenty of benefits to e-ink displays, they're clean, easy on the eyes, light on the battery draining and can be read in direct sunlight, unlike their LCD brethren. There are a number of downsides as well, of course, including the lack of backlighting, making them tough to read in a dark room. Several companies have attempted to capitalize on this shortcoming, with clip-on accessories that are sometimes awkward and unwieldy when attached to tiny e-readers. Though, for the record, some have managed to get things right, like Amazon's own Lighted Leather Cover for the fourth-gen Kindle.
Optical computing could benefit from new 'whispering gallery' fiber
It's a spooky feature of Grand Central Station that if you whisper something against the wall, your voice can resonate around the perimeter of the building and sneak up on you from behind. The same 'whispering gallery' principle is crucial to next-gen optical computing: light signals have to be sent on extremely circuitous journeys through 'microresonators', which temporarily bottle up the beams and thereby serve as memory. So far, microresonators have generally been made from silicon wafers etched with the a long series of loops. However, even the most precise etching leaves imperfections, which quickly cause the signal to lose its strength and fade away. Now, researchers at OFS Laboratories in Somerset, N. J., have come up with a different type of microresonator that could potentially hold onto light 100 times longer. The new technology diverts light onto a stretch of optic fiber that has been specially manufactured with tiny step-changes in its diameter. When the signal hits this abrupt change, it reverses and goes back the opposite way -- and, if it hits another diameter change, it will effectively enter a whispering gallery inside the fiber, bouncing up and down with only minor attenuation. The OFS scientists claim their microresonator could appear in "specialized devices" in just two or three years, which is good to hear, because electronics is starting to get old.
