Laser Communicator

The coherent nature of laser light, combined with its low-divergence beam, makes it perfect for all sorts of fun projects. This is one you can do at home with simple, cheap parts. When you speak, the microphone picks up your voice and converts it into a signal that is used to vary the output of a  laser pointer.  The receiver is a solar cell attached to a piezoelectric speaker. With a pair of each, you can stay in communication as long as you have line of sight. It has the benefit of being hard to eavesdrop on as well. Pdf with instructions here. (Via crunchGear)

a similar project could be made to use the reflected light of a laser pointer off of a window to pick up vibrations and transmit sounds from distant buildings.

HUD for Billiards

These are some top notch geeks. They built a setup to compute and project the trajectories of pool shots directly onto their table. It doesn’t work terribly well, but I think it is mostly a problem of low end hardware and strange setup. Why didn’t they put the webcam by the projector, pointed at the mirror?  By having it in the corner they make things immensely more difficult to compute.

I think once Surface goes mainstream, innovations like this will come in a flood.

Laser Interface

These tiny units project a virtual laser keyboard on your table. They are fully functional and even make those little clicky click sounds while you type (optional). It uses a couple of sensors to measure the shadows thrown by your fingers from the projected light in order to indicate their positions. There are several on the market now, including this one conveniently located on amazon. It is compatible with bluetooth and USB, most operating systems, mobile and otherwise, and runs on DC, battery, or USB.

One of the first things that occurred to me when I saw this is that someone needed to make one for DDR/Stepmania. Remove the need to store and stand on a giant mat. Apparently someone is at least partially on that trail (via Engadget), although the execution looks relatively weak at the moment.

Obviously we will be seeing a lot more of this kind of tech soon. I’m hoping in the near future laptops will come inside cellphones. Just drop it on the table and project a keyboard and screen. You could probably do that now with a pico projector, a good cellphone, and one of these.
You can purchase it at ThinkGeek Electronics.

Let Me Google That for You

One of the problems associated with geekdom, or even general competence, is that people expect you to fix things for them, answer obscure questions, and show them how to do various simple tasks. Most of the time if I have a problem, I do what any other geek with the resourcefulness of a squirrel would do; I consult google. It isn’t hard. It isn’t any more time consuming than asking someone else, because then they are just going to have to google it for you. Coferifous has heard our call and come to our rescue with his new service let me google that for you. The next time someone asks you a question they should really go find the answer to themselves, don’t tell them to ‘RTFM‘, outsource your snark to letmegooglethatforyou. Such a simple service they offer, yet the need was so great for their services that they have gotten over a million hits in their first 48 hours of existence.

Data Visualization

Hans Rosling is a credit to geeks everywhere. He has a great product, and gives one hell of a speech. Our world currently suffers from being bigger than we can easily visualize, and a simple graph just doesn’t cut it for complex data. Google has bought the trendalyzer software and is in the process of integrating it into the reports on their Analytics service. You can use the motion chart software here.

Update: In order to use this software in Google Analytics, look for the Visualize button above many of the graphs.

Virtual 3D Sketch Pad

This video shows a new interface for sketching on a touch screen called ILoveSketch. The software looks somewhat limited, but the interface is very well thought out and lends itself to quick intuitive sketching of three dimensional objects. I give it extra credit for being an innovative design for making innovative designs.

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