IBLOG SPACE

These days it seems like for almost anything you need to do, there’s an app for it. And now there’s an app to help doctors perform surgery. The app is called DASH and is developed to work on an iPod touch to aid doctors through complex knee and hip replacement surgery. There’s of course more equipment needed than just the iPod touch, but the device is an integral part of the system and you can actually download the educational version of the app from the App Store. Continue after the cut for a video explanation and a demo of an actual operation using the app. Doctors at Breach Candy hospital in Mumbai successfully performed three knee replacement surgeries using the new technology. The system involves slipping the iPod touch into a case that has precision measuring instruments attached to it. The surgeon then positions the iPod touch to read the data from the high-resolution screen to accurately mark spots to cut and properly align new components into the joint. “Accuracy in positionin

That touchscreen on your phone or tablet is about to get even thinner, thanks to a new substrate developed by AGC. The soda-lime glass measures just 0.28 mm, 15% thinner than the thinnest glass currently available (0.33 mm). It is also lighter, by 15%. The new glass is planned to enter mass production later this month. Touchscreens are made up of a tough cover material and an underlying layer of glass embedded with electrodes. Soda-lime glass is composed of mainly sodium oxide and silicon dioxide. The material is used in construction, automobiles, and electronic devices. It is is strengthened by submerging the raw glass in chemicals. It is ideal for electronics, since it is heat resistant, does not discolor when exposed to UV radiation, can be chemically strengthened, and is easy to process. The glass is processed using the “float process” where glass is floated over molten metal to produce a highly uniform surface. All this to say, thinner and lighter screen glass means thinner and li

ve spent a lot of time looking at strange keyboards. Anyone remember the miniguru ? I even once spent a few hours browsing Cherry’s website looking at the various high quality keyboard switches for an abortive project last year. That said, thank God for talented industrial designers like Michael Roopenian. Us computer users spend our time interacting with our machines primarily through the keyboard, it’s the primary place where we touch and feel the physical presence of the machine. Usually we’re rubbing our fingers all over a collection of cheap plastic keys. My current keyboard is an unimpressive slab of black plastic like I’m sure most of us are using. The Engrain keyboard is so pretty and I want one. Now. Michael posted a series of images describing the process used to arrive at the final prototype of the Engrain on his portfolio here . The idea is to create a keyboard where every key has a distinct texture as well as position. Touch typists now rely on finding the home row with

Say you were listening to music on your iPhone in the car, or when out for a run. You get home, and want to start the song up on your Mac. You may think you would have to start the song over, yes? Or spend time ffing to the place you left off? No. All you need to do is get a new app, called Seamless. Seamless works both ways, letting you easily move back and forth between iTunes on your phone or your Mac without missing a beat. The new app is from Five Details , who also makes an “elegant and intuitive” file transfer system. Seamless requires a companion app which is free in the Mac App Store. So all you do is launch the app, tap a button, and the exchange of music “seamlessly” happens. This is all there is to the app, no playback controls, since those can be accessed from the iPod app. Here is the video demoing the app , with Adam Lisagor. Seamless is only a buck at the App Store, and needs iOS 4.2 or higher.

The BlackBerry Playbook came out just two days ago and although it lacked support for various basic functions such as email, calendar, and contacts without the crutch of having a BlackBerry smartphone as well, it was able to access Hulu, the popular movie and TV show streaming service, via its browser without a problem. That is, until late afternoon yesterday when it was apparent that Hulu nixed the support. This isn’t truly surprising news, as Hulu has been pushing its Hulu Plus subscription service that costs $8 per month for folks to stream content to their mobile devices, whereas normally accessing the content via your desktop or notebook web browser is free. Hence, it was more surprising that the PlayBook was actually able to access the site to begin with. It was only a matter of time, and in this case one day, before Hulu added the BlackBerry browser to its blocked list. So, if you had heard previously that the PlayBook could access Hulu, we now confirm for you that it cannot. Bu

3D is all the rage these days, apparently. I’ve already made my position clear when it comes to what I’m now going to dub faux-3D, because it isn’t real, you see. I will repeat it here for posterity. It is bad. And I’m not the only one that thinks so. There are some reports that say that 3D might even be hazardous to your health. Some of my friends, over here at 2d-glasses.com have already taken the initiative and blocked one style of 3D forevermore. Read more for how they did it. There are a few different principles that faux-3D imagery uses to trick your brain into believing that the images are popping out of the screen in an oh-so-shocking manner. The one that these glasses block use a strange property of photons called polarization. The physics is cool, though that’s honestly a given whenever you’re discussing anything to do with photons. Tricksy buggers. This is also the most common one that you’re going to run into as it’s the technology that’s already deployed in cinemas nati

That’s when accounting for mobile phones, tablets, and other connected media devices – that’s the whole barrel! It seems that comScore has released a study which includes results from the EU5 (aka UK Germany, France, Spain, and Italy) which included media tablet owners* and based on data from their own comScore MobiLens service. This report suggests that Apple’s iOS platform (on iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch,) has a combined platform reach of 28.9 users in the five European markets in the EU5 – this number outperforming Android by 116 percent. *It’s a little bit unclear as to what comScore means by “media tablet owners” in that what I would think of when I hear the term is an iPad, a XOOM, a G-Slate, etc. What they might mean is every device that runs Android or iOS or WP7, and the rest. If this is indeed just tablets, this test will certainly be skewed toward the iPad and therefor Apple. If tablets here mean all mobile devices, then the test is still fair. What comScore has found is th

Waits for the iPad 2 are getting down to a reasonable timeframe now, as the Apple Store is showing 1-2 week delivery times. So it looks like the craziness surrounding the iPad 2 launch has finally started to calm down, and supply is catching up with demand. A few days after launch, shipping time was up to 3-4 weeks . The demand for the device is still high, and the iPad still predicted to be the bestselling tablet through 2015 . Now, though, it may begin to be a bit easier to get your hands on one. There have been some hiccups in getting the popular tablet to consumers, including claims that Best Buy was holding out on customers , trying to even out sales numbers not sell out of the tablet too quickly. And there have been more compelling apps coming out for the tablet, such as the Gorillaz iELECTRIBE limited edition app that lets you synthesize your own music. And then of course, there’s Garage Band, and any number of other gee-whiz cool stuff you can do with an iPad. According to Gar

Tomorrow is Earth Day. We only get one of this Pale Blue Dot to play on and not everyone can afford to immediately upgrade to a hybrid or electric vehicle , as much as we might like to. So here’s some driving facts and some tips about driving greener. And remember, sustainability is also about saving money, and with fuel topping $3.84 a gallon we need all of the help we can get. Hopefully these tips will help you save a few bucks at the pump. We put a lot of miles on our vehicles here in the US. Many of our cities are designed so that we don’t really have much of a choice otherwise. Luckily, the technologies are finally starting to come to fruition that will mean that gridlock doesn’t mean millions of people burning gasoline while stuck in traffic. These driving tips were put together as a bit of a marketing ploy by telenav and Ford for their MyFord Touch automotive systems. The navigation software has the option to pick between the fastest, shortest, or most eco-friendly route. If yo

The folks at Sumsung UK have taken a whole batch of videos of publishers from several high-class sites like SlashGear, Android Community, and the rest! Have a look below to see some high jumping, rally car racing, roller coaster riding, and… oh they’ve got the Samsung Galaxy S II as well! They’re unboxing these phones as they go through death-defying activities! Samsung is really pushing the idea that this phone is nothing but EXTREME! Have a peek below at each of the videos and notice how well put-together everyone is, especially our man in England Chris Davies. What a trooper! Then they’ve got that ever-so-awesome Android phone the Samsung Galaxy S II (or Samsung Galaxy S 2, however you want to put it,) unboxing it as they go – good luck I say to them, and yelling and screaming they say back. Fun for everyone! Lots of fun, yes? If only this were what we had to do for EVERY unboxing – would we have as many reviewers ready to go for the task? I’m not sure we would!

“We wondered if you’d like to do an unboxing video” Samsung asked me, “of the new Galaxy S II .” It’s not the sort of thing you turn down: Samsung’s 1.2GHz dual-core smartphone is likely to be one of the biggest handsets of 2011, and that’s not just because of its sizable 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display. “What’s the catch?” I asked, expecting NDAs and embargoes. “Well, it’s an Extreme Unboxing” they told me, “you’re doing it in a 300bhp rally car.” Video after the cut! Powerful phone, powerful car, one very nervous SlashGear writer. Last week I headed out to mid-Wales and the Phil Price Rally School to be very tightly strapped into a Subaru Impreza and hurled – sideways, some of the time – around a forest gravel rally stage, all the time trying to remember everything I could about the Galaxy S II and trying not to lose my lunch. A couple of stats, just for fun. The rally stage is around two miles long, and Phil – getting no small amount of pleasure in listening to me squeak – took

Dialog Semiconductor, maker of the DA8620 PMOLED driver, has announced that Lenovo will be using the driver in the S800, its new transparent feature phone. The S800 has a transparent color display, which uses the SmartXtend driver technology produced by Dialog. The technology helps to optimize the power use of the transparent display. PMOLEDs provide better picture and color quality, and viewing angle than LCD displays. This device will have QVGA resolution. The SmartXtend technology used in the display includes a multi-line addressing scheme, pre-charge schemes, and accurate dynamic current matching to reduce the average power consumption of the display, and also extend its lifetime. “I am delighted to announce Lenovo as the first commercial adopter of our SmartXtend OLED driver IC. Lenovo has a well founded reputation for implementing cutting edge technologies, and I have no doubt the S800 handset will exceed consumer expectations while providing a new user experience with its transp

Is LEGO better than coffee for getting through your day? I wouldn’t skip the caffeine, but you can definitely check these out. We have here two separate LEGO projects, both impressive in their own right, for distinctly different reasons. They’re both built with the Technic line. The first is an adjustable stand so that bad pixel over at instructables could play Game Boy on his Nexus One using a Wiimote. The second is a robotic factory line with four fully articulated picker arms, or as Chris Shepherd aka LegoShep aka TheOnlyShep calls it, the Lego Quad Delta Robot System. Both of these projects have videos demonstrating their articulated operation. We’ll start by looking at a short clip demoing bad pixel’s smartphone stand. You see, it’s a relatively simple project. The levers and gears come together to make something workable so bad pixel could get his Wiimote-driven GameBoy emulation on in peace. It’s a decent solution to a specific problem using stuff he already had laying around.

If you really want to go all out when enjoying your music, check these out. Colorware has come out with a limited edition finish for Beats by Dr. Dre headphones: Chrome. These are not your everyday headphones, and there are being produced in a limited run. Each one will be uniquely engraved. They are powered, noise-cancelling headphones with extra-large 40mm drivers. There will only be 50 sets of headphones produced, each with a chrome finish. They will be numbered with the # of 50, and also with “Colorware Collection” on the side. There will also be “Beats by dr dre” engraved on the top of the headband. The Studio headphones by themselves sell for $349.95, but if you agree that “You deserve to have the best, and nothing says “elite” better than this”, you will not settle for that. Oh no. You will plunk down your $1,000 for these custom, limited edition ‘phones. Specs: Powered Isolation technology actively reduces external noise for crystal-clear sound; advanced speaker design Extra-l

Apple has been named the least green of tech companies in a controversial new Greenpeace evaluation, due to its use of energy from coal-fueled power stations. The league table – which ranks Yahoo! as the greenest company, followed by Google and Amazon – is part of Greenpeace’s “How Dirty is Your Data?” report that will be released today. It suggests that Apple’s new North Carolina data center – expected to be the epicenter of new MobileMe and cloud-based services – will triple the company’s electricity consumption. In fact, Greenpeace estimates that the facility will suck down the equivalent consumption of 80,000 average US homes. That electricity will come from Duke Energy, which uses 62-percent coal and 32-percent nuclear sources. It’s the coal use which gets Apple a particularly low score, with an 54.5-percent overall data center reliance on coal energy (compared to Facebook at 53.2-percent and IBM at 51.6-percent). Greenpeace was forced to use estimates in its calculations, since