N!ERGY TENT: Camping in the digital age

JUST when I thought camping was the last resort for getting away from the digital world and getting back in touch with nature, ‘camping specialists’ release what they call the N!ergy tent.

What this modern day tent does is allow one to recharge and make use of a variety of 12volt gadgets within this secluded eight-man fabric bubble. While the birds and wildlife creatures experience the real outdoors, the N!ergy tent camper can operate a DVD player, MP3 player, hair dryer, a weather station, and even vacuum their home-resembling living space. With a concealed wiring system, yet a glitzy array of glowing outlets, the tent looks like a mini Hollywood – with all the best of home entertainment concealed inside.

Eureka N!ergy Tent

Products such as these are giving new meaning to “roughing it out in the outdoors”, but to experienced campers the N!ergy tent should be seen as an abomination of the true camping experience. What will become of the days of sitting around a smoky campfire, roasting marshmallows, and bonding with nature and one’s family? Camping is just not what it used to be.

But for those who enjoy their comfort yet wish to disillusion themselves with an experience of ‘camping’, the N!ergy tent might be just for you. Allah forbid that the product ever reaches South African shores, but for those who wish to import such crap it goes for $279 (roughly R2000 by today’s standards).

But don’t be fooled yet – the E! Power Pak (battery) comes separately at another $60 (R480). But for the patriotic campers who aren’t afraid to really rough it out and be away from their iPod and hair dryer for a few days, you can pick up a decent tent for about 500 bucks.

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iPAPER: Digital paper that stores hand-written notes and sketches

THE other day I wrote a hand-written letter and found that my hand-writing looked like barbed wire. I realised that it had been a good while since I had used any hand-writing skills due to my increasing reliance on typing everything. It seems obvious to me that the archaic technology of hand-writing is being slowly killed by digital technologies, creating what has been called the paper-digital divide. Yet just when the patriotic hand-writers thought things couldn’t get worse, society unleashed something called “digital paper” or iPaper.

With the use of a digital pen iPaper allows hand-written notes, or sketches, to be digitally captured and stored. The ‘ink’ absorbs light transmitted from the digital pen, which contains a receiver that interprets the pattern of light reflected from the paper. This is creating new possibilities for publishing new forms of interactive based documents without having to worry about your pen running out of ink!

What seems more intriguing is that iPaper allows users to develop a wide range of interactive paper-based interfaces and applications without having to do any programming. Furthermore, active areas on the paper can be linked to and from a wide range of physical and digital media including web pages, images, video, flash animations, databases and RFID tags as well as application programs.

Some of the more interesting and useful applications that have been developed thus far include:

• A presentation tool suitably called PaperPoint. This is taking PowerPoint presentations to a new level by allowing one to control the presentation via a paper-based user interface.
• In Edinburgh they’ve created a tourist information system which provides users with information on venues and events at the Edinburgh festivals. Tourists are also able to enter and share reviews on the spot.
• In Zurich they’ve created a city map which provides digital information on restaurants, cinemas, shopping facilities and so on.
• And one that is not just for tourists, but which also applies to digital journalists, is the “paper-based travel diary” – allowing one to integrate hand-written notes with pictures taken from a digital camera.

So for those of us who are still great appreciators of the art of hand-writing there's still hope for maintaining our craft whilst keeping abreast of the latest in digital technologies.

Related post: Will e-readers end the Age of the Book?

Links:

• Digital Paper Portal
• Video: Digital Paper demonstration
• Global Information Systems Group

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BIOMETRICS: Finger scanning could replace keys, bank cards & passwords

Finger scanning technologies have been a focal point of futuristic films such as Minority Report for years, yet they are currently finding their ‘footing’ in the real world. In fact they are likely to become an integral part of people’s everyday lives just as keys, bank cards and passwords are today.

A recent example of a finger-scanning technology is a cash machine developed by Hitachi in Japan, which uses a biometric security system that allows users to pay by simply having their finger scanned. The system scans and identifies the user’s veins on their finger – serving as a regular credit or ATM card.

Hitachi plans to launch an experiment in September this year to see whether it is commercially viable to introduce the system to banks, shops and other businesses. However, related technology is already being used by Japanese banking giants such as Mitsubishi to identify clients.

Biometric cash machine

Today such technologies can be found in police stations, high-security buildings and on PC keyboards. The pros and plentiful – such as not having to carry around credit cards, memorize PIN numbers and access codes, and being freed from the anxiety of losing one’s digitized identity as a consumer (it’s not exactly easy to lose one’s fingerprint). However, several cons exist too: instead of being asked for “your money or your life” you might now be faced with having to give up a finger instead!

Movies have already illustrated this worst case scenario (i.e. using a severed hand or finger to get past a scanner security system), yet technological innovations are finding ways to equip machines with heat and pulse detectors to verify whether a finger is in fact alive or not. However, all is not cream and cake; such systems can still be fooled by the more skillful criminal making use of gelatin or print molds of a real finger.

Although the pros seem to outweigh the cons when it comes to unleashing finger-scanning technologies on a mass scale, one can understand the anxieties of the everyday consumer. What it basically boils down to is that if “somebody steals your fingerprints, you’re pretty much out of luck for the rest of your life”.

Related post: The Power of Thumb

Links:
www.physorg.com
www.engadget.com
www.howstuffworks.com

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TECHNOLOGY: A whiff of the modern cellphone

THE cellphone has become one of the most widely used digital technologies in everyday life. However, current cellular innovations appear to be both exciting and potentially dangerous at the same time.

The Health Concept Phone (pictured) is equipped with eNose technology, which effectively allows it to electronically “smell” what you eat and keep track of your food intake. It is able to ‘recognise’ food (and other things) by its unique chemical signature. Recommended for people who have a habit of eating with their eyes closed. Similar cellphones have the ability to emit a whiff of your significant other’s scent every time he or she calls.

New cellular features (and what one can actually do with a modern cellphone) are taking the lead in incorporating the latest and greatest technical innovations. Interestingly, cellphones equipped with such state-of-the-art technology are becoming increasingly popular in countries such as South Africa as opposed to those who one might refer to as the 'digital elite'.

The most striking (and perhaps most frightening) ideas are to create cellphones that come closer to human nature than we might like to believe. Electronic giant Samsung is planning to create a cellphone that has “artificial chromosomes” built within, and will be able to ‘think’, ‘feel’, ‘evolve’ and even ‘reproduce’. The concept seems close to the earlier invention of the Tamagotchi – a digital creature that adjusts its ‘life’ according to the personality and actions of its owner.

Other companies have already customised the cellphone for social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook, which they say “effectively allows you to carry your social life in your pocket”. No human contact needed.

The notion that we are living in an expanding visual and digital culture is becoming more apparent by the development of such technologies. Perhaps the most exciting modern cellphone feature that manufacturers are focusing on at the moment is video. Several companies are talking about making it possible for millions of people to simultaneously stream live video and TV channels via their phones. Music fans may receive the most recent music videos by their favourite bands instantaneously — a concept being coined as ultrareality.

As exciting as these developments sound, the luddites (technology pessimists) will tell us that this is not all cream and cake. And no, these are not all hippies that protest against technology, but clued-up intellectuals who know what they are talking about. An article published in the Washington Times describes how digital experts in the Middle East are making use of cellphones to trigger off road-side bombs. James Bond films also illustrate how the modern cellphone is, rather accurately, used in the spy industry for corruption purposes.

The pace that such developments are taking do have the danger of blinding one to their negative possibilities. However, the idea of getting a whiff of your significant other’s scent through your cellphone every time he or she calls is both crazy and exciting.

Interesting Links:

• Mobbed by Mobile Media
• Top popped on what cellphone technology can do for us
• Cell-phone technology - an explosive tool for insurgents

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