Emails, tweets, notifications, text and instant messages, Facebook status updates, Path moments — all these are new tools of communication when taken together are notification hell. These notifications prey on human desire for a dopamine fix. And just as we are over-caffenited, I think the 21st century is quickly making us over-notified.
(via tedr)
(via rahmin)
SolarFocus makes this solar powered case, which will keep your Kindle charged for three months.
If this didn’t have that wart on the top with a light attached, I’d buy this now.
This cover clarifies a few insights regarding solar power.
The greatest hindrance to solar power adoption is probably power consumption, not solar power output. SolarFocus isn’t making a breakthrough here; they’re just pairing solar panels with a device that barely sips from it’s battery. Perhaps solar will receive more usage not because of it’s own improvements, but because of improvements with digital power consumption.
I’d like to see e-ink and solar be paired more often. Together they inspire a design style that is wholly different from the current gadget aesthetic: a style that embraces light form, simple utility, and persistent function. This might allow designers to digitize tools which have never been within the economic reach of consumer technology. Think wall calendars, thermostats, traffic signs, menus outside of restaurants, etc.
Also, it’s a testament to the low price of the Kindle that at $80 this cover costs more than Amazon’s cheapest device.
“When you don the Ekso, you are essentially strapping yourself to a sophisticated robot. It supports its own 20-kilogram weight via the skeletal legs and footrests and takes care of the calculations needed for each step. Your job is to balance your upper body, shifting your weight as you plant a walking stick on the right; your physical therapist will then use a remote control to signal the left leg to step forward. In a later model the walking sticks will have motion sensors that communicate with the legs, allowing the user to take complete control.”
Good-bye, Wheelchair, Hello Exoskeleton - IEEE Spectrum, via mildlydiverting
This is data’s great challenge. Becoming something more than just an unread email. Becoming useful at the point it’s most needed.Your Health Data Might Be Just Another Unread Inbox (via davidhoffman)
(via davidhoffman)
Shabazz Palaces is like the Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band of hip-hop.
I guess that makes Butterfly the Don Van Vliet?
Nick Bilton reports on Google’s and Apple’s efforts to push the envelope on “wearable” computing (think: iPod bracelets or Android watches).
Currently, most people still have a desktop or a laptop as their main hub for their computing lives. Mine is still my two year old iMac.
In five years, the smartphone will be the main hub for most people. Desktops and laptops will still exist, of course. But most computing will be relayed through the phones we have on or near us at all times that are always connected to the web.
