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A previously little-known company from the UK called Light Blue Optics has demoed a projector at CES which allows users to interact with the light image as if it were a touchscreen.

The Light Touch throws a 10-inch image at WVGA resolution at incredibly short distances thanks to the holographic projection technology involved. At the same time the infra-red touch sensitive system allows users to interact with social networks, multimedia sharing and any other applications that can use the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth support in the device to connect to the Internet.

It comes with 2GB of onboard flash memory, a microSD card slot for expanding the storage and the battery life will last 2 hours. Expect to hear more from this one on the OEM front as interest grows.

Pre-Launch

Content and Style

Typography and layout

Check for incorrect punctuation marks, particularly apostrophes, quotation marks and hyphens/dashes

Check headings for where you could potentially use ligatures

Check for widow/orphan terms in important paragraphs

Spelling and grammar

Consistency

Capitalisation (especially of main headings)

Tense/Style of writing

Recurring/common phrases (e.g. ‘More about X’ links)

Variations in words (e.g. Websites vs Web Sites, or UK vs US spelling)

Treatment of bulleted lists (e.g. periods or commas at end of each item)

Check for hard-coded links to staging domain (i.e. ensure all links will change to ‘live’ URL/domain when site is launched)

Ensure no test content on site

Check how important pages (e.g. content items) print

For re-designs, ensure important old/existing URLs are redirected to relevant new URLs, if the URL scheme is changing

Check all ‘Hidden Copy’ (e.g. alt text, transcriptions, text in JavaScript functions)

Standards and Validation

Accessibility

HTML validation

JavaScript validation

CSS validation

Search Engine Visibility, SEO and Metrics

Page Titles are important; ensure they make sense and have relevant keywords in them.

Create metadata descriptions for important pages.

Check for canonical domain issues (e.g. variations in links to http://site.com http://www.site.com http://www.site.com/index.html should be reduced to a single consistent style)

Ensure content is marked-up semantically/correctly (<h1>, etc.)

Check for target keyword usage in general content

Check format (user/search engine friendliness) of URLs

Set up Analytics, FeedBurner, and any other packages for measuring ongoing success

Create an XML Sitemap

Configure Google Webmaster Console and Yahoo! Site Explorer

Functional Testing

Check all bespoke/complex functionality

Check search functionality (including relevance of results)

Check on common variations of browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome etc.), version (6, 7, 2.2, 3.1 etc.) and platform (Windows, OSX, Linux)

Check on common variations of Screen Resolution

Test all forms (e.g. contact us, blog comments), including anti-spam features, response emails/text, etc.

Test without JavaScript, Flash, and other plug-ins

Check all external links are valid

Security/Risk

Configure backup schedule, and test recovery from backup.

Protect any sensitive pages (e.g. administration area)

Use robots.txt where necessary

Security/Penetration test

Turn-off verbose error reporting

Check disk space/capacity

Set-up email/SMS monitoring/alerts (e.g. for errors, server warnings); consider internal and external monitoring services

Performance

Load test

Check image optimisation

Check and implement caching where necessary

Check total page size/download time

Minify/compress static (JavaScript/HTML/CSS) files

Optimise your CSS: use short image paths; make full-use ‘cascading’ nature of CSS, etc.

Check correct database indexing

Check configuration at every level (Web server, Database, any other software e.g. Content Management System)

Configure server-based logging/measurement tools (e.g. database/web server logging)

Finishing Touches

Create custom 404/error pages

Create a favicon

Post-Launch

Marketing

Social Marketing: Twitter, LinkedIn, Digg, Facebook, Stumbleupon, etc.

Submit to search engines

Set-up PPC/Google Adwords where necessary

Check formatting of site results in SERPs

Ongoing

Monitor and respond to feedback (direct feedback, on Social Media sites, check for chatter through Google, etc.)

Check analytics for problems, popular pages etc. and adjust as necessary

Update content

Adham is my friend, He has entered Concordia University’s “La Joie de Montréal” contest in hopes of winning a fully paid scholarship to attend summer school in Montréal.

Please support him by pressing on “ Like”  at the page of his profile.

The Skinny Player kinda reminds me of the O+ Music Campaign where the promotional kit offers one song in various mediums. The concept here with the Skinny Player is to offer one album space on a portable – Band Aid-esque device. The self-sticking player houses a play/stop button and flexible speakers. Although I am not so sure about the sound quality for the output, but the idea is worth exploring. The user-scenario is for exercise or such places where you want to keep your hands free, but still carry your music with you.
The unique angle to the player is that hopes to use your body heat for powering the device. Now if this is possible or utopian , is left to be seen.

Designers: Chih-Wei Wang & Shou-Hsi Fu

via Yankodesign

For their sponsored project held by RIM Blackberry at the Art Center College of Design, designers Kiki and Daniel had to incorporate an interface that integrates human emotions with the concept of social networking. The result of this exercise was the Empathy concept. The phone is used in conjunction with a biometrics ring that is worn by the user to collect “emotional data”. Spec-wise it features a transparent OLED screen that becomes transparent when not in use and opaque during interaction. The front is all touch surface, while on the back there is a physical keyboard.

As Daniel describes the interface:

It is of course touch based and all the user’s connections are shown graphically so you can see who is connected to whom. Each contact has an avatar that is encompassed by two colored rings. The inner colored ring shows the contact’s previous emotional state, and the outer ring represents the contact’s current emotional state. It is important to show the shift in emotions in order to see how an event has affected that contact.

Another important feature that we felt was important was the “Emotional Health Chart”. This chart would monitor the user’s emotional health through an indefinite period of time. One would be able to see how a certain event, or phone call/ message has affected the user. Obviously, if the chart shows someone is always upset, there would be a problem… If permitted, a user would be able to view other user’s charts as well.

Designers: Kiki Tang & Daniel Yoon

How would you like your very own take-it-home apply-it-yourself wind power generator? How about a whole array of them? This is a design that’s just that, take it home, unpack it, screw it into the wall, connect it to whatever battery you’ve got that can hold generated power, and let it rip! This design is made up of blades, the generator, a telescopic shaft (so that the fan can be extended or “away”, electric power plug, and switch. With an array of 15 of these fans, you can power a household of four people for a month.

Oh my goodness! One of these fans, called “Wind Cubes”, could potentially generate 21.6 kilowatt-hours per month. Times that by fifteen, and you’ve got 324 kw, the same amount the designers of this project note is the amount a family of four uses per month. Seems too perfect!

The way these “cubes” work is to be attached to a wall (outside) with three screws, click the switch to activate, and sit back to enjoy the power your mother earth is providing. Multiple cubes can be connected to not only generate more power, but strengthen their collective structure, and the fans can be pulled out or pushed back and away depending on the weather.

DO WANT, VERY VERY MUCH. Can you imagine it? Free electricity! No wonder this is a Liteon Award winning design this year! Hooray!

Designers: Liao-Hsun Chen and Wen-Chih Chang

Via Yanko Design

First, the phone itself has a sleek candybar design you should all be relatively familiar with. The iPhone and a slew of Android-based phones look right along these lines, and this looks fabulous. Hollow parts at the top and bottom of the phone “ensure that it is being charged wirelessly” though how that’s accomplished appears to be a trade secret. The phone is thin, streamlined, and made to fit naturally in the palm of your hand.

Once the phone is placed in its cradle, the magnets inside begin to do their work. Once charging begins, the magnetic stick is puled away from the column and the phone floats. As the phone begins to float, the screen of the phone turns to a pre-selected screen of the users choice, one of several scenes: water gradually rising or falling or blue sand in an hourglass, for example. As most cellphones are charged at night, a dim light is emitted from the back of the charge unit for a unique atmosphere (and a simple way for you to be able to find the phone if you’ve got to get to it in the dark.)

When a call comes in, things get REAL interesting. Magnets on the bottom of the cradle activate, forcing the phone to rotate. Text and icon activation on the screen of the phone appear three-dimensional “due to an after-image effect.” This situation also occurs upon receiving a text message or your alarm clock rings. The designers of this project aim for this effect to convey vibrancy which cannot be experienced with a static screen, and vitality through animated graphics on the screen as the phone rotates as well.

What a wild and wacky and fantastical concept!

Designers: In-oh Yoo and Sun-woong Oh for Metatrend Institute

Most brain-computer interfaces are designed to help disabled people communicate or move around. A new project is using this type of interface to help computers perform tasks they can’t manage on their own. In experiments, researchers used the interface to sort through satellite images for surface-to-air missiles faster than any machine or human analyst could manage alone.

"With Google, you have to type in words to describe what you’re interested in," says Paul Sajda, an associate professor at Columbia University. "But let’s say I’m interested in something ‘funny looking.’ "

Sajda explains that computers struggle to classify images according to this kind of abstract concept, but humans can do it almost instantly. Electrical signals within the brain fire before a person even realizes he’s recognized an image as odd or unusual.

Sajda’s device, called C3Vision (cortically coupled computer vision), uses an electroencephalogram (EEG) cap to monitor brain activity as the person wearing it is shown about 10 images per second. Machine-learning algorithms trained to detect the neurological signals that signify interest in an image are used to analyze this brain activity. By monitoring these signals, the system rapidly ranks the images in terms of how interesting they appear to the viewer. The search is then refined by retrieving other images that are similar to those with the highest rank. "It’s a search tool that allows you to find images that are very similar to those that have grabbed your attention," says Sajda.

At the speed at which it works, the conscious brain is unable to register a "hit." But the neurological visual pathways work much faster, says Sajda. The brain produces distinct electrical signals that can be detected and decoded by the 64 EEG electrodes within the cap. "It’s on the edge of the subconscious," he says.

Most brain-computer interface research is focused on harnessing conscious processes, says Eric Leuthardt, director of the Center for Innovation in Neuroscience and Technology at Washington University School of Medicine. "Reading our brain signals and being able to distinguish ‘interesting’ from ‘not interesting’ prior to us having a conscious perception of seeing the item tells us that there is a substantial amount of processing that our brain does prior to the conscious awareness of the perception."

Andrew Blake, a computer vision expert and managing director of Microsoft Research Cambridge, in the U.K., says that "controlling machines directly from brain activity is a subject of intense research interest, but it is very difficult to obtain precise control, particularly without invasive methods."

Sajda calls the approach "information triage" because it uses limited information from the brain to help refine an image search. "The key is, we don’t show the whole database. We take a small sample and show it very rapidly," says Sajda. "From 10,000 images, we may show just 100 or so."

This process can deliver any images that grab the subject’s attention. "One of the cool things about the idea is, if you see something new you didn’t expect, and it grabs your attention, then this will also get a relatively high score," he says.

Sajda and colleagues at Columbia have founded a spinoff company called Neuromatters to commercialize the technology with $4.6 million in funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Along with military applications, Sajda says possible applications might include advanced gaming interfaces and neuro-marketing. "It could be used for getting demographic feedback on how much an advert grabs people’s attention," he says.

VIA TECHNOLOGY  REVIEW

Atmos is a design study of an electric concept car with an original design characterized by scultped surfaces and distinctive graphic elements. The project was developed by Tronatic, a French graphic design studio.