I love science fiction. I’ve always been a geek since I was kid so my world was filled with fantasy and science fiction. It’s a love that I have carried with me even in my later years as evidenced by my growing collection at home. This love has also carried over to my choice of gadgets. [Read more…]
Rocking chairs have never gone out of fashion, although one almost always thinks of their grandma when these comfy chairs are mentioned. Then again, you see all sorts of rocking chairs these days, and many of them your grandma would never think of buying!
Now a group of geniuses from MIT have created the rocking chair of the future. Dubbed the MIT SOFT Rocker, it is more than your ordinary rocking chair. It can function as an outdoor lounge, and it can even recharge your plethora of gadgets!
The best thing about the SOFT Rocker is that it does not need to be plugged in to provide you the juice that you need. It has a built-in array of solar panels at the top, which will soak up all of the sun’s rays. At the end of the day, you will have your own light and still be able to charge whatever device you have that is running low on power.
More than using the sun’s rays to power up, the SOFT Rocker also makes use of kinetic movement. As you shift and change your position, this piece of furniture also takes your movements into consideration by “using the human power of balance to create an interactive 1.5 axis 35 watt solar tracking system.” The Rocker does this courtesy of an “interactive real time energy feedback loop.”
The SOFT Rocker has a 12 ampere-hour battery that stores the charge that it collects from the sun, and you can charge devices via USB connection. The furniture is made of soft wood panels as well as a robotic arm.
I can already imagine having one of these in the balcony (if it fits), soaking in the warm tropical sun, and traveling the world via the Internet. Or maybe reading a book while listening to music coming from the iPod. No matter which I angle I look, this Rocker seems to be the perfect piece of outdoor furniture. Unless you live in Antartica.
Seriously, it really is a genius design, something which will probably have a place in the trendiest of lawns. And while there are no details as to the production date, pricing, and release, it looks like this concept is actually going to be more than a concept.
Via ARTS AT MIT
Does anybody here remember the Nokia N-gage? Not a lot of you, I’m sure. The N-Gage didn’t really make much of a splash when it first came out, which is sad, because it was way ahead of its time. Back then people scoffed at a gaming phone. I did too. The hardware available back then wasn’t really good for running games, and there wasn’t really a bunch of games you can actually play on the N-Gage platform.
Nokia’s taking another shot at the mobile gaming market with the Ovi Orion. The Ovi Orion is still conceptual as of now, and in theory, it looks like a good gaming phone.
According to Slashgear:
The Ovi Orion doesn’t abandon usability in its race to be a gaming device. We’re not entirely sure of the everyday usability of a QWERTY keyboard (and hidden one-line display) mounted on the back of the handset, but it certainly makes more sense than trying to squeeze a tiny numeric keypad on the fascia somewhere. With the rise of responsive capacitive touchscreens, meanwhile, users are more confident with the idea of non-traditional gaming interfaces.
Now, Nokia would only need a Snapdragon or any other similarly-powered processor slapped on this, and this looks like a great deal. Check out the video below to see how the Nokia Ovi Orion (technically) works. Personally, if Nokia wasn’t killing the N-Gage line, it would actually be a great device to revive the dying brand. I know they’re trying to go Ovi everywhere, but it could’ve worked for the line.