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Each time I’m viewing a web page relating to gastronomy, I just feel it sad that I cannot smell the meal cooking. Thus I was quite excited once seeing the “Olly” Internet Smellit Device. However, the “Olly” isn’t something directly changing web pages into fragrance, but basically a smelly chime that releases a puff of fragrance at a predetermined event, such as the time you’re browsing Tweet, Facebook, YouTube and so on. It’s quite easy to use the device: simply insert the fragrance into a removable plastic tray, connect the device with your computer, pre-determine several web pages you frequently view, and then done!

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Recently, scientists from South Korea have achieved a transmission rate of up to 10Mbps in an experiment with human arm, rather than the conventional internet connections. The research is based on skin’s high efficiency of transmitting date. Compared with wireless devices that rely on batteries, the device could reduce the energy needs for a monitoring network by 90% or so, and that’s really a significant discovery for us to save the limited energy. Hopefully that will be soon developed into medical devices, which could reduce the needs of messy electrical wires, by monitoring the blood sugar or electrical activity in the heart. [Read the rest of this entry...]

No doubt the development of technology has greatly changed our life, and we wouldn’t agree with that more after we’ve seen the continuous improvement of LED films. Dubbed LightForm, the world’s first flexible LED lighting film measure 254mm long and 12.7mm wide, with an average thickness of less than 1mm. Moreover, it could be easily cut into various shapes, according to your different needs—attaching them onto your car or even sew them onto your clothes. Available in red, amber, green and blue colors, the LED film is priced from $ 26.95 (no battery included) to $29.95 (a battery included). [Read the rest of this entry...]

Like most conventional lamps, the Airswitch1 here is still controlled by your hands, but in a totally different way. It could sense your hands, changing its light intensity when you raise your hand vertically and switching on/off if you move your hand horizontally above the lamp. Cool! [Read the rest of this entry...]

Memory Drops—as its name implies—is something designed for guiding the users to find items easily. It works more or less in the same way as the navigation systems, but using the sound rather than images. What you have to do is to stick the small drops onto your items, and press the button on the keychain-shaped device to make your belongings sound when you’re looking for them. [Read the rest of this entry...]

While most researchers are trying to improve the touchscreen interfaces used on PC, cellphones and MP3 players, Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft have developed a touch-interface for your skin. That’s really terrific! The ‘Skinput’ includes a micro-sized pico projector, which is embedded in an armband to beam an interface on the skin. But it actually uses an acoustic detector —which would match the sound frequencies with specific skin locations—to recognize which part  you’ve tapped. The revolutionary technology also supports wireless applications like Bluetooth.

Video after the jump. [Read the rest of this entry...]

After a lengthy nine months of development, IBM has recently announced its new thin-film solar cell, which is made from cheaper materials while features an efficiency of 9.6% (40% higher than previous prototypes). The new thin film technology uses copper, tin, zinc, sulfur and selenium to take the place of traditional copper indium gallium selenide or cadmium telluride. Besides, the researchers also adopt a new kind of solvent- hydrazine, which is less costly and decomposes more easily. Instead of manufacturing the cells, IBM claims that they’d prefer to license out the new technology when the time comes. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Compared with conventional digital mouse, the “SPHEREtouch” from OreObject not only features a distinctively circular shape, but integrates a large horizontal scroll wheel and two touch-sensitive buttons, allowing you to use it more freely and easily. Finished in steel ($155), titanium ($175) and platinum ($225), “SPHEREtouch” is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Mac OS X Leopard version 10.4. Both right and left-handed people will find great convenience with the mouse. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Creative Factor: The digital mouse becomes an integrated part of your body.

Who has ever thought that one day we could wear the digital mouse on our hands just as we’re wearing the gloves? But that’s not merely an exciting concept and Canadian firm Deanmark Ltd has come up with a radical wearable mouse- the ‘AirMouse’. It integrates the right and left click-buttons in the palm and uses an optical laser for operation. Since every part of the ‘AirMouse’ fits the ligaments on your wrists and hands so well that the cool mouse also ensures you enough flexibility. As a result, you won’t have to be bothered by the painful rollers any more. Besides, the users could easily type on the keyboard without removing the mouse. You love it? Then you’ll be glad to know that the revolutionary mouse will be on the market by the end of 2010 for $129. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Guess what, you will hear your own voice announcing certain direction when using the GPS devices! Isn’t that amazing? The free Windows-only application takes the users only 30 minutes to record the needed directions with their own voices. Just try it. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Human Media Lab at Queen’s University in Ontario has developed these interactive OLED gaming tiles, which are surely to challenge current toys on the market. By connecting different tiles to each other, you can easily change the gaming background and participant members. And for extra fun, you can flip the tiles to create some unique effects: for example, when you flip the tile full with water to another tile, the water will flow into that tile, just as you can see from the picture on the right side. [Read the rest of this entry...]

The Boogie Board LCD Tablet may be the best replacement of paper and pen for your usual writing. It features a Reflex LCD screen (a pressure-sensitive and flexible plastic) to display images or words you’ve written on its surface with a pen, a stick or your fingers. Though claimed needing no power to activate the screen, the device still requires a small watch battery to erase the screen. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Memopad and USB seem to be unrelated to each other. But a Japanese company has successfully combined those two things together into the so-called ‘Memopad USB’. It is a 2GB USB flash disk with 100 pieces of scribbling paper for people to take down messages. Sadly the product is only sold in Japan and it is priced at 2680 YEN. [Read the rest of this entry...]

WIFI extenders are not new to us, but the BearExtender n3 is still refreshing. It is an external Wi-Fi adapter for Macs and developed by Rolan Saekow, a graduate from Berkeley. Shown in TUAW’s testing, the BearExtender could help to create stronger signals and higher throughput when used over the internal Wi-Fi. And such a device only costs you $44.97. Sounds like a good deal. [Read the rest of this entry...]

Based on the Holographic Laser Projection technology, Light Touch is an interactive projector that can create bright images on flat surfaces like the wall, the table and therefore allow the users to enjoy movies or play the game all the time. And the device takes the very name from that act. But why could the user interact with the machine? That largely attributes to the built-in infrared sensors, which can detect the users’ motion and change the projected image into a virtual touch screen. [Read the rest of this entry...]