General Motors and the FUTURE LAB at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Israel have collaborated to create the Windows of Opportunity Project (WOO). General Motors challenged the students at the design academy to develop a technology that conceptualizes new ways for vehicle passengers, especially children, to have a richer and more interactive experience while on the road.

According to World Car Fans, the WOO project was “inspired by psychological studies indicating that car passengers often feel disconnected from their environment. GM asked the Bezalel students to turn car windows into interactive displays capable of stimulating awareness, nurturing curiosity and encouraging a stronger connection with the world outside the vehicle.”

One concept involves children interacting and playing with the window by drawing on it as one would with cold temperatures outside the vehicle. Another app involves a little creature that travels with passengers as they’re on the move while interacting with the vehicle’s speed and changing landscape. The enabling technology for the apps is the same technology used for augmented reality.

Thomas Seder, GM R&D lab group manager for human-machine interface explains that, “Unlike my generation where I explored the world with my dad’s tools, the kids today are exploring the world with a digital toolbox. So we’re trying to create applications that they can use to really understand in an intuitive way how the world works.”

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LocalSort, an Umbono-funded company, wanted to change the informal way in which hotels and guesthouses recommend services to their guests.

As a result, the company offers a marketplace where service providers like shuttle and tour operators, restaurants and tourist attractions can bid on how much commission they are willing to pay for exposure and new business. The hotels and guesthouses can then use the interface to recommend these services to their guests. Non-accommodation providers can therefore add their businesses to LocalSort so hotels and guesthouses can refer guests to their service. LocalSort keeps a percentage of the commission as a fee for making the connection. With LocalSort, accommodation providers can easily print maps, directions and even email guests with a things-to-do checklist before their arrival.

LocalSort was founded by Marcel van de Ghinste, Jonathan Womersley, Justin Womersley and David McLennan, all four of whom were involved in a previous venture that is still in operation called TravelGround, founded in 2009. It was through the building of TravelGround, that the team saw a further opportunity in the online tourism industry. ”When we started TravelGround none of us had any experience in the tourism industry. In some ways our ignorance was a blessing. It turned out to be much harder than we thought, but in the end we’re really proud of what we’ve achieved,” says Marcel van de Ghinste.

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On Sunday 4th December, 6 teams presented their services as part of the Demo Night of Garage48, an event that serves to build new web and mobile service working prototypes in one single weekend. The winner, Mediminder, that is building a mobile app platform for African healthcare was announced at the Vodacom World centre in Johannesburg.

Garage 48, supported by international companies Google, Vodacom and Blackberry,  is known as a very intensive course for IT entrepreneurs that focuses on bringing ideas into real life through teamwork and motivating deadlines. It also helps talented developers to get in contact with successful entrepreneurs in Europe and America. The various teams that participate, compete to have the best start-up idea implemented. The event that began in Estonia in April 2010, has since spread to other countries in Northern Europe and Africa including Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

The winner of the Johannesburg event’s app, Mediminder, improves the effectiveness of medication, by encouraging individuals to take their medication at the correct time and in the long term aims to build information channels between doctors and patients. This is particularly relevant in South Africa, that has the biggest population of HIV infections in the world.

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The controversial internet hacking group known as Anonymous has created a retrospective video called “LulzXmas” that looks back at a year of anarchy and subversive activism. The video provides some insight into what some of its members remember as significant incidences of 2011.

The video is a complicated, disjointed montage of images including news headlines, popular YouTube videos, documentation,  Anonymous’ exposure in the public and other seemingly random imagery. While the video doesn’t give a clear idea of the groups’ perspective, it does comment on censorship, public unrest and revolution.

Anonymous announced the video in the following tweet: “@YourAnonNews: ANONYMOUS LULZXMAS VIDEO: http://t.co/rSqwQ3Gg We made a list, checked it twice. Gonna find out what companies have been naughty…not nice.”

The tweet is a clear warning to all companies that have been naughty over the past year, implying that they they will be punished as Anonymous states in the introduction of the video: ” We do not forgive and we do not forget”.

Watch Anonymous’s LulzXmas video below:

Source: Mashable

You might have noticed that YouTube has officially rolled out its brand new design to all users that they began testing out in mid November. The re-design comes as the next step in an entire aesthetic change for Google having first launched Google+ as a social network rival for Facebook, followed by a revamped Gmail, Google Analytics and most recently the Google bar.

The search giant’s streaming video arm launched a total site overhaul with the aim of reshaping the entire media landscape around the concept of ‘the channel’. Until now, Google concedes that YouTube viewers haven’t seen the site as a destination for channels filled with varying content, but rather a place to view different videos found on the web. With the re-design Google intends for the YouTube audience to become a destination site for media. Instead of presenting a grid with random one-off videos, the front page features a feed running down the center of the site, that displays the top channels in a user’s stream. Every feed will look different, with selected channels based on YouTube recommendations and sitewide viewing trends, what a user’s friends are sharing on Facebook, Twitter and Google+, as well as those channels specifically chosen by the viewers themselves. The overall design is cleaner and more streamlined.

The redesign and new layout also serves to enhance the experience of users discovering new content that interests them who may have previously found it difficult to navigate the millions of videos uploaded on the site in search of what they liked.  A.J. Crane, YouTube product manager explains that “we are trying to make everyone an effective programmer on YouTube.”

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After recently rolling out the new redesign for Gmail and Google Analytics in November, Google has released a video of their new navigation bar on their official blog as part of the next stage of their redesign. The Google bar will enable users to easily and simply navigate between services as well as share content on Google+.

The black horizontal bar at the top of the screen will now be replaced with a new Google menu that will drop-down from the Google logo.

Watch the video below:

ExoPC has developed what could be the desk of the future  - a new 40-inch HD multi-touch desk on which the user’s monitor, keyboard and mouse can be placed, called the EXOdesk.

ExoPC who will officially be announcing the product at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2012, has uploaded a teaser video onto YouTube to showcase just a few of its features. The video shows a widget hub in the corner of the desk that can launch applications on the screen and the ability to pull down a timeline populated with news information, RSS feeds, tweets and other alerts from the top corner of the table. All applications can be easily swiped away out of sight and widgets and screen settings are all customisable.

While the EXOdesk isn’t the first in multi-touch desk technology with Samsung  having recently announced its Samsung SUR40, a 40-inch, 1080p multitouch table running Microsoft’s Surface software, the EXOdesk differentiates itself with its affordable price tag. The SUR40, designed primarily for business use and as a computer replacement, can be purchased for a staggering $8,400 (about R71, 990) while the EXOdesk, more of a computer supplement and desk replacement is offered at just $1,299 (about R11, 130), a bargain in comparison.

Watch the EXOdesk teaser video below:

source: Gizmag

A hacker, known as plamoni, has created a Siri proxy server that could allow anyone to use it and make it function with a wide range of non-Apple devices.

A development firm called Applidium, hacked Siri’s security protocol and has explained the process so it can be available for anyone to use. Siri is a personal assistant application for iOS, that Apple acquired last year, that when prompted by voice commands, can perform a variety of tasks.

One implementation of Siri + the proxy server is sending commands to any standard thermostat with Wi-Fi capabilities. Plamoni has taught Siri (no jailbreak required) to send commands over the network. If anyone is interested, the source code is available for free online. Anyone with an iPhone 4S unique identifier and knowledge of networking can get it working. Setting up Siri to control your home’s temperature involves the use of a DNS server that uses a proxy to send requests to Siri’s server. The hack lets Siri control the thermostat by adjusting the temperature with the current temperature being relayed.

Plamoni stated that the hack will only let a user run Siri on the iPhone 4S.

View the Siri proxy demo video below:

source: macstories.net