Microsoft's Kinect powers 'magical' smart home in Spain

 

With a flick of the wrist, residents of a futuristic home developed in Spain can browse Internet pages displayed on the living room walls, switch off a giant projected alarm clock in the bedroom or transform the entire interior into a busy streetscape or tranquil beach.It may seem light years ahead of current "smart home" technology, but this prototype apartment in Fuenterrabia, a city in Spain's northern Basque country, is far from the realms of fantasy.
The technology used to create the interactive interior is the same as that already being used in video games.
The team behind the prototype have linked projectors which beam interactive applications on to walls to Kinect motion sensors, developed by Microsoft for its X-box 360 console, thus allowing residents to control their environment simply by waving their hands.
It seems to work like magic.
In the morning, a wave at the wall will switch off the alarm and display your diary at the same time.
If you fancy a change of scenery, just one small gesture will splash video on every wall, turning half of the apartment into a busy urban street or picturesque seascape, complete with sound effects.
"The project is a working prototype of a smart home," said its creator, Ion Cuervas-Mons, at a visual presentation of the project to AFP in Madrid.
"What we have done is to add a digital layer to a physical space to be able to interact with digital information through gestures, people's different movements," he said.
Cuervas-Mons launched the Openarch project in November 2011 and built the prototype in his own apartment.
He now leads the Think Big Factory, a core team of five architects and engineers, who collaborate with others to develop various products.
"There is a general interface, which is in the living room and which interacts with your hands," he explained.
"You go two metres away from the wall and move a type of cursor and you can switch lights on and off, turn music on and off, launch Internet sites, which then come up in a projection on another wall."
But the project is only 40 percent complete, he said.
"When we have finished the prototype, we will start to transform the applications into products. That is our goal for next year," he said.
The development team want to make the system unobtrusive so that a user can manipulate the gadgets in the most natural way possible.
Instead of trying to sell the entire interactive home system, the team aims to develop specific products from it.
But each product would be able to communicate, allowing a buyer to create a system for the entire house should they wish.
And homes are not the only destination for the technology, Cuervas-Mons said.
"For example, we have been working with a large retail business and the first sector where we might see this technology could be supermarkets," he said.
"This technology lets you convert non-commercial spaces into commercial spaces. You will be able to buy anywhere. You will be able to shop from your home, from the metro, from your car," he said. "I think this will totally change the way we shop."

Smart watches: Next frontier for Apple, Samsung, Sony

After the smartphone, the intelligent watch promises to become the latest hi-tech trend, allowing wearers to peek at messages and even take calls without touching their phones.

BARCELONA: After the smartphone, the intelligent watch promises to become the latest hi-tech trend, allowing wearers to peek at messages and even take calls without touching their phones. As speculation grows that Apple may be working on an iWatch, other players at the world's biggest mobile fair in Barcelona, including Japanese giant Sony, are already fighting for a place on customers' wrists.
Their target market is the person who's always glued to their smartphone, even in meetings or at the movies, or people who wish to monitor their heartbeat during exercise.
"The future in general is wearable devices," said Massimiliano Bertolini, chief executive of Italian firm i'm, as he showed off his flagship product, i'm Watch, at the industry event.
Available since 2011 and present in several European countries including Britain and Poland, it will go on sale in Spain's Corte Ingles department stores from next week, and could roll out with French retailers as soon as April, he said.
The smartwatch is an accessory to the smartphone, with which it communicates by Bluetooth wireless technology.
It means you can leave your phone in your pocket as you answer or reject a call, peruse emails or read updates from friends on Twitter or Facebook.
The i'm Watch features its own applications, too, such as i'm Sport, unveiled Monday, which links with a heart rate detector to allow a jogger to check his pulse. Such functions already exist in specialised sports watches but not on watches that are linked to smartphones, Bertolini said.
With a square aluminium frame, a 1.5-inch (3.8-centimetre) touch screen and a strap available in various colours, the watch has already found 30,000 buyers, 80 percent of them men aged mostly between 25 and 50.
"Seventy percent are iPhone users, 25 percent Samsung and the rest are other telephones using Google's Android operating system," he said.
The company aims to sell more than 200,000 watches in 2013, notably by targeting women with publicity emphasising its design rather than its technology.
Italian-made, it sells for a minimum of 300 euros ($390) for the basic model and prices climb to up to 16,000 euros for a luxury version in silver or encrusted with diamonds.
That leaves plenty of room in the market for competitors such as Sony's SmartWatch, a square, Android-compatible rival for your wrist that sells for about 130 euros or the $150 Pebble, a rectangular, Android- and iOS-compatible offering by the company of the same name, which raised $10 million in three weeks on "crowdfunding" site Kickstarter to develop the product.

Panasonic, Microsoft to release 4K Windows 8 tablet in 2013: Report

The 20-inch behemoth tablet from Panasonic that we came to know as "just a prototype" may actually see the light of a sales outlet sometime this year.

Back at CES, Panasonic had shown off a prototype tablet which measured 20 inches diagonally and ran Windows 8. The real show stealing highlight though happened to be the fact that it sported a 4K resolution display, which for the uninitiated, is 3840x2560 pixels, giving it a pixel density of 231 ppi.

If the latest reports are the believed, it would seem that both Panasonic and Microsoft are readying the 4K Windows 8 tablet for a consumer release sometime this year.

Given the tablet’s size and resolution, it would work splendidly for artists and architects and other such professionals who require large real estate to work on digital artwork. The Panasonic-Microsoft tablet could also work well in business offices as interactive user interfaces for kiosks etc.

As of now, all we know about the tablet is that it has a 20-inch screen and runs Windows 8 on a 4K-resolution LCD. We are not sure whether this is a Windows RT tablet, Windows 8 Pro. We don’t even know what sort of processor, RAM or storage this tablet has as of yet, but given the Panasonic is reportedly readying this for a release this year, we expect more details to be coming out soon.

Transparent 3D computer unveiled

TED fellow Jinha Lee has been working on the SpaceTop 3D desktop in collaboration with Microsoft.

LONDON: A transparent computer that allows users to reach inside and touch digital content has been unveiled at the Technology, Education and Design (TED) conference in Los Angeles.

TED fellow Jinha Lee has been working on the SpaceTop 3D desktop in collaboration with Microsoft.

Allowing people to interact with machines in the same way they do with solid objects could make computing much more intuitive, he told the BBC.

He can see the system coming into general use within a decade.

The system consists of a transparent LED display with built-in cameras, which track the user's gestures and eye movements.

The design was inspired by what he sees as a human need to interact with things.

"Spatial memory, where the body intuitively remembers where things are, is a very human skill," he said.

Translating this to the digital world will enable people to use computers more easily as well as complete more complex tasks.

"If you are working on a document you can pick it up and flip through it like a book," he said.

For more precise tasks, where hand gestures are not accurate, there is a touchpad. It will allow, for example architects to manipulate 3D models.

Your car is the next big smartphone accessory

Automobile giants at the world's biggest mobile fair are showing off a new technology that turns a car into a smartphone accessory.

BARCELONA: Automobile giants at the world's biggest mobile fair are showing off a new technology that turns a car into a smartphone accessory, allowing a driver to use cutting-edge apps without veering off the road.

Called MirrorLink, and adopted by 85 big manufacturers from Ford to General Motors, Chrysler, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, BMW, VW, Fiat or Renault, it connects a smartphone and car entertainment system with a two-way audio, video and data link.

"People are using their smartphone applications and services 80 percent of the time. The other 20 percent when they are not using them is when they are in the car," said Jorg Brakensiek, technical coordinator for the Car Connectivity Forum.

"For the driver there is no really safe mechanism for the driver to do that," he told AFP at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

MirrorLink requires a compliant car entertainment system and a smartphone with the software, which can be downloaded.

Drivers then can access their favourite apps.

The apps must meet legal requirements for screens that face drivers, for example the text must be a certain size and some functions such as typing must be disabled while the car is moving.

"The basic assumption is that the phone comes with the application," said Brakensiek.

"You use the car as an accessory."

Eventually, the MirrorLink technology will feed other data from the car to the smartphone, such as speed, location and even weather. That information can be used to develop new applications or improve other services, such as traffic news.

The Car Conectivity Forum, which groups nearly all car manufacturers, was set up to develop the technology two years ago.

The first MirrorLink compliant car entertainment systems have been released by the likes of Sony and JVC, for installation into existing vehicles.

The next step will be for manufacturers to build them into cars before sale.

The new technology avoids problems posed by the "smart car" in which manufacturers weld a SIM card into a vehicle so as to offer driver services such as navigation, SOS response and door unlocking, as well as paid-for entertainment.

One challenge is that the SIM card built into the car ties the owner to one operator for the car's life -- up to 15 years. To overcome this, car makers are trying to agree on a standard way to program the sim card by remote.

"From out point of view, remote SIM management becomes a key enabler, it becomes a game changer," BMW's project manager for telematic control units, Markus Kaindl, told a symposium at the mobile congress.

But there are other drawbacks, too.

Much of the hardware built into a car cannot keep up with the mobile industry's fast-pace developments, the car owner must pay for the SIM contract, and each manufacturer has its own platform for applications, making it difficult to attract developers.

Yet the "smartcar" services may live on alongside the MirrorLink technology, industry analysts said, especially in high-end cars.

General Motors, one of the leaders in the field with its OnStar service offering navigation and help for drivers, announced before the show it will embed 4G connectivity in all 2015 model cars in North America.

At the mobile show this week, it showed off an impressive concept car, a Cadillac, with all the latest connected gadgets.

It has streaming movies, dedicated apps, and a system that alerts an absent car owner that something has hit his car, and even lets him view the surrounding area on his smartphone via on-board surveillance cameras.

9 tips to make your passwords hack-proof

Rarely does a week go by without news of another hacking incident.

NEW YORK: Rarely does a week go by without news of another hacking incident, whether it's Chinese hackers accused of breaking in to The New York Times' computer systems or Burger King finding its Twitter account taken over by pranksters.

Security threats aren't new and have long been part of online life. But the increased attention on them makes now a good time to review ways you can protect yourself. If nothing here feels new, that's good, as it means you've been doing the things you need to do to keep your accounts safe from hackers. Although there's no way to completely eliminate threats, minimizing them will go a long way.

One of the best things you can do is to make sure your password is strong.

If someone's able to guess the password to your email or Facebook account, that person can post or send embarrassing things on your behalf. Someone was able to access Burger King's Twitter account recently and changed its profile picture to a McDonald's logo. If a banking or Amazon account is involved, someone could pay bills or buy iPads under your name - with your money.

What's worse, getting a password to one account is often a stepping stone to a more serious breach. Someone can use your email or Facebook account to send spam and scam messages to your friends, for instance. And because many services let you reset your password by sending an email to your address on file, someone with access to your email account can reset passwords and gain access to all sorts of things. If the compromised password is one you use for work, someone can snoop around for files on your employer's network with trade secrets or customers' credit card numbers.

Here are ways you can keep your password strong to ward off that initial intrusion:

* Make your password long. The recommended minimum is eight characters, but 14 is better and 25 is even better than that. Some services have character limits on passwords, though.

* Use combinations of letters and numbers, upper and lower case and symbols such as the exclamation mark. Some services won't let you do all of that, but try to vary it as much as you can. "PaSsWoRd!43" is far better than "password43."

* Avoid words that are in dictionaries, even if you add numbers and symbols. There are programs that can crack passwords by going through databases of known words. One trick is to add numbers in the middle of a word - as in "pas123swor456d" instead of "password123456." Another is to think of a sentence and use just the first letter of each word - as in "tqbfjotld" for "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."

* Substitute characters. For instance, use the number zero instead of the letter O, or replace the S with a dollar sign.

* Avoid easy-to-guess words, even if they aren't in the dictionary. You shouldn't use your name, company name or hometown, for instance. Avoid pets and relatives' names, too. Likewise, avoid things that can be looked up, such as your birthday or ZIP code. But you might use that as part of a complex password. Try reversing your ZIP code or phone number and insert that into a string of letters. As a reminder, you should also avoid "password" as the password, or consecutive keys on the keyboard, such as "1234" or "qwerty."

* Never reuse passwords on other accounts - with two exceptions. Over the years, I've managed to create hundreds of accounts. Many are for one-time use, such as when a newspaper website requires me to register to read the full story. It's OK to use simple passwords and repeat them in those types of situations, as long as the password isn't unlocking features that involve credit cards or posting on a message board. That will let you focus on keeping passwords to the more essential accounts strong.

* The other exception is to log in using a centralized sign-on service such as Facebook Connect. Hulu, for instance, gives you the option of using your Facebook username and password instead of creating a separate one for the video site. This technically isn't reusing your password, but a matter of Hulu borrowing the log-in system Facebook already has in place. The account information isn't stored with Hulu. Facebook merely tells Hulu's computers that it's you. Of course, if you do this, it's even more important to keep your Facebook password secure.

* How do you keep track of these passwords? There are programs you can buy, if you're willing to put your trust in them. I use an Excel spreadsheet, but I encrypt it with its own password - a rather complex one. I am well aware that if the file gets compromised, all my services go with it. In fact, I once had it on a USB drive, which I had in a backpack that got stolen. I had to spend several hours changing passwords on all my accounts, just in case someone managed to break the password to that file. As a precaution, don't name that file "passwords." Name it something generic and boring.

* Ideally you'll have a system for creating and remembering passwords without needing the spreadsheet. For example, you might have a string that's constant, such as "?t7q1b9f8j2o0t0l1d!" (the acronym for "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" with my area code and ZIP code reversed and a few special characters put in). To vary it, you could add the first two letters of the website you are using to the front and the next four to the end. Or put the consonants in front and the vowels at the end, with every other letter capitalized and the letter O replaced with the number zero. So for Amazon, it would be "mZn?t7q1b9f8j2o0t0l1d!Aa0." Just try to guess that!

Of course, I'm not smart enough to have a system like that for myself.

Whatever system you adopt, it's good to change your password - and system - from time to time. And if there's reason to believe your password might have been compromised, change it immediately.

One other thing to be aware of: Many sites let you reset your password by answering a security question, such as the name of your pet or the name of your high school. Of course, these violate good password practices by requiring you to use something that can be easily looked up. Others ask for your favorite movie or hobby. That might not be easily looked up, but your tastes change over time. Furthermore, because these questions get repeated from site to site, the answers you use violate the rule against repeating passwords.

I try to make these answers complex just like passwords, by adding numbers and special characters and making up responses. Unfortunately, some sites won't let you do that, and you'll be stopped if you try to enter a numeral when asked for a city name, for instance. These services will often send an email when a password gets reset this way, so be sure the address on file is current. Change your password and security questions immediately if you're notified of a reset you didn't initiate. You might want to contact the service as well.

While you're at it, make your username complex, too, if you're allowed to choose one. Banking sites typically do.

Some services such as Gmail even give you the option of using two passwords when you use a particular computer or device for the first time. If you have that feature turned on, the service will send a text message with a six-digit code to your phone when you try to use Gmail from an unrecognized device. You'd need to enter that for access, and then that code expires. It's optional, and it's a pain - but it could save you from grief later on. Hackers wouldn't be able to access the account without possessing your phone. Turn it on by going to the account's security settings.

Think of these measures as layers of defense. If one gets breached, there's another to back you up. But eventually, the intruders will get through. Slow them down by making each layer as strong as possible.

UMI X2 brings 1080p screen, quad-core CPU for unbelievable Rs 14,000

 

Blown away by the Micromax Canvas HD? Wait till you hear about this one. Chinese smartphone maker UMI has launched its flagship, the X2 in India, available online for Rs 14,000. The X2 is a follow-up to UMI's first smartphone, the X1.

That itself won’t grab your attention, so why don’t you take a look at the specs? For starters, the UMI X2 brings a quad-core MediaTek MT6589 processor, the same as the one in the Micromax Canvas HD. It also has a 5-inch IPS display just like the Micromax smartphone, but where the Canvas HD has a 720p display, the UMI X2 brings a full HD resolution. That adds up to 441 pixels per inch.

The UMI X2 has a 1080p display and a quad-core CPU

The UMI X2, you will remember, is one of many Chinese smartphones that are taking the world by storm, chiefly by packing in high-end specifications but at a low price tag. The high-end specifications are not limited to only the processor and the display. The 1.2GHz quad-core processor is coupled with 2GB of RAM and a PowerVR SGX544 GPU. We reckon that should be enough for any task you can think of. Well, maybe not for playing Crysis 3, but you get a fair idea.

The UMI X2 runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean out of the box. We think there will be a few customisations, but looking at the images on the company’s site, it seems the handset is running an almost-stock version of Jelly Bean. The company says it will be upgraded to 4.2 Jelly Bean by April. It is a dual-SIM handset and supports a 3G connection on one SIM, which is pretty standard. Internal storage is capped off at 32GB and UMI has also allowed for a microSD card slot, which supports cards up to 32GB.

On the rear is a 13 megapixel autofocussing camera with LED flash. The camera supports HDR mode as well as 1080p video recording. The front-facing snapper is a cool 3 megapixel unit. The back of the handset is removable, so you can replace the 2500 mAh battery, if need be. All this is packed inside a 8.9 mm thin body. UMI has gone with capacitive Android navigation keys under the display instead of on-screen buttons, but it looks like the company has kept the recent apps button instead of the legacy menu button.

Here’s another look at the key specifications of the device

• 5-inch IPS LCD with a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels and 441 pixels per inch
• Dual-SIM, HSPA on WCDMA, GPRS/EDGE on GSM
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g with Wi-Fi hotspot
• Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP
• GPS with A-GPS
• Accelerometer, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, magnetic sensor
• 13 megapixel primary camera with LED flash and 3 megapixel front facing cam
• 32GB internal memory, with microSD card slot for further expansion up to 32GB

However, we have to admit that the handset looks like a result of something nasty the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Galaxy Nexus did when no one was looking. Of course, in light of other rip-offs coming to us from China, this is a relatively original-looking handset.