What Ford was doing at CTIA Fall 2010

                                                                                       As an attendant of CTIA Fall 2010, I couldn’t figure out what Ford Motor company was doing there. As it turns out, they were promoting the MyFord Touch. I got to get behind a tricked-out dashboard, and saw why they wanted to show off.

The set-up for MyFord Touch reminded me of the Earth-friendly dashboard I reported on over a year ago. I had one of their spokespersons show it to me, and I’ll do my best to convey my experience to you.
That screen that you see in the photo is a full touchscreen, and it allows the user/driver full control of Navigation, Climate, Entertainment and Phone. Each of these functions have a different color-code, accessible on the four corners of the screen. MyFord Touch also has two 4.2 inch LCD screens that flank the central speedometer for information to the driver at a glance.
Green is the color code for Navigation and it will guide you with turn-by-turn, and will even allow for vocal search. So if you say “Find Ice Cream”, and you can select several options. You can even call the place, as it links with the Phone (which is Yellow color-coded).
The Entertainment (Red color code) is also vocally controlled, and tunes can be taken from an SD card and USB port. The last color code is Blue, for Climate control.
The SYNC is available on the 2011 Edge, and will be available on the Explorer later this year.

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RedMere makes some skinny HDMI cables

 

Most of you have probably used HDMI cable for your home theater, and this thick cable is going to be more in demand.

After all, many phones like the Nokia N8 have an HDMI port so video files on the phone can be viewed on bigger screens. If every phone has this feature, then not only will it increase the demand for HDMI cables, but create a need for them to be thinner, lighter, and more portable. 

It would appear that a company called Red Mere is ahead of the curve as they are making thinner HDMI cables. Guess which one of the HDMI cable cross-sections in the photo above is a RedMere. 

How is this possible? I talked to RedMere at CTIA Fall 2010, and they use some sort of chip that fits in the HDMI plug itself. They wanted to show me the chip, but they seemed to have lost it at their booth. 

I’m not certain what to think of that, but I won’t hold it against the company. In fact, I think RedMere is going to have a lucrative future when everyone needs an HDMI cable. Perhaps there will come a day when all phones have an HDMI cable that can stretch and retract, and RedMere will be the supplier.

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Body Organs Send Out Information To Your Phone

When going to the doctor you could find out all sorts of surprising info and usually if there’s a problem it’s been going on longer than you realize.  Instead of making the problem wait until your next physical, you could always make your body text you when there’s an issue.  Thanks to some researchers at the Dutch facility, IMEC, that could be very possible.

Having some experience with surprise problems, (although having select parts of your organs sending out text messages might be an idea that some people would take getting used to) this would have come in very handy a couple months ago.  I had an extremely close call with my gallbladder, close enough that the doctor mentioned that death would have been a distinct possibility had I not stumbled into the hospital that day.  Oops.  See, texting insides are not so bad.  It uses Human++ BAN, which is a wireless body area network.  It’ll send you texts that can be shared with your doctor and an alarm will sound should any of the readings come back abnormal. Of course, this will not work with all body organs at the moment, but who are we to say that things won’t change in the future?

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Halo Intersceptor is a car, copter, plane, and boat

 

I’m sure you are probably thinking that this is a pretty cool car. It sort of reminds me of the futuristic Audi that Will Smith drove around in I, Robot. 

This concept auto, known as the Halo Intersceptor, is one of the most advanced cars that I have ever seen. In fact, it isn’t just a car, but a plane, boat, and helicopter. Yes, that does sound more like a cartoon than an actual car. Just to let you know, the Halo Interceptor doesn’t have any hidden wings or rotors like some spy car on M.A.S.K. That was a cartoon from the eighties, in case you don’t get that reference. Think about what would happen if G.I. Joe and Transformers were mixed in a blender and you would get M.A.S.K..

The way the Halo Intersceptor works is that the car parks and locks itself in a different chassis. There is a video after the jump if you want to see it in action. It is pretty neat, and it’s definitely something Batman if he didn’t mind having the Batmobile being used for the Bat-plane, the Bat-copter, and the Bat-boat. 

I would imagine James Bond would get a kick out of this too. This is one of those things that I would have to see before I believed it. 

Video Link: Click Here

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Over the years we’ve reported on some pretty cool swimming pool gadgets, from huge infinity pools to motorised bumper boats and many more. This next one is something special, it’s an outdoor terrace that converts into an indoor pool (yes you did read that correctly). Below is a photo before (in terrace mode) whilst above shows the terrace mid transformation.

To fully appreciate it you need to check out the following video:
Video Link: Click Here

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Biometric Vehicle Starter

It used to be the only way to start up a car was with that shiny key, but now there are other options. The most common alternative is pushing a button.  Well if you’re not a fan of that route, now you can make sure you’re the only one that can start your car.  Instead of pushing buttons or turning a key, you just have to put your pointer finger right up to that tiny scanner.  If you’d like to allow a couple of other people to drive your car, you can have their fingerprints stored in the database.

Should you have a thief that’s watched too many spy movies and cuts off your finger in order to use it for the car, they’ll still be hosed.  After the fingerprint is confirmed it’ll then check for a pulse, blood pressure and body temperature, cut off fingers don’t have a pulse I’m afraid.  It even goes as far as to scan the capillary patterns underneath of the skin.  Despite that it checks several things, it won’t actually take long for all that information to be stored.  Being such an in depth gadget, this isn’t exactly a cheap item.  No, you’ll get stuck paying $699.95 for it at Sky Mall.

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The Invisible, Inflatable, Airbag Helmet

 

Whether you know it or not, this lady is wearing a helmet. It is concealed in her scarf.

I realize that sounds pretty unbelievable, as most helmets are pretty hard and cover the whole head. Yet this Invisible Airbag Helmet is crumpled up in the lady’s neck with an airtank, apparently. 

There is a video after the jump so you can see how it protects. You will notice how it can somehow detect a sudden impact in a few milliseconds and create this perfect shape of a helmet around the user’s head. 

You’ll notice from the video how the helmet can protect the user from all kinds of spills. Think of it as the airbag in the car, designed for your head. 

There is clearly some bugs to work out before this is used on real people. For example, how does the helmet know what is a real accident and what is a harmless stumble. In other words, it could go off at any moment. Worse yet, it could not go off when it absolutely needs to. 

Well, this is probably going to take a while before we can ride without traditional helmets. Until then, I believe that helmets are required by bicyclists.

Video Link: Click Here

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