Tectoria – Page 11

Innovation Elsewhere: Name Your Own Exoplanet!

July 15, 2014 by Tectoria

If you ever wanted your own planet, now’s your chance.

The International Astronomical Union has invited the public to suggest official names for 20 to 30 planets found outside of our solar system.

See the invite here.

Over 1800 exoplanets have been discovered (1810 planets in 1125 planetary systems including 466 multiple planetary systems.

Astronomy clubs around the world will vote for which of 305 well-studied worlds they feel deserve more exciting names.

Once the list has been nailed down to 20 or 30, the clubs will be invited to suggest names for them through citizen science organisation Zooniverse. But there are strict rules. You can’t suggest anything copyrighted, or anything named after a living person or a person known for political, military or religious activities. Names of pet animals are also forbidden.

To suggest a name, you’ll need to be a member of an astronomical club. Or form one, make a website, and register the group with the IAU as soon as possible.

Innovation Elsewhere: General Harmonics

July 9, 2014 by Tectoria

It turns out that Pied Piper, the company from television’s Silicon Valley, HBO’s satirical take on the tech industry, may actually exists in real life.

General Harmonics is a small startup from Vancouver that’s looking to revolutionize the way we stream media.

In the show Silicon Valley, Pied Piper is a fictional company that makes compression software that makes files incredibly small, allowing for faster downloads and taking up less storage.

Canada’s General Harmonics doesn’t do that – instead of compressing files down to ever smaller sizes, the company’s technology looks at media as “systems of information,” or very detailed descriptions of the parts they’re composed of.

Using their technology, a song is seen in terms of its vocals and the instruments played. The description of each of those elements takes up less space than the actual digital audio file would.

General Harmonics says it can deliver CD-quality music in one-twentieth the original file size.

The implication is companies like Spotify, Pandora, or Apple could significantly cut down on server costs — or, more likely, serve customers better for the same level of spending.

Innovation Elsewhere: Exploring Europa?

July 3, 2014 by Tectoria

Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have built a robot that will be able to chart the icy waters found in outer space, such as on Jupiter’s moon Europa.

The Buoyant Rover for Under-Ice Exploration (BRUIE) is operated through satellite link and designed to cling onto the underside of ice with metal tires, transmitting measurements back to scientists and assessing whether the waters host other life-forms.

BRUIE is currently being tested in frozen Alaska lakes, but engineers hope that the robot will one day be flown to Europa.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sY5WQG3-3mo]

Innovation Elsewhere: Structure3D

June 25, 2014 by Tectoria

Our old friend and honorary Tectorian (at least until he inevitably moves back here) John Mardlin, who moved recently to the Communitech Hub in Kitchener-Waterloo tipped us off on a cool new innovative printing technology.

John is working with a new tech company, Structur3D printing, that has just launched Discov3ry.

It’s an add-on product for desktop 3D printers, that will enable them to print more than just rigid plastics. Now makers can work with more friendly, affordable and flexible materials including silicone, latex, ceramics, icing sugar and even nutella:

The nutella gets Structur3D the press, but the exciting part is when the team will be able to enable printing of silicone for biomedical applications, as well as emergent uses we haven’t yet imagined.

Structur3D is running a kickstarter campaign that has been pretty successful so far, beating our funding goal in the first 24 hours.

Says John Mardlin: “I’m thrilled to be helping to empower the creativity and entrepreneurialism of the maker community.”

Innovation Elsewhere: Amazon Fire Phone

June 18, 2014 by Tectoria

>>UPDATE: Amazon Fire Phone: Bing For Search, Nokia For Maps

Amazon has launched its Fire Phone, a $199 smartphone with 3D cameras and all the Amazon services you could ever imagine.

The Fire Phone has a 4.7-inch HD display, aluminum buttons, a Qualcomm processor, Adreno 330 graphics, and 2GB of RAM.

There’s also a 13-megapixel camera, an f/2.0 lens, and optical image stabilization. Bezos compared the Fire Phone to the iPhone 5S and the Samsung Galaxy S5, saying that no matter the situation the Fire Phone will take better shots. There’s a quick-access shutter button on the side, and unlimited cloud storage for your photos.

It all runs on Amazon’s Android-based Fire OS.

The 3D aspect of the phone seems to be aimed at providing “shifting” wallpaper and lockscreen that changes depending on how you look at it.

There are also 3D Maps: looking for a restaurant and at the Empire State Building and the view changes every time you tilt your phone.

It’s also part of the navigation of the device — a tilt of the phone opens up a navigation drawer, or scrolls through options.

No word when the Amazon Fire will make it to Canada, though!

Innovation Elsewhere: Tech Crunch Disrupt

June 11, 2014 by Tectoria

Each May, Tech Crunch hosts Disrupt New York, a technology festival with 25 discussion panels, 27 startup demos, and a hackathon.

Since this weekend is VICFest, we thought we would share some musically themed innovations unveiled at Disrupt.

Acoustic Stream

Billing itself as “the guitarist’s wireless 4-in-1 companion,” Acoustic Stream is a mobile app that is intended to be a “Swiss-Army Knife” for guitarists. Boasting four wireless features in one, it covers all bases from songwriting and live performance to instrument protection, all in a compact, snazzy-looking transmitter and an easy-to-use app for Android and iOS.

Roadie Tuner

Also unveiled at Disrupt, Roadie Tuner is “the ultimate guitarist’s tool,” and is an automated robotic guitar tuner and the first device capable of tracking the quality of strings, informing users of when strings are about to snap and need replacing.

It’s complemented by a mobile app that allows users to switch between alternate tunings, create their own custom tunings, and keep track of their instrument’s maintenance information.

Fret Pen

Apparently Fret Pen is “the tiniest guitar you will ever play,” a super portable guitar practice device you can take anywhere. Pop off the cap, snap the ball-point end into the guitar body and pluck the tiny string; a Bluetooth-connected smartphone acts as a wireless amp that can make a host of sounds, “from clean acoustic to dirty garage.”

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxopieB7Hoo]

Innovation Elsewhere – DARPA’s May “Demo Day”

May 29, 2014 by Tectoria

Fully-functional prosthetic arms. “Unhackable” helicopter drones.

Educational games that teach kids fractions while teaching scientists how to refine training techniques for soldiers.

An augmented-reality helmet with a see-through screen over one eye, showing the wearer which route to follow by superimposing it on the landscape.

All were on display earlier this month at the DARPA “demo day” in Washington.

And what was on display wasn’t just science fiction.

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has had a hand in many of the technologies we have come to rely on every day.

Siri and GPS all owe a lot to DARPA, as does the self-driving car, which appears to be just over the horizon.

The government research institute is also using Oculus Rift to help enhance cyberwarfare – they call it Plan X.

Plan X is supposed to train a cadet for an hour, so he or she can launch a cyberattack just as easily as launching a missile or as intuitive as playing as Angry Birds.

Most of DARPA Demo Day featured projects by the organization’s I2O unit, which has a software focus.

Some of the more interesting (or, depending on your point of view, more alarming) projects on display included:

MEMEX is an ambitious plan for a next-generation search engine that indexes the deep web.

Big Mechanism will enable computers to read journals and other sources of knowledge and extract intelligence about things like cancer, economies, and the brain.

Follow DARPA on Facebook, YouTube, or Google Plus.

Innovation Elsewhere – Imogen Heap’s Wearable Technology

May 14, 2014 by Tectoria

English singer-songwriter and composer Imogen Heap is working hard to create wearable technology that allows musicians to use motion and gesture to play music – think minority report for musicians brought to you by the DIY/maker revolution.

Imogen Heap’s Gloves are a “cutting edge experimental gestural music hardware” being developed for Imogen Heap’s studio and stage work.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhy-iPKnw_Y]

Using cutting-edge haptic technology, the Gloves feature an entirely unique “gestural vocabulary”, motion data-capture systems, and user interfaces developed by Imogen Heap and her team, to allow artists and musicians to use motion to guide computer-based digital creations.

The Gloves are both an instrument and a controller, designed to connect the user fluidly with gear performers usually use on stage, such keyboards and computers.

Why wearable tech?

Says Imogen Heap:

Most of us on our small team are musicians who are tired of being stuck behind computer screens, keyboards, faders, knobs, and buttons to make our music. We feel there could be a better way that is more like the experiences we have with traditional instruments: using the dexterity and mobility of the human body.

Via their Kickstarter project, the team is seeking backers big and small to support the project.

Although the team has stopped making gloves for Kickstarter supporters for now, larger backers could pony up for a tailor-made set of gloves of their own.

The intent of the project is to make something open source, and they have promised even backers at entry levels access to information; other rewards include in-person workshops and kits, some friendly to people doing their own experiments in wearable tech.

The number of Kickstarter gloves is limited, but the team hopes to make more in future.

Innovation Elsewhere – 3,700 Blu-Rays in a Single Cassette Tape

May 7, 2014 by Tectoria

Sony has developed a new technology that can store 185 terabytes on good, old-fashioned magnetic tape.

For example, three Blu-Rays’ worth of data can fit on one square inch of Sony’s new super-tape. One of these new tapes will store the equivalent of 3,700 Blu-Rays’ worth of memory.

In fact, one relatively cheap tape would hold five more terabytes than a $9,305 hard drive storage array.

In order to create the new tape, Sony employed the use of sputter deposition, which creates layers of magnetic crystals by firing argon ions at a polymer film substrate.

Combined with a soft magnetic under-layer, the magnetic particles measured in at just 7.7 nanometers on average, able to be closely packed together.

Sony developed the technology for long-term, industrial-sized data backup – storage tape shipments grew 13% two years ago, and were headed for a 26% growth just last year.

Tectorian of the Week: Jake West

April 17, 2014 by Tectoria

Our Tectorian of the Week for April 17 is Jake West, a teacher (among many other cool things) at the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry (PSII).

As an educator at PSII, a local school devoted to helping young people “know the world in deep, connected and authentic ways,” Jake West is fostering the next generation of disruptors.

“Jake and his team approached us with a small project focusing on repairing a device to its old working order,” says VIATeC’s Dan Gunn. “Once we got a sense of the team’s enthusiasm we saw the opportunity to level up and do something far more unique that will capture the interest and imagination of Victoria’s tech community.”

In collaboration with VIATeC and Victoria’s Limbic Media, Jake and his students at PSII are working on a project for VIATeC that when finished, will tour to hundreds of conferences and events.

PSII: Taking Ideas to the Next Level

“The project is taking an old stationary binocular stand the had originally been used by Tourism Victoria to look out into the Inner Harbour, then had been gutted from the inside to install a ViewMaster,” says Adam Foeller. “The PSII team is now retrofitting the binocular stand to house an arduino board, a power source, and an LCD screen which will show videos that have to do with the Technology Community in Victoria.”

Adam Foeller is VIATeC’s facilities manager. Adam is passionate about things that function properly, and was, like Dan, impressed by Jake and his PSII team.

“Jake brought a few of the kids by, I explained to them our problem, and they took our idea to a higher level and dove into the project head first,” says Adam. “Jake’s students researched and sourced the necessary equipment, and got down to work.”

Currently, Adam says, the PSII students are in the process of running into roadblocks, attempting new iterations, and teaching themselves how to solve problems.

“This project is showing Jake’s students what real-world projects and problem-solving looks like,” says Adam. “Also, by working with Limbic Media, they are being exposed to an incredibly talented and creative group of tech professionals who are showing them that you can make a living by ‘playing’ at what you love.”

Jake West: Facilitating the Best Education at the Right Time

What is Jake West’s role in all of this?

“I facilitate learning experiences for our students,” says Jake. “At PSII, we think in terms of competencies rather than subjects, and this approach mirrors the tech industry. Technology companies don’t always care what courses someone has taken in university, but care more about skills to get the project done.”

In the tech sector, Jake says, credentials are not important. Students can lead and push limits right away.

“While they work on this project with VIATeC and Limbic, the students feel as though they are working for their own technology startup… which they truly are,” says Jake. “Working on a project like this in collaboration with organizations like VIATeC and Limbic is the best education at the right time.”

Stay tuned for project updates from VIATeC, Limbic, and Jake’s team at PSII.

Jake and PSII are looking for bright, inspired students to study with them starting in September. Contact us for more information about this innovative school.