Tuesday, January 11, 2011
SnapKeys 2i Keyless Keyboard for Mobile Phones and Tablets
Imaginary Interface... it's in your mind!
Enables text and data entry on the move, even while walking!
The king and queen of location-based services
Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, and Alexa Andrzejewski, founder of Foodspotting, are the hottest people in location-based services. Foursquare has a million users. Foodspotting has 100,000. Both are growing very quickly and getting lots of attention. I sit down with them at the Big Omaha conference and talk with them about the location-based service business.
In the interview Dennis tells us how Tokyo is about to become the #1 city, overtaking New York. He also tells us what he sees the future of Foursquare and location-based services are, which include maleable social graphs, which means it’ll show us tips from people who are like us. We talked about what he’s learned by running one of the hottest startups in the world and why he’s turned down deals to acquire Foursquare (it’s been rumored he turned down a $150 million offer from Yahoo).
He also talked to me about what he learned from running Dodgeball, an earlier location-based service that was acquired, and killed, by Google.
Alexa talks about the ups and downs of entrepreneurship, including how she deals with competitors like Fiddme, which I got excited by when I visited Tel Aviv.
Why are these two companies top in the location-based service field? Because users have adopted them faster than other services. It’s interesting to talk with both of these leaders, especially to hear their insights on growing their companies and what they are thinking of when it comes to acquiring companies to grow their teams. Thanks to Alexa and Dens for sitting down with me at the Big Omaha conference, which is the best entrepreneur conference I’ve attended lately.
Oh, and sorry for the tweeting birds in the background, it was like Twitter was there to cause noise, but when you get a chance to sit down with two industry leaders you gotta just turn on the camera and go with it.
UPDATE: Techcrunch’s MG Siegler also talked with Dennis on Friday and he got out of Dennis that he’s very confident in the upcoming fight with Facebook over location-based services. That’s an interesting interview to read too.
You can join me on Foursquare at http://foursquare.com/user/scobleizer and I’m now on Foodspotting and its competitor, Fiddme as well.
Google Wants To Find The Next Larry Or Sergey With Online Science Fair
https://sites.google.com/site/tescasgosfsample/home
Project Summary
According to Veterans Affairs staff, up to 50% of a nurse's day is spent transporting patient care items. To aid nurses, fully autonomous robotic transporters driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) could access the entire hospital and make simple deliveries for nurses, giving them more time to deliver patient care.
I researched current AI pathfinding methodologies and found that the leading pathfinding algorithm, A*, doesn't utilize re-alignment opportunities needed in a hospital setting where a robot is more likely to go off course. I wondered... can current AI pathfinding methodology that is used for autonomous robots be improved to increase the accuracy of the robot reaching its destination?
I developed a pathfinding algorithm to create paths that maneuver the transporter around known obstacles, while considering accuracy and efficiency. I then tested the accuracy of the resulting paths of A* and my algorithm by measuring the accumulated variance of the robot's ending position from its target destination in feet. I used the following experimental variables:
Independent Variables: Path plotted by the AI algorithms used
Control group: A-star algorithm
Experimental group: Accuracy/efficiency balancing algorithm
Dependent Variable: Accumulated variance of the robot's ending position from its target destination measured in feet.
I plotted and measured the results from my experiment and found that if If the robot's algorithm is modified to incorporate aspects of its surrounding environment to correct its course, then the variance of the ending position of the robot from its target destination will be reduced by 36.5%.
Project Summary
According to Veterans Affairs staff, up to 50% of a nurse's day is spent transporting patient care items. To aid nurses, fully autonomous robotic transporters driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI) could access the entire hospital and make simple deliveries for nurses, giving them more time to deliver patient care.
I researched current AI pathfinding methodologies and found that the leading pathfinding algorithm, A*, doesn't utilize re-alignment opportunities needed in a hospital setting where a robot is more likely to go off course. I wondered... can current AI pathfinding methodology that is used for autonomous robots be improved to increase the accuracy of the robot reaching its destination?
I developed a pathfinding algorithm to create paths that maneuver the transporter around known obstacles, while considering accuracy and efficiency. I then tested the accuracy of the resulting paths of A* and my algorithm by measuring the accumulated variance of the robot's ending position from its target destination in feet. I used the following experimental variables:
Independent Variables: Path plotted by the AI algorithms used
Control group: A-star algorithm
Experimental group: Accuracy/efficiency balancing algorithm
Dependent Variable: Accumulated variance of the robot's ending position from its target destination measured in feet.
I plotted and measured the results from my experiment and found that if If the robot's algorithm is modified to incorporate aspects of its surrounding environment to correct its course, then the variance of the ending position of the robot from its target destination will be reduced by 36.5%.
Razer Switchblade Previewed at CES
CES (Consumer Electronics Show), is a trade show put on every January in Las Vegas. At CES, many companies show off their latest products, many which aren't out yet, and some which may never be available. Throughout CES, Gadgetator will try and bring you the best and most exciting products. The Razer Switchblade (A name which took me about two minutes to get straight.) is one of those exciting products.
Razer, a gaming peripherals company, designs and manufactures gaming mice, keyboards, and other gaming devices. The Switchblade, still officially a concept, is a Windows 7 mini netbook with a twist. It has a seven inch capacitive touchscreen, an Intel Atom processor, and a really cool keyboard.
The keyboard, instead of having the regular, QWERTY layout, has keys which will automatically switch what they show based on the game that you are playing. For example, when playing World of Warcraft, instead of seeing the QWERTY keyboard keys, you will see icons for the different actions you can do.
The technology behind the customizable keyboard is just a crisp screen and transparent keys, but this keyboard really seems high tech and very cool.
A few questions that, since this is a concept device, have not yet been answered. How will the Switchblade decide what the icons for each game are? How will it work without a mouse pad? Also, the pricing point is not specified yet, so we don't know whether or not it will be worth it.
Ultimately, this seems really cool, and if you just happen to be in the market for a seven inch gaming netbook, you might want to wait for the Razer Switchblade to (eventually) come out. For now, we don't know when this will come out or how much it will cost, so I would recommended just purchasing a regular PC.
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