Honestly, when I was in front of it I just couldn't tell the difference from a real t-shirt. It deformed like the one she was holding. I think she's a witch. [More IFA 2008 Coverage]

Argument Número Uno: apparently this gestures-in-the-air control requires real magic powers. Watch Helga and myself getting frustrated, trying to control the pointer on the screen.

Argument Two: I can't think of any really useful application except having the ability to control your computer without having to touch your keyboard or screen at any time—and therefore, keeping them clean of any crumbles and/or fluids.

The idea is good. The implementation is bad. Unfortunately, the whole experience is quite frustrating, and while they are showing the same technology in an experimental TV—which has greater potential—it doesn't really work well there either.

I asked the german Kirsten Dunst and she told me an example of this being useful: if you are "cooking" and have your hands dirty, you wouldn't like to touch the keyboard or the mousepad, so you can use gestures to control de computer. Fair enough, that's one market right there: "dirty hands chefs who use their computers while they are cooking".

I can see this being useful in TVs, however, replacing the remote completely. And maybe in computers too, but not for pointer dragging and clicking. That's just useless. This technology needs a completely new graphic user interface to be really successful—like the simple Wii interface or the stuff shown in Minority Report. An interface that will allow to intuitively point at something or doing a hand gesture to trigger an action.

As it is now, it just doesn't fly. What do you think? Do you think this is useful? Is there any else to this than its "wow!-what?-why?" factor? [More IFA 2008 coverage]

Created by David O'Reilly, iHologram combines anamorphosis and the iPhone's gyroscopes to achieve this awesome visual magic trick. Anamorphosis is a way to draw things distorted so, while watched at a certain angle, they pop out of the 2D surface as if they were real.

David's application assumes a constant viewing angle of 35 to 45 degrees, which is the usual angle when anyone watches the iPhone screen. Knowing that angle, the application calculates the orientation of the screen relative to the viewer using the iPhone's motion sensors, so when you turn it around, the 3D world perspective gets skewed accordingly.

As you can see in the video, the effect is almost perfect, with the character popping out of the screen and the world he's walking on receding into a deep space. [Ismashphone]

I was tired, exhausted, and about to fall asleep standing up (there were no seats in the pit). The week had been hell, and I was physically and emotionally destroyed. But then, the band and the Boss took the stage and night and blasted everything away. In a few seconds, as the adrenalin kicked in, the exhaustion disappeared. Then Radio Nowhere came. And Lonesome Day. And the Promised Land. From there, he and his band made every single one of the 60,000 souls in the stadium fly.

Three hours of pure rock, with the Boss giving it all until the end, when he sung a 10-minute version of Twist And Shout, mixed with—get this—La Bamba. Not a single pause. Just music, heart and soul. I just couldn't believe this guy is almost as old as my dad. Forget Mick Jagger. Forget bloody Bono. He is the greatest rock musician alive, a true force of nature.

And I'm not even—or was not, until this day—a fan. The whole thing was totally unexpected for me. At the beginning I thought "this is going to be amazing" and I realized I only had my iPhone, because like every other concert, cameras and camcorders are absolutely prohibited. Especially when you are in the front row and the security guy can shake your hand. Or get your camera away.

During the whole concert, the entire stadium was under his command, jumping, singing, waving, screaming, completely in ecstasy, electrified, everyone sweating under the hot Spanish summer night. He and the band were enjoying the whole thing to no end. You could see them laughing, looking at us with real surprise in their faces, as if they weren't believing that this huge stadium just couldn't stop singing and jumping through every single one of the songs they played.

They were giving all their life away right there, and the public was returning it right back. With interest. Each of us. Mass hysteria. Crowd orgasm. Total love and dedication from Bruce, the band, and the public.

At one point—one of many in which he came to sing even closer to us—the Boss walked to the central platform and took a girl up on the stage. I knew she was the daughter of one of the Spanish fans—who had been following him through the whole tour—because I met her before the concert started. She danced with him for a minute, smiling while the band played. It was just one of the many "I can't believe this is happening" moments of the night.

Right there, in the very first row, in the corner of the central platform, I could see all these moments perfectly, like I'm seeing the screen of my computer right now. We were able to actually shake his hand, as well as the hands of the band—who at the end all came to the center platform. I shouted at him at one point ("Yes! Take us up there!") and he replied looking straight into my eyes, with the biggest smile, pointing at me and saying "Yes, I'm going to take you there!" just before the band exploded with sound.

Another time, I could see him turning to Max Weinberg—at the end of Seven Nights to Rock—and whisper: "Born to Run!" And (boom!) Born to Run started to play a second later. At any time, I could turn around and see the 60,000 people in the Santiago Bernabéu—the name of the Real Madrid football stadium—singing, clapping, taken way by his power. Yes, it was absolutely breathtaking. All of it. From the very beginning I thought: "I have to share this with the people I love. I can't do this justice with my description. I have to take photos."

There was when I started hating the iPhone's camera.

Nothing, I wasn't able to take any of this magic with clarity. I'm not even talking about recording video (don't get me started on that). I'm just talking about making a decent photo with one of the most advanced pieces of technology ever developed. Only one single photo that didn't appear to be taken with a broken Lomo. By a drunk guy. Without a decent sleep in the last three days (OK, forget about the part about the drunk guy.)

Sure, there was some clear pics here and there, but whatever was OK'ish, it was also completely crazy and badly framed. Some of them look nice—as you can see here, in the gallery of untouched images—but most of them need cropping and heavy Photoshop treatment.

I know most cellphone cameras are exactly the same. They behave poorly under low light conditions, they are slow, and have bad interfaces. And yes, I have to admit I like the iPhone's camera blurriness and unwanted "special effects" sometimes. I even try to get similar effects with my DSLR. But that's optional. This time I only wanted one thing: to be able to frame a good photo. Without having to hold the iPhone in a weird position. Without trying to find the stupid software interface button and not miss the shot (which I did, plenty of times).

That's what I want. I don't want more resolution, and I don't want a stupid zoom. I would be happy (HAPPY) with good lenses and a better, speedier, more luminous sensor. And of course, the physical button. In fact, scrap the rest. Just give me the physical button. As much as I love virtual interfaces—because they open the door to multi-functional devices at a low cost, with great power and flexibility—I'm afraid that there are still times when the only way to go is a physical button. Photography is one of them.

And since we are at it, here's a note for the Nokias, Sony Ericssons, Samsungs, and LGs of this world: stop doing the silly marketdrone "More megapixels!" and "Bigger optical zooms!" race. Educate the users. Don't dazzle them with higher numbers. Give us all more quality, more light, and more speed. That's what really counts to catch the special, truly ephemeral, completely unexpected moments you want to save forever. Because when I think about it, even while I will always keep this concert in my—blurry as the iPhone's camera—memory, there would never be another one like it.

That's exactly what cellphone cameras are for. To capture the unexpected, to take decent pictures of the special moments in your life, because we can't go around life with a camera in our pocket at all times. That's what I want in an cellphone and, especially, in the iPhone. A camera to be able to take any moment we want, fast, and with good quality, under most circumstances. And Señor Jobs, no matter what, please give us the physical button on the iPhone 3G 2.0.

It seems like the perfect software for the laziest people in the world, but it's one of those "oh wow" things that will make everyone smile when using it.

Breakthrough Visual Search Engine for Mobile Phones Takes Off Big in Japan

Pasadena, CA & Tokyo, Japan - April 17, 2008 - Evolution Robotics Inc., a leading robotics technology company, in partnership with Bandai Networks Co. Ltd, Japan's leading mobile content provider, announced today that KDDI Corporation is including the "ER Search" visual search engine on its new Spring 2008 "au™" line of camera phones, and has made it available for download for any KDDI customer with a prior "au" camera phone. This launch marks a dramatic expansion in the market for mobile visual search, which will enable millions of consumers in Japan alone to do online searches by taking pictures of everyday objects with their camera phone.

The deployment of this technology in the mass market also opens up an entirely new range of categories of services for mobile marketing, which is already projected to grow to $24 Billion worldwide by 2013. (Source: ABI Research)

ER Search is a mobile search engine operated by Bandai Networks and powered by Evolution Robotics' ViPR visual pattern recognition system. It works essentially like using a traditional search engine, but without having to type any text or go through complicated menus. Instead, users simply snap a picture of something they're interested in and immediately get back relevant content, all in the palm of the hands.

As an example, KDDI customers will be able to take a picture of a music CD that would return links relating to the artist, hear clips from the album and purchase songs to download on their phone. If they are shopping for wine in a store, they can take a picture of the wine label and get expert reviews and recommendations on the spot. Or, if they are browsing through a catalog and see an item they'd like to buy, they can order it immediately by snapping a picture of the item on the page.

"ER Search is an entirely new way for connecting consumers with content and companies," said Satoshi Oshita, CEO of Bandai Networks. "Because ER Search runs on mobile phones, searches happen when and where the customer is, as soon as they see something that they're interested in. Additionally, the fact that a customer simply has to click a picture of a product or advertisement, makes the search process far easier and immediate than anything that has been available before."

"We are very pleased to be working with Bandai Networks and are excited to see the momentum building in the Japanese market," said Paolo Pirjanian, President and CEO of Evolution Robotics. "Our mission is to take aerospace-grade technologies and make them affordable for mass market applications, and ER Search is a great example. We see this as just the start of a growing market for visual search in Asia and other parts of the globe and are actively working with our partners to expand the range of services that can benefit consumers and companies alike."

Bandai Networks had already deployed ER Search on over one million phones in Japan in 2007. With this deployment with KDDI, the number of users with access to ER Search will expand by millions more in a very short time, making it even more compelling for companies and advertisers to participate in the service.

About ViPR

The ViPR technology easily supports user-generated content so that users can take new pictures of objects, images, videos or even locations and tag them with links and content to expand the database. That content will then show up in the results returned to other users who take similar pictures, thus creating a robust world-wide visual database for communities to develop and access. (A video demonstration of Evolution Robotics' visual search technology running on Apple's iPhone can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/user/EvolutionRobotics)

ER Search's versatility rests in Evolution Robotics' breakthrough ViPR visual recognition technology. ViPR is able to learn new objects and images on the fly (such as the cover art on a music CD), without the need for any special encoding such as barcodes or watermarks. Just as significant, ViPR performs well on low cost components such as the cameras used on most mobile phones today, even when lighting and other visual conditions are poor.

For the music search application alone, Bandai Networks has over 150,000 music CD covers already indexed in their database. Other mobile marketing and mobile commerce applications include providing content and links for print ads, book covers, DVDs, product packaging, movie posters, retail displays, business signs, etc. Even animation, streaming video or images from live TV can be supported.

[Evolution via Mobile Whack]

I want the Pixar one, badly, but I wouldn't say no to his home-made zoetrope here. Much humble, but equally charming.

You can get all the details of the construction in his site. [LEGO 3D Zoetrope and VNOG via MAKE]

Chris Lavers, a senior lecturer in remote sensing and sensors technology at the college believes that nanomaterials could help render the next generation of ships invisible to the naked eye, radar, and even heat seeking missiles—all while being completely quiet and impossible to detect based on their impact on the Earth's magnetic field. This isn't the first time we have heard about invisibility cloaking using similar methods, so here's hoping that something actually comes of it in the near future. [Physics World via Gizmag]

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Say what you will about Blaine's antics (that, among other things, they're just silly), but the lending of his image to the Shine represents a milestone for humanity. I mean, we all know that the Shine turns into a mirror-thing at the push of a button. Blaine, to the best of my knowledge, doesn't. Maybe that's his next trick? – Nicholas Deleon

Press Release [webitpr]

Ace close-up magician Tomohiro Maeda has designed the five tricks installed on this sucker, letting you guess the number someone is thinking of, play con games, and engage in a trio of other distractions.

Once the novelty of the watch wears off, maybe you could take those included playing cards and learn some real close-up magic. Abracadabra, baby. – Charlie White

Casio Magic Watch - has many tricks [Newlaunches]

Click though for some close up shots.

– Louis Ramirez
Transmit Data Through Human Body [via AVING.net]

The sensors seem very sensitive, so there's a lot of potential for this to drive you mad if all you wanna do is look in the mirror, but compared to the hand dryer, which you could easily make do without if you dry your hands on your pants, the flickin' on and off this mirror seems like it'd annoy us a helluva lot more. Click here for a demo of the mirror in action (and to watch the foxy girl in the photo wash her hands).
– Louis Ramirez

Magic Mirror [via The Red Ferret Journal]

I don't know enough about chemistry to say this is bullshit, but I'm sure you geniuses out there can let us know WTF is up with this. He says his company, Hydrogen Technologies, uses standard water to create HHO (isn't that just H2O?) and has created a car that can do 100 miles per four ounces of liquid refreshment. Please, for the love of God, enlighten me. – John Biggs

Prototype car runs 100 miles on four ounces of water as fuel [MobileMag]