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Whoa, Whoa, It’s Magic to Me
The line between thoughts and reality becomes quite blurry with the passage of time. I can recall the moment some six years ago, late at night, while working on the Viodi View in a hotel lobby, when I heard an old song and thought how useful it would be to have the meta-data associated with…
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A Cap to Represent CAP
The best trade show displays are sometimes the least costly. In the case of this display at the 2011 Independent Show, Wendell Woody of Monroe Electronics improvised after his equipment didn’t arrive in time for the exhibit part of the conference. Using a baseball cap to draw attention to the acronym CAP (Common Alerting Protocol),…
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3D Outdoor Reality
A concern of mine regarding 3DTV has been what happens if I am at a friend’s house to watch a program and I don’t have 3D glasses. To paraphrase Groucho Marx, would I really want to borrow a pair of glasses from someone who would be a friend of mine (or vise-versa)? Who knows what…
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The Wireless Cook
Microwave frequencies have long been used for cooking our foods, but now, they can also be used to tell us about the cooking process. We caught up with the inventors of the iGrill wireless temperature probe at CES 2011 and they explained to us how their device uses the Bluetooth protocol to transmit temperature information…
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Wireless Power – Not Just for Breakfast
This eye-catching demonstration of a flashing cereal box got my attention at the Pepcom event at CES 2011; Fulton Innovation demonstrated how their magnetic thin-film could potentially be applied to everyday products, such as dry goods. In addition to turning a cardboard box into a digital sign, their coupling device can read meta-data from the…
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That’s the Ticket
Overnight successes rarely live up to that description. So many times in the technology world, someone will have a good idea, everyone starts talking about the possibilities of this greatest next big thing, and suddenly the hot air of hype is everywhere. Then the pinprick of inertia deflates the balloon of over-inflated expectations and yesterday’s…