Interactive Newsprint and Printed Electronics

Interactive Newsprint is a new research project led by the School of Journalism, Media and Communication at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) and funded by the Digital Economy (DE) Programme.

Source: Meld

Interactive Newsprint

Interactive paper is a type of “smart” paper. It is responsive to a human touch – the images or text printed on it can change, or play a sound once a certain area on the surface is pressed. This means that sheets of paper can turn into interactive displays. For example, imagine a community news poster with an interactive title. This could be designed to advertise and illustrate articles read aloud at the push of embedded buttons around the edge of the poster. The title text could show the times of forthcoming community events or meetings. Alternatively, imagine a home notice board display or picture frame containing active paper to which community club members could broadcast club news in short SMS text messages and voicemails.

Source: Interactive Newsprint

Source: Interactive Newsprint: Intro on Vimeo

“Can Printed Electronics Save the Music Industry?”
While we were working on our last ULAB project, Sweet Tweet, I was invited to take part in a panel discussion at SXSW in Austin, Texas to discuss a mashup of electronics, print and indie music. We didn’t just want to blab about it, we wanted to create some demonstrators that enabled people to get an idea of what the technology could do.

Source: ULAB I Paper Apps | Uniform

Related

• Printed Electronics Makes Paper Interactive - The Next Web
• Can Printed Electronics Save the Music Industry?

Google TV

Google TV is a software platform for set-top boxes and HDTVs based on the Android operating system and co-developed by Google, Intel, Sony and Logitech. The project was officially announced by Google and its partners on May 20, 2010.

Collected from: Google TV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Google plans to introduce a box accompanying the TV which tries to make the TV “smarter” by letting you search for content... and browse the web, and view photo albums and more, as Google’s video introduction shows. It’s called Google TV, and as Techcrunch writes, “It will work as a new box – you’ll just hook up your existing cable or satellite box to it. All the hardware will include a keyboard and a mouse – but it will work with Android phones too. And you can use multiple Android devices to control the same TV – no more fighting over the remote.”

Collected from: Google TV

Introducing Google TV

Collected from: YouTube - Introducing Google TV

TV meets web. Web meets TV.

Google TV is a new experience made for television that combines the TV you know and love with the freedom and power of the Internet. Watch an overview video below, sign up for updates, and learn more about how to develop for Google TV.

Watch
Google TV is coming to a living room near you.
Watch the Google TV announcement.

Learn
Learn about the partners we're working with.
Visit Sony, Logitech and Intel.

Develop
Optimize your web apps for Google TV.
Android SDK coming soon. Learn more.
 

Collected from: Google TV

Enhance your TV experience with the power of the web. The Sony Internet TV provides richer internet access so you can browse the web just like you would from a computer. Seamlessly navigate between websites and TV channels or enjoy both at the same time. On the same screen.

Collected from: Sony introduces the world's first HDTV incorporating the Google TV platform.

TV just got smarter. The Intel® Atom™ processor brings intelligence and performance to your TV experience. Everything you love about TV and the Internet is now together on one screen. Instantly find and watch your favorite shows and movies, easily surf between channels and Web sites, and interact with TV like never before.

Collected from: Intel and Smart TV

If you can think it, you can watch it.

Chances are, you have one of the 60 million HDTVs in the US that are ready. To be smarter. To integrate the full Web and your HD cable or satellite content. To do things no TV has ever done before.

Logitech is putting the final touches on a companion box that will connect your HDTV to everything the Google TV experience can be. So watching is just the beginning.

Collected from: Logitech

Sources

Google TV
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2010-05-21-n21.html
Google TV - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_TV
YouTube - Introducing Google TV
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diTpeYoqAhc
Google TV
http://www.google.com/tv/
Intel and Smart TV
http://www.intel.com/inside/smartTV/
Sony introduces the world's first HDTV incorporating the Google TV platform.
http://discover.sonystyle.com/internettv/
Logitech
http://www.logitech.com/en-us/1005/7099?WT.mc_id=google_googletv_redirect_052010

Related

Official Google Blog: Announcing Google TV: TV meets web. Web meets TV.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/announcing-google-tv-tv-meets-web-web.html
Watch the Google TV announcement
http://www.youtube.com/googledevelopers#p/c/B09682344C2F233B/0/ASZbArr7vdI
Google TV
http://www.google.com/tv/developer/
Google TV Unveiled. It’s All About The Ad Reach
http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/20/google-tv/
Google TV: Who is the competition and what are they saying about it? -- Engadget HD
http://hd.engadget.com/2010/05/21/google-tv-who-is-the-competition-and-what-are-they-saying-about/
Google TV vs. Apple TV (and Everyone Else) | News & Opinion | PCMag.com
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2364066,00.asp
Google and Partners Seek Foothold in the Living Room - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/technology/18webtv.html

Google's Book Scanning Technology

clipped from news.cnet.com

Patent reveals Google's book-scanning advantage

Google has come up with a system that uses two cameras and infrared light to automatically correct for the curvature of pages in a book. By constructing a 3D model of each page and then "de-warping" it afterward, Google can present flat-looking pages online without having to slice books up or mash them onto a flatbed scanner.

clipped from patft.uspto.gov

United States Patent	7,508,978
Lefevere , et al.	March 24, 2009

Inventors:	Lefevere; Francois-Marie (Mountain View, CA), Saric; Marin (Palo Alto, CA)
Assignee:	Google Inc. (Mountain View, CA)

Detection of grooves in scanned images

clipped from scitedaily.com

SciTeDaily

The diagram of Google’s patented technology is shown first and the diagram of the Japanese researchers’ technology is shown second. The similarity is immediately obvious.

Google's Book Scanning Patent

Diagram from article by researchers at U. Tokyo

clipped from news.cnet.com

Here's how the Google system is described in Patent 7,508,978:

First, the book is placed on a flat surface. Above it, an infrared projector displays a special mazelike pattern onto the pages.

Next, two infrared cameras photograph the infrared pattern from different perspectives.

"The images can be stereoscopically combined, using known stereoscopic techniques, to obtain a three-dimensional mapping of the pattern," according to the patent. "The pattern falls on the surface of (the) book, causing the three-dimensional mapping of the pattern to correspond to the three-dimensional surface of the page of the book."

clipped from scitedaily.com

The University of Tokyo system works on the same principle, but only a single high-speed camera is used to serve the duties of all three cameras in Google’s system. It captures both pages simultaneously and also alternates between taking pictures under normal light, to capture the content of the page, and IR patterned light, to deduce the curvature of the page.

clipped from scitedaily.com

Google’s Book Scanning Music Patent

A related patent that Google was awarded on November 17 shows how they intend to use music to cue the human operator of their book scanning system. Flipping pages is tedious, and it is easy for people to slip up, perhaps skipping a page or accidentally taking pictures of their hand. The patent describes how a musical tone can be played from the speakers at regular intervals to give the operator a pace to flip pages to. It also describes how the system might be used play an error tone if the computer detects that a page may have been skipped (e.g. by detecting page numbers) or that the user’s hand may be in the picture.

Flipping pages is apparently quite hard. According to this site, sometimes people’s hands turn up in images on Google Books. Some companies offer robotic page flippers that do the task automatically.

clipped from www.youtube.com

4DigitalBooks

clipped from www.youtube.com

Robotic Book Scanning

Sources:

1. Patent reveals Google's book-scanning advantage | Cutting Edge - CNET News
2. United States Patent: 7508978
3. Google’s Book Scanning Technology Revealed « SciTeDaily
4. YouTube - 4DigitalBooks
5. YouTube - Robotic Book Scanning

Related:

1. The Secret Of Google's Book Scanning Machine Revealed - As A Matter Of Fact Blog : NPR
2. Book scanning - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
3. Optical character recognition - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
4. Scan This Book! - New York Times

News at Seven Virtual Newscast

clipped from www.popsci.com

A.I. Anchors Replace Human Reporters In Newsroom of the Future

A.I. Anchors Engineers at Northwestern have created an entire newsroom operation using artificial intelligence, even using avatars to anchor the evening news.

clipped from infolab.northwestern.edu

Projects News At Seven

News At Seven is a system that automatically generates a virtual news show.

Totally autonomous, it collects, parses, edits and organizes news stories and then passes the formatted content to artificial anchors for presentation. Using the resources present on the web, the system goes beyond the straight text of the news stories to also retrieve relevant images and blogs with commentary on the topics to be presented.

Once it has assembled and edited its material, News At Seven presents the content to its audience using avatars and text-to-speech (TTS) technology in a manner similar to the nightly news watched regularly by millions of Americans. The result is a cohesive, compelling performance that successfully combines techniques of modern news programming with features made by possible only by the fact that the system is, at its core, completely virtual.

clipped from www.youtube.com

News at Seven

Kris Hammond, professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and his research group have developed a new automated newscast, called News at Seven.

clipped from www.youtube.com

Virtual Newscast: News at Seven

Sources:

1. A.I. Anchors Replace Human Reporters In Newsroom of the Future | Popular Science
2. Intelligent Information Laboratory @ Northwestern University - Projects - News At Seven
3. YouTube - News at Seven
4. YouTube - Virtual Newscast: News at Seven

Related:

1. Virtual News Cast – Are Any Journalists Safe From Automation? (videos) | Singularity Hub
2. nsf.gov - Special Report - Science Nation
3. YouTube - NewsAtSeven's Channel
4. Watch coverage of EECS project “News at Seven” from WTTW
5. New newscast offers virtual anchor, personalized content
6. YouTube - Movie Review

Cooliris -- Beyond the Browser

Cooliris, Inc. offers two browser plugins focused on enhanced web browsing PicLens and Cooliris Previews. PicLens transforms the browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for photos and videos. Cooliris Previews ofers preview of links and rich-media without clicking or leaving the current page.

clipped from en.wikipedia.org Cooliris From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Cooliris, Inc. is an American corporation. Headquartered in Menlo Park, CA, Cooliris develops a range of products focused on enhancing the user experience for online media. The company, at present, offers two freeware applications: PicLens and Cooliris Previews. clipped from www.cooliris.com PicLens Full-Screen. 3D. PicLens transforms your browser into a full-screen, 3D experience for photos and videos across the web. Media comes to life via a cinematic presentation that goes beyond the confines of the traditional browser window. Available for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. Learn More. clipped from www.youtube.com clipped from www.cooliris.com Cooliris Previews Browse faster than ever Cooliris Previews lets you preview links and rich-media without clicking or leaving your current page, so you can browse faster than ever. Available for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. clipped from www.youtube.com

Related:
Cooliris, Inc. | Beyond the Browser
PicLens | Immersive Views Across the Web
Cooliris, Inc. | Beyond the Browser

Google News Fact and Fiction

A couple of alleged facts and myth about Google News discussed in the official Google News Blog.

clipped from googlenewsblog.blogspot.com Having an image next to your article improves your ranking MYTH Updating an article after posting it will create problems with Google News TRUE Timing the publication of your article improves your article ranking MYTH Articles that are just images or video won't be included TRUE There's no way to see why my articles weren't included in Google News MYTH Publishing a sitemap helps my rankings MYTH Redesigning my site may affect my coverage in Google News TRUE If I put AdSense on my site, my article rankings will improve MYTH

Via: Google News Fact and Fiction According to Google
Related:
Google News Blog: Psst...secrets of Google News exposed!
Ranking in Google News: Setting the Record Straight - Google News Publishers - Troubleshooting | Google Groups

Wauw! Studio

About Wauw! Studio personal broadcast centre, allowing access photos stored on a PC and more by using a mobile phone.

clipped from www.wauw.fm clipped from www.wauw.fm Wauw! Free entertainment on your mobile phone. How Wauw! Studio works Wauw! Studio is your personal broadcast centre, an add-on for your PC. The Wauw! software installation is straight-forward. Before downloading it will ask you to make sure that your phone is media ready and that the media streaming settings are enabled. clipped from www.wauw.fm Search channel clipped from www.wauw.fm Listen to your favourite radio broadcast, any time, anywhere on your mobile phone - it's all FREE! clipped from www.wauw.fm Show off your photos, any time, anywhere - FREE! With Wauw! Studio you can access all the photos stored on your home computer using your mobile phone. That means you can view your favourite photos whenever and wherever you want. clipped from www.wauw.fm Listen to your music, any time, anywhere - FREE! With Wauw! you can play the songs stored on your home computer using your mobile phone. Your favourite songs will stream seamlessly to your phone for your listening pleasure.