The end of housework?

Washing your house's floors with water and cleaning fluid… it is not very original and a bite boring. But now it exists something funnier. Its name? Scooba.Launched for more than one year, this little robot slip everywhere into your house in order to clean it.

Created after its "brother" Roomba that can only do as a vacuum cleaner, Scooba is able to wash the floor of your kichen or your bathroom. Now, it is possible to choose the machine according to the floor you have to wash!

As most of technological inventions, these cheap little robots make easier our lives. For about $200, they realise numerous useful task we don't like to do. In order to congratulate them, 60% of fortunate owners have given them a name!

A $100 laptop

A group of researchers supported by NGOs, companies and governments, have conceived and try to produce a $100 laptop. This computer is not really a marvel (no hard disk but a flash memory, a crank in order to deliver energy in case of power failure, WiFi, etc.). Very cheap, the objective is that every children of the world can have one.

Working thanks to Linux and supported by Google, all the ingredients seem to be combined to titillate the gigantic Bill Gates. His "appropriate" response, the Origami, has nothing in commun. Although it is very minimalist, its selling price (between $600 and $1000) place it complety wide of the mark!

Microsoft is not yet ready to make a low cost computer!

 

To have more informations concerning the product, please visit this website: http://laptop.org/

Just a question of point of vue!

No more second LCD for your car to play DVD while on the road. The Toyota’s dual-screen DVD and navigation system safely leads you to destination while others are enjoying DVD with the same screen.

Toyota has developed a dual-purpose navigation system making it possible for the driver to check a road map on the display while a passenger watches a TV program or a DVD. The system features two different screens depending on the angle you look at. The audio data for the navigation are directed to the driver while the sounds of the TV series or Hollywood movie are directed to the ear of the passenger.

The special Alphard edition, called the AS Limited Dual AVN Special, costs $31,732. Toyota will consider adopting the navigation system for other models if customers react favorably.

Market survey about CyCab

Executive summary

French researchers from INRIA and INRETS institutes work on a new intelligent mean of transport for the city. The object of the survey was to know if people are ready to change their habits concerning the way they move in town centers. It shows that the invention is very promising, but they still have to cover a lot of ground before imposing their product.

Sample: 60 persons from 20 to 25 years old.

Administration: survey made and administrated thanks to surveymonkey.com.

Introduction

This report will look at:

• favorite alternative energies for people;
• people's sensitivity to the environment;
• what they are ready to do against pollution;
• recommendations for action.

Findings

1. The majority of respondents have a car, and the alternative energy that they prefer for their car is hydrogen. Electricity arrives only in the 3rd place after hydrogen and "hybrid" technologies. It is nearly as popular as gas. This is due to the fact that this technology is currently not perfected.

2. The immense majority of interrogated persons live in a city. Although they said they are sensitive to the preservation of the environment, people say that the means of transport they use most frequently in town centers is their car!

3. To use these vehicles, people would have to rent them. However, the survey revealed that most of people are not ready to pay to rent electrical vehicles. However, people that are ready to use CyCab, are ready to pay until €5.4 on average.

Conclusion

Although CyCab are made in order to be used easily (driving thanks to a joystick, automatic parking and recharging), people seem not to be ready to use it. It is really representative of mentality of people: they know it is necessary to do something for the preservation of the Earth, but they are not yet ready to make sacrifices (walking, going by bus or by bicycle instead of using a car for example).

Recommendations

Researches should have a meeting in order to refine with users tomorrow means of transport. Furthemore, they have to fix a rental price.

 

Virtual humans VS machines

In order to substitute to machines, German researchers are developing a new concept of virtual humans. These virtual humans, which will interact with you through speech and gestures, could be used in many cases. For example, it could be ticket sellers, but also teachers for students taking e-learning courses.

The idea of the virtual human is to design a human-computer interface as naturally as possible, as if it's a real person. So they have to integrate lots of human characteristics. Then, they need to interact socially, communicate verbally and non-verbally thanks to gestures and facial expressions.

 

More than visual aspect of virtual human, the most important difficulty is probably to associate dialog with lips' movement.

The potential of this new kind of interface is enormous when we think of all applications it can be used for. Just imagine new websites: a 3D moving image of a man or a woman (make your choice!), you ask to him/her your questions, and it would answer you. Do as if you were listening to a story. It is the end of long and boring readings…

And me, I'm going to close this blogg. We told me that Kelly is going to replace me…

Market survey

Currently, I make a market survey concerning a new way of transport. Please, go on the link below to give me you're answers… I'll publish the responses and my analysis on this blog soon.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=697991999316

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