Watch “A Day Made of Glass” and take a look at Corning’s vision for the future with specialty glass at the heart of it.

(Source: Youtube – Corning Incorporated)
We (All Aspects Technology) have been working on technology like this for the past 2 years, trying to make this a reality. It’s inspiring to see that Corning and other companies are taking an interest in this new technology. Technology has come a long way, but we still a lot of work ahead of us in the goal of providing better technology to the world and contributing to human progression. This technology will have use beyond a home or office, using this technology in a hospital could easily save time and even save lives. Technology isn’t just about making life more convenient, it’s about helping humanity as well.

Installations like this one at the University of Oregon show the potential of massive touch surfaces produced using Visual Planet’s touchfoil technology.

(Source: Aaron Saenz September 18th, 2011 – Singularity Hub)

Open up a cardboard tube, roll out a transparent film just millimeters thick, apply it on a flat object and *tada* you’ve got an interactive touch surface. Cambridge-based Visual Planet just launched its new massive-sized multitouch thin film drivers so you can create touchscreens from 30 to 167 inches in size! Their touchfoil is a transparent nanowire embedded polymer capable of sensing the touch of a finger, or even pressure from wind and translating that to a computer interface. It works on glass, wood, and other non-conductive surfaces. Along with their many partners, Visual Planet can ship a custom built film (almost) anywhere on the planet and help you create a unique interactive display that will turn heads and hold attention. Check out some of their many applications using LCD screens, rear projection, and more in the videos below. Is this proven technology just a novelty, or will it help transform our environment into a digital wonderland?
I have to start with some of the impressive demonstrations Visual Planet and its partners have created. Over the past seven years they’ve installed “thousands” of these surfaces around the globe. The first is a simple LCD monitor that has been covered in the touchfoil (aka the “ViP Interactive Foil”). Multitouch like this can be produced at sizes up to 60 inches. Single touch goes all the way up to 167 inches, as you’ll see in the second video. The general appeal, and versatility can be seen in the third video, taken at an installation in Oslo.

• Video 1
• Video 2
• Video 3

With their launch of the multitouch drivers, Visual Planet is helping expand its user base by including Windows 7 compatibility and courting developers with an SDK. Their fairly new website also highlights how they can work with their partners to provide you with a custom solution from distribution of the film to installation to software development. Their YouTube channel is also chock full of videos showcasing tons of different use-cases and sizes. Basically if you have a display (LCD, projection, etc) and you have a surface (store front window, support column, floor, etc) Visual Planet can turn it into a touchscreen.
That’s impressive, but it’s also old news. Visual Planet has been installing these films for years. If you’ve read Singularity Hub regularly (which causes much less brain cancer than you would think) you may remember our earlier coverage of Displax. The Portuguese company did many of the same demonstrations. That makes sense as they were one of Visual Planet’s partners. There are true competitors, however. 3M has had a similar technology for years, and as you get into smaller sizes the number of available solutions skyrockets.
Which makes me very curious as to why we don’t have more of Visual Planet-style interactive surfaces out in the world. Thousands? Sure, that’s pretty good for an emerging technology, but honestly most of us probably won’t see these devices regularly until there are millions. What’s the hold up?
I’m not sure large touchscreens are the right tool for the job. They are uniquely impressive, I’ll give you that, but having seen a few in malls (as maps) or in kiosk ads (with games to attract viewers), I think there are too many drawbacks. They get grimy (who wants to touch something everyone else has touched?), they can get worn, they are locked into place, and your use of the technology is very public. People are going to watch what you’re doing. Compare that to augmented reality on your smart phone. You get similar levels of touch interaction with the real world, just on a smaller, more personal scale. Less impressive? Maybe, but it lets people find the information, and interact with it, on their own terms. To me, AR is going to be the more desirable solution for the majority of use cases.
So…yeah. That leaves me with this amazing looking technology whose applicability is somewhat questionable. Huge screens you can touch? Sounds amazing, but for now I think it will remain a novelty. Applications that draw attention – like an interactive touchscreen bar in a pub – will probably work well. Applications that want to be really useful – I think we’ll just go with our phones instead. But maybe I’m wrong? Tell me what you think in the comments. Visual Planet has definitely made its technology as accessible as it can, now it’s up to all of us technophiles to decide whether or not we really want it.

[image and video credits: Visual Planet]
[sources: Visual Planet]

Researchers show that a smart phone can measure some vital signs accurately and conveniently.

(Source: FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2011 BY ERICA WESTLY – MIT’s Technology Review)

A new smart-phone app can take your pulse and measure your breathing simply by detecting subtle changes in skin color. All you need to do is hold an index finger over a smart phone’s video camera for a few minutes.

Earlier this year, researchers from MIT’s Media Lab showed that a computer could reliably measure heart rate using just a mirror and a webcam. The new app was created by researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute seeking to create smart-phone applications that can record basic health information without the need for external sensors, which can be expensive and unwieldy.

When the researchers compared the app with more standard tools for measuring heart and respiratory rates, such as the electrocardiograph and the pulse oximeter, the readings were almost identical. The results will be published in IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering later this fall.

Ki Chon, a biomedical engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and the lead researcher on the study, envisions the technology helping the elderly monitor their vital signs at home or in assisted living facilities. “The app seems to work on the earlobe, too, so the phone could even measure heart rate as people talk on the phone,” he says.

Chon and his colleagues are also collaborating with clinicians at UMass Memorial Medical Center, using the app to monitor patients with atrial fibrillation, a relatively common abnormal heart rhythm that increases a person’s risk of stroke. They’re starting with patients who have already been diagnosed with the disorder, but David McManus, the lead clinician involved, says that the app may also help identify it, particularly in people who experience problems only periodically.

Instead of waiting for symptoms to appear again, patients could use the app to keep a daily record of their heart rhythm, which they could either send to their doctor or bring to their next appointment. “This could be a tremendously powerful tool for monitoring arrhythmia,” McManus says. “There’s no added hardware, and it makes use of a device that a lot of folks have.”

The tricky part for Chon and his team will be getting the app to work on different types of smart phones. The app relies on a combination of green light emitted by the video camera and white light from the flash, and these components vary slightly from phone to phone. Their proof-of-concept study was done on a Motorola Droid. The researchers plan to do more testing before making the app available for download. They’re also testing a smart phone’s ability to measure blood loss, which could help patients and even ambulance crews in emergencies.