- Other Interesting arXiv Papers This Week
The best of the rest from the Physics arXiv preprint server
The Potential For Photosynthesis In Hydrothermal Vents: A New Avenue For Life In The Universe?
- A QWERTY Keyboard for Your Wrist
Zoomboard—a miniscule keyboard that zooms when you tap it—could make it easier to type on smart watches.
It seems like everyone is building a smart watch lately. Pebble ran a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign earlier this year for its e-paper watch; Samsung has confirmed it is making one; and both Apple and Microsoft are thought to be developing their own versions, too (see “Smart Watches”).
- How to Make Gas-Guzzling Vans into Efficient Hybrids
A Boston-based company shows how it converts delivery trucks and other commercial fleet vehicles into hybrids.
- Internet Everywhere–But on Your Terms
I hate feeling tethered to the internet. So why do I love FreedomPop?
Rarely do I, even in casual conversation, refer to something as the “best thing ever.” And yet I’m fairly certain I’ve used that epithet a few dozen times in gushing to friends, acquaintances, and strangers about my latest toy: the Freedom Stick 4G from FreedomPop. “Go ahead!” I dare them, as they scatter to the edge of the sidewalk. “Try and name a better thing!”
- The Incompleteness of the Harm Principle
A response to Jason Pontin’s essay on free speech.
Jason Pontin has written a perceptive analysis of a timeless question: what changes in law need to be adopted in order to account for technological advances (see “Free Speech in the Era of Its Technological Amplification”)? In answering that question, he takes the right approach by taking up John Stuart Mill’s harm principle, which at its core makes this claim:
- A New Computer Screen Reaches Out to Touch You
An experimental new touch screen, the Obake, has a stretchable surface that to reacts user interaction in new ways.
An inexpensive new prototype device called the Obake adds a new dimension to touch screen technology. The surface of the device, developed by Dhairya Dand and Rob Hemsley of the MIT Media Lab, can react to how it’s being used by reaching out toward the user. It was relatively simple to make: the researchers used an open source software framework to enable the screen to react; the hardware costs between $50 and $60, Dand says.
- Yahoo's Weather App Has No "Cool" Interactions–and That's Amazing
It’s pretty, yes. But more importantly, it doesn’t force you to interact with it.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but Yahoo’s new weather app for iOS is great. Is it “innovative”? No. Well, actually it is. Its innovation is in being as non-“innovative” in its interaction design as possible. No fussy gestures, no neato animations, no infographics to “explore”. No “interactivity” at all, really. It’s more a piece of graphic design than interactive design–and my God, I wish more apps were just like it.
- Think Gestural Interactions Suck? Design Your Own
Creating your own gestural patterns could make these interactions easier to remember, researchers say.
- Another Thin-Film Solar Casualty?
Niche provider SoloPower, which received state aid, is seeking an investor to keep operating.
Need a reminder of how brutal the solar provider industry is? Consider the recent history of SoloPower.
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