3d illusion arts: Walyou

Walyou

Life-Saving Guardian AR Motorcycle Helmet
Acer Reveals Liquid Jade Smartphone and Liquid Leap Smartband Before Computex
Google Gives Europeans the Clean Slate

Life-Saving Guardian AR Motorcycle Helmet

Posted: 31 May 2014 05:30 AM PDT

Considering the tragic consequences a motorcycle accident can have, increasing the safety of bikers is mandatory. The following augmented reality helmet has great potential in this sense.

Of course, all bikes already have a dashboard, but bikers need to keep their eyes on the road while riding them. With that in mind, it’s easier if information referring to the current ride, along with video shot from angles the bikers can’t normally see, are displayed right before their eyes. Think of this as a smart helmet, if you will.

Ryan Shearman, founder and CEO of FUSAR Technologies, recalled in an interview with Engadget that took place at Augmented World Expo 2014 how the idea of making an AR helmet came to him: “I was in early morning traffic when an inattentive driver hit me from behind and I was thrown from my motorcycle. It started the wheels turning in my head: how can I make motorcycle riding safer?”

An amateur would’ve started thinking about how to add more padding to the helmet, but Shearman had a far better idea: equip a helmet with AR technology so that bikers can see what’s in their way ahead of time.

The Guardian, as Shearman called his creation, packs an Android board, two wide-angle cameras and a few components that were taken out from an Epson Moverio: “What it is, is a fully integrated and connected device that motorcyclists can wear that allows them to have a full cognitive awareness of what’s going on around them.”

The HUD display made from the Epson Moverio parts provides bikers with a video feed from the rear-facing camera, along with navigation and current speed info. It’s easy to forget about oneself when riding a bike, and the adrenaline rush could push bikers to go even faster, so acknowledging the current speed is very important.

According to Shearman, “It also has video recording capabilities. Everything is recorded passively, but in the event that an accident is detected, that footage is locked into hard memory. It effectively has a black box feature built in.” Future prototypes are going to include voice control, as if this wasn’t sci-fi enough.

Yes, it would’ve been much cooler if all that information was somehow projected on the helmet’s visor, but for the time being, this is good enough of a solution.

FUSAR Technologies will launch a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter in July, and that is probably when we’ll learn about the price of this smart helmet.

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Acer Reveals Liquid Jade Smartphone and Liquid Leap Smartband Before Computex

Posted: 30 May 2014 01:58 PM PDT

Acer Liquid Jade Smartphone and Liquid Leap Smartband

It has become a habit for tech companies to unveil their products just days before important trade shows, and since many believe that Computex will be better that CES this year, Acer took chance of the occasion to launch a new line of smartphones, a smartband and a tablet.

The five new smartphones coming from the Taiwanese tech giant, respectively Liquid E700, Liquid E600, Liquid Z200, Liquid X1, and Liquid Jade, are not as big a surprise as the Liquid Leap smartband. This and the Liquid Jade smartphone were first unveiled by the company last month, at the Touch More Connected event, but the details were scarce, to say the least. Now, ahead of Computex, Acer detailed the new products, without revealing the prices, so there are still reasons to anticipate the trade show. As far as the launch date is concerned, the company stated that it will be sometime in Q3 2014.

The Liquid Jade dual-SIM smartphone is equipped with the latest version of Android 4.4 KitKat, and according to the manufacturer, it “targets users for whom every device or accessory carried is an expression of their style and personality.” In other words, expect Acer Liquid Jade to be some sort of a style statement.

Behind the Gorilla Glass 3 screen, there is a 5-inch IPS ‘Zero Air Gap’ display with a 720×1280 pixel resolution. This is by no means revolutionary, as smartphones are slowly, but steadily stepping into 2K territory. Under the hood, Liquid Jade includes a 1.3GHz quad-core MediaTek MT6582 CPU and 1GB of RAM. The 8GB of built-in storage confirm that this isn’t exactly flagship material, but it should still be a decent smartphone.

On the back, the Liquid Jade smartphone features a 13 MP camera with an f/1.8 aperture, 0.3 second autofocus, and 1080p HD video recording capability. Selfie-enthusiasts will be able to use the phone’s 2 MP front-facing camera to take the perfect shot of themselves. In terms of connectivity, Liquid Jade comes with 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, Micro-USB, A-GPS, and a 3.5mm audio jack. Measuring only 140.5x69x7.5mm, Acer’s smartphone is powered by a 2,100 mAh battery.

Acer seems to have an affinity for Liquid anything, as it’s been naming its mobile devices using this word for four years now. Personally, I have nothing against this nomenclature, as long as these devices have no glitches. Something makes me think that the decision to name the mobile line this way derives from Bruce Lee’s speech about how people should be like water. Maybe smartphones and smartbands should be like water, as well, in that they should work fluently.

The 1-inch display of the Liquid Leap makes this wearable the smallest touchscreen device made by Acer. On top of that, it represents Acer’s first attempt at making a wearable. Not only is this smartband capable of tracking physical activities, but it can also display SMS and call notifications. Besides that, it has controls for music, but all in all, it’s not that different from other smartbands. Liquid Leap will be bundled with the Liquid Jade smartphone in select markets.

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Google Gives Europeans the Clean Slate

Posted: 30 May 2014 01:20 PM PDT

The European Court of Justice gave people from the Old Continent the right to be forgotten, and Google committed to the new rules by offering a form on its site for any requests regarding the removal of outdated, wrong or irrelevant data from the search results.

Ever since the European Court of Justice made that rule, Google received a lot of requests from people who wanted to start fresh, in terms of search results. Most requests came from Germany (40%) and the UK (13%), but that doesn’t mean that the rest of Europe is not concerned about the image they have on the Web. Until now, the Internet was very much like Vegas, in that what happened on the Web stayed on the Web, but this new rule is about to change all that. The removal of certain search results raises some concerns, though, as most of the requests are for pages detailing scams and fraud.

Larry Page stated that “trying now to be more European, and think about [data collection] maybe more from a European context. [...] I wish we’d been more involved in a real debate … in Europe. That’s one of the things we’ve taken from this, that we’re starting the process of really going and talking to people.”

Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, added that “There are clear privacy issues from time to time about material published on the web. To actually have a mechanism to deal with this seems to be the right way to go.”

According to Dina Shiloh, of the law firm Mishcon de Reya, “Essentially this is a clash that was right to happen. You have Europe’s privacy rights, which are very different to the understanding in the US. Privacy is not dead in the EU.”

Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, an Oxford Internet Institute employee in charge with Internet governance and registration. “In that way, they are already editing the web, and have always – there are links to terrorist stuff, neo-Nazi stuff, to child abuse images. Government agencies contact Google and have them take stuff down. The real question is, is this going to be more repressive than the other things they are doing? Is it going to negatively impact the trajectory of the internet? I don’t think it will.”

If you happen to live in Europe and have some pages that you’d like to see gone, feel free to make a request here. Just don’t think that the removal of sensitive data is made by snapping your fingers. Google requires you to submit a copy of your ID and ties you to some legal terms.

Be social! Follow Walyou on Facebook and Twitter, and read more related stories about Google and Samsung’s global patent cross-licensing agreement and the US Senate Bill that could make smartphone kill switch mandatory.