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June 28, 2012
Lumia

Tech today



Taking a look today in the Nokia Connects tech round-up at a robot that will never lose Rock, Paper, Scissors, saving the planet with coloured tarmac and a very intelligent car. So let’s dive in…


via Geekosystem

If you dare to play with this robot, I guarantee you’ll be wanting to throw it out of the window within 3 minutes. See, however many times you play Rock, Paper, Scissors with this disembodied hand, you’ll lose. And there’s no secret formula…this robot knows what shape you’re going to throw before you do by ‘seeing’ it in the shape of your hand, then instantly making it’s own shape to beat you. Not rocket science (well, maybe a bit), but very clever.

Here’s a novel idea and one of those things that when you see it you think ‘So simple, why didn’t I think of it?’ The heat from black tarmac/asphalt reflects back into the atmosphere and makes its own contribution to global warming and climate change. So why not make the roads a different colour, reducing the ‘urban heat island’ effect? Simply by making 35% of urban roads in the US a different colour the equivalent of 8 billion tonnes of carbon would be saved. Just by making the tarmac green, or yellow, or pink.


via Wired

Finally today, a car that knows how stressed you are and how hard you’re working to drive (whether in heavy traffic, or going at a fine old speed but suddenly slow down), and knows to ‘manage infotainment and communication features’ (e.g. blocking incoming calls on your Bluetooth) to make sure you’re not distracted. By using sensors in the steering wheel, pedals and external radar and feeding it into an algorithm, the car (a Ford) works out the ‘driver workload estimator’. So the car knows before you do that you’re working hard. Technology leading to safety. Wonderful.

Would you want your car to control your communication? Want to take on the robot? Let me know in the comments, or drop me a tweet.