Kickstarter Project: Sound Band

A new company named Hybra Advance Technology, Inc. from Traverse City, MI has launched an interesting KickStarter project called Sound Band.  It is a wireless headset that uses sound surface technology instead of speakers for better sound without negatively impacting your ability to hear sounds around you.

They have already completed three design revisions, and are looking for funding to enter production with the fourth design, and have already reached their funding goal in one week.  This is a great project and an interesting new move in wireless portable sound.  Take a look and consider backing them!

New rugged tablet trying to come to market - Meet Earl!

This is one of the most promising crowd-funded projects I've seen in a while.  The concept is a rugged e-ink based tablet, which is able to charge fully in 5 hours of sunlight.  The e-ink will keep power usage low, extending runtime to an awesome 20 hours between charges.  This thing is loaded with features and is almost ready for production, they just need some pre-orders to get them there. With a backer price of $249, this could be a huge hit for those who love the outdoors.  Check it out at the link below:

Earl - Backcountry Survival Tablet:

Meet Earl, a revolutionary tablet engineered for the most extreme of outdoor situations. Built for survival, Earl works where today's smart phones and tablets cannot. Style meets efficiency with Earl's intuitive design, fusing Android 4.1 together with an energy sipping E-Ink screen and the latest in GPS, weather sensor, and radio communication technology. With Earl at your side, stay in control of your journey no matter where it takes you.

Time keeps on ticking - The first library without books is getting ready to open...in Texas of all places

I would have expected to see this in Portland, San Francisco, or New York.  It is suprising to see it happen first in San Antonio of all places.  I love the idea, and hope it works well enough for other cities and counties to give it a try.  You can already checkout ebooks in many library systems, but why deal with the hassle of paper books when you don't need to.  In this age of smart phones, ebook readers, and tablets galore all that really needs to happen is for a format to be decided on.  Here we are hoping for EPUB, but that would cut out the millions of Kindle's amazon has alrady won the market with.

Bexar set to turn the page on idea of books in libraries - San Antonio Express-News:

Bexar set to turn the page on idea of books in libraries

R.I.P. Bill Moggridge - Computer and design pioneer

Engadget:

The next time you hinge open that notebook PC and smile at a feature that makes it easier to use, give a thought to Bill Moggridge, who passed away Saturday from cancer at the age of 69. The pioneering designer invented the modern clamshell design seen in all modern laptops, and is also viewed as the father of human interaction software design. The Compass Computer he designed for Grid Systems with the screen folded over the keyboard appeared in 1981, flew on the space shuttle, and inspired virtually every notebook design since. Perhaps more importantly, when he tried to use the machine himself, Moggridge was exasperated with the difficulty and decided to take the human factor into account for software design. To that end, he engaged experts from fields like graphics design and psychology, and tried to "build empathy for the consumer into the product," according to former partner, Professor David Kelly. The pair merged their design firms to form Ideo in 1991, and worked with clients like Apple, Microsoft and Procter & Gamble, designing products like the first Macintosh mouse and Palm V handheld along the way. In 2010, Moggridge became the director of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York, and was a recipient of that institution's lifetime achievement award. He also won the Prince Philip Designer's Prize, the longest running award of its type in the UK, given for "a design career which has upheld the highest standards and broken new ground." See why that's true by going to Cooper-Hewitt's tribute video, right after break.

 For more information, see the video and bio of Moggridge at Cooper-Hewitt.org

New innovation keeps coming

Just when you think everything great has already been invented, we get reminders that there are still those among us with the ability to create things we never thought of.  From self-cooling beverage cans (I hope beer companies get this together NOW) to polymers that protect your electronics from the elements, here is an article from Smithsonian.com highlighting some great things coming.

What will they think of next?