You’ve probably heard some variation of “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.” Well, we’ve touched on technology you probably don’t need before, but in these troubled financial times, when some of us can’t even afford things we need, it’s nice to know there are lots of things out there you don’t even want. For instance, whether you’re a smoker or not, who would want to puff on an electronic cigarette? Well, maybe it would lend some cred to the same desperate nightclubber that would wear an “Iced Out” LED Belt Buckle. And while all attention is riveted on their midriff message that screams “I’m a dork!“, you might not even notice that you’re laying down a nice rhythm track on their Electronic Drum Kit Shirt while you beat them senseless. On the home office front, maybe you could use a USB Hamster Wheel as a motivator (YouTube clip here ) . The faster you type, the faster it runs. Or if you’ve ever gone into a panic when software tells to you to “press any key to continue” and couldn’t find the “any” key, we have the Panic Button and Any Key combo. And although rather limited in purpose, I can’t tell you how many times I would’ve been glad to have had a TV-B-Gone on my keychain. With 209 turn-off codes, it should shut down most TV’s within 20 to 50 feet. Handy for white trash family arguments and easing the stress of talking to Best Buy sales staff.

The Ultimate In Renewable Energy?

Apparently it’s occurred to more than one medical professional to reduce waist (that’s not a typo) while fueling our cars more efficiently. Recently Beverly Hills doctor Craig Alan Bittner fled the country after coming under investigation for allowing unlicensed staff to perform liposuction procedures, but prior to this was making quite a name for himself by fueling his SUV with biodiesel made from human fat. He wasn’t the first to have this idea. Although ultimately shown to be a hoax, it was widely reported by credible news sources in 2006 that Norwegian entrepeneur Lauri Venoy had a deal with an American hospital to do the same thing. It’s possible that this hoax was perpetrated by The Yes Men, who pulled a similar stunt at an oil industry convention in 2007. In spite of all the scandals and disinformation, fat-as-fuel is a viable alternative; researchers are making biodiesel from chicken fat (watch for the new “Chicken Coupe” at 2010 auto shows ), turning fat into jet fuel, and in the case of Earthrace biofuel promoter Peter Bethune, using human fat to set world speed records on the oceans. With over 600,000 liposuction procedures performed annually, I think this is a great idea; the only real problem (much like the the one faced by the makers of Soylent Green) is really all in the marketing. The ultimate in self-serve: “Would you like Lowfat or Thigh Octane?”

If you’ve ever been in a traffic jam in L.A., you’ll appreciate the idea of the almost comical-looking Tango electric car zipping between the cars in the part-time parking lot often referred to as “The 405″.  Which reminds me of a question no-one’s ever answered to my satisfaction: why do Californians have the weird habit of referring to their freeways with the definite article? In any case, as odd as the Tango looks, it apparently does 0-60MPH in 4 seconds, and can give a Tesla a run for its money on the quarter-mile. All of which doesn’t matter much if you need to cart the kids to soccer games and pick up lumber at Home Depot, but that is clearly not the intention of the car’s producers. It’s designed as a commuter vehicle, and besides the cute lane-splitting trick (legal in some states, not all) it will park nose-in to the curb, and fit in most motorcycle spaces. Worried about safety? It has a full steel roll cage that meets SCCA/NHRA rules; in theory you (or at least the roll cage!) should be able to survive a 200mph crash. With its current $100K+ price tag, only George Clooney can afford one, but they plan a price-drop in 2009. For a Tango-eye view of a traffic jam, here’s another YouTube clip (no sound).

I was talking to a friend today who was reconsidering her possible future in environmental work because of quite reasonable concerns about what may happen to the economy in the near future. I hope that in spite of (or maybe because of) these economic concerns, she and others stay focused on the idea of developing a clean & green future for America. I personally believe that our current economic woes could be the motivation to shift the paradigm and put the country back on track as a leading innovator. It seems I’m not totally crazy; Barack Obama promised during his campaign (and stayed on message in his recent radio/web address) that he intends to invest $150 billion to “build an American green energy economy” in the belief that as well as creating 5 million jobs, it is in fact the only way forward in the current energy/economic environment. It’s nice to see that there seems to be an international consensus - Brazil is committing to reducing Amazon deforestation by 70%; in Hawaii (that’s a country, isn’t it Sarah?) there are plans for an electric car network; BMW is looking for 500 lucky field testers for their Mini EV, and in the general picture, green technologies have enjoyed an astounding 1400% increase in investments since 2001. There are so many great ideas busting out (and nice sites like CleantechGreentech.com with great info on the topic) that it’s almost impossible to keep track. Some of these ideas are really simple, but game-changing. Things like Crowdsourced Green Venture Capital Funds. Anybody have a positive story about greentech economics to share?

If technology has ceased to amaze you, get ready to rediscover amazement. The clip at left is the trailer for a film about Dutch artist, engineer, and visionary Theo Jansen. Using primarily electrical conduit tubing, Jansen creates disturbingly life-like machines that are meant to “populate” the coasts of Holland, “feeding on wind and fleeing from water” as he puts it. The trailer featured here gives a quick glimpse into what his creations are about, but for a fascinating few minutes, check out his talk on TED.com. His creations are sort of like a real-world Sodaconstructor, the Java-powered, kinetic, on line tinkertoy. Sodaconstructor is a little difficult to figure out, but kind of addictive once you master the basics.

Other than watching Tom Cruise get abused by the Dr. Solomon Eddie character (played by persvasive creepy bad guy Peter Stormare), one of the coolest things about the film Minority Report was probably the gestural computer interface that Cruise’s character used in his police work. While many developers have been working on ideas like this for awhile, they often are not quite there - like this cool video demo, which is really just a huge iPhone-like multi-touch display - or they seem a bit misguided in their goals. Like Mgestyk Technologies, where they take a great idea and demostrate it with first-person shooter games. The clip seen here is the latest from Oblong, who seems to have the most sophisticated and practical system in operation. Not surprising, since they were consultants on the Minority Report effects, which were based on existing MIT work.

I’ve always had a strange relationship with technology. I had a synthesizer for my first band (an Arp Axxe) when I was fifteen, way before most people even knew what they were, but was the last person I knew to get a CD player. I had a pocket scientific calculator when I was about eleven (rotary phones were still dominant at the time) but didn’t use a P.C. for the first time until 1999. As a Star Trek and space-race era kid, my expectations of technology have always been a little out of sync. That’s why I was a little confused by the video at left. It’s a 3D computer game called levelHead in which you make a little man walk through various rooms by tilting the cube. At first I was amazed and wanted to run out and buy one. Then I was ready to call hoax, because it’s so obvious that the apparently 3D images are superimposed on the cube. Then I realized that the video is what a player would see on the screen as they moved a blank cube around in their hand. Then I thought “wow, how stupid”. Then I reined in my cynicism, and realized it was pretty clever. Then I thought “what a stupid way to demonstrate the idea though”. Then I said “shut up, Ian, and stop starting sentences with ‘Then’ “.

It’s nice to know that while the big three beg for bailouts and utility executives try to raise alarm about the dangers of switching from coal, innovative thinking and a desire to make money are showing some tangible results in the clean tech movement. Apparently electric car innovator Fisker Automotive (Warning: melodramatic string music) is setting up shop - although only a couple hundred actual jobs - in Michigan. On the energy production front, even Texas is ramping it up; with its current growth in windpower generation, the state could be able to generate all of its energy from wind in the near future, with a surplus to put back into the grid. Maybe some of these survival-product pushers masked as loony prophets of oil doom will be put out of business.

I’m the kind of person who gets annoyed when Google takes my picture without asking. So the implications of these two technologies has staggering possibilities to me. First, UC San Diego researchers managed to use a photo taken with a telephoto lens to make a functional set of duplicate keys. Combine that with the incredible new image recognition technology in the presentation at left, and the possibilities are amazing. The clip is nine minutes long, but worth a watch (and probably much better full size). The software being discussed is called Photosynth, and what it does is analyze photos for similarities to others, then uses that data to build a model of where the photos were taken. This can theoretically be done with photos from all over the web, the info being gathered much like text is gathered by Google. Now that image recognition is becoming so sophisticated, is it possible that soon those automated help voices on the phone will understand what we’re saying?

Years ago I had a dream in which I was playing an amazing instrument that responded to my hand gestures and thoughts, creating sublime, transcendent music that moved the soul. Then I woke up. The best that I had at my disposal at the time was still my electric guitar, because a velocity sensitive keyboard, although it’s pretty cool, had been around for awhile. The evolution of the musical instrument interface has amazing possibilities these days, as evident in the reactable project created by students at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. As is so often the case though, the same technology seems to be more immediately applicable to practical needs, like selling cocktails. The clip at left is the brick, a “Tangible & Multi Touch Sonification Instrument”. Which is one of the more creative and purposeful interfaces I’ve seen. Many of these concepts are clever, but end up being rather non-musical or like the reacTogon, just a a clever redesign of existing ideas. Coming at things from the other direction, Japanese artist Daito Manabe lets the music play him (YouTube clip). If you watch that video, you’ll get a feel for what it means to “surrender to your art”. That can’t feel good. Daito Manabe’s YouTube page is here; he also seems to do interesting public performance art projects like whitebase + Daito Manabe and disturbing video experiments like Milk. Yucky.