Japanese telecom giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp. (NTT) is getting ready to launch a system called RedTacton that will eliminate the need for keys and ID cards and let people open doors by touch.

Data traveling through the user’s clothing, handbag, or shoes from a small card in their pocket will let her open a door by touching the knob or standing on a particular spot. The system uses the surface of the human body as a means of transmission.

An NTT engineer says that future applications could include a walk-through ticket gate, a cabinet that only opens to authorized people, and even a TV remote that automatically knows a user’s favorite channels and shows.

Car alarm systems could also get more secure using RedTacton. Instead of unlocking when you are near the car as they do now, they will only unlock when you touch the door.

This technology seems to be a glimpse into the future. At first it will be limited in use and fairly expensive, but as it becomes more widespread we could see the extinction of the key and ID card as we know them today. Imagine walking up to your house, reaching for a doorknob which automatically unlocks the door, and walking right in. No more fumbling around for keys. That’s a future we’d like to live in.

Optimus Maximus keyboards have finally begun shipping. The keyboard, which is outfitted with an OLED display on every key, retails at a ridiculously high $462.

However, the hole left in your wallet just might be replaced with your love for the keyboard. It’s completely customizable for different languages and different programs via a program from the manufacturer.

It can display letters for the selected language on your computer, such as English, Russian, French, and Spanish, as well as show icons for programs like Photoshop and games like Half-Life 2.

Check out a sweet demo of how the keyboard works here.

Young Optics Inc., a company that creates optical components and optical engines, has announced that they will be shipping a pico projector either at the end of this quarter or the beginning on the next one, meaning that we will see a tiny projector in the next few months.

The devices are expected to run on only 1 watt of energy and, using an LED lamp, will be capable of displaying 7 ANSI lumens of brightness. The pico projectors will use the Texas Instruments DLP display technology.

A name or price has not been announced yet. However, with the release date imminent these details should emerge soon.

With this projector we could finally see an explosion in mobile video. A pico projector would probably mean bigger storage in mobile phones so we can cart around big video files and view them anywhere at a decent size. Hopefully the big mobile phone manufacturers will take advantage of the technology when it’s released.

Following on the heels of their ‘Advanced Multitouch’ patent application, Apple has filed a patent detailing a multi-touch device that would support a large number of gestures including typing, scrolling, pointing, and handwriting. The device would combine these gestures into a single mode-less ergonomic design.

From the filing:
“It should therefore appear modeless to the user in the sense that the user should not need to provide explicit mode switch signals such as buttonpresses, arm relocations, or stylus pickups before switching from one input activity to another. Epidemiological studies suggest that repetition and force multiply in causing repetitive strain injuries. Awkward postures, device activation force, wasted motion, and repetition should be minimized to improve ergonomics.”

The system would be able to detect a number of different hand configurations, allowing it to figure out what part of the users hand was interacting with it and reacting accordingly.

We think this advanced multi-touch system is really quite amazing. Devices like the iPhone and the Microsoft Surface have incredible possibilities for user interaction, and those devices only use a relatively simple form of multi-touch. This Apple patent gives light to a device with a much deeper level of gesturing than we have ever seen before, and we can’t wait to see what it looks like and how it works. Hurry up Apple, we want to get rid of our keyboards!

It’s been a long time coming, and riders of San Francisco’s ‘Connected Bus’ will finally have WiFi service during their journey around the city. People will never have to stop looking at their computer screen again.

Although the name isn’t very clever, the bus itself certainly is. Besides the free WiFi access, it also has touchscreen maps on the walls with live transit information.

“This is a smart bus in every way, shape and form,” said San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. “You can download music, you can play video games. It’s a bus where you are connected. It’s constantly generating information about your connection to the rest of the Muni system.”

However, some riders are not happy with the new bus. Instead, they’d prefer buses that run on time, better drivers, graffiti removal, and more comfortable seats.

We think the idea is good, but mostly unnecessary. Many people already spend too much time starting at a computer, and this bus won’t help that at all. It would probably be a much better idea to improve the bus system by spending the money in other places. However, constant WiFi access is the future and this is one small step there.
Photo: Chronicle/Michael Macor

Researchers at Stanford University have invented a chip which can take pictures in 3D. Besides being able to reassemble the 3D image into a normal 2D photograph that we all know and love, the researchers can also figure out distances of objects in the photo.

The chip works by overlapping small 16×16-pixel patches, called subarrays, each hiding under its own lens. After a photo is taken, special software then analyzes it looking for small location differences for the same element in different patches. Based on this information the software is able to extrapolate the distance from one object to another at the time the photo was taken. Read more »

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Google is considering either buying or partnering with Space Data Corp. The company is known for providing wireless networks via giant balloons, which combined with that 700 MHz spectrum could mean free wireless access with incredible coverage. Read more »

Although it looks like some sort of strange spider on your head, the Emotiv EPOC headset is actually a much smarter creature. The device lets you use your mind to interact with a computer, allowing you to control games via your thoughts.

Emotiv has been showcasing the technology at this week’s Game Developer Conference and several people have tried it out with pretty impressive results. They report being able to move a cube around the screen by just thinking about the direction it should go.

To do so, the software is first calibrated with the user’s thoughts. It tells the user to think about the box moving up, for example, and records what that person is thinking. Then, the next time the same thought occurs the box will actually move up.

The company claims that EPOC can also detect more than 30 different expressions, emotions, and actions such as smiling, winking, grimacing, and angry or happy feelings. Read more »