Human social behavior shares much in common with dance. Our speech, as well as the movement of our body, head, and hands, is periodic and rhythmic. The goal of the BeatBots project is to develop robots that can interact with people by synchronizing with these social rhythms. We believe that rhythmic synchrony is as important for establishing engagement, rapport, and comfort between a robot and a person as it is between people.
You must be tired of hunting down coffee shops with free WiFi every time you want to use the internet. Gotta be tired of having to check all the connections that you can see from your apartment, looking for the one that is open without a password.
Well then this is the program you have been waiting for. iStumbler is a program you can download to your computer that will use your wireless card to search the waves and let you know which networks are around you that you can connect to and which of those networks is not password protected.
Of course, you need to also not care that you are piggybacking on soemone else’s network and, essentially, stealing from them (though stealing bandwidth is a pretty abstract concept of theft).
So, if you don’t have high-speed at home (and you use a Mac) then you might want to check out iStumbler for yourself.
So, while you are at the park doing your work you realize maybe you shouldn’t have had that Extra Large Coffee and the bottle of water cause now you are in the middle of Bryant park and your really need to pee. You have a few options, finding a restaurant and buying the cheapest item to gain entry to their bathroom, looking for a dark doorway or corner without a lot of people walking by or you can text MizPee.
MizPee is a service that allows you to text them with your general location and it will tell you were the nearest bathroom is and how clean it is. You can also access their map online if you have a computer handy.
There was another dashboard widget I found as well which allows you to find the nearest bathrooms, but I managed to lose that page, when I come across it again I will add the link.
Another useful tool (if you have a Mac Laptop) is the Public Toilet Finder Widget Just enter your city and location and you’ll receive a list of where public toilets are to be found. Again this seems like a great idea (if you have access to your computer and a Wireless Network).
As of last week in fact, and with summer has come summer weather. We are hitting the 80s and 90s on a regular basis now with lots of sun (and, well some haze too, but that is to be expected in NYC). There are some folks out there, sitting at their desk right now wishing they could just get out, go outside and enjoy this warm weather somewhere nice as opposed to under the harsh fluorescent lighting that they are regularly exposed to.
Well, for all you folks with laptops and WiFi cards (ok, does anyone still own a laptop without one these days?) there is hope:
There is also NYC Wireless Supernode, a company providing free wireless connections throughout the city through nodes. They have a map up as well showing you were they have hotspots and which are currently up and running.
So, gather all of those important papers together, grab that laptop case, check out one of the maps, and get yourself out into the open, spend the day soaking up some sun while you work from outside the office. What a concept, once I get a battery pack for my office iMac maybe I’ll be able to heave it to a park and enjoy some of these sunny days this summer too.
We’ve got WiFi already, mobile telephones, and batteries to take virtually anything on the road with us, but recently researchers at MIT have found a way to wirelessly power a 60 watt light bulb at a distance of two meters.
According to Technology Review, published by MIT, the method for sending the energy is more efficient then antenna based wireless networks, allowing for more power to be transferred from point A to point B by use of charged coils using magnetic fields.
There is some talk about possible health related side effects of passing electricity through the air, but they effects are thought to be low as magnetic fields have little to no effect on the human body (which kind of calls into question the “healing properties” all those bracelets claim to have).
The main application that these scientists are focusing on with this new technology is wirelessy charging electronics, but as the technology is refined more applications will surely arise. In the meanwhile, it will be kind of cool to just drop your cell phone in your apartment and know it is charging without having to remember to plug it in.
You must be tired of hunting down coffee shops with free WiFi every time you want to use the internet. Gotta be tired of having to check all the connections that you can see from your apartment, looking for the one that is open without a password.
So, while you are at the park doing your work you realize maybe you shouldn’t have had that Extra Large Coffee and the bottle of water cause now you are in the middle of Bryant park and your really need to pee. You have a few options, finding a restaurant and buying the cheapest item to gain entry to their bathroom, looking for a dark doorway or corner without a lot of people walking by or you can text 
We’ve got WiFi already, mobile telephones, and batteries to take virtually anything on the road with us, but recently researchers at MIT have found a way to wirelessly power a 60 watt light bulb at a distance of two meters.