Monster Releases iSoniCast Wireless Audio Bridge

Hating on Monster seems to be the latest craze but if you’re a music lover and a tech lover, then there’s no denying that the iSoniCast is a cool piece of gear. Monster’s latest gadget is sleek and well-designed, convenient and surprisingly cheap as well. iSoniCast is a wireless audio bridge that allows you to wirelessly stream tunes from your iPod to your home audio system. Making use of the 2.4 GHz spectrum, it touts 4 Mbps (no, not 4 Gbps as one of the bullets on the product page states) of throughput to facilitate clear and uninterrupted playback with minimal interference. In fact, the unit makes use of intelligent frequency hoping to ensure that frequency crossing is kept at a bear minimum. iSoniCast easily hooks up to any home audio system using RCA connectors and the look should go nicely with your existing gear. Perhaps the best part about Monster’s design is that it uses the iPod itself to control playback. No need to worry about adding yet another remote to your junk drawer and no need to head over to your system in order to select a new track or playlist. Even if you pass on Monster’s overpriced cables, at $100 the iSoniCast is definitely worth a look

Nokia N810 with WiMAX set to launch at CTIA on April 1st?

Remember the rumor we saw floating about a few weeks ago about a Nokia N810 refresh? Well, the lads at The Boy Genius Report are reporting -- on a rumor mind you -- that Nokia is set to launch its N810 refresh with WiMAX at CTIA in April this year. Interestingly, the name will remain the same, and not be labeled the Nokia N830 as we'd first thought. Yeah, it's only a rumor at this point, but we're thinking that giving this radio-less internet appliance a bit more reach is nothing but a good thing.

You already know the drill by now — rumor alert — but we can’t hold back from posting this juicy bit of information we just got. We’ve heard the Nokia N810 with WiMAX (we heard it actually is still called the N810, not the N830) is going to launch April 1st. What day is April 1st, you’re asking? The start of CTIA, peoples! Again, we’ve yet to confirm this ourselves, but figured we’d give y’all a heads up. Any takers?

Google Gets DoubleClick

A couple of days ago, Google has formally acquired DoubleClick Inc. after officials in Europe has given the go signal on the purchase. The former bought the latter for $3.1 billion.

With the acquisition of DoubleClick made formal, Google’s CEO and chairman Eric Schmist said that the company is thrilled that the whole deal was finalized. He added, “With DoubleClick, Google now has the leading display ad platform, which will enable us to rapidly bring to market advances in technology and infrastructure that will dramatically improve the effectiveness, measurability and performance of digital media for publishers, advertisers and agencies, while improving the relevance of advertising for users.”

There are some though who are not complacent with the deal. A reaction said:

Now there is nothing wrong with what Performics offers; SEO and SEM are legitimate businesses. The catch is that Google is now offering paid services that promise improved search engine listings in Google itself, a 100% conflict of interest. Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land calls for Google to divest itself of Performics, and it’s a call that should be supported.

Augmented reality projections

I stumbled across an interesting post a few days ago on HC Gilje’s weblog Conversations with Spaces concerning relief projections. The focus in the post was on the work Augmented Sculpture v1.0 by Pablo Valbuena, which is incredibly beautiful, however the research by Johnny Chung Lee into automatic projector calibration (images above, video below) stood out as being a research system of great benefit to augmented reality and of course the Internet of Things.

These projections could be used in a number of ways, from simple non-standard shape projections, display enhanced objects, motion-tracked displays within augmented environments (e.g. in Minority report), augmenting physical objects with graphical interfaces and displays etc.

Mobile expressions - Walking Radar

Mobile Expressions are experiments for:

expressive interfaces for public use of mobile phones.

The Walking Radar (image above and video below) is an add on device for a mobile phone to alert the user of objects while they are moving through a space and occupied with on screen content such as texting, using web services or playing a game.

Design LEGO creations on your iPhone or iPod Touch

LEGO-touch is an application for designing LEGO creations on your iPhone or iPod Touch. From the website:

View, post, build, or edit other LEGO maniacs projects. Create your own LEGO characters in pals, post your LEGO self to represent in share. Play and download different LEGO games or challenge anyone to a build-off! Personalize your bricks with color-slider and more...

The community aspect of this software seems pretty interesting to me; collaborative designs, perhaps! - Link.