Lets get this out of the way first and foremost. Polara’s self correcting golf balls, which promise to correct slices and hooks by up to 75%, are not approved for professional competition play. So if you think you’ve found a way to sneak into the PGA or LPGA, it isn’t going to happen. However, if you’re completely unable to play through a round of golf at your local course without constantly landing your ball off the fairway, and have very understanding friends, you might want to give them a shot.

I don’t completely understand the science of what keeps them on the straight and narrow, but it’s a combination of a deep, shallow and tiny dimple pattern on the outside of the ball. And what looks to be a specialized layer core which optimizes spin and increases distance. A set of 12 Polara balls will cost you $39.95, which I assume is more expensive than a regular set of balls. But since Polara’s balls will also reduce the number of snickers and laughter from your fellow players, I’m pretty sure it’s more than worth it for a lot of golfers.

[ Polara Self Correcting Golf Balls ] VIA [ The Red Ferret Journal ]

It might be designed for the needs of modern classrooms, but I’m pretty sure I could use one of these Steelcase Node desk chairs around my home/office. Besides better addressing the needs of today’s laptop-toting students with ample bag storage under the seat and an adjustable work desk sized for most notebooks, the Node also swivels and is on wheels making it very easy to re-arrange an entire classroom should a different configuration suit the day’s lesson plan. Whether it’s a lecture or working in smaller groups. The chairs are also available in a variety of color combinations since branding seems to be an important part of higher-learning these days.

[ Steelcase Node ] VIA [ designboom ]

By Evan Ackerman

Paper is a huge waste of paper, and ink is a huge waste of money. The PrePeat printer could be a huger waste of money, but at least it doesn’t use paper or ink. Instead, you feed it special heat sensitive plastic sheets and it uses a precision thermal head to print out gray scale text and images. Feed the sheets through the printer again, and a different temperature will erase everything or just write over it. Don’t wash, don’t rinse, but feel free to repeat up to a thousand times with a single sheet of paper.

The PrePeat printer itself costs $5500, and each sheet of the special plastic paper is $3.30, which is certainly a tad steep. Want to know what else is a tad steep, though?

That’s piracy, man. Piracy on the high seas of ink. It may not actually make any fiscal sense whatsoever for you to replace your personal printer with a PrePeat (think more like a medium to large office that’s still stuck in the seventies) but it would strike a blow against the tyranny of the empire of black gold. Huzzah!

VIA [ PopSci ]

By Evan Ackerman

Remember back when the display in Minority Report was the future technology that everyone was talking about? Well, now it’s the past, ’cause MIT’s Media Lab has come up with a display that can potentially do all that fancy gestural stuff, except without the gloves.

Called BiDi (for Bi-Directional), the display works on a very basic level a little bit like a Microsoft Surface table: there’s a screen, and behind that, there are cameras (of a sort) to watch what’s going on at the screen. And also like Surface, because cameras are in use as opposed to just a touch panel, the display is sensitive to actions that don’t directly contact it. Where the MIT display really takes the cake, though, is that it uses a field of optical sensors embedded in the display combined with some fancy image processing to make a detailed three dimensional map of exactly how far things are from the display, which not only allows you to make recognizable gestures much farther from the surface, but also allows you to gesture in and out. The LCD alternates back and forth very quickly between displaying and image and capturing data (sort of like Microsoft’s SecondLight Surface mod), and it does it so quickly that all you see is the image itself.

MIT says that they’re trying to steer away from novelty applications a bit, which is sad, but they hope to “inspire” LCD manufacturers to start working on this stuff. So, you know who you are: GET INSPIRED. I want one of these.

[ MIT ] VIA [ Engadget ]

Designed by Jiae Kwon, Map-Holes are replacement man-hole covers that serve as a sort of static compass for tourists and pedestrians, showing them what direction to head to find a particular landmark in the city they’re visiting, and letting them know how long it takes to walk there. The idea definitely has merit, but I don’t think replacing man-hole covers is the ideal solution. Not only because they usually exist in the middle of a street, but they’d also have to be perfectly oriented in order for them to be effective. If one gets even slightly misaligned, there’s going to be a lot of misguided tourists.

[ Yanko Design - Map Hole Points The Way ] VIA [ The UberReview ]

In Tokyo today, Sony unveiled a 3D display that can be viewed from any direction. No glasses required, and several users can see the 3D images simultaneously from various angles. Snip:

The cylindrical display case is 27 cm tall with a base of 13 cm in diameter, and features a 96 by 128-pixel resolution that looks better than might be expected. The screen displays 3D objects including a cartoon character, car, globe, and people. Sony created these objects either in 3D on a computer or by taking photographs of them from various angles. The result is that the objects appear to have depth, and can be viewed from any angle on the horizontal plane by walking around the display screen.

Sony’s keeping details under wraps, and hasn’t explained how it works. We do know that it uses an LED light source, and that Sony claims it took about three years to develop the two demo models shown off today. The company has no immediate plans to commercialize the device, but a rep says they will develop versions with larger displays within the coming year.

More: physorg, Network World TV. (via @GreatDismal)

Who would have thought that someone would find a way to make pop-up books, aka the best type of book ever invented, even better? Well that’s exactly what Jie Qi, with assistance from Leah Buechley and Tshen Chew, from the MIT Media Lab have done with their Electronic Popables. The book uses traditional pop-up paper book mechanics but also integrates modern paper-based electronics for more “dynamic interactivity.” In other words it makes them even more awesome, as you can see in the video below.

[ high-low tech - MIT Media Lab - popables ] VIA [ Architectradure ]

Instead of fumbling with handles while your hands are dirty, spreading the mess everywhere, Delta’s new Pilar faucets feature the company’s Touch20 Technology which lets you simply tap or touch them to turn the water on or off. The faucets use two capacitive touch sensors in the handle and the spout to detect when you’ve touched them, but are smart enough to know when the handle or spout have been grabbed instead so you can adjust their positions without turning the water on or off. A chrome version of the Pilar faucet will set you back $495 while the stainless steel model is a bit more at $547.

[ Delta Pilar Touch Activated Faucet ] VIA [ Popular Science ]

(Download MP4 video or Watch on YouTube, or view with subtitles on Dotsub).

Institute for the Future teamed up with Sun Microsystems and Boing Boing Video to co-host the Digital Open, an online tech expo for teens 17 and under around the world.

In today’s episode, you’ll meet Brennon Williams, a teen from Hillsborough, CA, who created an online robotics store for beginners:

The BW Science Labs Store is an idea I’ve had for a while now, but it has taken a lot of work to get it up and running. There is currently 1 kit available, the Vivus the Robot kit. I”ve seen a lot of those really low-quality $20 robots where you clap your hands and they twitch, and I’ve seen $400 robots with a great deal of functionality. I wanted to make something in between, and that’s exactly what Vivus is. During prototyping I wanted to make a “real robot”, one that was autonomous and could truly act on its own, while trying to keep the cost down as well. 

Brennon cited Maker Faire and Make Magazine as inspirations for his work, and you can see why! Read more about the youth competition in IFTF’s press release announcing Digital Open winners.

(Download MP4 video or Watch on YouTube, or view with subtitles on Dotsub).

Institute for the Future teamed up with Sun Microsystems and Boing Boing Video to co-host the Digital Open, an online tech expo for teens 17 and under around the world.

In today’s episode, you’ll meet the “Funky Shiitake Mushrooms,” a group of young people from a Fremont, CA high school who build robotic blimps. The one you see in this video also doubles as a fashionable hat, as you can see from the photo inset at left (that’s me with the headgear).

The blimp in this episode is named “Skittles the Second,” after the popular, cartoon-colored candy. They’d made an earlier version of “Skittles,” but that one floated away. In fact, it floated all the way to a farm near Yosemite. The farmer found an ID tag on the floataway airship, and phoned a teacher at the high school to advise. The teen makers were eager to road trip out there and pick it up, but only one of them was old enough to drive.

Their energy and inventiveness was inspiring. I hope you enjoy the video as much as we enjoyed making it.

Read more about the youth competition in IFTF’s press release announcing Digital Open winners. And you can visit team Funky Shiitake Mushrooms online, here.