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This ball rolls around, light up, and acts like it has a mind of its own, which makes it the perfect cat toy. It does not have a mind of its own -it’s you, controlling it by Bluetooth! You can even control it and take video of its antics at the same time. $130 is kinda pricy for a cat toy, though, and it’s not even on the market yet. What it does to a cat’s pupils is priceless! Link -via Buzzfeed
1. Bluetooth technology was invented by Sven Matisson and Jaap Haartsen at the Swedish telecom company Ericsson in 1994. The idea was to replace the widely varying cables and wireless technology that connected various components, like cell phones, computers, and remote controls. Before Bluetooth, disparate devices each had their own method of communicating, and even worse, each brand had their own proprietary ideas of how to do this. Bluetooth is a system of protocols developed to standardize these methods, adopted by many tech companies.
2. Bluetooth technology standards are overseen by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group, a private nonprofit trade organization. The group, originally five telecommunication companies, formed around the chosen technology in order to standardize wireless communication in their various electronic components. The organization presented Bluetooth to the public in 1998. A company who wishes to manufacture anything with Bluetooth technology or use the technology in their business must become a member. The companies composing the Board of Directors are Ericsson, Intel, Lenovo, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, and Toshiba. There are around 13,000 members today.
3. The advantages of Bluetooth technology over other systems is that it is wireless, uses very little power, and can be incorporated into a wide variety of devices. The signals are sent via very low power radio waves. The low frequency and weak power mean that devices can only communicate at a distance of about ten feet, but this is a good thing, as it means your usage won’t interfere with your neighbor’s usage (unlike WiFi). Up to eight devices can talk to each other at once, and they can communicate automatically without a user prompt.
4. The name Bluetooth came from king Harald “Bluetooth” Gormsson, who united Danish and some Swedish and Norwegian tribes into a single kingdom in the tenth century. The idea is that Bluetooth technology set a single standard of protocols for wireless transmission as Harald set his standard for Scandinavia. Well, sort of. Bluetooth was a code name for the project, and everyone involved knew it so well that it stuck when it went public.
5. Why was Harald called Bluetooth? The word is the English version of Blåtand, a name given to Harald, which is a combination of the old Danish words meaning “dark-skinned” and “great man”. Harald left his mark on Denmark by being the first Scandinavian monarch to convert to Christianity. He raised a monument called the Jelling Stones in the town of Jelling to memorialize his parents and declare Denmark as Christian. Harald, however, did not have a blue tooth, as far as anyone knows.
The stone shown is the one erected in the year 965, however, the rune superimposed on it is the victim of special effects.
It’s not such much a literal tattoo as an electronic interface implanted beneath the skin:
The basis of the 2×4-inch “Digital Tattoo Interface” is a Bluetooth device made of thin, flexible silicon and silicone. It´s inserted through a small incision as a tightly rolled tube, and then it unfurls beneath the skin to align between skin and muscle. Through the same incision, two small tubes on the device are attached to an artery and a vein to allow the blood to flow to a coin-sized blood fuel cell that converts glucose and oxygen to electricity. After blood flows in from the artery to the fuel cell, it flows out again through the vein.
On both the top and bottom surfaces of the display is a matching matrix of field-producing pixels. The top surface also enables touch-screen control through the skin. Instead of ink, the display uses tiny microscopic spheres, somewhat similar to tattoo ink. A field-sensitive material in the spheres changes their color from clear to black, aligned with the matrix fields.
The tattoo display communicates wirelessly to other Bluetooth devices – both in the outside world and within the same body. Although the device is always on (as long as your blood´s flowing), the display can be turned off and on by pushing a small dot on the skin. When the phone rings, for example, an individual turns the display on, and “the tattoo comes to life as a digital video of the caller,” Mielke explains. When the call ends, the tattoo disappears.
Our friend Tokyoflash is asking visitors to participate in a design process by giving feedback and opinions to help with the development of Buetooth necklaces that let you connect wirelessly to your cell phone or computer (to let you answer the phone handsfree while driving or chat on Skype without having to sit down at the computer).
Some of the designs are very interesting: Link – Thanks Paul!
People Who Deserve It is a theme blog dedicated to documenting the types of people who deserves a good punch in the face (I think they mean metaphorically or at least I hope they do!). To wit, this annoying character type, The Self-Important Bluetooth Guy:
Hey there buddy, I see you got one of those fancy cyborg ear attachments for your cell phone, you must be pretty important?
No?
Oh, of course you’re not, you’re not even on the phone right now, instead your just walking around with a blinking light in your ear like a metro-sexual robot.
Honestly, unless you’re police dispatch, or air traffic control, there is no way you’re getting enough calls to justify sporting that glorified techno-earring 24/7. So do us all a favor take that “thing” out of your ear and rejoin regular society.
Otherwise, it’s open season, and our fist-to-face connection is one call that always goes through. Can you hear us now?
