While I’m not a New Yorker, I live in close enough proximity to the city that this is pretty exciting. New York City has installed an LCD screen at the Bedford Ave L station subway stop, testing a system that could one day allow patrons to see exactly where their train is.

Updating every 15 seconds, the screen accompanies boards installed earlier this year which tell subway riders when the next train will be at the station. If this little testy-poo goes well, the city plans to expand the system to other lines.

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]]> http://www.gearfuse.com/nyc-subways-install-lcd-screens-to-track-train-locations/feed/ 0 http://www.gearfuse.com/interactive-ripple-table-responds-to-your-movements/ http://www.gearfuse.com/interactive-ripple-table-responds-to-your-movements/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:49:30 +0000 Andrew Dobrow http://www.gearfuse.com/?p=17486

Don’t like thinking about how many times your dad’s hairy balls have thrust up against the coffee table as your mom reached climax? Sorry for the image, but that’s the price you have to pay. No toll-free roads here.

This Interactive Ripple Table features 480 super-bright white LEDs and 24 active and passive near-infrared optical sensors that react to both any movement, including your dad’s balls. The lights create a beautiful ripple effect, only adding to the effect of your mom’s ecstasy. Available in three lengths: 22-inches ($1500), 40- inches ($1800) or 58- inches ($2100).

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The cake really is a lie with these Portal T-Shirts from ThinkGeek. The pair of shirts work in tandem to create the illusion of teleportation, using LCD TFT displays and an embedded 5.8 GHz wireless pinhole camera.

The t-shirt only comes in pairs and are only available in blue and orange, but I don’t think that will stop you from having some amazing Portal fun for only $100. Yes, expensive for a pair of t-shirts, but with the display and camera added into the price, I’d say it’s a pretty good deal.

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If Apple happened to design musical instruments along with their gadgets, their piano creation might look something like this. The completely fictional iPiano features built-in musical score reading software which allows you to read compositions right from a built-in touch screen. Slide your finger to move on to the next page of music.

The iPiano would also feature video capabilities, for following along with video tutorials as you practice your instrument. Also, the image of Apple’s Philip Schiller furiously playing the piano, man-boobs bouncing away, is too much to resist.

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This has to be one of the best street pranks ever. Spotted on the streets of Manhattan, some urban prankster had the ingenious idea of altering the “stop” hand of a traditional crosswalk light to resemble a hand flipping the bird instead.

Want to cross the street? Fuck off! No really, just go away. Viva las vandalism! This is so New York City.

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Prefer ripping apart older electronics than purchasing new ones? You’re gonna love this mod. Essentially, you’ll be ripping an Eee PC apart, jamming into into a wood frame and placing it on your wall. How is this better than dropping $100 on a digital photo frame at Best Buy? Simple: You can easily display slideshows of pictures from Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket and other online photo services. All you gotta do is hit the eBay circuit to find a used Eee and you’re good to go.

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While I’m not a Yankees fan, one can’t deny the popularity and rich history of one of the most famous baseball teams ever. Their new stadium is still being completed in time for the 2009 season that starts next month and it’s shaping up to be quite the experience. Shown above is the 103-by-58-foot 1080p display that will show fans replays, home runs and a whole lot of advertisements. It has features like picture-in-picture and can show four different video sources at a time.

Additionally, the new Yankee Stadium will feature a stadium-wide LED ribbon created by Daktroniks. It will display game info and light up like a wild rock concert when need be. And did I mention the 550 Sony BRAVIAs scattered around? It’s going to be a good year for baseball fans in New York.

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OK, the first part might be total wishful thinking, but the touchscreen mirror part is definitly on the upcoming wave of the future. The Fraunhofer Institute for Microelectronic Circuits and Systems unveiled their touchscreen mirror system at the Cebit IT trade show this week, and let me tell you, it’s totally going to change the way you brush your teeth and trim your balls.

While the technology behind the mirror’s creation isn’t what you would call “new” or even “new-ish,” the system is still pretty cool sounding. Are you tired of having to remind Grandpa to wash his dentures? That’s the way of the past. In the future, your mirror will remind all of the elders in your life to wipe their own asses and maybe, if we could be so lucky, will guide them through changing their own damn diapers. I mean, really, what could they have possibly eaten?

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Forget netbooks. Displays and portability are both overrated. You need peripherals with entire PCs shoved into them and you need them now, hungry man. Lucky for you, ASUS had just enough time to whip up a keyboard with a whole goddamned computer shoved inside it. Standard 1.6Ghz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, etc. Not a powerhouse, but hey, it’ll do.

The kicker is that the Eee PC Keyboard has a small five-inch touchscreen you can use in conjunction with an external display. It even has HDMI out! Wow! I hope you’re as wet as I am, ’cause I’m ready to drop the $400 on this bad boy.

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The LA Times is running a piece about how flat-screen televisions aren’t energy efficient and how California is going to impose rules on energy consumption and all that other hippie shit. I call bullshit. Know why? Because less than 5 years ago, no one had a flat-screen HDTV except the extremely wealthy. Everyone had those old, shitty, big ass CRT television sets. Using Google, I compared a 30-inch Samsung flat-screen display to a 32-inch Samsung CRT. Here’s what I found:

Samsung SyncMaster 305T – 30″ Display
Power Consumption Operational: 130 Watt
Source: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=Samsung+SyncMaster+305T&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&cid=2349199014125518526&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&resnum=4&ct=result#ps-sellers

Samsung TXM3298HF – 32″ CRT
Power Consumption Operational: 190 Watt
Source: http://reviews.cnet.com/direct-view-tvs-crt/samsung-txm3298hf/4507-6481_7-20461179.html?tag=mncol;rnav

Now don’t get me wrong, there is a 2-inch margin of error here and a bunch of other shit you could throw at me, but it’s a general fact that those old CRTs are way less efficient than newer, thinner television sets. Perhaps California should try going with the flow instead of fighting the tide.

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