For a peripheral that is somewhat overpriced, underutilized, and in general vastly inferior to the Nintendo Wii console it seemingly got most of its motivation from, the Xbox Kinect has made quite a splash in the motion based control field.

There are of course the Guiness Book of World Records worthy initial sales figures to back this up, but the real proof of this impact is evident in the creativity this device’s impressive technology has inspired in its users. See while game developers can’t seem to make a good Kinect game that isn't a dance simulator or Wii sports rip off if their jobs depended on it, the Kinect users have managed to hack into the device to make the basic technology that runs it do some incredible things. These include the entertaining (light saber simulators), the sci-fi worthy (robot controller), and the practical yet cool advancements in basic human interface:

Motion controlled interface has been a dream of sorts for consumers, especially since it was popularized in the movie "Minority Report." With devices like the Kinect and iPhone, we have gotten closer and closer to this goal, but have yet to fully realize it. Even the impressive demonstration in that video was marred by the fact that the movements needed to actually control the system had to be very blunt, and required full body commitment to make even the simplest of motion commands.

San Francisco based company Leap Motion thinks they might have the inevitable solution. Their device (called the Leap) is about the size of an iPod and works through a USB input your PC or Mac. It reads a space four cubic feet in size, and is supposed to be 200x more accurate than anything else on the market. This means accuracy to within 1/100th of a millimeter, which should allow for subtle finger movements (instead of whole hand and body motions) being able to produce the desired results.

The extraordinary video the company released seems to back that up.

We’ve been promised the moon with motion sensors before, but I have to say that given the advancements in the motion field over the past few years, I see no real reason that the Leap shouldn’t function in the way it claims to. My only real red flag in that video is the video game controller sections. I still feel that we are a ways off from total motion control in games without the use of any buttons, especially in titles designed with mouse/keyboard in mind. Of course in menu heavy titles like Real Time Strategy Games or RPG’s, I could see this device making formerly monotonous navigation somewhat enjoyable.

Even if it's not yet perfect, at a modest retail price of $70 (pre-orders are being taken now), many consumers might give this device a shot and find their own ways to make use of it when it's released early next year. After all, that’s the only explanation as to why the Kinect is doing so well.

The real Nikola Tesla is a strange historical figure. His works in the field of electricity, particularly his groundbreaking work in alternating currents, laid a foundation for countless technological advancements that would follow. Yet he’s more famous these days for his reclusive nature, wild beliefs, and his many failed (yet utterly fascinating) inventions and prototypes. The combination of these attributes have led many people to dub him a true “mad scientist,” and his place in pop culture revolves almost entirely around that distinction

Take for instance the graphic novel “The Five Fists of Science.” It’s a steampunk world tale of the fictional adventures of Tesla, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, and other historical figures. In it, Tesla regularly wields two lighting guns that allow him all sorts of abilities and chances to dominate his enemies. Most anyone reading this story would look at this invention and either say “That’s awesome!” and silently wish for a pair, or merely think nothing of it at all and write it off as one of those “comic book things.”

Inventor Rob Flickenger is the rare third type of person. He read this book, and saw those guns, and said, “Why not?”

What that no doubt perfectly sane and well adjusted man is holding is, for all purposes, a lighting gun. Or, as he would prefer it be known, The Tesla Gun. It’s very real, and it certainly works.

While the design is different than the inspiration, it’s no less impressive. Especially considering that the body of it is simply a Nerf Gun that’s wrapped in aluminum. From there the blueprint gets slightly more complicated, but not so tricky that the creator is afraid to post the basic recipe of one on his blog for all to see (though to be fair, even he recommends some pretty extreme caution).

The process is one thing, but what really matters are the results. And whether you’re looking for simple light show, or just need to stake your claim of the city of Metropolis, this thing definitely gets results. Specifically it can produce over 20,000 volts of electricity in the form of a brilliant grouping of electrical arcs. If you’re wondering, this is certainly enough to kill a man, including the user.

So what is the long term implications of this invention? It has none. What moral questions does it raise concerning science? None that I can think of. Does this represent the future of weaponry? Most definitely not. It is simply an entertaining example of how both the evolution of  technology, and the persistency of human ingenuity, have led us into an era where we now get to question the possibility of even the most ludicrous sci-fi inventions.

And to think the inventor just made it to accessorize the lab coat his fiancé got him for Halloween.

This project from GM looks very cool, but you have to wonder how it works with safety, as drivers can't be distracted by this stuff.

. . . in 1974.

These new TVs are pretty amazing:

The biggest buzz so far at the Consumer Electronics Show comes from the new OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) televisions from the giant South Korean manufacturer Samsung.

Production costs had previously limited the size of OLED screens, which is why consumers mostly found them in cellular phones, and the only commercially available OLED television model had been the Sony XEL-1, an 11-inch model that debuted at the 2007 CES with a price of $2,500.

Samsung’s new televisions feature a 55-inch screen, an absurd 0.6-inch width, and a richness of color never before seen in commercial displays.

Check out the video and see for yourself. 3D TVs were a huge bust, but now these new super-thin TVs should generate some serious buzz.

Very cool - especially the part about swimming like a dolphin!

I'm not much of an aviator, but I still appreciate this insane video of a STOL competition plane landing in just 17 feet and taking off in an alarming 10. Granted, there's a lot of wind working in the pilot's favor, but it's still pretty remarkable to see something like this in action.

Microsoft's Kinect has some undoubtably cool technology, but cooler than its game applications could be the power behind the camera. This video shows what Kinect is capable of once it has been hacked to allow a little input. The results are astonishing.

I've been writing here a lot about the development of online TV services and my desire to be able to truly cut the cord and fully rely on the internet for my media consumption. I don't currently have a cable subscription of any kind, which makes me really really happy, but my system isn't perfect and could definitely stand to get a lot better.

The biggest thing standing in my way are the paid subscription services. They show up every few weeks to say stupid shit like this about Hulu and similar services: “If I can watch Glee tomorrow morning and I don’t have to pay a pay TV service –- I think that’s bad." That's Dish Network's VP of Online Content Development and Strategy, Bruce Eisen. Sorry, Bruce, but you're a moron. For starters, Fox - you know, the company that broadcasts Glee - allows me to do this. Why do they do this? Because customers want it. That's what being in any sort of delivery service is all about - catering to your customers.

Somewhere along the road to present day, guys like Bruce Eisen forgot that their companies exist to deliver a product that customers want, not to dictate those wants by delivering a mediocre product at a ridiculous price. Not to limit consumer access to content but to provide it. Every time a cable or satellite exec says something like this, I can hear PR firms squealing in dismay. "Bruce! You just told the customers you don't want them to have what they want! You want to bleed them dry before they can have it! These people aren't stupid!"

And there's the other problem. All these execs like to talk as though we don't understand their business, like we can't possibly understand the position Hulu has put them in. Sorry for asking you to think, Bruce. Sorry for asking you to adapt. Sorry for asking that American business men do what they were born to do. Make things. We've stopped making and become a country of consumers. Well I, for one, am done consuming and I'm ready to make.

Yeah, Bruce, that's from 30 Rock. I loaded it up on Netflix just now, scrubbed forward to the part I wanted and transcribed it. Why can't you make things like this:

And less like...wait...hold on a sec. Just have to fire up the old satellite and dig through the DV-ah, fuck it. Nevermind.

I know there's been a dearth of activity here but I promise it will pick back up very soon. In the meantime, here's an incredible video I stumbled on that details the rotting process for various types of foods. This is rotting with exposure to flies, and damn good incentive to keep your food away from the bastards. Don't watch this is if you have insect issues. Let me tell you, watching meat virtually explode with maggots is disgusting stuff.

If you've ever seen a Photoshop tutorial video, you know the program can often look a lot like magic. Well, this video offers you a different kind of magic. The magic that allows you to photobomb your friends and family with ease. If you don't know, photobombing is the practice of ruining a photo by appearing in the background, typically doing something distracting. As you can guess, that often means something crude, so this video isn't quite safe for work, unless, like me, you work from home.

I tend to pass over concept videos as though they don't exist. Honestly, so few of these things come to pass, and the ideas they present are often so far-fetched that it's hard to give them even a moment's notice. This, though, this is something different.

A designer named Billy May cooked up this video for Mozilla. It shows a concept phone, the Seabird, equipped with virtually every capability you would want from a mobile companion, including the ability to project a full size keyboard onto the table around the phone for those longer email responses. A lot of what's shown is situational, but it's damn cool and a lot of it is actually feasible.

Eric Schmidt made an appearance on "The Colbert Report" last night to talk a little bit about his company's algorithms, what it's like to be a billionaire, and his "Want privacy? Change your name!" joke that no one on the planet seemed to get. It's a funny, sort of awkward interview.

Though not technically related to technology, it is cool to see the kinds of things technology allows us to capture and share. This was on Reddit (I know, two Reddit posts in as many days) today, and it totally blew my mind. It looks otherworldly, the way these ants follow one another in a circle. It's like a black hole.

Source: Reddit

Netflix streaming is just about the greatest thing around (yeah, it's better than Hulu) for video content. The interface is clean, easy to use, and the selection is good enough for my $10 a month. Streaming has also saved Netflix a whole lot of money.

To stream a movie in HD costs Netflix around 5 cents, 3 cents for standard def. That's it. Now granted, that doesn't account for licensing and all that, but it sure as hell beats the pants off sending things through the mail. That cost could even go down as more competitors enter the back-end market responsible for supporting the Netflix streaming system.

My question - why aren't more things available for streaming? If it's so cheap, that extra revenue could be kicked back in part to studios for freeing up more streaming content. Everyone wins.

Source: Business Week