Not too long ago, the invisible iPhone was nothing more than satirical fodder for the Onion. Now, Patrick Baudisch and his team of researchers at the Hasso-Plattner Institute have moved closer to making it a reality, with a new interface that can essentially transfer an iPhone touchscreen to the palm of your hand. The device involves an Xbox-like depth camera, mounted on a tripod, that can register the movements of a person's finger across his or her palm. Special software then determines the actions these gestures would execute on a user's iPhone, before transmitting the commands to a physical phone, via WiFi radio. Unlike MIT's motion-based "sixth sense" interface, Baudisch's imaginary phone doesn't require users to learn a new dictionary of gestures, but relies solely on the muscle memory that so many smartphone users have developed. During their research, Baudisch and his colleagues found that iPhone owners could accurately determine the position of two-thirds of their apps on their palms, without even looking at their device. At the moment, the prototype still involves plenty of bulky equipment, but Baudisch hopes to eventually incorporate a smaller camera that users could wear more comfortably -- allowing them to answer their imaginary phones while doing the dishes and to spend hours chatting with their imaginary friends. Head past the break to see the prototype in action.
Pentax's Optio WG-1 GPS point-and-shoot satisfied geotaggers out of the box, but owners of its K-5, K-r and 645D DSLRs have had to make do with third-party taggers like the PhotoTrackr or Eye-Fi. The new hotshoe-mounted O-GPS1 module fixes that oversight by recording latitude, longitude, altitude, Coordinated Universal Time and shooting angle. Everyday snappers might find an extra hotshoe attachment cumbersome, but astro-photography enthusiasts could well be enticed by the device's interesting "ASTROTRACER" function. This helps you take clearer photos of celestial bodies by using the in-built sensors to calculate a star's movement and then employing the camera's shake reduction system to compensate. Sounds clever, but be advised: this module is only for Pentax DSLRs -- and only for very specific models at that. You'll get full functionality with the K-5 and K-r cameras, and geotagging (no ASTROTRACER) with the 645D. Oh, and you'll need to make sure yo
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