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PhonePoint Pen application is a hand-talkers' dream come true

by Tim Stevens posted Jun 11th 2009 @ 6:57AM

Know someone who talks with their hands so expressively that you have to step back or risk catching a wayward exclamation point in the face? The video after the break will make their day. Students at Duke University have come up with a way to use phone accelerometers to capture gestures with surprising precision, allowing them to pipe those motions through a character recognition algorithm and, hey presto, turn flapping hands into letters and numbers. The prototype app is called PhonePoint Pen, and while right now the process looks painfully slow, with large, precise motions required, with a few months or years of refinements you might just be able to jot down a quick text to a friend while running between terminals, all without putting down the double latte that just cost you $8 at the airport food court. The future, dear readers, it's closer than you think.

[Via Yahoo! News]

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SKY's Duke is only slightly more attractive than The Duke

by Chris Ziegler posted Apr 18th 2008 @ 3:31AM

"Luxurious yet simple design" is the name of the game for SKY's latest bit of mobile splendor, curiously named "Duke" of all things. For many of us, "Duke" conjures up images of rough-and-tumble sheriffs in the Wild West or gargantuan Xbox controllers, but one thing it doesn't necessarily bring to mind is "luxurious yet simple." No bother, we suppose it's the hardware that matters, so let's get to it: 2.4 inch QVGA display, 1.3 megapixel camera, document viewer, media player, Bluetooth, and built-in subway maps (Korean subways, that is) all grace the rather plainly styled slider. Look for it on your favorite Seoul retailer's shelf for something in the range of 400,000 won (about $404).

[Via Unwired View]

Duke exonerates iPhone from network outage charges

by Darren Murph posted Jul 21st 2007 @ 1:30PM

Granted, the original report suggesting that swarms of iPhones actually broke Duke's WiFi network did seem a bit bizarre, and now it appears that the university is freeing Apple's handset from blame. Interestingly, the actual culprit still seems somewhat veiled in secrecy, as we're only informed that "a particular set of conditions made the Duke wireless network experience some minor and temporary disruptions in service," but never do they exaggerate on exactly what caused the hiccups. Still, Duke also stated that it worked in conjunction with Cisco and Apple in order to "identify the network issue that was causing the problem," and since Cisco stepped in and provided a fix, the prpblem has yet to repeat itself. Looks like you're off the hook on this one, iPhone.

iPhones bogging down Duke University's WiFi network?

by Darren Murph posted Jul 17th 2007 @ 9:58AM

While the Blue Devils may have their basketball program running like a well-oiled machine, apparently its wireless LAN structure is in dire need of an upgrade. Reportedly, so many Dukies have snatched up iPhones and began using the campus WiFi network to surf on the go that the hordes of requests have been "temporarily knocking out anywhere from a dozen to 30 wireless access points at a time." Cisco, the university's main WLAN provider, has been called in to find out exactly why the overload has brought the network to its proverbial knees, and we'd say they better resolve the problem pronto -- after all, this issue could be magnified immensely with the commencement of the fall semester.

[Via Fox News]