Gesture Based interactive screens

One day after I blogged about new technology, it already has been trumped and is starting to show it's wrinkles.

Yesterday's blog, I told you about a cool SMART board touch screen where teachers can teach and write on digitally, erase and even save their work directly to the computer.

I am now telling you to wait and save your money. What if I told you there was a screen that you didn't have to touch. All you have to do is wave your hand in front of it and move items on the screen like magic.

Take a look:

Classrooms are getting a little SMARTer

Back in the day when I went to school, it would take the teacher about half an hour to write 30 math problems on the chalkboard. it would take her another 10 minutes to draw the outline of the United States. Then she would erase the board and for the next week you could still see the faded outline of the United States.

Chalkboards sucked. I should know. I had to always clean erasers when i got in trouble. You would get chalk dust all over you and you'd start coughing and choking. What a great classroom feature that was.

My 17 year old son had it a little better than me. The white boards were the new thing. You still couldn't clean them completely, but they were easier, cleaner and visually more attractive than chalkboards. At least, until little Johnny took his permanent marker and wrote his thoughts for the day.

Well, now my 7 year old is coming home from school talking about the next new thing called SMART boards.

The SMART board is fully interactive. Imagine a giant touch screen with the capabilities of a computer. Imaging loading your Social Studies software into the SMART board. The teacher has a map of the US immediately pop up on the SMART board. As the she touches a state, it lights up. She can drag that state off the map and set it to the corner of the SMART board so she can continue discussing that history of that particular state. Pretty cool, huh?

The teacher can use her finger on the screen to point and click.....ERRR.....touch, and she can even write in digital ink with the special SMART board pens.









I have just learned about this myself and still don't know much about it.
Feel free to look at the video below for a better explanation. This is very cool.

Steve Jobs Kenotes 2008

If you want intense moment by moment coverage read the Macworld blog. They are their live typing away like mad men.

Here is a quick snapshot of what is coming:

1. Leopard - Leopard sold 5 million copies in 3 months. One of the big features is Time Machine. An app that will back up your entire computer on a daily basis and if you need something that you have lost, you can go back in time to retrieve it. The back up will be done on an external hard drive. Apple is releasing a hard drive called Time Capsule and will be wireless so any iMac or Macbook in the house can be backed up via wireless connection.

2. iPhones - Apple has sold over 4 million iPhones to date. new features coming in February are Maps with locations, Webclips, customized home screens, SMS multiple people at once, videos now support chapters, subtitles, languages, and music now supports lyrics.

3. iTunes - they have sold over 4 billion songs, 125 million TV shows, and 7 million movies. They will beginning to rent movies going up against Blockbuster and Netflix. It will be $2.99 to rent a movie, $3.99 to rent a new release. If your an HD fanatic then you can rent an HD version for $1 more, making it $3.99 for an HD movie and $4.99 for an HD version of a new release. SWEET!!!! This will save AppleTV. There will be a next generation AppleTV available called AppleTV 2. New software updates for iTunes, iPods, iPhones are available now.

4. Macbook Air - Macbook Air is the thinnest notebook on the market. Apple looked at the thinnest notebook around, Sony TZ. The TZ measures from 1.2" to .8" when closed. Macbook air is .79" to .16". THE THICKEST PART OF MACBOOK AIR IS THINNER THAN THE THINNEST PART OF TZ. So thin that it fits in a manila envelope. OH.....MY.....GOD!


For more details go to Macworld's blog. It's another great day for Apple.

Sugar.........The Silent Killer!

So you think I am kidding. Did you know there are people dying from Diabetes and more people have it today then ever.

I finally got the call from my doctor that my blood sugar was a little high, so I decided to back off from sugar.

At first I was a little surprised, because I use Splenda all the time and I don't put sugar on anything. So I started pulling food out of the cupboards. First thing I looked at was my Country Time Lemonade. Guess how much sugar this 12 oz. can has?
35 grams of sugar.
That's right. I didn't make a typo.
35 grams of sugar.
Do you realize how much sugar that is.
That is 2.5 Tablespoons of sugar in this one can!!!!
That is only the beginning of my discoveries. Here is another test. Below are three health bars. Which one has the least amount of sugar?

1) Balance Bar 2) Nature Valley Trail Bar 3) Cliff Bar


Balance Bar = 14g of sugar / N.V. Bar 13g of sugar / Cliff Bar 22g of sugar.

If you guessed that these health bars are not healthy....YOUR RIGHT!

Be careful shopping. Read every label. Always look at the sugar and fat content. Make sure low sugar is really low. These food companies want you to love the taste and think it's healthy. You'll buy more. Fat Free Jello pudding has 17g of sugar. Regular Jello Pudding has 19g of sugar.

Why bother buying healthy and paying more money for healthy when it's not healthy.

Sell me the shirt off your back

Did you ever want your logo on merchandise, but didn't want to warehouse 500 coffee mugs or 270 shirts. No one wants to put out the money for merchandise then warehouse it and then having to sell them quickly to get your initial investment back.

Did you know.....

There is a website called Cafepress.com and they are incredible. You can upload your any image for a shirt, hat, coffee mug, or pretty much anything and see it displayed right on the screen. Then you can save all your new clothing designs and sell them on your website.

Now the best part is that they product with your logo/artwork isn't made until someone orders it. Cafepress.com charges their cost + whatever profit you want to add to the product. Once the order is confirmed and the money is received you then get your profit.

No money out of your pocket, because the products aren't made until the money is collected. How sweet.

It gets even better. There are a lot of pre-made shirts, hats and bags with great prints that you can choose from.

If you want shirts supporting Barack Obama, or Hilary Clinton then they have it.


If your big on being green then the have cool slogans on tote bags for saving the earth.

Cafepress.com is truly a no brainer for getting your own merchandise up and running with no initial costs.