A Desk Above the Rest

For those that prefer to be on their feet when they work, the minimalist elevated Higher Desk makes for the perfect place to read or use a laptop. Its modest dimensions make working while standing possible even in the most confined spaces. Better yet, with one optional “short leg” it can be adapted to any table or desk!

Designer: COORDINATION BERLIN/Flip Sellin

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(A Desk Above the Rest was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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Reading Net: Catch of the Day, Bookworms

If you’re filthy rich and happen to have a huge expansive library in your very own home, then you might have some use for this reading net. Otherwise, all you can do is stare at it longingly like the rest of us. Because while the net itself probably isn’t expensive, what’s the use if you don’t have a library to hang it in and complete the concept?

Reading Net 620x721magnify

As you can see, the reading net is exactly what its name implies it is: it’s a net where kids can lie on while they do some reading. What makes it extra special is the fact that it’s meant to be hung over the first floor of the library.

[The Reading Net is] a meshed fabric suspended from the architecture of a family library, that acts as a second-level reading range. the hanging web is tautly attached to the railings of a lofted path, and — as both children and adults climb onto the woven expanse — they can both lounge and learn on the buoyant surface.

Reading Net1 620x359magnify

The reading net was designed by Playoffice.

[via Boing Boing via designboom via Geekologie]

Ergonomic eReader

While using an iPad to read an article, designer Chi-Tai Hsu started to notice finger pain and discomfort from the constant scrolling as well as eye fatigue from having to carefully stare at the text line while repositioning the paragraph to read more. Chi’s response to this problem is the “Reading Serenely” eReader with eInk display. Like reading a bound book, the design attempts to mimic the way in which we naturally flip from page to page with finger swipes happening less frequently.

Designer: Chi-Tai Hsu

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(Ergonomic eReader was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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Amazon’s bookish top-level domain hunt irks publishers, Barnes & Noble

Amazon's bookish domain name hunt irks publishing groups, Barnes & Noble

Publishers represented by the Authors Guild and Association of American Publishers have filed objections to Amazon's pursuit of new generic top-level domains ".book," ".author" and ".read." While some of those gTLDs have already come under fire from entire countries, the influential book groups told gatekeeper ICANN that "placing such generic domains in private hands is plainly anticompetitive," adding that it would allow "already dominant, well-capitalized companies" to abuse their market power. ICANN plans to assign rights to organizations or companies to manage domain suffixes like the current ".com" or ".org" and firms like Google, Microsoft and Amazon have sought names like ".app" and "movie," often in competition with each other. Competitor Barnes & Noble filed its own protest, saying that Amazon "would use control of these TLDs to stifle competition in the bookselling and publishing industries." If such protests are persuasive enough, companies could lose not only the domain name in question, but 20 percent of the $185,000 application fee -- admittedly pocket change for outfits like Amazon.

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Via: WSJ (subscription)

Source: ICANN (1), ICANN (2)

EyeRing finger-mounted connected cam captures signs and dollar bills, identifies them with OCR (hands-on)

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Ready to swap that diamond for a finger-mounted camera with a built-in trigger and Bluetooth connectivity? If it could help identify otherwise indistinguishable objects, you might just consider it. The MIT Media Lab's EyeRing project was designed with an assistive focus in mind, helping visually disabled persons read signs or identify currency, for example, while also serving to assist children during the tedious process of learning to read. Instead of hunting for a grownup to translate text into speech, a young student could direct EyeRing at words on a page, hit the shutter release, and receive a verbal response from a Bluetooth-connected device, such as a smartphone or tablet. EyeRing could be useful for other individuals as well, serving as an ever-ready imaging device that enables you to capture pictures or documents with ease, transmitting them automatically to a smartphone, then on to a media sharing site or a server.

We peeked at EyeRing during our visit to the MIT Media Lab this week, and while the device is buggy at best in its current state, we can definitely see how it could fit into the lives of people unable to read posted signs, text on a page or the monetary value of a currency note. We had an opportunity to see several iterations of the device, which has come quite a long way in recent months, as you'll notice in the gallery below. The demo, which like many at the Lab includes a Samsung Epic 4G, transmits images from the ring to the smartphone, where text is highlighted and read aloud using a custom app. Snapping the text "ring," it took a dozen or so attempts before the rig correctly read the word aloud, but considering that we've seen much more accurate OCR implementations, it's reasonable to expect a more advanced version of the software to make its way out once the hardware is a bit more polished -- at this stage, EyeRing is more about the device itself, which had some issues of its own maintaining a link to the phone. You can get a feel for how the whole package works in the video after the break, which required quite a few takes before we were able to capture an accurate reading.

Continue reading EyeRing finger-mounted connected cam captures signs and dollar bills, identifies them with OCR (hands-on)

EyeRing finger-mounted connected cam captures signs and dollar bills, identifies them with OCR (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Apr 2012 13:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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