Are you reading?

In an effort to bring the other three senses up to par with sight and sound in the virtual landscape, researchers in the UK have developed a headset that not only offers a stereoscopic display and four speaker surround sound, but throws in smells, tastes, and a fan for heating your grill up (or cooling it down) for good measure. The Virtual Cocoon doesn’t look too terribly comfortable (this thing would be burdensome without the required tubes for the user’s mouth and nose), but Professor Alan Chalmers of Warwick University doesn’t seem to think this is a problem. If anything, the team is betting that you’re going to welcome the opportunity to smell your co-workers when telecommuting, or your fellow cybernauts when running around Second Life. The device, which will have an estimated cost of £1,500 (around $2,100), should be ready for production within five years. More pics after the break.

Source

Related posts

• The rest of Toshiba’s CES 2009 extravaganza (0)
• Sharp Aquos E Series hits the stage (0)
• Sega’s Storm-G arcade experience puts the “g” in puking (0)
• RemoteDroid app turns your G1 into a wireless keyboard and mouse (0)
• Mercedes shows off Splitview display, other dashboard perks in the 2010 S-Class (0)

When we were kids, a box of cereal wasn’t worth eating if there wasn’t a free toy buried in the bottom somewhere. Emma Schweiger of Janesville Township, Wisconsin has sadly forgotten those days, reacting in horror not joy when she found an unexpected free prize in her bag of potato chips purchased at Aldi. While rummaging through the greasy fragments she uncovered an aged Nokia handset, bereft of charge, covered in cholesterol, and sporting a T-Mobile SIM card. No address book has yet been retrieved to identify the phone’s owner, but the discolored disc on the back where an adhesive belt clip had been applied is a pretty strong clue to how it came to its carb-laden cocoon. As for Schweiger, she’s pledged to always pour her bag of chips into a bowl prior to eating — which happens to also be the easiest way to get the toy out of a particularly unappealing box of cereal.

[Via Engadget Spanish]
Source

Related posts

• Worldwide cellphone use hits 60 percent, developing nations largely to thank (0)
• Visa rolls out its first commercial NFC payment system (0)
• Nokia Share Online updated to version 4.3 (0)
• Mobile Millennium project promises to track traffic with cellphones (0)
• GSM Association sets 2012 target date for universal cellphone charger (0)

By Andrew Liszewski

Cocoon Innovations was one of the hundreds of companies to email me a pre-CES press release about their new products being unveiled at the show this year. And while the images they sent of the company’s line of cases, briefcases and laptop bags showed off their unique designs on the outside, it really wasn’t enough to pique my curiosity. Thankfully though, I happened to stumble across the Cocoon Innovations booth on the last day of the show, and it turns out it’s what’s on the inside of their cases that truly makes them unique.

Instead of a bunch of random (and restrictive) pockets designed to only fit specific items like pens, cellphones or PDAs, the Cocoon bags feature the company’s ‘Grid’ system which is a proprietary web of elastic fabric designed to securely hold any object in almost any configuration. Basically, it’s the most flexible compact storage system I’ve ever seen.

And the elastic grid isn’t randomly thrown together either. It’s actually strategically designed to accommodate objects of all shapes and sizes while always maintaining sufficient tension so your electronics, cables and other gear doesn’t come loose while in transport. As someone who’s a bit (cough!) obsessed with being organized, I think it’s a brilliant idea, and I can’t wait to get my hands on one. And while they didn’t have any specific pricing info, the company is actually planning to target the Caselogic demographic (for lack of a better description) by keeping their cases extremely affordable.

[ Cocoon Innovations ]

Related posts

• Edifier iF500 iPod/iPhone Speaker (0)
• Sony VAIO Japanese teaser suggests something long, thin, and “coming soon” (0)
• Red ‘Resident Evil 5′ Xbox 360 unveiled! (updated) (0)
• «REW Cable Wrangler Has An Old-School Design (0)
• [CES 2009] Venture Heated Clothing (0)