BMW GINA Concept

BMW GINA Concept by Spi0n

iPhone app that checks Facebook for 'sexy pics' of friends sparks furore

A new iPhone app, which allows Facebook users to find and share pictures of their friends in skimpy outfits, has sparked concern among civil liberties groups and internet users.

LONDON: A new iPhone app, which allows Facebook users to find and share pictures of their friends in skimpy outfits, has sparked concern among civil liberties groups and internet users, who have criticised it as 'intrusive and unnecessary'.

The 'Badabing!' app uses an 'object detection' technology to identify pictures of one's friends in revealing outfits, then lists them as thumbnails, allowing Facebook users to bookmark and share them, the Telegraph reports.

According to the paper, billing itself as "The only social image recognition app", Badabing's homepage states that it helps you find your friends' "sexy pics" in seconds.

However, civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch said that the app was "intrusive" and highlighted the risks of uploading photos and information to the internet.

"This mobile phone application provides a stark warning about the loss of control that you have once you have uploaded photos and information about yourself to the internet. Such practices are quite simply intrusive and unnecessary and, as such, consumers need protection from contracts that are either too intrusive or too unclear to understand," a Big Brother Watch official said.

The service is currently only available for iPhone, at a cost of 1.49 pounds, but a statement on the website says that the company is "still working" on a web app, the paper said.

Acoustic Barcodes Are The Audio QR Codes Of The Future

A new technology has been created called Acoustic Barcodes which consist of a pattern of physical notches on an object that when swiped with a finger nail, or the edge of the smartphone, created a complex sounds that can then be converted by a smartphone or similar device into a binary ID.

The Acoustic Barcodes work in a similar way to the popular QR codes, but use audio rather than just images. Check out the video after the jump to learn more about the new Acoustic Barcodes and way they could possibly work with smartphone devices and everyday objects.

The creators of Acoustic Barcodes explain : “A single, inexpensive contact microphone attached to a surface or object is used to capture the waveform. We present our method for decoding sounds into IDs, which handles variations in swipe velocity and other factors. Acoustic Barcodes could be used for information retrieval or to triggering interactive functions. They are passive, durable and inexpensive to produce. Further, they can be applied to a wide range of materials and objects, including plastic, wood, glass and stone. We conclude with several example applications that highlight the utility of our approach, and a user study that explores its feasibility.”

Acoustic Barcodes are currently just a concept at the moment, but the idea could very well make the jump to mainstream uses very soon. As always we will keep you updated with progress as more information becomes available. To learn more about the Acoustic Barcodes jump over to the Chris Harrison website.

Waterless Washing Machine Levitates Laundry and Cleans It With Dry Ice

Waterless Washing Machine The spherical drum floats through magnetic levitation. Elie Ahovi

It makes my day when new technology promises to make life’s most tedious tasks more interesting. Take laundry, for example. I would loathe it so much less if I had a friendly robot to help me fold my socks. Or perhaps if I had this waterless washing machine, which would levitate my clothes and scrub them clean with dry ice in a matter of minutes.

The Orbit uses a battery-filled ring to levitate a supercooled superconductive metal laundry basket. The basket is coated in two layers of shatterproof glass and chilled using liquid nitrogen. The batteries inside the ring produce a magnetic field, and the basket levitates inside this field as its electrical resistivity drops.

The laundry orb, which is opened and controlled using a ceramic-based touchscreen interface, blasts sublimated dry ice at supersonic speeds toward your clothes. The carbon dioxide interacts with the organic materials in your laundry and breaks them down. Then the dirt and grime is filtered out through a tube that you can rinse, and the CO₂ is removed and re-frozen (though it’s not clear how, because this would require lots of energy). Voila, clean and dry clothes.

At this point it’s just a concept by designer Elie Ahovi, but it’s not hard to imagine these types of cleanerballs in apartments of the future. Anything that will cut down on time spent doing laundry.