Never leave home without it?

Have you ever left the house to go out and once you got there and realized you forgot your camera? How about going to run, bike, hike or another outdoor activity and forgot your music player?

Well now you do not have to worry about leaving your camera or music player again because now the only thing you have to remember is your sunglasses. Yes I said sunglasses. Xonix has developed a pair of sunglasses that not only protects your eyes from the harmful UV rays but also is a camera and music player.

Here are some of the Specs:

1. A 1.3 megapixel camera that allows you to take pictures and record video directly into the integrated hardrive.


2. Store your music here as well and listen to it through the built in earpieces.


3. UV coated lenses for eye protection and adjustable nose pieces.


4. Easy to use controls along the side of the glasses.


5. And for you techies like me there is a remote control that gives you full control of everything at the touch of the finger. The remote works up to 16 ft away from the glasses.

I have heard of other types of glasses out there that have some of the same features but I do not think that I have seen one that offers this many in one device. Sure there is a multitude of video glasses that allow you to watch movies and the such, check out the Coolbuzz article from 2007. You can get more information as well from an article in gizmag which goes a little more in depth than I do with background features. They do great job with the nitty gritty stuff. Although this is a really cool tool and I am stoked that it can do so much I am not sure when it is going to be hitting retail stores here in the states. Looks like a great gift for the techno-gadget guru in every family.

Micro-blogging

What is micro-blogging, well before we delve into that one let's look at what blogging is as a whole.

A blog or weblog is a site in which a user posts their own commentary regarding things they are doing, events in their lives, or just their personal views on different subject material. To learn more about blogs you can watch the following video to get a better understanding.

Now that you have learned a little bit about what a blog is let's talk about micro-blogging. In a nut shell micro-blogging allows users to send short text descriptions about what they are doing, what is going on or things happening around them etc. Users key in a sentence or so description that then posts immediately. Why go with micro-blogging? Some may think it is easier than keeping up with a blog website. Others may think that this could be their in route to the whole blog universe. Me, I am on the fence as to its use. I regularly post blog entries but tend to not use the micro-blogging options available to me.
Micro-blogging seems to taking off like a rocket in recent months. Or at least it has come to the forefront with all of the media attention that it has been getting lately. So, where do you go to micro-blog? Well some may not even realize that they are doing it while others are reading this and saying that I am crazy because they have been doing it for a long time.
If you have a Facebook, MySpace or Bebo account you already have an avenue for micro-blogging by telling people what you are doing or how you are feeling right then. Probably the most notable micro-blogging site is Twitter which advertises that you can let people now what you are doing in 140 characters or less. Twitter has thousands of users on the web and even some very famous user like Oprah Winfrey, Clark Howard, as well as news and sports shows. There are other micro-blogging sites out there in the world wide web that you can use as well. Here is a list of some of the available sites as offered up by many different search results I have looked at.
Twitter
Jaiku
Pownce
Tumblr
Moodmill
IRateMyDay
Yappd
Hictu

There are many others out on the web but these are a good starting place for you to get your feet wet. So go out there and jump in the water and start micro-blogging.

video provided by Commoncraft

The Bionic Eye

Well not actually a Bionic Eye but as close to it as possible.

All of my life my mother has suffered with Dry Macular Degeneration. An eye disease that normally begins to effect most people in their early to late 50's happened to her right after she had me in her late 20's. The disease effects the part of the eye called the macula which is what helps you to see things clearly. When it begins to deteriorate the best way to describe what happens is that you start seeing spots in front of your eyes. Actually as the cells die dark spots form in your field of vision which gradually over time begin to come together until you go completely blind.

Now there are two major forms of the disease one is Wet and the other Dry. Current Ophthalmology trends have been able to slow the progression of the disease in those with the Wet version through different medical procedures. Those with the Dry condition do not have much to look forward to in a treatment that could slow the progression.

Now that we have heard the bad let's have some good.

Towards the end of March the FDA advisory panel approved an implant that could give many thousands of people with end stage Macular Degeneration, including my mother, the hope of getting some vision back. What is it that will help these people to get some sight back? An implantable telescope for the eye. What the implant would do is to give recipients back "...about three and a half lines on an eye chart." This could considerably improve the quality of life for many individuals that suffer from this disease. For myself and my mother this could be an opportunity for her to be independent again. Something that causes undo stress on family members that have always been able to do things for themselves who now have to rely on others for assistance with normal everyday activities.

VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies were the developers of the implant that is about the size of a pencil eraser. It works like a telescope to help the recipient to focus on objects. The telescope is implanted into one eye only so that the other is used for its peripheral vision. With the hopeful FDA full approval the telescope could be out on the market by the end of this year.





Image provided by: VisionCare Ophthalmic Technologies

Generating Electricity through Motion

Imagine this: you are on a dark road late at night and your car breaks down. You reach for your cell phone and the battery is dead and you don't have your charger. Or you are on that long drive, flight, biking or some activity and your iPod battery runs out. In most cases you are either sleeping in your car the rest of the night or you are doing your activity in silence, or maybe a-la "American Idol"

Now imagine this: you are in those same situations but because you are wearing a new jacket, shirt, pants with a new nano type of fabric your movements generate electricity that can recharge the cell phone or iPod battery.

Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have been working on a new type of technology that will convert the mechanical movements of the body into electrical energy. This new technology has been touted as having a potential impact on many arenas including.. "personal electronics."

What does his mean to all of us? That someday there will be a technology that allows us, through movement, to generate enough electricity to recharge our personal electronic devices. I don't know about you but I pay way to much for batteries that last no time at all. I am all for this technology. Think about it, right now for a number of years we have had watches that will self-wind themselves with the movement of the wearer. There are companies out there that have been working on thin light weight material to project images onto. This seems to be the next logical progression and oh the possibilities abound.

original article: PHYSORG

Bookmarking Revisited

You may have heard of Delicious or StumbleUpon and maybe even Diigo. Each has their own strengths and ease of use as Social Bookmarking sites. Well I found another one that you may or may not have heard about.

It is called trailfire and what it does is to not only allow you to create bookmarks to resources, utilities and your own personal interests but also strings them together to make a trail. "Find what you want on the web in an entirely new way. Follow trails of web pages and discover new ideas, hot topics, reviews... "

Each resource becomes its own trail. You could have students create trails as part of their senior projects so that the resources they use are more manageable. The good thing is that they have the ability to share those resources with you and everyone else. All they have to do is share the created short web link made by trailfire.

The trailfire site is easy to understand and takes only a couple of minutes to set up from logging in to creating your first trail. Downside, folks you have to create another user name and password, I know but if you follow a standard login name and password then it will be easy to remember. One you have registered you download the plug ins for your Internet browser window. In its current version it looks as if it only supports IE browsers. Now all you have to do is three little steps to create your first trail.
Step 1. Click n the trailfire logo in your browser
Step 2. Give your trail a heading title (basically a tag)
Step 3. Save the trail

This can eliminate a lot of lost productivity for your students when they are searching for resources. As well if combined with other utilities, like netTrekker, they could also eliminate extraneous non-educational sites and only look at valid educational material.

Let's talk about Science

Students need to learn it, teachers have to teach it. Why not make it fun for everyone?

What if there was a website that allowed your students to learn Science curricula in a fun and inviting way? The Jason Project offers curriculum resources for students in grades 5-8 to help them get interested in science investigations with real scientists and researchers from the National Geographic Society, NOAA and NASA.

Do not take my word for it check out the "Take a Tour" link from the home page of the site. It is approx. 5 minutes long and gives a general overview of what the site offers to you, your students, your administrators and parents. Yes I said parents, they have the ability to go in and see the progress their children while they are working on assigned projects.

How do you get started? Well because everything is free, again with the free thing, you have to register for an account and then verify it through email. During he registration process you put in your zip code and it will bring up all the schools in and around the zip and let's you click on your school. You have the option to set up your account as either a Teacher, Administrator, Student and Parent.

Once you have verified the account through email the magic begins. You can immediately go in and set up a class and create logins for your student, no email is needed for your students. Then you can begin searching for content within the site.

Here is what you have access to And it can be searched according to the NC SCOS:

• Physical Science
• Life Science
• Earth and Space Science
• Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
• History and Nature of Science
• Science and Technology
• Life Science

Once you have found what you are looking for all you have to do is assign it to your class and your students go in and start looking. Not only do you have the integration with the NC SCOS you also have Lesson Plans, Assessments, Videos in the Digital Library and Black line Masters. There is so much that you can see use and share with your students that will enhance your everyday in class instruction.

Presentation 2.0

When I recently attended the NCTIES conference at the beginning of March, I was in a session where the presenter used a new web tool that I had not seen before. This web tool gave new meaning to my interpretation of a presentation.


Prezi is the name of the website and it takes presentations to the next level. "With the help of Prezi you can create maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs, drawings and present in a nonlinear way." One great thing about this web tool is that you have the ability to make your product Private or Public.

I could not believe how quick and easy it was to get started and have a presentation up and running in as the site says about 5 minutes. I had all of my resources in place and ready to go. Within the presentation I was able to select a background from a few canned ones they have. Then you are on the canvas and ready to create your new presentation. Using this palette tool you can begin adding your material. Now the sky is the limit with what and how much information you want to use. The site automatically saves your progress every few moments but if you click the Blue File Circle you can Save or Save and Close. You also have the Blue Show circle which allows you to see immediately how the presentation will look. On the Blue Place circle you have all of your tools for the presentation. At the top is Media which you can use to upload Images and video.. there is a downside right now you can only upload Flash (flv) video but as this moves out of the beta phase there may be different options available. The Text options allows you three choices for fonts in html code, body, strong and head. With Frame you can section off your presentation into different areas. With Line you can create a high-lighted area, an arrow line or a free hand draw line. Path allows you to create the flow of your presentation. See the video to learn more.

Now the site offers a lot of other tools for you while you are creating your own presentation. The site offers the Learn Tab which has a number of videos and interactive tutorials for you. There is the the Showcase tab that has 27 pages of shared presentations that others have done on varying subject areas. The last tab is the Forum where you can get and give feedback on the site, issues that you are having or just ask about new features that might be available soon. Speaking of features what else can Prezi do for you? Here is another video to show you how you can emphasize areas of your presentation.

Images & video provided by Prezi.com