South Korea Get Permit to Build Worlds First Invisible Building!

Like me you have probably dreamt of owning an invisibility cloak or cloaking device of some-sort at one point in time or another, such as the one in the recent Harry-Potter movies that dream could be soon to be reality it seems. Would you believe me then if I told you that a certain skyscraper in South Korea is actually attempting to cloak the entire building, surely this really is the stuff of Sci-Fi movies you say. 

Photo by GDS Architects

Well maybe not, it appears that an International Architectural company named GDS Architects have received a construction permit to commence building "The world's first invisible tower" It is further reported that the plans reveal a tower that will stand 450 meters from the ground that's about 1,400 feet and is to be situated in Cheongna near South Korea's Incheon Airport outsider of Seoul.

There isn't a secret formula or paint though so don't expect that invisibility cloak to be stocked at your local retail store any-time soon, instead this invisibility cloak relies on an optical illusion. The tower titled "City Tower" which is also glass encased will if plans go ahead be fitted with high-tech LED façade which integrates projectors and around 18 strategically placed weatherproof cameras. The cameras will take multiple  images in real-time of the area which is directly facing behind the building (on whichever side your current viewpoint is). The images will then be digitally stitched into a panorama and then projects the images back onto the buildings reflective surface. 

So some pretty ingenious ways of utilising current technology in order to create a virtual invisible building and from what is known about this type of technology the idea is pretty much sound. What this does by projecting the images back at the building is that to the naked eye it will be as though you are looking straight through the building as you are seeing a projected image  making it blend into the skyline at certain times of day so a sort of active camouflage. 

Above: Here is a diagram of the principle behind the cloaking technique, image 1 shows the building left to right elevation indicating the camera capture zone , image 2 shows the front camera capture zone, images 3 and 4 show the building with the camera system activated first at 30% power and the last at 100% power. 

Now the obvious safety concerns of such a tower especially with respect to having a building situated so close to a major capital airport (yea you get the picture) is a scary thought, also why would anyone want to cloak an entire building in the first place, especially when you consider both of the country's regions recent turbulent times. 

I mean if you can apply this technique to a massive skyscraper then there will be that person that will say well why can't you apply this to a tank or better still an aircraft, true those types of objects will have motion to deal with but it doesn't seem impossible, which is why I'm genuinely worried about this type of technology seeing the light of day.

The GDS site quoted on the tower by posting the following statement "The tower subtly demonstrates Korea's rising position in the world by establishing its powerful presence through diminishing its presence," "Korea will have the unique position of having the 'best' tower by having an 'anti-tower."

You would think that an invisible tower was enough for most people but not for the people behind this concept as it seems there will also be a 4D theatre, landscaped gardens, a water park and the third highest observation platform in the world.

No word yet however on the completion date for this tower apart form a source indicating a 2014 completion date, so some pretty fascinating if not scary news then, what do you make of South Korea building an invisible tower?

ITRA Glass Technology, see the Future!

It really is incredible how many hours we each spend in front of a digital display these days  whether it be in the home, in the office, on holiday even at school, now it seems the race is on to bring us even more digital content while on the go! I myself spend a lot of time in front of some sort of digital screen so much so that people used to warn me (some still do) I would need glasses one day, they were probably right… but for the wrong reasons.

You will have by now heard of the infamous Google Glasses simply titled Google Glass, the pair of glasses designed to allow you to walk around with a pair of glasses that allow you to capture image and video of your life are a much talked of technology at the moment.

Now it seems that is not enough well at least that’s what the clever researchers at ITRA are attempting to say anyway, the Tiawan based company  have been busy developing  a pair of glasses themselves. Now if you cast your minds back to a well known movie “Minority Report” where Tom Cruise wore a pair of glasses which he used with a specialised glove to see a and interact with digital content by moving his hand to select things, well thats what ITRA have practically developed.

The system is called a floating augmented-reality touchscreen system (iAT, to the uninitiated) that would it say’s improve upon “Minority Report” Technology. I have heard it joked so many times about the skynet theories and jokes surrounding the scary new technology we keep dreaming up but I have to admit when things from Sci Fi movies start appearing in real life shouldn't we be?

Credit 20th Century Fox

The ITRA (Industrial technology Research Institute) have released a demo video of the aforementioned technology in action and I have to say it does look pretty sweet. In essence what it is is an augmented reality system which responds to touch user input.  As we know Google Glass uses voice commands generated by the user in order to perform functions, whereas the iTIA system projects a virtual touch based interface in front of the users field of vision which gives the appearance of floating in the air.

I can only do so much in describing the new innovation to you but you really do need to see what it looks like in action, check out the video demo from ITRA below.

See a live demo Video

i Touch In Air

The system on display in the initial demo stage of the video shows a bulky looking pair of goggles which is only natural from a testing perspective, but in the closing part of the video you can see a standard pair of glasses which could utilise this new technology medium. So not just a leap forward in terms of motion technology but also a wearable virtual computer system you can take on the go.

The commercial value of the product will no doubt be high, not just for the average consumer though but it has been mentioned that it could be used in other critical areas such as endoscopic surgery and military application undoubtedly which would benefit from hands free input.

The iTIA features a camera which is stated as being activated only when it detects a user's fingertip within a predetermined input distance range around about a foot away, this not only conserves battery power but also lets you access the system when you need it otherwise reverting the system to a simple stylish piece of eye-wear.

If you really want to get more technical Air Touches as they are being called when a user activates the system are sent to a host device such as a Laptop or Smartphone are linked to.

iTIA was officially introduced last week and will receive a 2013 R&D (Research and Development) 100 award this November, in addition to this ITRI also state that the technology is now being made available for licensing by mobile companies and anyone else interested in the technology. (you can bet Google will no doubt take a look at this)

iTIA was officially introduced last week and will receive a 2013 R&D (Research and Development) 100 award this November, in addition to this ITRI also state that the technology is now being made available for licensing by mobile companies and anyone else interested in the technology. (you can bet Google will no doubt take a look at this)

PS4 Red Light Of Detah or Is it?

Yes the PS4 has a red light and the new nickname "The Red Light Of Death", as we know the PS4 has a blue led to indicate when it is on etc, however at a recent Spanish showing of the console the ominous red light appeared.

Relax though folks as it's nothing serious, the PS4 in question was inside its display box and had been running on display all day, the obvious build up of heat and little room for it to escape in its display box caused the blue LED to turn Red, now here's the wow bit.

After seeing this occur a representative from Sony opened the case and the PS4 returned to normal Blue status, Shuhei Yoshida President  Of Worldwide Studios, Sony Computer Entertainment" stated  that the Red light is not a death indicator but just an overheating warning.

That's right now you know if your PS4 is getting a little hot under the bonnet as it will light up Red to tell you, which is a welcome addition to the console over previous ones hopefully giving you a heads up on potential problems you can deter from.

For the latest don't forget you can follow the official Yoshida twitter feed  (@yosp), looks like we can rest easy with PS4

IOS 7 Trial On Iphone 4

The past few weeks I have been testing out Apples latest major system software update and indeed overhaul, IOS 7

First however I must turn my attention to something that really annoys me,. not with apple or IOS but with the so called experts out there publishing articles which are not strictly true. What really annoys me is looking at other web articles from people who report on technology for a living and yet they don't know as much as they probably should. Even before I attempted to go anywhere near Apples download Server with my prized little gadget I made sure to take steps to ensure that if I did not like IOS 7 for any reason, or it was too buggy on my older model, then I could reinstall the old original OS IOS 6 software version, this is called downgrading but apparently this is something not many people know about.

Its not that lengthy a process and can help later on, you may wonder why do this as surely Apple could let you downgrade back to IOS 6? Well they do for short periods of time when all new IOS updates are announced but there is a process that once they turn off what is called firmware signing then your phone will not validate an IOS 6 install, it will appear to reboot successfully but will not let you have a functioning IOS environment until you restore to the latest IOS.

This happens because the software update has to verify with Apple to allow the process to continue somewhere deep within IOS software code, this can be bypassed however so that you can back up a few settings and when the phone attempts to activate through apples servers it actually gets a legitimate copy from well known Cydia servers, which apple don't endorse in any way, but it is a great job as I feel that the right to go back to a previous IOS should be allowed at the very least!

Now that has been cleared up I can safely say I don't need to restore back to my old IOS environment any-time soon, and IOS 7 has indeed given a new lease of life to my phone. even though I still have the Iphone 4 in excellent condition it could be said as being outdated, but I still feel it is a market leader and can still hold its own in today's mobile environment.

I have looked at the latest iphone models and think why do I really need any of them mine does pretty much the same bar a few exceptions such as voice talking Siri, and of course CPU and ram upgrades but no the Iphone 4 as I say still holds its own, at least until Apple produce an iphone that is so different yet amazing that it warrants an update. Even I have to admit Iphones are being developed more quickly than candidates at a political party debate, we have the Iphone 4, 4s, 5, 5S, 5C and even talks of the 6 coming soon.  I understand Apple wanting to reach a broader spectrum of the market with cheaper versions of their Iphone but do we really need to be over-saturated with them to such an extent? Its getting as bad as Android are with their new models based on types of food, you don;t know where you are.

with regards to IOS 7, it is amazing how easily it can be picked up especially with the swiping instead of pressing red x's during multi-tasking. There are a lot of great improvement's, a lot of which is very visual and obvious to the user, while there are also some subtle changes to the settings here and there.  One great feature for example is in the music player, simply tilting the device to landscape displays all of the albums listed on the phone side by side, with the user only needing to slide left and right to select individual album.

I will say that there are limitations here and there and the new IOS would benefit from the extra processing power from one of the newer I-Phones, but I find the only real problem is the latency between accessing the camera app when trying to take a quick snap, that I can live with for now.

There has been as there always is when a major system update such as this is launched however with it being leaked that there was one or two security breaches within the new software which could compromise a users phone if a criminal were to gain access to it. luckily Apple were quick to respond and have since released a smaller incremental follow up update to rectify this issue.

There are now talks of the IOS 8 releasing next year, madness you may well say but that is not such a silly statement to make, after all technology moves so fast these days that new software is always in need of updating to keep-up with the newest hardware developments and vice a-versa. At least we have IOS 7 to enjoy for now, but who knows what may be available in IOS 8?