Keith's Journal

Aussie boffin cobbles together Get Smart shoe phone Asher MosesMarch 2, 2009

Forty years after clumsy agent Maxwell Smart immortalised the shoe phone, an Australian computer scientist has developed a real-life version and published detailed step-by-step instructions online.

It may seem like an impractical novelty in a world of iPhones and tiny bluetooth headsets but the inventor, Paul Gardner-Stephen, insists there are practical applications - including, surprisingly enough, helping the elderly.And the gadget has been so popular among the geek crowd that he is considering selling it via online stores

Gardner-Stephen, 32, a post-doctoral fellow in bioinformatics at Adelaide's Flinders University, made the gadget as a prop for a church camp drama presentation that had a "Get Smart" theme. He also created an Agent 86-inspired cone of silence and 1950s phone booth, although these were just props.

But after scouring the web and discovering that no one had created a shoe phone that was fully functional as a phone and could also be worn as a shoe, Gardner-Stephen set himself the challenge.The first iteration, made in October last year, was simply a Bluetooth headset embedded in the sole of a shoe. The wearer still had to carry a mobile phone in his or her pocket.Then, in December, Gardner-Stephen refined his design and, with the help of a cobbler friend, embedded a Motorola V620 in one shoe and a Bluetooth headset in the other. The cobbler crafted hollow heels with a hatch that could fit the phone and headset

. "It's surprising, your first thought is it's completely impractical, but it's actually not that bad - the phone rings, you slip off the shoe, you open the heel and press the button and you're talking in around the same time it would take to fumble in a bag and pull the phone out," he said.

Gardner-Stephen used the gadget as his main phone for three days and described the experience as "quite good fun", except when he had to pick up a call while driving.

"I've had a couple of bemused looks, but it turns out that universities are quite resilient to the unusual - I've walked several hundred metres outside on campus talking into the shoe and no one's really paid any attention," he said.

Gardner-Stephen quickly discovered that the concept could be applied to caring for the elderly and remote patient monitoring. He said storing electronics in a shoe would be unobtrusive and wouldn't be objectionable to older people who aren't comfortable with modern technology.The shoe could hold equipment used to store and communicate pulse, blood pressure, blood oxygenation and other information. It could also be used in nursing homes whereby the shoe could detect a fall and automatically place a call to a medical carer over a speaker phone.

"Shoes are well accepted by most people, and are simple to put on and take off," Gardner-Stephen said.He said he had recruited several final-year engineering students to work on these practical uses as part of their major projects.

The engineer also published detailed instructions on creating both the first- and second-generation shoe phone on instructables.com. Thousands of people have checked out his design and at least one decided to build their own, selling it on eBay last month for $60.

Gardner-Stephen said that, given the immense online interest, he might begin selling the shoe phones this year through online stores such as thinkgeek.com.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/02/1235842299035.html

Inventor to fly Skycar from London to Timbuktu
A British adventurer is preparing to set off for Timbuktu in a home-made vehicle which can transform itself from a car into an aircraft in minutes.

On the ground the Skycar runs on a biofuel-powered engine and can accelerate from zero to 100 kilometres per hour in 4.5 seconds.

But with a powerful fan on the rear its take-off speed is 60kph, and once in the air it can fly at speeds of up to around 110 kph, cruising at 600-900 metres with a paraglider-style canopy holding it aloft.

Inventor Giles Cardozo will leave London later today for the 6,000-kilometre trip through France, Spain and north Africa, across the Sahara to the fabled desert city of Timbuktu in Mali.

The journey is expected to take some 40 days.

With four-wheel-drive the car can allegedly deal with the most rugged terrain.

"It's not like a car - it's more like a dune buggy," Mr Cardozo said.

"But no other dune buggy or car has flown like this thing before. It flies brilliantly.

"It flies at about 110 kph and drives at 193 kph, so it's a really cool bit of kit," added the 29-year-old, whose trip is backed by famous British explorer Ranulph Fiennes.

- AFP

Tea time goes high tech


Having a humble cuppa could help older Australians stay safe in the future, a seniors group says.

Read more...

The humble brown paper bag to vanish

Sarah Price Education Reporter
March 23, 2008

SAUSAGE roll. Tick. Cream bun. Tick. The days of schoolchildren setting off to school with their lunch orders written on a coin-filled paper bag are under threat.

A Sydney school has established an online canteen ordering system to save time, reduce waste and ensure parents know exactly what their children are eating.

Killarney Heights Public School volunteer canteen co-ordinator Janet Miller and school parent and web developer Abder Bloul have created a website on which parents can pre-pay and order their children's lunches and snacks.

The pilot phase was such a success that it has been rolled out across the school and, while it is still in trial phase, about three-quarters of the school's students are on board.

The age-old system involved parents putting money in a brown paper bag and ticking the order on the front. Each child would deposit the bag in a box in the school office.

Canteen volunteers collected the bags, processed the orders and counted the money - all a time-intensive process - before filling the orders.

Mrs Miller said the system, SCaMPS (School Canteens Menu Processing System), saved at least an hour of work every day.

With SCaMPS, parents set up a pre-paid account, have their own log-on for the website where they can see the canteen menus - complete with photographs - and place orders days and even weeks in advance.

A reply email confirms the order. Parents can keep track of their account balance online.

School principal Jessica Wiltshire said it was "brilliant".

The system was a hit with the canteen volunteers and it meant that when volunteer numbers were low, which in the past would have meant closing the canteen for that day, it could be kept open.

"It's just so easy. It's convenient," Mrs Miller said. "Parents don't have to worry about finding a paper bag and finding money. They can just get online in the morning and order it."

One parent ordered the children's lunches while on a work trip in China. A mother who had to go overseas for two weeks ordered all her children's lunches before she left.

Helen Urquhart has been a convert to the SCaMPS system since its introduction. The mother of three said the online system was a "total lifesaver" in saving time.

"You can do the whole week's canteen in one sitting," she said. Her children like to see what is being ordered and so know what to expect on the days their lunches come from the canteen.

Mrs Miller said she would welcome queries from other schools.

Farmer gives low-cost laptop a proper field test


Sherrill Nixon
February 12, 2008

FROM his hot, dusty, locust-plagued property in the NSW outback, a software engineer who goes by the name Quozl is doing his bit to help educate 1.5 billion of the world's poorest children.

James Cameron has spent the past two years testing prototypes of a low-cost robust laptop called XO designed especially for children in developing countries.

He devotes up to five hours a day to his volunteer work for the US charity One Laptop Per Child, which began mass producing the "green machines" in November.

Mr Cameron likens his efforts to missionary work - without the travel he so fears.

"I don't like flying. I'm just frightened of all the possible risks of visiting other countries. But I can do something from here."

Mr Cameron's farm near Tooraweenah - population 76, about 60 kilometres from Coonabarabran - was seen as an ideal testing ground because the conditions were similar to those in some Third World countries.

Among the teething problems he identified in early XO versions was a battery that failed to charge when the temperature reached 45 degrees. He has also helped develop the free software used on the XOs.

But his greatest contribution has been testing the range of the wireless connection between laptops on the long dirt roads and across the hills of Warrumbungle National Park, near his home. The XOs use a wireless mesh network that connects all laptops within range - without the need for infrastructure such as routers or cables - so children can collaborate on any computer activity.

The charity's vice-president of software engineering, Jim Gettys, was in Australia this month to give an update on the project to a conference of free-software developers.

In recent weeks the first batch of 250,000 XOs has been sent to Peru, and charity staff have visited Mongolia to show teachers and students how to use the computers.

Mr Gettys described some of the hurdles they had had to overcome - children's homes without electricity, low literacy rates, no knowledge of the internet in some communities and languages in which computer terminology has yet to be created.

The laptops have a hand-crank or a solar panel to power them, a screen that can be read in bright sunlight, sturdy handles and dust-resistant keyboards sized for children's fingers, and all the features of normal laptops - a camera and microphone, USB ports and game pad keys.

"Children all over the world are just as able to learn as our kids," Mr Gettys said.

"They may have no place to learn except under a tree. Conventional laptops are pretty useless in that instance."

London to Sydney 'in five hours' on new jet



British engineers have unveiled plans for a hypersonic jet which could fly from Europe to Australia in less than five hours.

The A2 plane, designed by engineering company Reaction Engines based in Oxfordshire, southern England, could carry 300 passengers at a top speed of almost 6,400 kilometres per hour - five times the speed of sound.

The LAPCAT (Long-Term Advanced Propulsion Concepts and Technologies) project, backed by the European Space Agency, could see the plane operating within 25 years, the firm's boss Alan Bond told the Guardian daily.

"The A2 is designed to leave Brussels international airport, fly quietly and subsonically out into the north Atlantic at mach 0.9 before reaching mach 5 across the North Pole and heading over the Pacific to Australia," he said.

The plane, which at 143 metres long would be about twice the size of the biggest current jets, could fly non-stop for up to 20,000 kilometres.

It operates on liquid hydrogen, which is more ecologically friendly as it gives off water and nitrous oxide instead of carbon emissions.

Passengers would have to put up with having no windows, due to problems with heat produced at high speeds.

Instead, designers may put flat screen televisions where the windows would be, giving the impression of seeing outside.

Fares would be comparable with current first class tickets on standard flights.

The flight time from Brussels to Australia would be four hours and 40 minutes.

"It sounds incredible by today's standards but I don't see why future generations can't make day trips to Australasia," Mr Bond said.

"Our work shows that it is possible technically; now it's up to the world to decide if it wants it."

- AFP

London council offers toilet-finding text service

Posted 59 minutes ago

First came SatNav for lost drivers, now there is 'SatLav', a toilet-finding service to help people caught short in central London.

Westminster City Council has launched a new mobile phone text message service that will guide Londoners and tourists to their nearest public toilet.

Anyone who sends the word "Toilet" to 80097 will receive a reply giving details of their nearest public convenience.

Student Gail Knight, 26, came up with the idea for an innovation competition run by the council.

"When I'm out with friends we're always ducking into McDonalds or department stores to use their loos but we feel a bit bad about it," she said.

"I thought a text service would be really useful for people on the move."

- Reuters