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Quit playin' 'Candy Crush' or you'll hurt yourself
Humans are bred to lie, and while police officers probably receive the bulk of our untruths, doctors get a fair share as well. Like, when someone walks into a clinic complaining of a busted tendon in their hand, it's only natural that they'd say that they were, uh, playing Candy Crush too hard than tell the truth. It's the story that the San Diego Union Tribune is running with after an orthopedic surgeon revealed that a patient ruptured the tendons in their thumb while playing the addictive mobile game on their smartphone. Joking aside, Dr. Dori Cage has advised the public against the dangers of "texting thumb," a repetitive stress injury caused by the prevalence of smartphones. So, if you start to feel a soreness in your fingers or thumbs after an extended session, just put your device down for a little while, okay? [Image Credit: Bloomberg / Getty Images]
Your smartphone is changing the way your fingers work
Your smartphone is changing more than just your habits -- it's changing the way your hands work, too. Swiss researchers have discovered that activity in the brain's cortex associated with index fingers and thumbs is enhanced directly in proportion to how often you use your phone's touchscreen. That area of your mind will light up if you message your friends all week, but it'll fade the longer you spend away from your device. People with basic cellphones don't see this, according to the scientists. This suggests that repetitive smartphone use is altering your sensory processing, and that your brain is perceiving your digits in a different way. Whether or not that's a good thing is still up in the air, but it shows that you don't have to be in a profession driven by hand dexterity (such as music) to see a shift in how your brain and fingers work together. [Image credit: Shutterstock / nenetus]
The oversized iPhone 6 Plus needs an oversized thumb to match
Did you order an iPhone 6 Plus only to find that the phone was far too big when it finally arrived at your door? I mean seriously, the thing is practically a coffee table. But that's ok, thanks to Japan's Thanko Inc., which has come up with an absolutely genius solution to the phablet problem: A bigger thumb. You read that correctly. A Japanese accessory maker has a massive slip-on thumb for sale that is designed to help you reach all the corners of your phablet without two hands. It's obnoxious and silly and it looks like a joke... but as far as functionality goes, it would seem to work just as well as any capacitive input device. The third thumb is priced at 1,480 yen, or roughly US$13.50, and it even comes with a three-month warranty. You'd obviously get plenty of laughs if anyone ever saw you wearing something like this in public, but if you're particularly miffed by the unreachable corners of your iPhone 6 Plus, you might not care about the giggles. [via Wall Street Journal]
Rockmelt social browser goes thumb-crazy for iPhone
The Rockmelt "social browser" has been on quite a ride over the past few months. It transitioned from a desktop tool to an iPad app, giving Apple's tablet users a graceful way to browse, share and enjoy their favorite sites. The mobile browsing experience described by Harry McCracken as "a little as if Safari and Flipboard had a baby together, and it came out looking like Pinterest" is expanding to the smaller screen. Today Rockmelt launches version 2.1 of its app, now universal for both iPad and iPhone. Rockmelt's core feature is its "endless river of the Web" approach to browsing, which is designed to bring you the sites and stories you want (learning your preferences over time, naturally) without a lot of extraneous clutter. You can also quickly share and "emote" on the items that resonate with you -- it's like the BuzzFeed of mobile browsers. On the iPhone, the browsing look and feel from the iPad version has been subjected to what the company calls "the tyranny of the thumb." Everything you're likely to want to do -- save a tab (swipe right), close a view (swipe left), sharing or emoting (a tap), etc. -- can be accomplished with one digit. The tablet and phone instances of the app also synchronize betwixt themselves, so your browsing progress transfers from one to the other. Rockmelt is free on the App Store. If you log in with your social creds (Twitter or Facebook), the app will use the links and sites posted by your friends as the seed sites for your initial river view. Otherwise you can add sources from Rockmelt's curated lists or from anywhere on the Internet. You can preview the app in the video below.
University of Calgary experimenting with one-handed iPhone gestures
A research team from the GroupLab at the University of Calgary is working on a set of new single-handed gestures for the iPhone called the the Fat Thumb interaction technique. This technique lets you hold your iPhone with one hand and use your thumb to interact with the UI. The team conducted a trial that challenged users to pan and zoom to a location on a map and the Fat Thumb interaction technique performed as well as other commonly-used multi-fingered techniques. You can read more about the gestures in the group's 10-page PDF research paper and watch a video of the technique in action on the GroupLab website. [Via Engadget]
University of Calgary's Fat Thumb trick allows one-handed phone use, jugglers are thankful (video)
Everyone's let it happen at some point -- that moment where we're desperately trying to use our smartphones in one hand while juggling groceries or coffee in the other. There'll be no way to recover those social graces, but six researchers at the University of Calgary have developed a software technique, Fat Thumb, that should at least keep the contortions and dropped phones to a minimum. As the name implies, it's all based around pressure: a light touch performs the usual commands, while squishing the thumb's wider surface area against the screen allows the equivalent of a multi-touch gesture, such as a pinch to zoom. The advantages for comfort and grip virtually speak for themselves; what's surprising is that Fat Thumb may well be faster than other one-handed gestures. Work on the project is so far confined to a research paper stemming from experiments with an iPhone, although it's easy to see this spreading to other platforms and real products before too long. Catch a glimpse of the cleverness in action after the break.
Thumb draws opinions from the crowd, enhances iPhone app
The opinion-based social utility Thumb, approaching its second birthday, has overhauled its free iOS app and added direct like/dislike voting to its core ask-a-question feature. The new 3.5 version of the service delivers tighter social integration, in-app messaging, leaderboards/rankings and an easy way to save likes or dislikes to your user profile. The basic experience of using Thumb is "take a picture, ask a yes/no question." Whether it's a product, a restaurant, a vacation destination or a lifestyle choice, within a few minutes you can get opinions and comments from scores of your friends or fellow Thumb users. It's like a focus group in your pocket -- an answer service like Quora, AnswerQi or Yahoo Answers but boiled down to hot-or-not simplicity and tuned for speed and fun over detail and depth. CEO Dan Kurani told me that the inspiration for Thumb came when he was among several recipients of an email from a family member. The subject line was "What do you think of this?" and the message was simply a photograph of an anniversary ring. Within hours, the replies started coming in, and Kurani began to imagine how a mobile service might deliver real-time, actionable opinions on questions like that one. Thumb launched in July of 2010, and has been evolving since then as Kurani and his team tweaked the platform to make it easier and faster to connect with other users. While they originally anticipated a tighter focus on consumer products and shopping, the audience led them to widen the category set -- "It turns out that people want opinions on everything," says Kurani. %Gallery-157477% While the 2.0 version of Thumb that arrived in November of 2010 included some social functionality and messaging, the new version "is all about embracing social discovery & [providing] more tools to communicate with fellow users," according to Kurani. Users who are particularly active and helpful in a category will get a star rating for that type of question, making them more likely to show up in future queries on those topics. The new version's ability to "pre-rate" an item with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down means that users can state (and share, to Facebook/Twitter/email or SMS) an opinion rather than just asking a question. Comments ride along with votes to provide additional context to user opinions. What's surprising is how responsive the Thumb community is, and how fast. Even a casual/gag question like "the coffee at the office: thumbs up or down?" garnered more than 40 votes and a handful of comments within minutes. For more weighty questions ("Should I buy this TV?" or "Is this assisted-living facility a good place for Grandpa?") the response rate shoots up dramatically. Granted, the depth of context and experience you might want for technical help or full product evaluation (such as you might find on gdgt or in our comments) isn't really there, but that's not where the service is aimed. It's built to help people connect around preferences -- creating affinity groups, if you will -- and it does that pretty nicely. Even if you're normally in the habit of turning to your Facebook, Twitter or other social networks for quick opinions, Thumb is fun and fast (and free); it's worth checking out. The new 3.5 version is available via the iPhone app and sister Android app, and via the soft-launched redesigned thumb.it website.
Experimental controller has 'thumbstick within thumbstick' for blistering sensations (video)
Just when you thought slingshots were the future, here comes a whole new way to enjoy baddie deletion in Uncharted 7. Each thumbstick on the prototype controller above has a secondary force feedback-enabled nub at its center, which moves independently and creates different sensations by stretching the skin on the pad of your opposable digit. In the video after the break, the designers at the University of Utah show how they've created effects for crawling, collisions, explosions and even fishing. They're apparently hoping to push their technology into next-gen games consoles, but they'll have to join the queue.
Infinitec opens pre-orders for 'infinite' USB memory drive, touts dual-WiFi
We're guessing that the past six months have dragged on (or zipped by, depending on viewpoint) for the folks at Infinitec as they waited for this day, but the device we first spotted at the Engadget trailer during CES 2010 is finally up for pre-order. Hailed as the world's first "infinite USB flash drive," this ad hoc streaming device enables any two locally networked devices to send content to one another, and as of today, those who have longed for just this thing can get in line. The startup's also taking this opportunity to gloat about the "dual-WiFi" capabilities included (a video explanation awaits you past the break), which essentially enables an IUM-equipped laptop to connect to another device while retaining its live connection to the web. Hit the source link to part ways with your $129, and if you buy in early, you'll be gifted with gratis worldwide shipping come August 31st. And you can't beat that deal with a stick, USB or otherwise.
Infinitec officially launches IUM ad hoc streaming device: ships in July for $129
It's been a long time comin', but the little startup-that-could has just gone official with its first major consumer electronics peripheral, the IUM. First introduced at CES, this ad hoc streaming stick creates a local WiFi network (802.11b/g/n; 2.4GHz to 5GHz) for all sorts of media and data to flow from your PC to, well, pretty much anything. PC to PC, PC to Blu-ray player, PC to printer and PC to console streaming is all within reach, with HD support baked in to boot. We've already given you low-down on functionality, but today the company is announcing a July 1st availability date for consumers across the US, Canada and Europe. We're told to expect it for "under $129 depending on the location," and if all goes well, it'll ship in even more locales in due time. Hop on past the break for the full release and promo video, and be sure to give that Shufflegazine link a visit for podcasts detailing the use scenarios. %Gallery-85832% %Gallery-82076%
Infinitec details Infinite USB Memory Device functionality ahead of launch
Surely you remember Infinitec, right? You know -- that Dubai-based startup that first showcased its so-called Infinite USB memory device (IUM) at CES? Now that we've jogged your memory, we'd like to point out some new information on the product. We're told that the company is gearing up to officially launch the stick soon, promising ad hoc streaming from any Windows-based PC to just about anything you can think of: Blu-ray players, media streamers, printers, and practically any other gizmo with a USB port. New details provided to us by Infinitec ensure that game consoles are supported, as is high-def video content. The company has also laid out a number of use scenarios for those curious about how this thing could improve your daily life, all of which are just beneath the break. Stay tuned for more in the coming days -- pricing and release deets should be headed our (and in turn, your) way soon. %Gallery-85832%
Exclusive: Infinitec demonstrates IUM ad hoc streaming device, makes it look like a flash drive
Chances are you've never heard of Infinitec, a small startup looking to make big waves out of Dubai, but multimedia junkies will probably want to keep a close eye on 'em for the next little while. The outfit dropped by today at CES to give us a sneak peek at its forthcoming Infinite USB memory device (IUM). In short, this device contains a small computer and 802.11n WiFi module within, and it's designed to create point-to-point contact between networked media (or a networked PC with media onboard) and pretty much anything else. You insert the device into a host PC, pair it up once and create a maximum size (1GB for cheap-o players that can't support larger flash drives, 1TB+ for sharing your entire NAS -- for instance), and then connect it to whatever you wish in order to give said device access to those files that you just selected. Basically, it tricks the recipient into thinking a flash drive has been inserted, when in reality it's just giving that device wireless access to media stored elsewhere. The device serves a few purposes: you can use it to give all sorts of files to other machines in your home, or you could plug it into your HDTV or Blu-ray deck in order to stream PC-bound content right to your den. The goal here was to make other devices assume that this was just one giant flash drive, with gigabytes upon gigabytes of media right on the drive. So far as the receiving PC or set-top box knows, the IUM is just a stock flash drive with a capacity of your choosing. Just drop files over like you would from a standard USB key, and it shoots across the network to its final destination. Currently, it's not suggested that you use this to send files over the internet -- the lag in tunneling just makes for a poor user experience. The demo we witnessed (watching a Simpsons episode that was hosted on a nearby netbook) was remarkably smooth, with the user being able to skip ahead by minutes at a time with no visible lag. There's even the hope that the internals could one day be integrated into laptops in order to remove the need for an external dongle, but for now, you can expect a summertime release in the US and a sub-$150 price tag. So, you fixing to get your stream on, or what? %Gallery-82076%
Metal Gear Solid 4 gets recreated with thumbs
It's Metal Gear Solid 4 ... meets "Thumb Wars." This lengthy ad does Kojima Productions justice by taking a humorous concept and running with it ... all the way. Clocking in at almost four minutes, this thumb-recreation of MGS4 is in fact, an ad for the upcoming Japanese mobile game, Metal Gear Ac!d Mobile.[Thanks, Gambit07! Via Kotaku]
NSFW: Austrian PS3 ad replaces penis with thumb
There's a saying that all advertising is good advertising. Perhaps this example will prove to be true. This Australian Austrian ad for PS3 uses a nude man whose penis has been replaced by a thumb. The imagery is clearly NSFW so we can't put it on our site, but you can check it out at Ads of the World (if you so choose).Perhaps the image is so provocative that the tiny "PLAYSTATION 3" text at the bottom will be seared into our minds. We don't know exactly how this ad would be effective, but that's for the folks at TBWA\Wien to explain to SCEE.[Via Gizmodo]Update: Austrian, not Australian. Whoops.
Texter's thumb strikes again
Alternately known as texting tenosynovitis, BlackBerry thumb, text messager's thumb, or simply "ow ow ow ow" as you bang out your next SMS, texter's thumb is no laughing matter for afflicted individuals. A 20 year old Kiwi is the latest to be diagnosed with the painful ailment, brought about in no small part by her 100 message per day texting habit. Though there have apparently been only three cases officially diagnosed worldwide, the authors of the case report believe it's likely that many cases go undiagnosed given the overwhelming popularity of SMS worldwide. No bother; it's nothing a little BlackBerry Balm couldn't smooth right over, we imagine.[Via textually.org]
USB thumb drive gets a clever disguise
You may think that this is just a normal tiny Wiimote with a USB connector sticking out of it. Fooled you! If you can believe it, this is actually a USB thumb drive.Reader Ryan Kruska put his existing thumb drive into a stylish cover made from one of the Wii toys from Wendy's. Then, because he is a kind and generous soul, he created a Flickr gallery with step-by-step instructions. We'd love to see what else you guys can do with the Nintendo-themed kids' meal toys. It's like Wiimote hacking, but much less technical, and without as much financial investment! Also it doesn't do as much. But other than those things and probably some other things, exactly the same.
Texting harms are English
First the bees and now our ability to write -- mobile phones are destroying us all. Ireland's State Examination Commission says that texting terse messages keeps kids from learning to spell, causing the world to go all Idiocracy on us.While our gaming habits may not be destroying the planet, unless all that WiFi we've got flying around is harmful, even gamers with full-size keyboards use 1337 speak. And what will happen when thumb-sized console keyboards debut? We're in favor of tools to avoid the shrill sounds of Xbox Live gamers, but will this cost us our written language? Maybe punctuation is overrated.
Biometric ATMs coming to rural India
Considering all the ATM hacking that's been going on of late, it's not all that surprising to see those "uber-secure" fingerprint readers hitting mini-banks in Japan and Columbia, and now a pilot program is getting set to install 15 biometric ATMs at "village kiosks in five districts across southern India." The fingerprint-reading machines are expected to serve around 100,000 workers, primarily farmers and other laborers, who will finally be able to withdraw funds directly from a machine rather than suffering through the corrupt hand-me-down process that often steals money away from already poor workers. AGS Infotech, who is supplying the first batch of systems for the trial, is interested in seeing if the system actually works out, as many villagers have trouble interacting with any type of computing interface, and because many villages have their own dialects, making a UI that can communicate to everyone is difficult. Of course, there are individuals who suggest that these systems will only incite crime, as thieves look to new methods (read: hacking a thumb or two) to extract funds, but proponents of the system say that this is no different than armed criminals forcing someone to give up their PIN number at gunpoint. Nevertheless, the trial is slated to start soon, and there's quite a few outsiders watching intently to gauge its eventual success or failure, as analysts predict that "over 100,000 ATMs" could be necessary to handle India's booming economy in the next few years.
Norcent announces DCC-1025 / DCS-760 digicams, slew of storage accessories
Hot on the heels of Norcent unveiling its forthcoming lineup of HDTVs, the company has announced that we'll be seeing its photogenic side as well, as the DCS-760 ($199) and DCC-1025 digicams make their debut at CES along with a slew of storage-related accessories. The 10.1-megapixel DCC-1025 ($179; DC-1020 pictured) reportedly sports a "champagne colored, brushed metal finish," 2.5-inch "scratch-resistant" LCD monitor, 3x optical zoom (and 4x of the practically worthless digital variety), 14 pre-selected scene modes, red-eye reduction, 640 x 480 MPEG4 movie mode, NTSC / PAL compatibility, 32MB of internal memory, SD / MMC slot, and AV out to boot. The more compact DCS-760 features a seven-megapixel sensor, "high-end design," 15 scene modes, VGA movie mode, 2.5-inch LTPS monitor, and the same 3x optical zoom and SD / MMC slot as the larger sibling. Making sure your digicam is fully prepared for a long day of shooting, the firm is also unveiling its SD Duo, Micro SD Trio, and Micro SD Reader / Adapter; the SD Duo combines SD and USB support, while the Micro SD Trio adds microSD, and neither unit needs a card reader to interface with any USB-equipped PC. As if that weren't enough, it's also showing off a 1GB ($19.99) / 2GB ($29.99) USB Pen Drive that rocks a LED indicator light and a "twist to open" cap to curb that "missing lid" syndrome so often associated with flash drives. While the DCS-760 won't be available until the Spring, everything else is available right now, and will be out on display in just a few days at CES.Read - Norcent DCS-760Read - Norcent DCC-1025Read - Norcent SD Storage lineupRead - Norcent USB Pen Drive
