The continuing increase in gasoline prices around the world over the past decade has also seen an increase in the practice of hypermiling – the act of driving using techniques that maximize fuel economy. One of the most effective hypermiling techniques is maintaining a steady speed while driving instead of constantly stopping and starting. Unfortunately, traffic lights all too often conspire to foil attempts at keeping the vehicle rolling. Researchers at MIT and Princeton have now devised a system that gathers visual data from the cameras of a network of dashboard-mounted smartphones and tells drivers the optimal speed to drive at to avoid waiting at the next set of lights.

The new system, dubbed SignalGuru, was tested in both Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Singapore. In Cambridge, where traffic signals are on fixed schedules, the researchers say the system was able to predict when lights would change with an average error of only two-thirds of a second and helped drivers cut fuel consumption by an average of 20 percent. In Singapore, where the duration of lights varies continuously according to changes in traffic flow, the error increased to an average of slightly more than one second, with one particularly light in densely populated central Singapore seeing an average error of more than two seconds.

The version of the system used in the tests graphically displayed the optimal speed for avoiding a full stop at the next light, but a commercial version would probably use audio prompts said Emmanouil Koukoumidis, a visiting researcher at MIT who led the project. The researchers also modeled the effect of instructing drivers to accelerate in order to catch lights before they changed, but decided that wasn’t the safest option.

"The good news for the U.S. is that most signals in the U.S. are dummy signals," (signals with fixed schedules), says Koukoumidis, who launched the SignalGuru project at MIT with Li-Shiuan Peh, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science who came to MIT from Princeton in fall 2009. But Koukoumidis says even an accuracy of two and half seconds, "could very well help you avoid stopping at an intersection." He also points out that the predictions for variable signals would improve as more cars were outfitted with the system, collecting more data.

Koukoumidis says cars are responsible for 28 percent of the energy consumption and 32 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. and that, "if you can save even a small percentage of that, then you can have a large effect on the energy that the U.S. consumes."

But it isn’t just more economical driving that could benefit from the technology. Koukoumidis says the computing infrastructure that underlies the system could be adapted to a variety of applications that could be useful to commuters, such as capturing information about prices at different gas stations, the locations and rates of progress of city buses, or about the availability of parking spaces in urban areas. The system could also be used in conjunction with existing routing software, to recommend ducking down a side street instead of slowing to a crawl to avoid a red light, for instance.

Supermarket Asda claims to have answered the prayers of men and women up and down the country. No, it’s not a solution to the recent riots, nor a fail-safe strategy to save the global ecomony. Instead, the supermarket has unveiled hold-everything-in control pants for men that claim to lift and firm flabby behinds, sculpt beer bellies and smooth away love handles.

Nicknamed Manx, after the female underwear brand Spanx, the stretchy fabric is said to be the perfect for the self-conscious man who wants to appear firm and flatter. While women happily cavort around in padded bras and stomach-smoothing knickers, it seems to us that there is something fundamentally wrong with the male of the species taking this approach.

Hypocritical as it sounds, this garment is just utterly and terminally unsexy. Still, given the number of beer bellies we expect they will be flying off the shelves – plus if women are allowed to squash and sculpt their bodies, why shouldn’t men?

The TableDrum app for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch transforms rhythmic tapping on just about any surface into real-time virtual drum sounds

With a few notable exceptions, the fine art of tabletop tapping has been a purely non-digital experience for most people. Now, iDevice users can turn their rhythmic creations into real-time drum sounds, courtesy of the TableDrum app from Sweden’s Dohi Entertainment. Rather than have virtual drummers tap out the beat on touchscreen icons, this app uses the device’s microphone to pick out individual sounds made by thrumping on different surfaces, and allows the user to assign them to the various parts of a drum kit.

Who doesn’t like to while away the odd moment or two drumming away on a table, desk or counter top? The Table Drum Augmented Audio application allows iOS device users to turn that acoustic finger pounding into digitized drum sounds, in real time. The developers say that just about any real world object can be used to generate the sounds needed to make up the four piece drum kit. Each virtual pad can be assigned one of 40 drum samples.

With the app active on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you need to grab yourself some household, kitchen or office objects that happen to be lying around and place them within range of your device’s included (or external) microphone. The app recognizes the different sounds made by tapping each object with a pen, pencil or finger and each sound can then be assigned to one of the four drum pads on the screen – such as the top of an upturned coffee cup for the snare, the plastic casing of a computer mouse for the hi-hat or crash cymbal, the thud of a table top for bass drum, and so on.

"By altering sound through live interaction on an iOS device, TableDrum pushes the boundaries of table drumming" says Rasmus Larsson, Software Developer at Dohi Entertainment. "Users interact with objects in their surroundings, teaching the app their distinct drumming sounds, augmenting the input of up to four simultaneous sources into a complete drumming experience."

The TableDrum app comes supplied with a Classic Rock drum kit, but the library can be expanded to include samples from the Ethno and Jazz kit, and Electro and Glitch kit. As you can see from the following video demonstration, once the percussive objects have had drum samples assigned – you can turn your finger drumming into realistic rhythms:

Situated in the tropical gardens on Rangalifinolhu Island, access to the resort is only by seaplane and while it may sound like any other exclusive get away, the Conrad Rangali will have you dining with stingrays and on special occasions, sleeping with the sharks.

Opening its doors a little over five years ago, the resort features the world’s first all-glass, under-the-sea restaurant. Guests are offered the experience of dining 16 feet (4.9 m) below sea level with 180-degree views of the reef and marine life. The resort has also been known to transform the underwater dining room into a private bedroom suite for two on special occasions.

Nestled away on two private islands and surrounded by white-sandy beaches, the hotel boasts 50 water villas, 79 beach villas and 21 spa villas with private treatment rooms. Spa treatments are also available in glass-floored rooms situated above the lagoon’s coral reef and outdoor activities include scuba diving, snorkeling safaris, windsurfing, game fishing, catamaran sailing and sunset cruising on the resort’s yacht.

The Conrad Rangali has all the luxury resort trappings with ocean view baths, Philippe Starck fittings, private sun decks, espresso machines and Bulgari bathroom goodies. It’s also definitely at the higher end of the market with guest rooms starting at US$815 per night, per couple. The underwater restaurant only seats 12 and guests are advised to book well in advance.

Saudi Arabia knows how to keep up with the Joneses. The Burj Khalifa in Dubai has officially been the world’s tallest building since its opening early last year, but by 2016-ish Saudi Arabia plans to let the UAE know exactly who the big brother is on the Arabian Peninsula. The Saudis have inked a deal between the Kingdom’s holdings company and a certain Bin Laden Group to build the world’s tallest building, an elegant yet extreme tower that will rise 3,281 feet above the streets of Jeddah.

For reference, the Burj peaks at just above 2,700 feet. The tallest tower in the U.S., the Willis Tower in Chicago (formerly the Sears Tower), will be less than half as tall as the Saudis’ appropriately-named Kingdom Tower. Designed by Chicago-based Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill (Smith also designed the Burj), its three-petal shape is inspired by that of local desert flora, a visual metaphor for growth in the desert.

That’s romantic and all, but we’re far more blown away by the jaw-dropping 5.38 million square feet of interior space and the main draw: an observation deck on the 157th floor. Total cost: $1.23 billion. Just another drop in the bucket for the oil-rich Saudi government/family, which will plunge a total of $20 billion into the development in Jeddah where the Kingdom Tower will take center stage.

It doesn’t have quite the appeal of sending a robot to do your shopping, but this Smart Cart service being trialed by SK Telecom could definitely take some of the hassle out of trolling the supermarket aisles. Just launched at the Shanghai Lotus Supermarket in China, the system consists of WiFi-enabled, tablet PC-equipped shopping carts and a smartphone app that can be synchronized with the tablet. By utilizing indoor positioning technology and augmented reality, the shopping "Smart" cart becomes a virtual shopping aide.

The Smart Cart application allows customers to search for shopping and discount information, store coupons, as well as to create a shopping list. After getting to the market, the app synchronizes with the tablet PC mounted to the cart’s handle, uploads the shopping list and authenticates the user. Wandering through the store’s aisles, customers get product and discount information linked to their current location within the store, which is established to within three feet via a WiFi network.

Provided the trial period in China is successful, SK Telecom is planning to build even more personalized service. The cart’s tablet PC could gather wide information on the clients’ habits, including analysis of their shopping history, to make product recommendations more accurate.

Further trials are also scheduled to be launched in Korea, in the second part of 2011.

Japanese company Sanyo Homes has introduced its MIRAI SANZO Android-based robot

Japanese company Sanyo Homes has introduced its MIRAI SANZO Android-based robot for the Japanese market. It connects to external networked devices, and allows them to be controlled via voice commands or remotely, through a smartphone. This is yet another device which proves that Google’s Android OS has applications beyond its original smartphone purpose.

MIRAI SANZO’s cartoon style of design leaves no doubt that this spherical smiling robot is meant for the Japanese market. The robot is part of Sanyo Homes’ line of devices aimed at creating smart homes for "families of the future." It’s WiFi-enabled, touchscreen- and voice-operated and rather small, at 22 cm (8.66 in) in diameter. Sanyo did not reveal which version of Android is used. Activation and deactivation of the unit is possible via touch sensors.

The robot connects to such devices as cell phones, computers, routers and access points; air conditioners; heating systems; intercom phones, house alarms, call buttons and electric locks, or AV power plugs.

Of course, these devices must be networked, so using MIRAI SANZO might necessitate the purchasing of more products from its makers.

The robot can perform tasks such as switching on and off the heating or AC, filling the tub with hot water, or sending a message to the user’s cell phone when the fire alarm is triggered. It can also respond to inquiries in a spoken language (Japanese, of course), and glows in seven different colors, which represent its current status. It is available now in Japan.

The future of wallpaper is: glowing? That’s Philips’ vision for the future it seems, as the company is teaming with Kvadrat Soft Cells to create a kind of luminous textile for the consumer market that will essentially embed adjustable LEDs in an acoustic panel that can be hung on the wall to provide ambient lighting like an active piece of artwork, or even be used as a wallpaper to bathe entire rooms in soft tones of the user’s choosing.

The acoustic panels will do a lot to muffle sound and reduce echo in large spaces, but ostensibly they could also respond visually to sounds–that is, the ambient color of the room might be programmed to respond to the music playing at any given time or integrated into other entertainment experiences (kind of like those televisions that framed their screens in ambient color, but on a larger scale).

They could also be used for a room’s primary lighting, reducing reliance on overhead fixtures and windows. That could go a long way toward creating a less sterile feel than fluorescent bulbs in the windowless interior spaces of large buildings. Currently Philips isn’t saying when its ambient panels might hit the market or at what cost, but for now the company is aiming its creation at businesses and hotel chains. Make your own price-per-square-foot determination of what this technology might eventually retail for accordingly.

The iPhone SLR Mount comes in either a Nikon F-mount or Canon EF-mount version, and allows iPhoneographers to utilize an SLR lens with the iPhone’s

There’s little doubt that when it comes to snapping spur-of-the-moment photos, nothing quite matches the always-ready convenience of the smartphone. Apple’s iPhone is second only in popularity to Nikon’s D90 for overall image uploads to Flickr, and takes the top three spots in the Cameraphone category. There are now a whole host of apps available that can help add numerous clever effects to the photos taken with an iPhone’s camera, and a growing number of hardware-based enhancements. If you find yourself yearning for a little more zoom than the Eye Scope offers, or the close-up goodness of the Fisheye and Macro/Wide Angle lens is just too small and fiddly for you, then perhaps what you need is an iPhone SLR Lens Mount.

The iPhone SLR Mount from Photojojo is essentially a phone case that acts as an adapter for either Nikon F-mount or Canon EF-mount lenses (although it’s not compatible with Canon EF-S or FD lenses). Placing your Apple smartphone into the tough but lightweight aluminum casing allows you to choose from your collection of telephoto, wide-angle, macro or fish-eye SLR lenses and use it with the iPhone’s camera.

It’s kind of a first step towards bringing the conceptual WVIL proposal to life. Of course, autofocus is not available, the absence of a mirror means that images will appear upside down, and there’s no supersonic dust reduction system so you’ll have to keep the focusing screen free of dirt and dust yourself – but if you want professional-looking depth of field effects, or the ability to bring a distant object into close focus or pop on a fish-eye lens for some wide angle fun, this could be your answer.

Naturally, there are a few other limitations to consider – including a possible loss of image brightness (which can be corrected using the aperture ring on older SLR lenses or via editing software if using newer ones) – but the iPhone SLR Mount certainly looks to be a step in the right direction. The solution comes supplied with a UV filter, includes strap loopholes to allow you to hang your iPhone/SLR lens mash-up from your neck, and it features a tripod attachment.

Photojojo says that iPhoneographers can expect the iPhone SLR Mount to be available from the middle of August at a cost of US$249, for either the Canon or the Nikon flavor.

It seems like the Japanese always have the coolest technology–in this case quite literally. The hip new way to stay cool in an increasingly energy-conscious Japan: cooling foam or gel spray-cans that go right on the skin and provide an instant cool down.

These cooling sprays apparently aren’t brand new, but a thing isn’t a “thing” until it goes mainstream in Japan, and this summer that’s what’s happening. City-dwellers are using the products to cool down on the subways or on the streets. Particularly cool: the foam-like spray that hardens quickly out of the can, so users can make cooling wristbands or neckbands to help keep their core temps under control.