Here's an article about a flexible video display that Sony is working on. Apparently it is a combination of TFT and electroluminescent display technology. Electroluminescent is a cold light backing which takes very little electricity like you would use on a security vest. Sony is showing off a 2.5 inch flexible prototype display using the technology. Call me when I can actually buy it 5 years from now. I'm putting this one up there with e-ink and the laser laptop keyboard.

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Here is a prototype of a wave generator in this video. Basically it sits in the ocean and the up and down motions of the wave generate power through a flywheel. The guy shows the inside and then takes it to ocean and tests it in the video.

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This demo reel video shows a "dragonfly" like remote controlled robot. It is about the size of say a pigeon and looks like it is made out of styrofoam. It flaps it's wings but it also has two very small propellers on either side. Apparently it is a buyable product and not just a prototype.

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This video from Microsoft shows off a prototype device that projects a screen onto a tabletop and then allows you to interact with it via motion sensing. Probably the best example of it's use in the video is they have one side of a chess board (the side you are playing) as physical objects and the other side as virtual. So the person you are playing against is displayed via the projection over the chess board.

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This video shows off a prototype of a house building robot. The robot has a pattern that it follows and it just builds one layer on top of another by laying out material (like concrete) and contouring it. The initial robot in the video is a small prototype which seems to be using clear and near the end of the video it moves to larger prototypes using concrete.

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Here's a video of a prototype computer input output device which is designed like a paint brush. It has a built in video camera into the head of the brush which allows it to pick up "video textures" or still colors and textures. For example, they show the paint brush recording someone blinking their eye and then painting the eye blink texture on a computer screen canvas. It's hard to tell if the screen canvas is touch sensitive or not (I think it is) as it shows someone smudging one of the images with their finger. However, it's possible that the paint brush device just records itself drawing. It picks up all kinds of textures like this fur print off this hand bag and works exactly like a paint brush after that. Watch the video for a better visual explanation.

Check out the IO paint brush video for yourself below or click over and view it on the host site.

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Here's a prototype screen interface from Microsoft which was demoed at the CEBIT 2006 conference. It's very similar to the interface from the movie Minority Report. I believe they are using a rear projector (though it's possible they are using an LCD). Basically there is a piece of glass with the display on it and then behind the glass is a motion sensor which tracks the user movements (I believe). There is either an LCD sandwiched in between two pieces of glass or a rear projector. I also think this is the interface that Robert Scoble talks about in this interview.

Check out the video of the interface ala Minority Report below or click over and view it on the host site.

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Here is a video of a "prototype" tractor that was (is?) being developed by a defunct John Deere subsidiary. It looks a lot like some kind of insect with six legs or a lot like that mondo spider video we posted the other day. According to some of the comments with the video they were developing it for use in low impact logging but it really moves very slow. I can't see it being practical moving that slow (though that mondo spider moved pretty fast). There are three different videos of this from different angles and at different locations so check out the "related" section on the host site for the other two.

Watch the insect tractor video below and click over to view it on the host site.

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In this video the two people are holding motion capture pens and using them to 'sketch' in the air. The Nintendo Wii controller could perform a similar task theoretically. They sketch up some furniture and then load the sketchs into a rapid protype printer and print up the furniture. The video itself is somewhat of a fakeout because the video has computer generated graphics where the people sketched but they themselves can't see what they are sketching in real time. It might help if they had a semitransparent display they could look through and actually see what they are sketching instead of only seeing it in their mind's eye. I'd think you'd have better like making furniture with one of those 3D lathe softwares and then rapid prototyping the object instead.

Check out the full video of these people sketching up some furniture for a good time below or click over and view it on the host site.

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A guy build a moving stargate out of legos and has a bunch of photos to show for it. Unfortinately there doesn't seem to be a video of the starget in action. However, he has the starget hooked up to a RCX treadmill (whatever that is) which spins the stargate around for a random number of seconds and repeats that seven times. The chevrons (the little red things on the gate) have LED lego blocks in them which light up as well. Legos seem to be a pretty way to fast prototype things based on some of the other projects I've seen done with them.

Check out all of the photos of this lego stargate for yourself.

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