Ideal Mechanism principal Michael Prados has joined Earthmine as Lead Mechanical Engineer.   Earthmine is a startup company capturing high resolution images and 3D data of the urban environment.  As a result of this move, Ideal Mechanism is not currently seeking new commercial clients, but keep an eye on this space for possible future developments.  Ideal Mechanism would like to extend our thanks to the clients and community that have shared in our success in the past years.

OpenMoko is an open source mobile phone project, which will provide an operating system, electronics, and mechanical design integrated into a product suitable for a wide cross section of phone users. It has progressed rapidly, as in 2007 the developer-oriented Neo 1973 model was first offered, and the more end-consumer friendly Neo Freerunner is anticipated in the next few months. And, as OpenMoko Developer Community Advocate Michael Shiloh suggests in an interview, it should be possible to run Google’s Android phone software on top of OpenMoko, presenting even more opportunities for the platform when the full release of Android comes later this year.

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Jeremy Toeman of Bug Labs came to the SDForum Emerging Technoloy SIG to talk about their newly released modular consumer electronic device, which features both open source hardware and software. See Ideal Mechanism’s notes after the break!

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Johnny Chung Lee of Carnegie Mellon University came to the Stanford Electrical Engineering Computer Systems Colloquium to present “Interaction Techniques Using the Wii Remote”. Notes after the break.

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Mike Kuniavsky of ThingM delivered a presentation titled “Sketching Smart Things: User Experience Design of Ubiquitous Computing Devices” at the BayCHI monthly program. Read the notes on his presentation about the rise of ubiquitous computing and its application through rapid prototyping after the break.
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Erika Hall, cofounder of Mule Design, gave a presentation at the BayCHI monthly program titled “Copy is Interface.” She spoke about how to craft text to create effective user interfaces. Notes from the presentation after the break.

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Since the advent of the iPhone and the viral phenomenon of Jeff Han’s demos, touch screens capable of responding to the touch of multiple fingers or hands have captured the minds of a broad swath of the technology admiring public. Now, with the introduction of the extremely thin and light Macbook Air, Apple is consciously extending this functionality to the laptop touch pad (see this Gizmodo video if you are not yet familiar with these gestures.) Read on as Ideal Mechanism places this technology in context…

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Ideal Mechanism was at the ACM Computer/Human Interaction 2007 conference in San Jose, California, to hear how some of the best minds in academia and industry are innovating our interactions with smart machines. In the proceedings, there are a wealth of useful research papers; here are some highlights from the demo room after the break.

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The Topsy Turvy School Bus, a unique art vehicle built for Ben and Jerry’s cofounder Ben Cohen’s group Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities, has been completed by a team led by artist Tom Kennedy and is on its way to its new home in Vermont. Ideal Mechanism provided consulting services on the bus for vehicle dynamics and structure, including a measurement of the vehicle’s final center of gravity height. “Topsy” has already seen some press coverage-

San Francisco Chronicle - “Mobile Politics: It’s All Art”
Berkeley Daily Planet - “Ben Cohen Lauches Topsy-Turvy Bus to Protest Tax Priorities”

Photo of CG Test Courtesy Chris DeMonterey

Michael Mandel, Chief Economist for Business Week spoke about economics in the current market.

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