Obama on Facebook

In this week’s show the European Commission limits music player volume, the Kew Ranger guides you through a UK garden, Honda shows off a new personal mobility device, jewelry stores employ virtual display cases, the Secret Service investigates a Facebook poll and a robotic bed converts into a wheelchair.

Nick: The European commission limits music player volume, Obama gets targeted in Facebook, and Panasonic develops a robotic voice controlled bed. All that news and more on this week’s World Tech Update. Thanks for joining us here in World Tech Update, I’m Nick Barber, before we get to our top news I just want to mention a brief programming note, after today’s show, I’ll be off to Tokyo to cover Ceatec, so be sure to tune in next week for all the latest gadget and IT news. We’ll start our show this week though in Europe, the European Commission has ordered all makers of portable music players to add a default volume setting of around 80 decibels and a health warning to all new devices within the next two years. Meglena: The independent scientific advice said that 5-10 percent of personal music player listeners risk permanent hearing loss if they listen to a personal music player for more than one hour per day each week at high volume settings for at least 5 years. Nick: The current maximum volume level permitted for portable music devices in the EU is 100 decibels, the EU wants that lowered to 80 decibels which is says will allow you to listen to music for up to 40 hours a week without harming your ears. 80 decibels is roughly the volume of road traffic, the new standard default setting on devices won't prevent users from over riding the default settings and pumping up the volume, but there will be clear warnings so they know the risk they’re taking. Staying in Europe, visitors to Kew garden in the UK can now be let around by the Kew ranger, a virtual tour guide that employs GPS, videos and maps. Mike: And as you move around the gardens in Kew, it feeds you information, mainly video content about whatever you’re looking at in the garden, so that could be some of the architecture highlights and the glass houses, or it could be down to some of the actual planting and some of the individual plants as well. Nick: So for example, if you were in or near the water lily house, you could choose this video to learn more. The Kew Gardens is the largest botanical garden in UK with more than 30,000 different kinds of plants. They have about 60 GPS units now, and Saunders says he hopes that in the future, users will be able to take and share photos on the devices. Honda has developed a new personal mobility device that fits between riders legs and provides movement in all directions, just like walking. Called the U3X, the device lets users to adjust speeds and turn and stop in all directions when the rider shifts body weight. Honda also developed what it claims to be the first wheel structure which enables movement in all directions. Called the Hot Drive system, it’s accomplished by incorporating multiple small diameter motor controlled wheels and connecting them in line to form one large diameter wheel. The whole device weighs less than 10 kilograms and can operate to up to one hour on a fully charge lithium ion battery. Honda plans to show the U3X at the Tokyo motor show which starts on October 24th we’ll be there so stay tune. Jewelry stores are going high-tech with virtual display cases from Paragon Lake, the display case at this jewelry store near Boston lets shoppers customize jewelry beyond what’s available in the store. Shoppers use a touchscreen computer to search and customize jewelry. First you pick your category, ring, pendant, bracelet and so on, then select three designs you’d like to further customize and the price updates automatically. Deborah: One of the benefits to the jewelry store is that they have no inventory to carry, as you could imagine carrying inventories of very expensive proposition for a jewelry store, so it gives them thousands of pieces and every piece on average can be customized to 1.5 million permutations. So, we are talking about billions of inventory items in a store and a single computer screen. Nick: Paragon Lake launch the virtual display case this past May and now has them in 42 jewelry stores across the US. The unit cost 3500 US dollars which includes the touchscreen computer and the training. Next year, Paragon Lake plans to launch a consumer website where customer can use the virtual display case from the comfort of their homes, but even then they’ll still need to buy the jewelry from Brick and Water store. The Us secret service is investigating a poll posted on Facebook asking whether president Barack Obama should be assassinated. A spokesman from the secret service said the poll went up this past Saturday and was taken down Monday morning. The poll ask, should Obama be killed and gave the users a choice of yes, maybe, if he cuts my health care and no, neither the secret service nor Facebook would say how many people voted in the poll, but a screen shot posted on the blog, the political carnival showed that in some point, nearly 400 people had voted. Taiwanese researchers have build new mobile phone rechargers based on fuel cell technology that they say will cost little once manufacturing partners are on board. The handset rechargers will cost around 30 US dollars, while the fuel cells will come in small blue plastic tube for about 30 cents each. The real innovation by Taiwan’s publicly funded industrial technology research institute is the fuel cell for the recharger, plasticize solid state hydrogen, it’s designed to react with water to release the hydrogen to a fuel cell to produce electricity. People using the handset recharger will get a two hour charge per tube of fuel. Panasonic has developed a robotic bed that transforms into a wheelchair. The bed responds to voice commands. It’s designed for people who have limited mobility and is intended to provide an extra level of independence. Users can instruct it to lower or raise the head or foot of the bed, or to make the complete transformation into a wheelchair. The resulting wheelchair resembles the sort of seat you might see on an airplane, and is fully robotic itself. A joystick on the right arm can be use to control the wheelchair’s movements. Panasonic sought to fit as much IT into it as possible. Yukio: There’s the robotic canopy and fitted into this is an LCD panel. This is connected to the internet and you can check security cameras or find out what’s going on around the house. You can also use it to watch TV and control household energy systems. So even if you are lying in bed, you can keep in touch with your family in another room. There’s also a video phone. Nick: Panasonic is planning to test the bed in several homes, but legal obstacles concerning robot home help standing the way so it maybe a while until this bed is on the market. Well that’s our show for this week, thanks for joining us here on world tech update. Next week we’ll be at Ceatec in Tokyo, so be sure to tune in for the latest gadget and IT news. As we head out, we leave you with shots of the Taipei international invention and technomarch show. I’m Nick Barber and from all of us here at the IDG News Service, thanks for watching, and we’ll see you next week from Japan.