The amount of video ads on connected TVs is five times greater so far this year than for all of 2011, according to Videology, an online video technology service, which hosted a media day at the IAB Ad Lab this week. Videology’s General Manager Mark McKee says in an interview with Beet.TV at the event that his company has run 200 different connected TV campaigns.

The event was designed to showcase the range of devices that run digital video ads, such as Smart TVs, game consoles and over-the-top devices, as well as the different ad experiences on them. That may help foster standards in the connected TV business, he adds. “Standards haven’t been figured out yet,” McKee tells us. “The other challenge is [advertisers want to know] how to best use these devices.”

Videology’s research also shows that in addition to the year over year growth, there are 15 times more video ad campaigns running on connected TVs this May compared to last May.

Daisy Whitney

As an alternative to receiving brain implants for robotic arm dominance assistance, check out this surprisingly cheap eye-tracking solution developed by six electrical engineering students at Northeastern University. Labeled iCRAFT, for eye Con­trolled Robotic Arm Feeding Tech­nology, the award-winning senior project drew its inspiration from one team member's difficulty syncing spoonfuls with the eating pace of elderly and disabled patients. Simply gaze at the on-screen box that corresponds to your food or beverage choice and the robotic arm will swing your way with grub in its grip. Ambitious DIY-ers can chase down the open-sourced software behind iCRAFT, and construct a contraption of their own for about $900 — considerably less than self-​​feeding rigs living in the neighborhood of $3,500. You can catch a video of the robot arm serving up some fine Wendy’s cuisine after the break.

Continue reading Northeastern University students develop eye controlled robotic arm that’s happy to feed you

Northeastern University students develop eye controlled robotic arm that’s happy to feed you originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 May 2012 14:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sure, time tracking comes in handy when trying to make your workflow as efficient as possible. Perhaps you’re looking for a more visual indication of how your time is spent on that MacBook Pro. That’s where ThreadWatch comes in handy. Thanks to developer Alex Milde, you can visually analyze your daily task habits on a Mac. After a rather quick and painless app download, the tech monitors software being used on the desktop, taking notes on their individual memory and CPU consumption. The collected info is placed in a text file that you’ll then upload to ThreadWatch to create the graphical splendor you see above. Each color indicates a different application and you won’t have to worry about having your tracked data catalogued. To take the kit for a spin, hit the source link below to start monitoring your procrastination… er, work sessions.

Visualized: ThreadWatch tracks daily workflow on a Mac, turns the data into eye candy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 24 May 2012 16:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NASA hopes that one small step by Google’s Lunar X Prize will eventually lead to a giant leap in protecting historical sites on the moon. The X Prize Foundation announced that it will adopt guidelines released by the space agency last year to help preserve lunar heritage sites. The move comes at a crucial time as a new space race increases the possibility of an imminent moon landing, according to NASA. Google’s Lunar X Prize alone currently has 26 contestants worldwide vying to land a robot on the lunar surface by 2015. NASA stressed that their recommendations aren’t law and “do not represent mandatory U.S. or international requirements.” Examples include approach and landing guidelines to minimize disturbance, contamination and degradation of Apollo mission sites. That certainly sounds more reasonable than, say, plopping some dude in a spacesuit at a lunar outpost to shoot trespassers with a plasma shotgun while yelling, “Get off my property!” In the meantime, feel free to mosey on over to the PR after the break.

Continue reading X Prize adopts NASA guidelines for protecting lunar heritage sites, Buzz Aldrin punch averted

X Prize adopts NASA guidelines for protecting lunar heritage sites, Buzz Aldrin punch averted originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 May 2012 00:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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ProxMate will route your traffic through a supported proxy server regardless of what country you’re in. Currently it only works with the above mentioned services, but ProxMate also lets you set up your own proxy servers to automatically get around any country-specific blocks you might run into. The nice thing about ProxMate is that you can quickly enable or disable it straight from the toolbar so it doesn’t slow down load times when it isn’t needed.

ProxMate | via One Thing Well

The European “Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications” that regulates the ways websites can track users, is coming to sites which serve European users, which covers plenty out there. The Directive requires that sites disclose the use of cookies on their site and allows visitors to opt-in to their use. It could be an immediate turn-off for users, but it’s here to stay. On Saturday, May 26, the UK implements the first phase of the law, so website owners are scrambling to ensure they are in compliance (assuming they even know about it). As we’ve said before, we think it’s dumb and will make it much harder on European startups.

The first requirement of the UK law is that sites do an audit to determine what cookies are used on their site. The Directive asks them to identify two types of cookies: those it deems “strictly necessary” and those that are not. The problem is that most sites have no idea what cookies it might be serving to users. However, US-startup CloudFlare is about to launch a service which will tell site what cookies they are serving and a way to control them: CloudFlare Audit + Control.

CloudFlare launches its Audit service first, possibly later today. This will interrogate a site and deliver a report on what cookies are being served.

Once that is in operation and people are using it, the data collected will form a sort of collective intelligence about what cookies are actually doing. This is useful because cookies can get dropped by multiple sources including the Facebook Like button, widgets, ad networks and analytics services. CloudFlare’s Audit will identify all the cookies floating around and will let a website owner see how other site owners have classified those cookies. Then they can work out which are the “strictly necessary” cookies.

After building a database of all the web’s cookies and the widgets that drop them, CloudFlare then plans to enable the second portion of the Audit + Control app. This will allow site owners to selectively enable/disable cookies and third party scripts on an individual basis via CloudFlare’s interface. Site owners won’t need to change any of their underlying code.

The idea is that sites will then be able to comply with the opt-in requirement of the EU law, which comes into effect later this year, without harming the core functionality of their sites.

The service is available for free to any CloudFlare users (CloudFlare’s basic plan is also free) but non CloudFlare customers will get the Audit portion in three weeks. The Control part of the service will only be fore CloudFlare users.

CloudFlare knows its onions on this score. It already powers nearly half a million websites and sees over 45 billion monthly page views across its network for more than 450 million unique visitors.

Clearly the Directive will put sites run out of Europe at a disadvantage to their US competitors, and slap bang in the middle of a recession. Not only that but the law applies to any website that has European visitors, so it’s not just an issue EU webmasters need to worry about. However, I’d love to see the European Union try to bring an action against multiple Stateside sites.

Read the rest of Spillman Farmer Architects Transform Bethlehem Steel Factory into a Vibrant Art Center

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We’d like to think that here at Inhabitat, we are rather clued in to the latest in robotics, however a new development has blown our minds. A group of scientists at the University of Hawaii have created a unique non-mechanical micro-robot from one of the most fragile and delicate objects around—a bubble. And not limited to that, but they control it with lasers!

Read the rest of Scientists Create Laser-Controlled Micro-Robot from a Bubble

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