Sesame Street and Star Trek features in new Qualcomm-powered technology

By Joshua Sherman Published January 8, 2013

Image used with permission by copyright holder

For those who missed the Qualcomm keynote this evening, you missed quite the celebrity mix. Between Maroon 5’s Adam Levine, actress Alice Eve, and Sesame Street’s Big Bird, Qualcomm certainly was strutting its stuff in an effort to demonstrate some of the new technology they planned to release in 2013, including several major software developments centered on the real world and mobile devices working together in unison.

While Qualcomm was coy not to mention a new Snapdragon or other big hardware upgrades (we’re betting on the MWC next month), they talked a lot about the “Sixth Sense” of computing, and how it allows you to be informed and in the loop in ways never before possible. This was the introduction to Qualcomm’s presentation of their new Vuforic, and other technology that they hope to have released in time for the summer. While Vuforic is not new, it’s yet to get anywhere near as in-depth a demonstration as Qualcomm showed today.

Recommended Videos

In one case, Big Bird and a team member of the Sesame Workshop came in and showed off the latest development of Qualcomm’s Vuforic tech in the realm of children’s applications. The app showed how it could recognize text and subsequently help teach a child words. It was an excellent demonstration of Vuforic’s ability to interact with the environment and virtually experience what is otherwise static.

Another case, featuring Alice Eve from the upcoming Star Trek: Into Darkness, was a showoff for the new upcoming Star Trek movie. The movie will feature a new app experience powered by Qualcomm’s technology, allowing users to go on “missions” and add to the overall experience by checking out trailers, visiting certain locations, and more. This is just another example of the sort of tech Qualcomm hopes to bring to consumers once developers bring the tech into full swing.

Finally, Qualcomm decided to show off Adam Levine in a brief Maroon 5 performance before calling it a night. We’re excited to see which devices will be compatible (we guess many given how popular snapdragon is) with this new Qualcomm tech as it begins to debut in the coming months, and developers get a hold of the highly anticipated SDK in the spring.

Former Contributor

Joshua Sherman is a contributor for Digital Trends who writes about all things mobile from Apple to Zynga. Josh pulls his…

Topics

Emerging Tech

Anti-surveillance clothing is getting cheaper, but don’t expect an invisibility cloak

Affordable shirts now claim to confuse facial recognition, although their protection depends heavily on the camera and software watching you

Chart, Plot, Adult

Anti-surveillance clothing is starting to look less like an art-school experiment and more like something you could actually wear outside. Shirts designed to confuse facial recognition systems now cost about as much as ordinary streetwear, although buying one won’t make you disappear.

The Guardian reports that designers are using face-like prints, unusual cuts and infrared lights to interfere with computer vision. These techniques target specific weaknesses, so their success depends on what happens to be watching you.

Emerging Tech

This spinning drone hides in plain sight using a visual illusion

This drone doesn't turn invisible. It tricks your brain into thinking it has.

Phantom Twist

For decades, engineers have chased the dream of an invisible drone. The usual approaches have involved transparent materials, camouflage coatings, or complex optical systems that bend light around an object. Researchers at Northwestern University decided to take a completely different route. Instead of hiding the drone itself, they chose to fool the human eye.

The result is Phantom Twist, an experimental drone that spins so rapidly it almost disappears into the background. It's not technically invisible, but to anyone watching, it looks more like a faint blur than a flying machine.

Emerging Tech

This smart knitted fabric can flip switches, count your steps, and even change shape

Grandma's knitting just entered its Iron Man era

Representative Image

For most of us, knitting brings to mind sweaters, scarves, and perhaps an ambitious grandmother determined to make winter more fashionable. Researchers at Harvard University, however, have a far more futuristic vision. They've transformed ordinary knitted fabric into a programmable material capable of changing shape, acting as an electrical switch, sensing movement, and potentially forming the foundation of tomorrow's wearable technology.

The research, published in Advanced Functional Materials by scientists at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), demonstrates how machine-knitted textiles can "snap" between multiple stable shapes without relying on motors or rigid mechanical parts.