This year over at the International CES conference, Vuzix debuted a functional prototype for its Smart Glasses industrial class monocular display . A special lens attached to a proprietary display driver that produces a bright, 1.4mm holographic picture for one of your peepers. According to Vuzix, the lenses were the fruit of a DARPA project, and could allow soldiers involved in air-to-surface operations to track jets, check their ordinance and mark targets for destruction. The military / industrial monocle will go on sale in Q3 of 2012 for somewhere between $2500-3000.

BigDog, the robotic pooch climbs around in the woods, keeps its balance when kicked and when slipping on ice, travels through snow and mud, jogs 5 mph, and climbs some rubble and stone like its a Sunday walk on the beach, good puppy.

“Watch how future technology will help people make better use of their time, focus their attention, and strengthen relationships while getting things done at work, home, and on the go.” Microsoft

Experiments in balloon motion and sound using an MS Kinect depth sensing camera.

By – Dan Wilcox

Hailed by The Australian as the country’s best modern dance company, choreographer Gideon Obarzanek’s Chunky Move dazzles audiences with its use of site-specific installations and interactive sound and light technologies. Obarzanek’s avant-garde performances explore the tensions between the rational world we live in and richness of our imagination.
Text By Hymnode

“”Little Magic Stories” is the latest project by Chris O’Shea, with aim to encourage children to use their creativity to bring stories to life. The installation allows them to create a performance from within their imagination, on stage, in front of an audience of family and friends.” Text by Creative Application Network

Chris achieved all this by using the Musion Eyeliner holographic projection system, An Xbox Kinect camera and the software used was C++, openFrameworks, openCV and Box2D.

Little Magic Stories from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.

The team (Jason McDermott and Liam Ryan (of Arup) and Frank Maguire) designed Social Firefly, a community of friendly intelligent lights that influence one another. The fireflies are programmed to respond to light from their neighbors, popular fireflies become highly influential, whilst isolated fireflies must work harder to reach their friends. By shining lights on to the fireflies, audience members speak the same language and influence the interaction between community members. Text by Creative Application Network.

British South Korean grocery chain Tesco connects with busy people through an innovative new concept, Home Plus that they launched in South Korea. They created billboards the subway stations that feature a range of products that customers can then select and scan using QR codes with their cell phones, only to have the selected groceries delivered later to their doorstep. The displays are set up just like aisles in any grocery store, so while you’re waiting for the train, you can get that pesky chore out of the way. I would love to see this expanded to other markets. Text by – Design milk

In today’s day and age, if it’s not personalized, its not worth it. Everything from web experiences to cars we drive, we want to be “linked in”. But what happens when movies like “Minority Report” becomes a reality? We all use to “Big Brother” keeping an eye on us, everything from traffic cams to street and building security cameras. It’s already a part of our environment.
Japan has been combining those cams with facial recognition technology to make advertising about you and they working on this concept of marketing to becoming a standard. This video by NEC Tech. demonstrates the reality that is already happening.

Link to view video – Video