the FAT wall

Designer Hong-Kue Lee conceptualized this gesture-controlled LED lamp that allows users to determine how much light they’ll need. To use, simply swipe a finger or span your palm above a sensor on the body of the lamp. Love the sleek style and eco-friendly function!

For those people who still have trouble figuring out which way to slide George into the vending machine, a prototype from Hitachi makes things a little simpler: it identifies caffeine-fiends by reading the pulse in their fingertips.

The futuristic Coke machine identifies the customer using Hitachi's VeinID technology. Thinking about some micromachine taking my pulse through my fingertip doesn't exactly get me geeked to obey my thirst, but I guess it's worth it for sake of convenience. I don't always have a single; I do always have my fingers.

The scan pulls up a customer's account, which is linked to a credit card and a postal address. You can have samples and freebies sent to your doorstep from the machine's display, if the whole finger scanning thing wasn't quite invasive enough.

It's always refreshing to find 3D that doesn't require glasses to work. And doubly in such a fun setting: a music video for "Doubtful Comforts," by Blue Roses, that uses "wiggle stereoscopy" to jump out of your screen.

What's wiggle stereoscopy, other than really fun to say? In this case, it's taking two cameras, slightly offset from each other, and rapidly switching between the images they capture. The effect is halting and jittery, but I'll buy into it in this context.

Google scared the balls off of turn-by-turn navigation companies when it released its free nav app for Android, largely because an iPhone version seemed inevitable. Well, it's still not here. But MapQuest's free voice navigation is!

To be clear, this is an update to the MapQuest 4 Mobile app, not a price slash on the company's more mature MapQuest Navigator app, which has been spitting out voice directions since late last year. In other words, this is a top-down mapping app that happens to do voice directions, not a full-fledged, street-level-view navigation app like a TomTom or a Navigon.

But still, turn-by-turn navigation still works pretty well from a top-down view, and honestly, the voice directions are often all you need. And this app is free, no strings attached.

AT&T just announced a partnership with Apisphere to sell a dog collar with a SIM card inside so you can wirelessly track your pooch. But really, are you willing to put your dog's fate in the hands of AT&T's network?

The collar works by you setting up a "geo-fence" around your home where you want your dog to stay. If it leaves that area, you'll be notified. If it's not in a dead zone, that is. If that's the case, well, maybe you should've invested in a normal fence, because your dog is gone forever. Kind of makes voicemails delayed by two days seem not that bad in comparison, eh?