Archive by Author - Frederic Lardinois

Parrot’s Remote Controlled Helicopter Takes Augmented Reality to the Next Dimension

by on January 5, 2010 at 1:37 pm

ardrone_logo_dec09.pngIn December, I visited Parrot‘s development labs in Paris to check out the company’s newest project. While Parrot is mostly known for its Bluetooth headsets and speaker systems, the company’s newest project combines augmented reality with a remote-controlled helicopter. This helicopter – the AR.Drone – features four rotors that keep it stable and a front-mounted camera that is linked to an iPhone or iPod touch. The rig is controlled via an iPhone or iPod touch and the device’s screen can show an augmented view of what the helicopter’s camera sees. [Video and details…] (more…)

Tumblr Goes Real Time

by on December 11, 2009 at 9:30 am

tumblr_logo_dec09.pngStarting today, the popular light blogging platform Tumblr will publish its users’ feeds in real time. Tumblr will use the increasingly popular PubSubHubbub format to announce updates. Tumblr’s real-time hub will be powered by Superfeedr. Thanks to today’s updates, Tumblr – which has close to 2.5 million users – will now be able to send out real-time alerts to any service that supports the PubSubHubbub format.

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Marissa Mayer Talks About Wave, Music Search and the Future of News

by on December 9, 2009 at 8:19 am

leweb_dec09a.jpgIn an interview with TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington at LeWeb today, Google’s Marissa Mayer discussed some of the new product that Google announced over the last year, including the recent integration of real-time news streams into the default search pages, Google Music Search and Google Wave. Talking about the future of search, Mayer expects that people will soon do searches by talking to their phones, or through services like the newly announced Google Goggles.

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Finding Tweets that Matter to You: My6sense Launches New iPhone App

by on December 9, 2009 at 8:00 am

my6sense_logo_jul09.pngMy6sense justĀ announcedĀ a new version of its iPhone application that can automatically highlight the most relevant tweets from the users you follow. The mytweetsense feature learns from the user’s implicit and explicit actions and builds a model of what is interesting to the individual user. Mytweetsense works best for tweets that include links. The app’s features are clearly geared towards these kind of tweets and include previews for links, videos and images.

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The Green Watch: Crowdsourcing Air Quality Measurements

by on December 8, 2009 at 2:51 pm

green_watch_logo_dec09.jpgYesterday, during a meeting with a number of startups in Paris, we met up with the team behind the Green Watch project. Just like Google collects data from cell phones with GPS chips to aggregate real-time traffic information, this watch measures ozone levels and noise pollution. The watch connects wirelessly to the wearer’s mobile phone and sends updates to Citypulse, an open platform for receiving and storing environmental data. The Green Watch is currently only a prototype and not available for sale.

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Pearltrees Beta Launches on Wednesday: Will Let You Archive the Links You Share on Twitter

by on December 7, 2009 at 2:12 am

pearltrees_web_nov09a.jpgAt this year’s LeWeb conference, Pearltrees will launch the beta version of its bookmarking and curation service. In this beta, Pearltrees will introduce some interesting features for Twitter users. Starting Wednesday, Pearltrees users will be able to connect their Twitter accounts to the service. Pearltrees will continuously scan your Twitter account and index every link you share on Twitter. Currently, shared links on Twitter are often quickly forgotten, but thanks to the new Pearltrees connection, you will be able to easily create an archive of all the links you have shared with your friends.

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