Crazy Tech Countdown: watch YouTube videos with your friends, STD tests and VIDEO
Welcome to this week’s Crazy Tech Countdown, where we count down the weirdest and just plain insane tech news and gadgets of the week. We’re also trying out a video version of the column, which, if we continue doing it, will be hosted by different people every week. More on that in a second. But first let’s count down the stories:
5. iPad games beyond touch - iOS devices are really great for gaming, mainly because of their multi-touch displays and accelerometers. Introducing Yoomi, a quiz game that turns your iPad into a board game surface. The game itself looks pretty boring but I’d buy it just to try this new concept out. Would you?
4. A camera that can see around walls - Cameras and image processing have evolved a lot since their inception, but something we’ve never actually had is the ability to capture stuff beyond our viewing angle, until now. MIT scientists have come up with a camera that can photograph objects around corners. The process is quite intriguing, and involves outpacing the speed of light. Just wait until the CIA gets its hands on this.
3. Watch YouTube videos with your friends online, in real time - If you’re like me you have a bunch of online friends, or at least acquaintances. It’s annoying, to say the least, to watch video content together and one of you gets distracted and doesn’t click the link, or you click too soon. Sure, it’s bearable, but it doesn’t feel like you’re watching a video together. This YouTube add-on fixes all that by making sure you’re all at the same stage at the same time. After you linking your friends (yes, more than two allowed), you’ll all be brought into a ‘party’ where you can all enjoy the same video seamlessly. I suggest you all give YouTube Social a try.
2. STD tests brought to a whole new level (submitted by Skwiggs) - This is new for me, but apparently many people feel embarrassed enough to test themselves for STDs they’d rather get ill, or worse. British scientists are developing an iPhone app that aims to, believe it or not, test you for STDs. The process is simple: you pee or spit on a chip which you’ll insert into the phone, somehow, and you’ll instantly find out whether you have STDs or not. Of course it’s still yet to be seen how reliable this process is, and call me old fashioned, but I’d still handle this type of matter at the doctor’s office.
1. Want to disconnect yourself from the Internet?
Thanks for sticking around for this week of crazy tech news. Before calling this a week, maybe I should mention we’re expanding to video. That’s right. In a few days I’ll be putting out a pilot episode of the video version of this column which will be hosted, every week, by one of you. Rogers91 from South Pole of the Moon was kind enough to host the pilot, but make sure to reply to the thread if you’d like to host a future episode, or just give feedback.
That’s all for now guys. Peace!
