When Seattle-based start-up, Zipwhip, wanted to show off its new cloud texting platform, it needed a way to demonstrate just how useful it could be. Most companies might talk data points, like how fast its platform broadcasts or how its product offers a service no one else does. Instead, Zipwhip got a little creative and built the "Textspresso" coffee maker, a machine that accepts and brews specialty coffee orders via text message so the beverage is ready once a person arrives to pick it up.

So why would you need to order coffee through text message? Well, if you’re standing right by the machine, you wouldn’t. If you’re away from the device though – like on your way to the office or in the bathroom – you can send out a text to make sure a hot cup of joe is waiting for you when you get there. After receiving the text order, a mechanical arm automatically picks up a mug from a warming tray and carries it to the espresso maker. The machine then serves whatever drink was ordered and the arm delivers the mug back to the heating tray to wait for its owner.

The machine itself was constructed and programmed in-house by Zipwhip from scratch after the office decided to ditch its old drip brewing machine for a much fancier espresso maker. Once the hardware was in place, the company worked out the movement scripts for the mechanical arm by having employees test different motions using an Xbox 360 controller. For now, the machine can only accept simple orders ("coffee," "latte," "espresso double," etc.). Zipwhip is also refusing to reveal what phone number the Textspresso uses to avoid getting flooded with hundreds of random orders (and no, it’s not the one listed on its screen).

As an added touch, the machine will soon also incorporate an edible ink printer that can actually print directly onto the coffee’s top layer of cream. Zipwhip plans to have it print the company logo along with the phone number that ordered the drink, so that people don’t mix up the orders after they’re made.

Unfortunately, Zipwhip only built the Textspresso in order to demonstrate their cloud texting platform, which allows text messages to be sent and received between computers and Android devices. Since revealing its creation though, the company has been flooded with questions about how to build one and has now stated that it intends to publicly release the designs for the machine later on.

A team led by Dr. Hugh S. Taylor, professor and chief of the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale, exposed pregnant mice to mobile phone radiation by positioning a muted mobile phone placed on an active phone call above their cage for the duration of the trial. The same conditions but with a deactivated phone were replicated for a control group.

A battery of tests measuring the electrical activity of the brains of adult mice that were exposed to radiation as fetuses showed that they tended to be more hyperactive and had reduced memory capacity when compared to the control group.

Although the definition of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is based on behavior and is not classified as a neurological disease, magnetic resonance imaging of the prefrontal cortex in sufferers has shown a development lag in this area of the brain. This led Taylor to attribute the behavioral changes in the mice to an effect of mobile phone radiation on the development of neurons in the prefrontal cortex during pregnancy.

“This is the first experimental evidence that fetal exposure to radiofrequency radiation from cellular telephones does in fact affect adult behavior,” Taylor told Yale News. “We have shown that behavioral problems in mice that resemble ADHD are caused by cell phone exposure in the womb. The rise in behavioral disorders in human children may be in part due to fetal cellular telephone irradiation exposure.”

Although Taylor admits that further research in humans into the mechanisms behind the findings is needed to identify safe exposure limits during pregnancy, he says that limiting exposure of the fetus to mobile phone radiation seems advisable.

“Cell phones were used in this study to mimic potential human exposure but future research will instead use standard electromagnetic field generators to more precisely define the level of exposure,” said first author of the study Tamir Aldad, who added that mice pregnancies last only 19 days and that mice are born with less-developed brains than human babies.

Shown off by Microsoft’s chief research officer Rick Rashid at TechFest 2012, the technology preserves the speakers timbre, accent, and intonation while translating between 26 languages supported by Microsoft speech. While it leaves a trace of digitized robot voice on some syllables (you can hear some samples via the Extremetech link below), it does a remarkably good job of maintaining the speaker’s own nuances of speech while swapping in the proper words and conjugations.

The process isn’t exactly instantaneous, at least not from a full stop. The software needs to spend about an hour with each party learning the particulars of that person’s individual speech characteristics. But once the software is acclimated, it can translate more or less in real time. The idea is that one day in the not too distant future, we will be able to train our phones just once in the styles of our speech and then use the software to speak over the phone with anyone, regardless of whether we share a language, in real time.

In other translation-on-my-smartphone news, researchers at the University of Aberdeen are developing an application that uses the camera on a laptop or mobile device to translate sign language directly into text. The idea is to extend an understanding of sign language to the vast majority of people who aren’t fluent, and in the process increase the opportunities for conversation between those with hearing disabilities and the world around them. The team hopes to have the technology available as a product by 2013.

E. Coli Scanner: the device attaches to a cell phone camera.

It attaches to a typical cell phone camera and uses fluorescence imaging to detect the bacteria. Engineers at UCLA combined quantum dots, a type of tiny semiconductor, with capillaries containing antibodies. When the capillaries contain an E. coli sample, they emit light.

The cell phone attachment thereby works like a fluorescent microscope, illuminating the presence of the nasty bacteria. It’s another example of how cell phones can serve as a platform for a multitude of other sensors — CellScope, a previous PopSci Best of What’s New winner, takes microscope images and can send them to distant labs for analysis.

It’s not clear whether this UCLA scanner will ever reach the market, but it shows the potential of a portable, cheap detector for one of the worst food and water contaminants out there.

We knew this day was coming, but I certainly didn’t suspect it’d be so soon. Never again will you have to wonder Where is the closest Pizza Hut? or What make of car is that? or Don’t I know her from somewhere? Ubiquitous smartphones have already given us the ability to swiftly look up information with only a moderate disruption. Smartglasses completely remove the mediating step of pausing to wonder and ponder and research: data is simply there, an inseparable part of your visible world.

Overlay Google Maps onto the real world, and navigation becomes effortless. Overlay reviews and menus onto restaurant storefronts as you pass them; overlay nutritional data onto your plate as you eat; overlay purchasing info if you particularly admire your co-worker’s new shoes; overlay translations of foreign signage, breaking news, hilarious kittens romping at your feet.

As smartglasses become popular, the world will start to seem naked and inaccessible without a glossy data layer on everything.As smartglasses become popular, the world will start to seem naked and inaccessible without a glossy data layer on everything. Everyday activities, maneuvering through the physical world, socializing, working, learning, will all be increasingly eased by the use of glasses; increasingly, until these activities start to feel almost impossible without the glasses. Who’s going to have patience to laboriously explain facts to a non-data-overlaid person? Give you my business card? Point you in the direction of Fifth Avenue? I don’t even remember how to spell my name! Where are your Googles?

Will businesses see the need for physical signs and billboards? Will municipalities bother to maintain physical street signs and traffic signals? Will smartglasses make the university lecturer’s blackboard and salesman’s PowerPoint obsolete as well?

What comes after that? With everyone wearing glasses (or, at this point in the future, contact lenses or implants), individual appearance becomes as malleable on the street as it is now on the Internet. You can overlay your real body with a digitally altered one, saving money on subtle nose surgery or just completely living life as a furry avatar.

What, though, will it take to get us to that tipping point, when head-up augmented reality suddenly shifts from a novelty to a ubiquity? Wearing cumbersome goggles on your face as you proceed through your day is a bit more of an intrusion than I for one am ready for. Sony’s 3DTV goggles are impressive and designed only to be worn in the comfort of your couch, and still I have yet to meet someone who owns a pair. The gear will have to be small and easy to integrate with your basic life processes. Perhaps AR windshields in our cars will become common first, before we put them on our faces.

But, however it comes — the fully mediated future has begun.

The goal is to democratize sequencing and eliminate the still-heady costs associated with genetic analysis, making DNA and protein sequencing as commonplace as an exam with a tongue depressor.

Oxford Nanopore Technologies Ltd. uses a proprietary nanopore detection system to seek out and study molecules. Nanopores are organic molecules with a hole in them, embedded in a polymer membrane. The membrane’s electrical field allows individual strands of DNA to pass through the nanopores, and the disruption in current through the nanopore can be analyzed and matched to base pairs.

The company uses this setup in two configurations: the GridION system, which consists of nodes filled with disposable test cartridges containing multiple nanopores, and the MinION, designed for portable analysis of single molecules.

Each GridION node and cartridge is initially designed to deliver tens of gigabytes of data every 24 hours. Initially, the company intends to make 2,000-nanopore cartridges, but has plans for a 20-node installation using an 8,000-nanopore configuration. The latter would be expected to deliver a complete human genome in 15 minutes, the company says.

MinION is much smaller and can sequence up to 150 million base pairs in six hours. It uses blood, plasma and serum for sample analysis, like other lab tests, and it doesn’t need polymerase chain reaction amplification techniques to work. It will be on sale for $900 later this year, according to the company.

With technology like this, fast, sub-$1,000 genome sequencing could become commonplace.

The Beam Brush will monitor a person’s dental hygiene using sensors that sync with an app, which will then track that data and offer incentives to improve their brushing habits. It may seem odd to equip something as simple as a toothbrush with Bluetooth features, but when the average person spends only 46 seconds out of the dentist-recommended two minutes brushing their teeth, a little technology might go a long way. Sensors in the Beam Brush are activated by contact with the mouth, which syncs with a timer in the app to time how long a user actually spends brushing their teeth. The app will also track this over a period of time, so people can share the results with their dentist and see if they need to improve their habits.

Later versions of the app will detect how long a person scrubs different areas of their mouth as well, and play music while they brush. Beam Technologies is also planning to add some social elements and game-like achievements to reward users for their good dental habits. It should be a useful tool in particular for parents who want to make sure their children are brushing their teeth correctly.

Squid is essentially a set of electromyography (EMG) sensors attached to a box that pushes your workout data to a smartphone app. This is synchronized with a web-based management panel, to give you a detailed overview of your progress.

Squid’s tentacle-like EMG sensors record the electrical activity of muscles. These signals are translated into data visualized in real-time by an application running on an Android smartphone. The mobile app reports on the heart rate, and provides a repetition countdown feature. The details on muscle activity are passed on to a personalized online application, where progress can be assessed on the basis of historical data.

The project is being developed as a joint effort of mechanical & industrial engineering, and graphic design students. With the Nike+ technology for inspiration, the Northeastern University seniors set out to build a device that could be used both by professional athletes and amateurs to effortlessly optimize their gym routines.

As you can see on the video below, so far the results look promising. However, a lot remains to be done before the first Squids become commercially available in two to three years. Technology-oriented fitness enthusiasts are welcome to kill all that time by measuring their calorific output with a fairly similar device, called bodybugg.

The glasses communicate with your smartphone via Bluetooth. Once the infrared sensors on the glasses detect somebody else wearing a pair of Sound Perfume goggles nearby, a message containing your name, contact number and your unique sound and smell signatures is sent to that person. In response, the recipient’s phone communicates with his or her glasses, which in turn emit your signature sound and odor.

The system can also be paired with a mobile phone’s camera to save not only the location and time an image was taken, but also the sound and smell information of the person in the photo. So when viewing the photo later or walking past the location, the sound and smell of the person you shared the experience with is triggered. What is the point of all that? The additional stimulation is to assist in building a fond multi-sensory memory of your encounter.

A small scent emitter located behind the ears contains eight kinds of solid state perfume. Once a selected piece is heated to 46°C (115°F) with a wire, the right smell is released. A test performed on 52 people by a group of researchers from the National University of Singapore showed that Sound Perfume helped people make a positive impression on first encounter. The researchers, lead by Yongsoon Choi, presented the findings last month at the Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology conference in Lisbon, Portugal.

Their appearance alone means the chances of the Sound Perfume glasses going mainstream anytime soon are rather slim. However, the concept of employing a wider-than-usual set of senses to generate emotional response is already being developed commercially and merits some attention. Take, for example, the Smell-o-Vision device designed to sit at the back of your TV set ready to emit ten thousand different smells to go in unison with whatever you are currently watching. The Project Sense concept goes even further, promising a "more emotional connection between users and experiences" thanks to a device providing haptic, thermal and olfactory sensations for gamers, movie watchers and online shoppers.

While using music to make face-to-face encounters more pleasurable is well documented, using artificially generated smells for eliciting an emotional response is not yet a common practice. Despite the already mentioned attempts at commercializing the idea, the area of social olfaction remains an almost untouched scientific ground. A serious investigation is called for, especially in the light of recent findings published in the Nature Communications journal.

A group of researchers associated with the Spanish Natural Science Museum found that the sense of smell may have been much more important in the history of our species than previously believed. So much so, that it may have played a vital role in giving us an evolutionary advantage over other related species, such as Neanderthals.

Until recently, it has been commonly believed that our olfactory capabilities were gradually dampened in the course of evolution. However, new data seems to suggest the sense of smell in Homo sapiens is developed better than in earlier humans. Our olfactory abilities may have contributed to such factors as kinship recognition, better family relations, group cohesion and social learning. Each of these contributed to the fact that we are now the only surviving human species. A species that may not be fully aware of all the blessings it received from mother nature.

No matter how silly the Sound Perfume glasses concept may look at first glance, the people behind this project deserve some credit for trying to bring us a tiny step closer to a better understanding of ourselves. Do they succeed? Watch the video below and decide for yourselves.

Robot guards are coming to a South Korean jail next spring, according to the Yonhap news agency. The guards are 5 feet tall and equipped with four wheels, a friendly face and who knows what sorts of pain rays and other implements. They are designed to look friendly to inmates, according to the designers.

The machines will monitor inmates for abnormal behavior, according to the BBC. They’ll be able to detect prisoner violence and even notice attempts at suicide, which researchers say will help reduce human guards’ workload. The robots will mostly work at night, patrolling correctional facilities and helping prisoners connect with officers, according to Yonhap. They come equipped with a “remote conversation function,” via the cameras mounted on their torsos.

Three prototype guard ‘bots will spend a month in a jail in the city of Pohang. The Asian Forum for Corrections, a South Korean research group, developed the robots in concert with Kyonggi University. The project will cost about $864,000.

Robots are already a mainstay in factories, surgical bays and disaster areas, so it’s reasonable to see them in prisons, too. But what happens when the prisoners take them over?