Tech Tuesdays: vibrating steering wheels, Instagram for Android and body scanning Kinects

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been doing a live ‘Tech Tuesday’ segment on Vancouver’s News 1130 radio station. It’s a weekly spot where I’ll round up what’s going on in the tech world. I even did one live from Austin during SXSW. It airs Tuesdays at 11:05am PST and portions repeated throughout the day – you can listen live on their website.

Here’s my update for this week (I only have 5 minutes so it’s pretty brief and we often don’t get through all the items):

• taking a page from videogame designers, researchers at AT&T Labs & Carnegie Mellon University are working on a haptic feedback steering wheel for better turn by turn directions so that you can keep an eye on the road instead of watching your GPS screen. Using 20 different vibrating actuators inside the steering wheel, you’ll be notified of an upcoming left turn through the wheel by vibration. It might be years before this tech reaches our cars but it’s an exciting development as the technology can be used for all kinds of things beyond navigation
• the incredibly popular iPhone photo app, Instagram, is finally coming to Android phones. It has a huge community around it on the iPhone so users cant wait to use it on another platform. No date when it will be available but they have a signup page at Instagr.am/android to be notified when it’s available
• a new device is about to start appearing in fitting rooms everywhere. Bodymetrics Pods are currently being tested by Bloomingdale’s in the US. It’s basically 8 Microsoft Kinect’s (the same you can use with an Xbox360) that scan your body to help get the perfect fit for those new pair of jeans. The whole process takes about 5 seconds and takes hundreds of measurements to determine your true size to help get a great fit