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We've seen people in crowds holding up their full-size iPads to take photos, a sight that's still a little odd but more familiar now. Reuters photographer Mohamed Abdullah chronicled a very different use of Apple's tablet earlier this week: its role in helping a Syrian rebel direct the fire of a homemade mortar into Jobar, a Damascus suburb.The iPad's accelerometer — a device also built into recent iPhones and many other smartphones and tablets — can measure the force of acceleration. It senses movement and gravity, and is a staple for gamers and fitness buffs. But its use in Syria's civil war takes it to another level, one that was likely not intended during its inception. via: nbc

HOLHO. It's like a portmanteau of Holla! and Jai Ho! And the contraption is an Italian design, so we've got some real cultural diversity going on here in the world of holograms. A pyramid-shaped structure that sits on top of or underneath smartphones and tablets, HOLHO gathers selected screen images and projects them onto its 4 walls to generate a hologram floating harmoniously in the center. Look at that one there of the earth. Beautifully suspended in peace. Haha. What an optical illusion. The HOLHO Phone Pyramid and HOLHO Pad Pyramid function similarly: they divide a selected flat image into 4 parts, and then use the physics of reflection and tomfoolery to generate the appearance of a hovering, three-dimensional object. HOLHO Pyramids for smartphones suit Android and iOS, and those for tablets fit both 7" and 10" devices.

Intel researchers have developed a system that uses wine to power a microprocessor. In a recent demonstration of the new technology, Intel researcher Genevieve Bell poured red wine into a glass containing circuitry on two metal boards. Once the red wine hit the metal, the microprocessor on a circuit board powered up and ran a graphics program on a computer with an e-ink display. The demonstration aimed to show Intel's progress in developing low-power chips.