Continuing to innovate and take inspiration from nature, Festo has launched their Bionic Learning Network and in doing so shows off their new AquaPenguin and AirPenguin technology. The technology and lessons learned are also being applied in other forms such as architecture and manufacturing.

Vermont Public Television presents the TV series Emerging Science, a show that explores the latest scientific developments in Vermont and elsewhere. The program covers topics including energy, food, social science, transportation, and many more. Now on it’s second season, all of the 30 minute episodes are viewable online.

At GDC 2009 in San Francisco, OnLive founder Steve Perlman and COO Mike McGarvey publicly introduced their company and the technology they have been working on the past many years. Taking cloud computing to a new level, their video compression technology has enabled them to compress video at speeds imperceptible to even the most hard-core video game enthusiasts. The compression speeds have allowed them to create a new delivery model for video games which now marks the advent of the seamless cloud computing experience.

Go behind the scenes of the Calit2 HIPerSpace Wall, currently the world’s highest resolution multi-panel display. Featuring 286 million active pixels, the display is made up of 70, 30″ displays, each with a resolution of 2560×1600 pixels. For more juicy technical specs, check out the press release.

Built by Strukt for the 2009 TOCA ME design conference, the Strucktable (a 70 inch multi-touch display) uses VVVV for its demo applications. The Struckt team developed 5 applications for the table including: Geometry Drawing, Paint Balls, Media Browser, Elastic Universe, and a mysterious 5th one. While the touch-table is not particularly revolutionary, the team has documented its design and build process enabling others to follow in their footsteps.

Hot off the heels of Microsoft’s Business Division’s video short being released, Seattle-based Oh, Hello has posted a longer (6 minute) variation. The video presents many concepts designed by the Office Labs team at Microsoft in the realms of surface computing and natural user interfaces.

MEGAphone is… phone-call controlled, real-time, multi-player gaming on big screens. At UX Week 2008, Dan Albritton talks about the challenges related to designing for such an experience. With mobile servers linked to the phone network via a measly 3G connection, the system must account for the differences between button presses on various phones, handle volume normalization, and be responsive with a large number of users.

Pattie Maes, founder of the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT Media Lab, speaks at TED in depth about the project Sixth Sense in collaboration with Pranav Mistry. While the project has received far spread interest and the availability of a short video earlier, Pattie’s talk at TED has now been released. Check it out to see many more demonstrations and potential applications for the Sixth Sense technology.

Biologically inspired, Festo’s Airics Arm is modeled after a human arm and is capable of the same movement patterns. The arm is powered by 30 pneumatic muscles attached to an artificial skeletal system. Capable of lifting weights and writing, the bionic arm offers a glimpse into the future of prosthetic devices.

The Actuated Workbench uses a bed of electromagnets to control physical objects placed on top of it. First published in 2002 by Gian Pangaro, Dan Maynes-Aminzade, and Professor Hiroshi Ishii, development was continued. Dan (aka Monzy) has released a more recent video demonstrating the improvements made as well as some interesting new interaction possibilities.

Stephen Elop, President of the Microsoft Business Division, has been showing their vision for the future where nearly every surface will be an interactive display. With the looming battle between companies over patented gestures as mentioned in Dan Saffer’s talk, it is now an arms race to see which company will infiltrate homes and office with gestural and touch based systems. Regardless, it is great to see some of the concepts explored in the video.

Evan Williams, founder of Blogger, ODEO, and most recently Twitter talks at TED about the amazing uses Twitter is seeing. With just 140 characters, but complete mobility, people are using the micro-publishing platform to broadcast their status, coordinate with others, and monitor any and every type of activity.

Continually progressing UI in the mobile phone arena, The Astonishing Tribe does it again with Nexus. In their latest demo, TAT shows off LinkFlow, Drag and Drop, and a whole host of other newly minted features in the TAT Cascades code.

Lachlan Cash from Microsoft demonstrates using touch technologies for business applications. Moving beyond rotating and resizing photos, Microsoft Dynamics has adapted Microsoft Surface for use as a wearhouse management tool. And while Surface in it’s table top form may not make it into offices very quickly, with Windows 7 supporting multi-touch, there is a great chance that other form factors will.

To be presented at CHI 2009, Nano Touch uses a touch sensitive input on the back-side of devices to get around fingers obstructing the screen on the front-side of the device. A big problem on very small displays, nano touch is poised to be highly utilized in future electronics. The Nano Touch has been designed by Patrick Baudisch and Gerry Chu at Micorosft Research and in partnership with Hasso Plattner Institute.

Designed by Silke Hilsing, Impress is a display system which allows physical manipulation of the display surface for input purposes. Learn more about this project from concept to prototype on Silke’s Website.

Sebastian Vettel, driver for Red Bull, gives a run down of the design changes made to F1 vehicles for the 2009 season. Beyond the body-work Sebastian mentions the new Kinetic Energy Recovery System which will recover energy from breaking and enable drivers to use that boost of energy later on during the race.

Hard at work, TAT (The Astonishing Tribe) demonstrated its 3D Eye UI at Mobile World Congress 2009. The prototype system demonstrates the use of eyetracking to simulate 3D windows layers by manipulating the UI layers based on the positioning of the screen relative to the person looking at it. To see the method explained, check out Jonny Lee‘s 3D head tracking using the Wiimote.

TAT (The Astonishing Tribe) demonstrates its Foldout UI at Mobile World Congress 2009. Utilizing a physics engine, the screen content reacts as the user flings content around the screen reminiscent to the game Little Big Planet on the Sony PlayStation.

In the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, the head of Benjamin is 100% digital for the first hour of the movie. Ed Ulbrich, Executive VP at Digital Domain, talks about the experience of creating the new technology necessary to create such a realistic and believable face. Afterward, check out the behind the scenes video provided by Digital Domain.