Gadgets Archives - Noeska Smit

Even cheaper standing desk at IKEA

As I previously mentioned, IKEA used to sell reasonably priced automatically adjustable standing desks in the IKEA Bekant series. They recently introduced a new series though, that is even more affordable. For 200 euro, you can now get a Skarsta adjustable sitting / standing desk. You can also upgrade to a slightly larger version for 30 euros more. I think this is the smaller version shown here:

Ikea's latest standing desk: the Skarsta — Ikea’s latest standing desk: the Skarsta

What’s the catch, you may be wondering? Well the catch is that the Skarsta requires manual, eh, cranking? to adjust the position:

SKARSTA Bureau zit/sta IKEA — You crank that desk, boy!

We have tested the desk for about two weeks now here at home, and it’s working like a charm! Bonus points for the arm workout involved ^^.

Update: For those wanting more tech details on this table (which seems to be a lot of you, judging by the comments section 😉 Cam Dore just shared this useful link to the manual in the comments. Thanks!

Pelvic 3D model (finger)painting with the Leap Motion

One of the cool things about being a PhD is that you can sometimes enjoy working with super-smart MSc students. It gets even more awesome when aforementioned super-smart MSc students do super-awesome stuff and you get to watch! This afternoon I lent out the Leap Motion to Cees-Willem Hofstede and here’s what he managed to do in a couple of hours:

That’s right, he uses WebGL and the Leap Motion to allow the user to interact with a 3D model of the human pelvis and to paint on this model using his fingers and what I imagine must be several magic incantations! This is just a first proof-of-concept, so more news as it emerges and hopefully I can record a better video for you soon too 🙂

The Leap Motion: First Leap!

This is just a quick and dirty post about my first leaps with the Leap Motion. For those of you unfamiliar with this device, it’s a tiny device that provides ‘motion sensing technology for human–computer interaction’ and promises to be World’s Most Accurate 3-D Motion Control. Today I got to play around with a Leap Motion, because the lovely Computer Graphics and Visualization group is awesome that way.

First up: some low-quality phone pictures!