(…) futuristic product designs / predictions from the Industrial Design Show in March of 1944.

Some journalists would struggle to write as good an earnings preview story as this robot.

The researchers came up with their own neat concept uses: a music player that’s controlled by touching your own hand (hit a pinky to pause, two-fingers on the palm to play); doorknobs that lock, trigger lights, or display messages based on how you touch them; a sofa that turns on the TV when you sit down, then turns down the lights when you recline; and bowl of cereal that frightens a child who uses the wrong utensil.

The notion that social networks are degrading humanity is preposterous, but the idea to make smiley faces with your own expression is very cool.

FXI is preparing to launch the Cotton Candy, a tiny computer that looks like a USB thumb drive. The device, which can run either Ubuntu or Android 4.0, has a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 CPU, 1GB of RAM, and a Mali 400MP GPU that allows it to decode high-definition video.

’40s views of the future (via @auntysarah)

Google has started making “best guesses” on contentious issues, based on the prevalence of sources that support one view or another. It is still very imperfect, of course, and can only answer a limited number of questions; but it’s no less impressive for that. We’ll be getting immediate, accurate answers when the technology is perfected.