What if you could use your phone to test the air for toxins? What if you could monitor your health simply by blowing on it? Sounds amazing, right? Nanosensor technology developed by NASA Ames is going to make that a reality.

Alvaro Cassinelli explains how ‘invoked computing’ can turn everyday objects into communications devices.

The Little Printer occupies as much room on your shelf as an alarm clock, but the wireless server inside the molded plastic and brushed steel faceplate connects to an accompanying smartphone app with which you choose the services you want in your morning or evening report; multiple feeds are available, including your daily agenda, news headlines, personal messages, games and puzzles, and birthday reminders extracted from Facebook.

A team of scientists created a computer system that is able to recognize the emotional state of a person speaking to it, so that it can alter its behavior to make things less stressful.

The segmented design also channels some Wiimote-esque gesture features and twist controls seen on the phone behemoth’s Kinetic Device. An inert Humanform shell was also on show alongside it last month, although it didn’t do much aside from bending.

With strong voice recognition, Amazon could push the Kindle as a supremely easy device for accessing your media hands-free. Finding songs, playing and pausing movies, even turning pages in a book (or buying a new one) could all be done via voice.

Panasonic isn’t aiming the Toughpads at the average consumer, but rather to various business users such as utility crews on the road, military staff in combat situations, or doctors making their rounds. It’s a tablet extension of the approach the company already takes with its Toughbook line of rugged PCs.

“You could move your U-Verse to the patio for the football game if the weather’s nice or to the guest room if you have guests coming in,” said David Christopher, chief marketing officer.

Now that iOS 5 is available, scores of eager iOS users are busy downloading and updating their devices to the latest and greatest OS.

The new system, dubbed SignalGuru, was tested in both Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Singapore.