Keeping up with technology is a lot of work. Luckily, we enjoy wading through the noise just to find the gems of awesomeness sprinkled throughout. Fusion Radar is our gift to you, Current or Potential Client, so that you can enjoy all of the awesome without any of the drudgery. Unwrap it each week, and know that you’re loved by the geeks and pixel-pushers at Agency Fusion.
Unheap
Unheap is a useful repository of jQuery plugins for front-end design and development. The site itself is well designed, and includes plugins for interface, inputs, media, navigation, and other front-end code.
Apache Tiles
Tiles is a templating framework developers can use to avoid copy and paste programming and instead define page fragments that are assembled into a complete page at runtime.
Draft
Whether it’s school or work, collaborative projects can be tough, especially when you need to work on a document at the same time. Draft attempts to soothe the headache that can come from trying to track changes using Google Docs or emailing Word docs back and forth. With it, you can keep a master doc, approve suggested changes, and revert to previous versions of your document.
Proto.io
Sometimes still-frame wireframes just don’t cut it when it comes to client presentations. That’s why Proto.io could be such a useful tool: it allows you to add animations, screen transitions, and interactivity (like pinching to zoom or swiping to scroll) to your app prototypes.
Hook.js
Put simply, it’s a pull to refresh for the web; meaning that when you scroll all the way up a site, it’ll refresh the page.
Arrival.io
It’s happened to the best of us: we finally break down and buy that Apple gadget we’ve been wanting for the longest time, only to have a new version of the device come out a few weeks or even days later. Arrival.io is a site that can help you avoid this by predicting when the next version of MacBooks, iPhones, and iPads will come out.
Coffitivity
Studies show that working in a quiet space can actually be detrimental to creativity – and music can often be too loud or distracting. If you’re the kind of person who needs a little white noise to concentrate, you might want to try out Coffitivity, a site that provides a moderate level of ambience. Essentially, listening to Coffitivity makes you feel like you’re sitting in a coffee shop, no matter where you’re actually working.
ArduPilot Project
There’s been some talk lately about the government using drones – autonomous aerial vehicles used to spy on people. ArduPilot is a way for you to create am unmanned drone of your own (not that we’re recommending you actually spy on anyone) with any RC vehicle.
Do it Yourself Drones – ArduPilot
Lumi
Lumi’s Inkodye is a simple, creative way to print on fabric. The water-based dye is painted onto fabric, covered with a photo negative, and develops its color permanently when exposed to sunlight for about 10 minutes. They even have an app to help you through all the steps.
Mind-controlled Exoskeletons
It sounds like something from a science fiction novel, but this technology is very real and is scheduled to be debuted in less than 18 months. Dr. Miguel Nicolelis is currently working on a “wearable robot” that will not only use the brain’s electrical signals to help paralyzed people walk, but will send feedback to the brain to allow them to feel every step they take.
The MakerBot 3D Scanner
If wearable robots aren’t enough to intrigue you, maybe MakerBot’s new 3D scanner prototype will catch your eye. This device analyzes real-world objects and generates designs compatible with 3D printers. Basically, this means that you can scan any object small enough to fit in their scanner, then print out an exact (or scaled down) copy of it with a 3D printer.