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POPSChevy Volt Gets 230 MPG? The media no longer sees itself as an arbiter of truth or a purveyor of information, but as a cheerleading booster of particular causes – typically the causes supported by the urban intelligentsia of the coasts. High on the list of fashionable political causes to be evangelized is the war against oil, which before an election always seems to become “foreign” oil. (After the election, petro-equality returns and domestic oil is bad-mouthed, too).
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POPS"Wearing the Internet" more: MIT’s Media Lab has explored the idea of wearable computing for some time. “Wearable computing hopes to shatter this myth of how a computer should be used,” states the program’s web site, “A person’s computer should be worn, much as eyeglasses or clothing are worn, and interact with the user based on the context of the situation.” Pattie Maes of the lab’s Fluid Interfaces group goes one step further. As the leader of a team of seven graduate students that developed the system, she characterizes it as somewhat more than a wearable device — she refers to it as a digital “sixth sense.” No, she can’t see dead people. But, as a recent TED demo shows — sans keyboard or monitor — she literally has the Internet cloud on her arm (and her hands, and…).
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POPSHP Claims Laptop will deliver all-day computing Well lets hope their claims are an improvement upon their current models as I get about an hour if I am lucky. lol. But seriously that would be amazing, now all we need is mobile broadband to get up to an acceptable speed.
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POPSThe 10 Emerging Technologies of 2009 "Each year, Technology Review chooses 10 emerging technologies with the potential to change lives around the world. Some of this year's choices, such as paper-based medical tests and intelligent software that acts as a personal assistant, could reach the market within a year. Others, like biological machines and nanopiezotronics, could take longer but promise fundamental shifts in fields from computing to medicine, communications to manufacturing. The list includes technologies miniature and massive--from fast, cheap, capacious computer memory to batteries that can store enough energy to power a city. All are technologies that we bet will make a huge impact in the years ahead".
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POPSMan killed by 'exploding mobile phone Local reports said that this was the ninth recorded cellphone explosion in China since 2002. In the most high profile recent incident, in June 2007, a 22-year-old welder, Xiao Chinese authorities have yet to determine the make and model of the phone and its battery. Some reports indicated the store was a Lenovo shop, but it was thought that this might be because the shop advertised Lenovo computer products. Police were investigating whether the phone and battery were counterfeit. Jinpeng, died from chest wounds when his mobile phone exploded while he was at work at an iron mill in Gansu province.
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POPSFuture Devices Could Power Themselves
There are other mechanisms other than "pushing" that can generate pressure waves to spark energy in piezoelectric materials. Imagine a self-powering cell phone, for instance, that never needs to be charged because it converts sound waves produced by the user into the energy it needs to keep running. Some night clubs in Europe now feature dance floors built with piezoelectrics that absorb and convert energy from footsteps in order to help power lights in the club. And a Hong Kong gym reportedly is using the technology to convery energy from exercisers to help power its lights and music. Tahir Cagin and his partners study the piezoelectric concept. For this project, they fine-tuned piezoelectric materials with nanoscale dimensions . Studying piezoelectrics in microscopic units is a relatively new endeavor, but a key step along the road toward inventing a self-powering cell phone and other portable, high-tech devices, which contain these minute components already.
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POPSFixing it could improve our lives—and the planet: Batteries... It's an issue that goes beyond cars and mobile devices. To reduce carbon emissions, utilities are likely to shift more generating capacity from coal and natural gas to renewable sources like wind and solar. Solar cells and wind turbines require batteries because they provide power intermittently.
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POPS Robots and Humans: Intel say equal by 2050
Robots: From the Factory Floor to Your Kitchen - Robots today are primarily used in the factory environment, designed to perform a single task repeatedly and bolted down. To make robotics personal, robots need to move and manipulate objects in cluttered and dynamic human environments, according to Rattner. They need to be cognizant of their surroundings by sensing and recognizing movement in a dynamic physical world, and learn to adapt to new scenarios. Rattner demonstrated two working personal robot prototypes developed at Intel’s research labs. One of the demonstrations showed electric field pre-touch that has been built into a robot hand. The technique is a novel sensing modality used by fish but not humans, so they can “feel” objects before they even touch them. The other demonstration was a complete autonomous mobile manipulation robot that can recognize faces and interpret and execute commands as generic as “please clean this mess” using state-of-the-art motion planning, manipula
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POPSgyrocars some of these ideas work with my Auto Design since my cabin rides above the computer/battery framework
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POPSJapan orders Apple to investigate exploding iPod nanos Oh dear, just when we thought we'd had our fill of exploding Apple devices, along comes an Australian forum member named eeno who saw his first generation iPod nano go up in flames, and has some snuff-esque pics of the aftermath. As is usually the case with these things, eeno's iPod was charging when it happened. He says the force of the battery's explosion sent the iPod off his PC onto the floor, where it continued to smoke and spark until he unplugged the USB charging cable from the back of his computer. Since his iPod is out of warranty, the local computer repair shop didn't do him much good, but they did take a few pics to send to Apple. Hopefully this iPod was just an anomaly, and we won't be seeing a whole wave of these explosions as 1G nanos exit their warranties and head towards retirement -- but somehow we fear the worst.
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POPSSome interesting historical gadgets The comments provide some additional gadgets to the listed ones. There are also some very critical comments (as always), which made me think that in these times it has become much more difficult and requires much more research to write a more or less 'sound & thorough' article about a topic, that can withstand the critical and knowing readers (which definitely exist within those millions of internet users).
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