The Great Geek Manual News

At the Digital Experience press event on Wednesday, two companies in the GPS tracking applications sector took center stage: While Zoombak seems focused on the consumer, FindWhere offered similar services aimed at the business set. Both companies’ products use GSM networks, which are publicly accessible. While FindWhere has not specified whose network it is using, Zoombak representatives told BetaNews that it has an agreement with T-Mobile to use its towers.

In both cases, a device is equipped with a GPS, which sends a packet at regular intervals to the servers of either service. From here, those data points are plotted in real time on a map where interested parties can track it.

Tracking like this is nothing new, but mass marketing of such a service is. Amateur radio operators have been using a system known as APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System) since about 1992, when GPS first became affordable enough to be used by average consumers. However, without a ham radio license, such tracking was unavailable. Companies are now looking to change that, as is evidenced by the surge of new products now being released, and a growing appetite by the consumer to use GPS as more of a one-way technology.

For the most part, tracking systems have existed similar to this for several years for cars, shipping crates, and other valuable assets (besides people). However, historically, the information was downloaded not in real-time — not while the car or asset was traveling. Thus connectivity is key for this latest generation.

Read the Entire Story…
Source: Beta News

Alison DeLauzon thought the snapshots and home videos of her infant son were gone for good when she lost her digital camera while on vacation in Florida.

Then a funny thing happened: her camera “phoned home.”

Equipped with a special memory card with wireless Internet capability, DeLauzon’s camera had not only automatically sent her holiday pictures to her computer, but had even uploaded photos of the miscreants who swiped her equipment bag after she accidentally left it behind at a restaurant.

“I opened up the Eye-Fi manager on the computer and, lo and behold, there are the guys that stole our cameras,” said DeLauzon, a native of New York’s Long Island suburb. “Not only is it the guy who stole our camera … but the guy took a picture of (his accomplice) holding our other camera.”

DeLauzon received the Eye-Fi, a 2-gigabyte SD memory card that fits into millions of digital cameras, as a holiday gift to go with her Canon camera.

Priced at about $100, the card automatically uploads pictures to a home computer or online photosharing service as soon as the user is linked to a familiar wireless network.

Read the Entire Story…
Source: Reuters

Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, was born 100 years ago Wednesday in London.

While that historical footnote passed with hardly any mention in Silicon Valley, Fleming’s spy novels deserve a place on the shelf in the section titled “history of technology.” Fleming, who rose to the rank of commander in the British Admiralty during the World War II, introduced Bond in 1953 with the publication of Casino Royale. The subsequent Bond books and films brought to public notice everything from luminous watches to car phones and pagers–long before they became commonplace commodities in contemporary society.

We also can thank Fleming for the popular phrase, a “James Bond gadget.” For a look back, take a look at the list compiled on Wikipedia.

So let’s raise a glass–shaken, not stirred, of course–to Q and the rest of the team. Happy birthday, Mr. Fleming. the man whose imagination contributed mightily to popular thinking about all those cool high-tech toys.

Source: CNet

It’s safe to say Jeremy Snyder gets a charge out of the two-seat Tesla Roadster whenever he pulls one off the lot — and not because it’s equipped with an all-electric engine. As he pulled one of the sleek new automobiles down a side street Thursday and put the pedal to the metal, its lithium-ion battery-powered engine didn’t give off sparks. It just emitted a powerful hum, something like a much quieter version of a jet taking off.

“Accelerate pretty good?” asked Snyder, head of client services for Tesla, who knew the answer.

“I call it a turbine sound,” he said of the sound. “Because it’s an electric motor it’s got 100 per cent torque all the time. So it just pulls you like when you’re taking off in an airplane.”

After several years of development, the Roadster — with sleek lines like a Ferrari or Porsche and a sticker price of $109,000 (U.S.) — officially moves from the drawing boards to the market next week when Tesla’s first store opens. It’s near the University of California, Los Angeles, in the city’s toney Westwood neighbourhood where Beverly Hills, Brentwood and Hollywood practically intersect. “Because it’s Hollywood and glamorous, this is the flagship store,” Snyder said.

The next store is to open in a couple months near Tesla’s headquarters in the Silicon Valley city of San Carlos, where the car was developed with venture capital of more than $40-million from such investors as Google Inc. founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. More stores are planned for Chicago, New York and other cities by early next year.

Although a fully loaded model can set a buyer back as much as $124,000, that’s still cheap compared with a high-end Ferrari. And its 6,831-cell lithium-ion battery pack gives off no emissions.

Read the Entire Story…
Source: Canada’s The Globe and Mail

Kodak’s latest digital picture frames offer a Quick Touch Border that allows users to scroll through pictures by touching the frame, eliminating screen smudges. Putting a new spin on the basic LCD-in-a-box formula for digital picture frames, Kodak announced three new Easyshare frames on Thursday that aim to ratchet basic features up a notch. The 10-, 8- and -7inch frames offer a new Quick Touch Border, 16:9 aspect ratios, and Kodak’s Color Science technology for accurate colors.

The M820 and M1020, which measure 8 and 10 inches respectively, are the most capable new frames, able to play MP3 music through built-in speakers, play MPEG videos, and display any JPEG picture. The Quick Touch Border allows users to drag a finger along the frame to scroll through photos, rather than navigating through a more traditional touch screen and leaving smudges. They also come with 128MB of internal memory and support for the CF, SD, MMC, xD and MS card formats.

The smaller M720 frame, measuring 7 inches diagonally, handles the same formats but includes an extra SD slot for users to provide their own frame memory, rather than getting a built-in 128MB. The M720 also gets the same signature Quick Touch Border.

All the frames come with both cranberry red and silver decorative mattes included, and Kodak also offers additional snap-on faceplates in mahogany with a gold matte, silver with a blue matte, black shadowbox with a champagne matte, and espresso shadowbox with a black matte. Kodak did not include pricing information in the press release, but will update Kodak.com shortly with prices.

Source: Digital Trends

Up until now, both Intel’s Classmate PC and the OLPC Foundation’s OLPC XO laptop have been explicitly targeted towards poor students in developing countries. Intel plans to change that focus with the second generation of the Classmate PC, however, announcing that future versions of the laptop will be available to US and European consumers at a price point between $250-350. Design specifications for the next-generation laptop aren’t yet available (conflicting reports have stated it may or may not use an Atom processor) but the unit is expected to be capable of running Windows, even if it doesn’t ship with that OS.

Intel’s decision to offer the Classmate PC to general consumers is a smart one, given current market conditions. The low-cost laptop segment has been a hot growth sector of late; both the OLPC’s G1G1 (Give 1, Get 1) program and Asus’ Eee PC have done very well. By pushing its own solution into that space, Intel picks up additional sources of revenue and further extends its brand presence. Intel has already had some success with this approach. As we noted earlier this year, Indian manufacturer HCL Infosystems has already introduced a Classmate-derived system aimed towards the business and consumer market.

Such actions do not necessarily run counter to the Classmate PC’s original goal of being an educational tool. Building more Classmate PC’s allows Intel and its partners to leverage economies of scale, which should eventually lead to lower laptop prices and better performance at current price points. Intel’s eventual goal is to offer a range of notebook designs in this market space, each corresponding with a particular price point and feature set.

Read the Entire Story…
Source: Ars Technica

A security camera system that can detect explosive, narcotics, weapons, and other dangerous materials even under clothes has been invented by a United Kingdom-based ThruVision.

The ThruVision T5000 security system could be very useful when deployed at airports, railway stations or other public spaces as it can see through clothes to detect illegal substances and materials. This is also expected to deter terrorists.

T5000 is also referred to as “terahertz”, or the T-ray, technology, which is normally used by astronomers to study astrological bodies. Dubai Mercantile Exchange and Canary Wharf in London have already bought the security camera system.

Since T5000 does not use X-rays, but terahertz rays or T-ray, these are not harmful to the body. The product will be formally launched in the next couple of weeks.

Source: All Headline News

A stretchable Morph mobile device from Nokia and the University of Cambridge uses nanotechnology. Nokia’s concept cell phone follows an industry trend toward changeable phones and the possibilities include transparent electronics and self-cleaning surfaces. Meantime, Nokia’s Morph is on display at the Museum of Modern Art.

At a trade show, you stretch your wristwatch cell phone to check the time and then hand out business-card phones with your logo. This vision of the not-too-distant future is one of the possibilities of the Morph joint venture by Nokia and the United Kingdom’s University of Cambridge.

That vision went on display at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) on Sunday, as part of the Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit. “Morph,” Nokia said, “is a concept that demonstrates how future mobile devices might be stretchable and flexible, allowing the user to transform their mobile device into radically different shapes.”

Read the Entire Story…
Source: News Factor

A Senator from Wisconsin wants to mandate an extra tax on video games because he claims they are linked to juvenile crime.

Jon Erpenbach, who sits on the Wisconsin State Senate, has proposed a bill that would add an additional one percent sales tax specifically to video and computer games. The additional money would be earmarked to funding the juvenile detention system.

His specific goal is to generate enough money into the program to allow 17-year-olds to be treated as minors. Wisconsin previously passed a law that dictated that 17-year-old residents charged with a crime should be treated as adults.

“Number one, I think it’s the right thing to do because not all seventeen-year-olds belong in the adult system when it comes to non-violent offenses … secondly, in the long run, the numbers show that if you treat certain situations in a juvenile delinquent-type of a setting, as opposed to an adult setting, chances are there’s going to be less of a problem when the kid gets older,” said Erpenbach.

Erpenbach received some backlash for the plan, but is not giving up. He did, however, comment that if this is not the best way to achieve his goal, “I’m open to any other way.”

Source: Tom’s Hardware

The same microwave radiation that reheats pizza can be used to fry the electrical systems in cars, stopping them dead in their tracks.

Emitted from a rooftop device, the radiation could be used by law enforcement officers to put an end to dangerous car chases or by military personnel as a non-lethal way of disabling vehicles that get too close for comfort.

“The idea is to warn an automobile some distance away from a high-value target like a military barrack or a communication center. If they don’t comply, you just zap them and it prevents them from coming closer,” said James Tatoian, CEO of Eureka Aerospace in Pasadena, Calif.

Tatoian and his team have been working on the device since 2003. The current prototype is about 5 feet long, 3 feet wide, a foot thick, and weighs just under 200 pounds.

The technology uses the same kind of energy used in microwave ovens, but at a different frequency. Ovens typically operate at 2.45 Ghz, whereas the high-power car-stopping system is at 300 megahertz. In both cases, the radiation is above common radio frequencies and is not harmful to humans.

“There are no biological effects,” said Tatoian. “We comply with every standard in the literature as far as biological impact.”

Read the Entire Story…
Source: The Discovery Channel

Amazon’s new Kindle e-book reader has certainly captured the attention of the online population, and even sold out in light of criticism from skeptics and naysayers. So could the Kindle be the iPod of the e-book reader world? With analysts giving the Amazon Kindle good reviews against other e-book readers, some say it’s possible and even likely.

For all the pundit opinions about the Kindle, Amazon.com’s just-introduced e-book reader, MarketIntelNow is offering up the voices of consumers in a new report that drills down into reasons why these devices might or might not take off.

During the first week of November, MarketIntelNow polled 5,000 online consumers about the buzz-making gizmo. The overarching conclusion: E-books will take off when the right device is introduced. Could that device be the Kindle?

Peeking into the survey results, 38 percent of respondents chose “lack of a cool design” as their main objection to buying a handheld e-book device. Only 21 percent cited cost as the barrier. Twenty-one percent also noted reading on a screen was an objection.

Read the Entire Story…
Source: News Factor

The new iPod Nano is hot. But one Douglasville man said his old Nano got even hotter — hot enough to burst into flames.

“So I look down and I see flames coming up to my chest,” said Danny Williams.

Williams said the burn hole from the pocket of his pants marks the spot of his 15 seconds of flame. He said he had an iPod Nano and an glossy piece of paper in his pocket. He believes the paper shielded him from being burned.

“I’m still kind of freaked out that after only a year and a half my iPod caught fire in my pocket,” said Williams.

The iPod uses a lithium ion battery — the same type of battery under recall for setting laptops on fire.

Williams said the fact is iPod Nano burst into flames while he was at work was bad enough, where he works could have been another issue. He works at a kiosk in Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

“If TSA had come by and seen me smoking, they could have honestly thought I was a terrorist,” said Williams.

Read the Entire Story…
Source: WSBTV

An electronic textbook Web site is launching a smelly e-book after finding college students like to be able to smell their books.

A survey of 600 college students conducted by pollster Zogby International found that 43 percent of students identified smell, either a new or old smell, as the quality they most liked about books as physical objects.

Six out of 10 students also preferred buying used textbooks over new or electronic textbooks even though e-books are generally a third less expensive. E-books sales have been slow to take off.

In an attempt to persuade college students to try e-textbooks, Web site CafeScribe.com (http://cafescribe.com on Wednesday said it was launching “the world’s first smelly e-book.”

CafeScribe Chief Executive Bryce Johnson said that from September the company will send every e-textbook purchaser a scratch and sniff sticker with a musty “old book” smell.

Read the Entire Story…
Source: Reuters via Yahoo! News

iRobot Corp, a robot maker that sells floor cleaners as well as devices that defuse bombs, introduced on Wednesday a new line of vacuums in hopes of generating cash to invest in a wider range of products.

Two new models, the Roomba 530 and Roomba 560, were scheduled to start selling on iRobot’s Web site, Amazon.com and Home Shopping Network on Wednesday for $250 and $399.

The new models are more durable, have twice as much vacuum power and more sophisticated artificial intelligence technology than previous models. iRobot has sold 2 million vacuum cleaners since it introduced its first machine almost five years ago.

Improvements include new anti-tangle technology to extract the robots from power cords, sensors that slow them down as they approach walls and beacons that guide them around the house.

Read the Entire Story…
Source: Reuters via Soft32