Computer Information - myOddPc
Yuno coffee mug PC probably isn't dishwasher safe
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
Sure,
internet-connected coffee makers are
hot stuff, but they don't do you much good once you grab your parka and dart out for the long morning commute, now do they? Enter the Yuno PC, designed by California State University Long Beach senior Jason Farsai, which quite literally wraps your latest e-mails, the weather forecast, traffic information, stocks, comics and the time around your coffee mug. Granted, it's still a concept at the moment, but it's pretty safe to say that this is one container you wouldn't likely leave unattended -- you know, kind of like that red stapler.
[Via
YankoDesign]
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nanoDAB: portable DAB meets Bluetooth
Filed under: Portable Audio
This bugger might have been announced a little far in advance, but come this September new nanoDAB users will get a one-two punch of A2DP Bluetooth headset and portable DAB receiver smushed together into one diminutive package. There's also some integration with visual digital radio services and like mobile apps, but being that the nearest to us DAB signal is a few thousand miles away we'll let our foreign readers handle the carrier lobbying.
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Don't throw out that Polaroid just yet, make it digital
Filed under: Digital Cameras
Just because
Polaroid isn't going to sell you film for your camera anymore doesn't mean you have to go
Zink and toss your analog. Geek Technique's got a guide -- surely the first of many -- to transforming an old Polaroid into a digital camera (in this case, a USB-connected webcam).
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No wonder Sony Ericsson's XPERIA X1 is so good: HTC makes it
Filed under: Cellphones
The company that once designed the Treo for Palm (and countless other amazing white-label devices) is apparently back in the ODM game. That's right, if you were wondering how the hell Sony Ericsson pulled the
XPERIA X1 rabbit out of its hat, look no further than HTC. While we don't think they did any of the special software, we heard it through the grapevine that the X1 is all HTC-built, which kind of explains a lot if you ask us.
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Examining the Search and Seizure of Electronics at Airports
Angus McKraken brings us a Washington Post story about how travelers are seeking more well-defined policies and rules about the search and seizure of electronic devices by U.S. Customs officials. The EFF has already taken legal action over similar concerns. We recently discussed the related issue of requiring people to disclose their passwords in order to search their private data. From the Post: "Maria Udy, a marketing executive with a global travel management firm in Bethesda, said her company laptop was seized by a federal agent as she was flying from Dulles International Airport to London in December 2006. Udy, a British citizen, said the agent told her he had 'a security concern' with her. 'I was basically given the option of handing over my laptop or not getting on that flight,' she said. 'I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days,' said Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access. With ACTE's help, she pressed for relief. More than a year later, Udy has received neither her laptop nor an explanation."
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Knee Brace Generates Electricity From Walking
ktulus cry brings news of a device that can power portable gadgets, prosthetic joints, and other mobile appliances by harvesting energy generated by walking. Researchers are working on making the device — still a moderately cumbersome 3.5 pounds — smaller while maintaining its energy harvesting capacity. CNet has a write-up with more pictures and a diagram of the device. "In the mode in which the brace is only activated while the knee is braking, the subjects required less than one watt of extra metabolic power for each watt of electricity they generated. A typical hand-crank generator, for comparison, takes an average of 6.4 watts of metabolic power to generate one watt of electricity because of inefficiencies of muscles and generators. A lighter version would be helpful to hikers or soldiers who don't have easy access to electricity. And the scientists say similar mechanisms could be built into prosthetic knees other implantable devices such as pacemakers or neurotransmitters that today require a battery, and periodic surgery to replace that battery."
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Semantic Web Getting Real
BlueSalamander writes "Tim O'Reilly just did an interview with Devin Wenig, the CEO-designate of Reuters. With no great enthusiasm I started to read yet another interview on how the semantic web was going to make everything great for everybody. Wenig made some good points about the end of the latency wars in news and the beginning of the battle for automatically detecting linkages and connections in the news. Smart news, not just fast news. Great stuff — but just more words? Nope — a little searching revealed that Reuters just opened access to their corporate semantic technology crown jewels. For free. For anyone. Their Calais API lets you turn unstructured text into a formal RDF graph in about one second. I ran about 5,000 documents through it and played with a subset of them in RDF-Gravity. The results were impressive overall. Is this the start of the semantic web getting real? When big names and big money start to act, not just talk, it may be time to pay attention. Semantic applications anyone? The foundation appears to be here."
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OpenBSD Will Not Fix PRNG Weakness
snake-oil-security writes "Last fall Amit Klein found a serious weakness in the OpenBSD PRNG (pseudo-random number generator), which allows an attacker to predict the next DNS transaction ID. The same flavor of this PRNG is used in other places like the OpenBSD kernel network stack. Several other BSD operating systems copied the OpenBSD code for their own PRNG, so they're vulnerable too; Apple's Darwin-based Mac OS X and Mac OS X Server, and also NetBSD, FreeBSD, and DragonFlyBSD. All the above-mentioned vendors were contacted in November 2007. FreeBSD, NetBSD, and DragonFlyBSD committed a fix to their respective source code trees, Apple refused to provide any schedule for a fix, but OpenBSD decided not to fix it. OpenBSD's coordinator stated, in an email, that OpenBSD is completely uninterested in the problem and that the problem is completely irrelevant in the real world. This was highlighted recently when Amit Klein posted to the BugTraq list."
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Web Graphic Design for Small Businesses
An anonymous reader writes "I'm a competent geek running a one-man-show for a small business. I do everything IT in this company; servers, email, desktop support, managing Ethernet switches, cash registers, inventory database, and the company website. My boss has asked me to 'punch up' the website to make it more appealing. Although I can hold my own with HTML, PHP and a couple SQL products, graphic design isn't one of my strengths. I'm looking for some advice on how to improve the site without making it overstimulating for the webophobic. It's also important that it conform to ADA accessibility guidelines. In particular, I'm looking for books or tutorial websites that teach the basics of good graphic design — how to make it more appealing without losing the ability to communicate effectively. Also, I would appreciate suggestions for tools to use to make this more efficient (Windows and Linux are both OK)."
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Name the New Gamma-Ray Space Telescope
Ponca City, We Love You writes "NASA announced last week that members of the general public will have a chance to suggest a new name for the cutting edge Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, otherwise known as GLAST, before it launches in mid-2008. NASA wants a name that will capture the excitement of GLAST's mission and call attention to gamma-ray and high-energy astronomy. 'We are looking for something memorable to commemorate this spectacular new astronomy mission,' said Alan Stern, associate administrator for Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. 'We hope someone will come up with a name that is catchy, easy to say and will help make the satellite and its mission a topic of dinner table and classroom discussion.' The period for submitting names closes on March 31, 2008. Participants must include a statement of 25 words or less about why their suggestion would be a strong name for the mission."
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