tagged w/ Tech_Featured
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Nearly 13,000 Americans die in traffic accidents every year. Now Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is opening a new front in its war on drunk drivers, and it's getting help from the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. A new highway bill pending before Congress would instruct all 50 states to require all motorists convicted of driving under the influence to equip their cars with interlock systems that shut down a vehicle when a measured amount of alcohol is detected. There are already about 150,000 interlock systems now in cars in the U.S., placed there for drivers with multiple DUI convictions. But the proposed mandate would expand the use of interlock systems exponentially; MADD's statistics indicate that nearly 1.5 million Americans are arrested annually on DUI charges, making it the No. 1 crime for which Americans are arrested.
States wouldn't have to abide by the ruling, but there would be heavy pressure to conform, since states that don't adopt the mandate could lose their highway funds. "The national 21 minimum drinking age and the .08% law [for allowable alcohol in the bloodstream] both resulted from federal highway sanctions. History tells us that this approach works," says Laura Dean-Mooney of MADD. So far only 11 states require interlocks for anyone with one conviction who is currently driving on a DUI-restricted license.
Opponents of the MADD push for stricter laws warn that a federal interlock requirement would serve as a Trojan horse, opening the way for even more sophisticated interlock technology that would be required on every car sold in the U.S., according to Sarah Longwell, managing director of the American Beverage Institute, which lobbies on behalf of taverns and restaurants. "If you go to the ball game and happen to have a beer you wouldn't be able drive home," she says.Nearly 13,000 Americans die in traffic accidents every year. Now Mothers Against Drunk... more
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Go check it out! If you're still unsure of how exactly Gdgt works, check out this vid: http://vimeo.com/5404387 (Features Veronica Belmont!)Go check it out! If you're still unsure of how exactly Gdgt works, check out... more
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Apple apparently likes to release updates at the speed of light, which is great for iPhone owners and developers.Apple apparently likes to release updates at the speed of light, which is great for... more
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Gmail is constantly adding features to help people become more organized. Today, Google has tweaked its Labels feature to add more functionality to the labels toolkit, helping users implement labels in a more organized way. Your labels will now be located in a new area on your Gmail interface, above your chat list and grouped together with Inbox, Drafts, Chats and other system labels. You can also now control which labels you’d like to show on your UI and you can hide the rest under a “more” tab.
Google says these changes will eliminate the need for Right-side Labels, which was an experimental Gmail Labs feature. Apparently, this is the first Labs feature that Google is retiring.
-- Ah, cool this is something I have been waiting on officially with out having to integrate a greasemonkey script or,ff extension to accomplish this/ :-)Gmail is constantly adding features to help people become more organized. Today,... more
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How do you find a new search engine if all you know is Google? Typing “search engine” into the usual box might lead you to Microsoft’s newly launched Bing, the combined search at Dogpile, or the former king of search, Altavista.
But for those willing to dig around, searching for search engines can reveal a treasure trove: The net is rich with specialized search services, all trying to find a way to get their slice of the billions of dollars Google makes every year answering queries.
Do you use search engines other than Google?How do you find a new search engine if all you know is Google? Typing “search... more
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Toyota has developed a wheelchair that can be steered through a device that reads brain waves.
Past systems required several seconds to read brain waves, but the new technology requires only 125 milliseconds — or 125 thousandths of a second.
The person in the wheelchair wears a cap that can read brain signals, which are relayed to a brain scan electroencephalograph, or EEG, on the electrically powered wheelchair, and then analyzed in a computer program.
Research into mobility is part of Toyota’s larger strategy to go beyond automobiles in helping people get around in new ways.
The new system allows the person on the wheelchair to turn left or right and go forward, almost instantly, according to researchers.
Coming to a stop still requires more than a thought. The person in the wheelchair must puff up a cheek, which is picked up in a detector worn on the face.Toyota has developed a wheelchair that can be steered through a device that reads... more
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Nettle
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added this
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3 years ago
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The latest Digg Dialogg stars none other than Brüno, the über-famous Austrian model and host of the Funkyzeit fashion and celebrity show. To make sure that Brüno’s interview is well-seeded at all times, Digg has teamed up with Mininova.
Here's the torrent for the dialogg:
http://www.mininova.org/tor/2727497
or watch at digg's own site:
http://digg.com/dialogg/Bruno_1The latest Digg Dialogg stars none other than Brüno, the über-famous... more
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Big news for Palm as numbers indicate it has sold 300,000 phones in the month of June alone. Looks like it has found its niche in the market.Big news for Palm as numbers indicate it has sold 300,000 phones in the month of June... more
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Comcast Corp. will become the first major cable TV operator to roll out wireless broadband outside of Wi-Fi hotspots as it launches the service in Portland, Ore., on Tuesday, with at least three other cities to follow this year.
Comcast will offer speeds of up to 4 Megabits per second, faster than any other comparable, non-Wi-Fi service currently being marketed. The service is for use with laptops, but not other mobile devices.
Comcast's wireless broadband, which lets users surf the Web on the go with their computers, pits it squarely against the mobile data offerings of phone companies.
But the cable operator is coming out first with the market's fastest wireless broadband, using WiMax technology. Phone companies have lined up behind a competing technology called LTE, with Verizon Communications Inc. planning to deploy it next year.
Comcast, which is the nation's largest cable operator, plans to offer the wireless service in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago and other cities later this year.
The service will be carried over the 4G network of Clearwire Corp. where it's offered. Clearwire, a joint venture involving Comcast, other cable operators and technology companies, is currently in Portland and Atlanta, with plans to deploy in Las Vegas, Chicago, Charlotte, N.C., Dallas-Forth Worth, Texas, Honolulu, Philadelphia and Seattle this year.
Elsewhere, the service will use Sprint Nextel Corp.'s 3G network.
Consumers can sign up with either a plan that lets them surf wirelessly within a city using Clearwire's network, or nationally switching between 4G and Sprint's 3G network.
Comcast, along with Intel Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc., Google Inc. and Bright House Networks, have hitched their wireless Internet aspirations on WiMax. Together, they invested $3.2 billion in Clearwire last year for a one-fourth stake. Sprint owns a 51 percent stake.
Comcast High-Speed 2go Metro service over Clearwire's network is on promotion for $49.95 a month for a year, including Comcast's wired Internet home service and a Wi-Fi router. The regular price is $72.95 a month. The national version, using Sprint, costs $20 a month more.Comcast Corp. will become the first major cable TV operator to roll out wireless... more
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BEIJING - China postponed a plan to require personal computer makers to supply Internet-filtering software Tuesday, retreating in the face of protests by Washington and Chinese Web surfers just hours before it was due to take effect.
The rule would have required manufacturers to include filtering software known as Green Dam with every computer produced for sale in China starting Wednesday.
A two-sentence announcement by the government's Xinhua News Agency said regulators "will delay" the plan but gave no indication whether it might take effect later. It gave no other details.
Top U.S. trade officials protested the plan as a possible trade barrier. Industry groups warned that the software might cause security problems. Free-speech advocates attacked the plan as censorship.
American diplomats met earlier with Chinese officials to express concern about the plan.BEIJING - China postponed a plan to require personal computer makers to supply... more
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Mozilla has officially released Firefox 3.5, the next major version of its popular open source Web browser. Ars takes a close look at the new version and evaluates its enhancements. Support for HTML 5 video and other important emerging Web standards make this one of the most significant Firefox releases ever.Mozilla has officially released Firefox 3.5, the next major version of its popular... more
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Just when you thought the Apple iPhone 3G S couldn't get any hotter, the popular smartphone has been plagued with overheating issues, and, in some cases, is getting so toasty that the device itself turns brown.
It appears the ill-fated Hottest Girls application isn't the only thing making new iPhone users sweat.
Apple has yet to respond to the claims.
French site Le Journal du Geek featured a photo of what appears to be a scorched Apple iPhone 3G S, which the site says overheated and turned the white casing pink, or light brown from the heat.
Another French site, Nowhere Else also posted images of Apple iPhone 3G S devices discolored by overheating.
Domestic users are also feeling the heat. One of the forums on Apple's Apple Discussion site indicates that a host of users' iPhones are overheating. One user said a friend's Apple iPhone 3G S "got extremely hot. He almost put it into the fridge."
The early blame seems to fall on games and GPS, resource-intensive applications that are pumping up the battery until it gets too hot to handle and eventually overheats.
Even over on PC World, Melissa J. Perenson wrote that her Apple iPhone 3G S "became very hot. Very, very hot -- not just on the back, but the entire length of the front face, too." At the time, she was using a game and then the Web browser over a Wi-Fi connection with the device plugged in. "Toasty doesn't even describe how surprisingly hot it got. It was too hot to even put the phone against my face."Just when you thought the Apple iPhone 3G S couldn't get any hotter, the popular... more
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Scientist John Singleton insists that Albert Einstein wouldn't be mad at him, even though at first blush Singleton appears to have twisted the famous physicist's theories about light into a pretzel.
Most people think Einstein said that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, but that's not really the case, Singleton said.
Einstein predicted that particles and information can't travel faster than the speed of light — but phenomenon like radio waves? That's a different story, said Singleton, a Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellow.
Singleton has created a gadget that abuses radio waves so severely that they finally give in and travel faster than light.
The polarization synchrotron combines the waves with a rapidly spinning magnetic field, and the result could explain why pulsars — which are super-dense spinning stars that are a subclass of neutron stars — emit such powerful signals, a phenomenon that has baffled many scientists, Singleton said.
"Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit radio waves in pulses, but what we don't know is why these pulses are so bright or why they travel such long distances," Singleton said. "What we think is these are transmitting the same way our machine does."
And beyond explaining what has been a bit of a mystery to the astronomical community, Singleton's discovery could have wide-ranging technological impacts in areas such as medicine and communications, he said.
"Because nobody's really thought about things that travel faster than light before, this is a wide-open technological field," Singleton said.
One possible use for the resulting speedy radio waves — which are packed into a very powerful wave the size of a pencil point — could be the creation of a new generation of cell phones that communicate directly to satellites, rather than transmitting through relay towers as they now do.
Those phones would have more reliable service and would also be more difficult for hackers to intercept, Singleton said.
Another application could be in very targeted chemotherapy, where a patient takes the drugs, and the radio waves are used to activate them very specifically in the area around a tumor, he said.
If Einstein were still alive, he probably wouldn't be all that surprised by the discovery, Perez said, even if it does seem on the surface to conflict with some of his theories.
"He might have thought, 'why did this take so long,' " Perez said.Scientist John Singleton insists that Albert Einstein wouldn't be mad at him,... more
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When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week.
My dad had told me it was the iPod of its day.
He had told me it was big, but I hadn't realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.
When I saw it for the first time, its colour also struck me. Nowadays gadgets come in a rainbow of colours but this was only one shade - a bland grey.
--I remember my walkman during middle school (portable CD players were still too expensive for me to get) I thought I was the shiz! And I wouldn't give up my iPod for anything today.When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in... more
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Totally getting this tweeting cat door.... :)
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In this Obsessable Ten we take a look at two fistsful of the most interesting hardware hacks interconnecting us with our appliances, our pets, and yes, even residents of the womb. Read on for a glimpse of this strange new world in which these walls can totally talk.
Article here: http://www.obsessable.com/feature/the-obsessable-ten-top-twitter-hardware-hacks/Totally getting this tweeting cat door.... :)
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In this... more
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Palm Inc (PALM.O) posted a narrower-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter loss on Thursday, and highlighted strong demand for its just-unveiled Pre smartphone.
Palm's shares rose more than 14 percent in after-hours trading.
Executives said early signs were promising for the Pre, which will compete head-to-head with Apple Inc's (AAPL.O) iPhone and Research in Motion's (RIM.TO) BlackBerry and which Palm hopes will lead the company out of persistent losses.
Palm said demand for the Pre was exceeding its expectations. The device is expected to enhance margins at the company, which in past years has steadily relinquished market share to rivals.
Avian Securities' Matthew Thornton estimated Palm booked revenue for 70,000 Pre units in the May quarter, which ended May 29. He said that, along with a more favorable tax rate and lower-than-expected operating expenses, helped the company blow by Wall Street estimates.
"We're successfully ramping supply to meet demand that is strong and growing," Chief Executive Officer Jon Rubinstein told analysts on a conference call, referring to the Pre.
The device, which went on sale at the beginning of June, has garnered generally favorable reviews. Analysts estimate Palm has shipped about 150,000 units so far.
More at original article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE55O62A20090626Palm Inc (PALM.O) posted a narrower-than-expected fiscal fourth quarter loss on... more
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Want to know when to stop tweeting and look heavenward for a view of the International Space Station? Follow one more account, then.
Several websites carry information about the space station's path through the sky, but until now there's been no service to alert people when the station is near them.
Dutch journalists Govert Schilling and Jaap Meijers have built a Twitter page to let people know when to look up.
The international, manned space station ISS is so easy to see mainly because of its huge solar panels that reflect sunlight. Since the start in 1998 the space station has orbited the earth over 60,000 times.
A new series of exceptionally bright passes will start in Europe this week. Other continents too will see – weather permitting – many great passes, for instance on July 7 in the United States and July 10 in East Asia.
People using Twitter can now receive an alert when the ISS will be passing at the location in their Twitter profile. All they have to do is follow:
Twitter account @twisst: www.twitter.com/twisst
Twisst may be the first service on Twitter that sends out such highly personalised information. Twisst sends an alert to every follower personally, wherever in the world that person may be.
An example here - http://twisst.nl/?294Want to know when to stop tweeting and look heavenward for a view of the International... more
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The internet suffered a number of slowdowns as people the world over rushed to verify accounts of Michael Jackson's death.
Search giant Google confirmed to the BBC that when the news first broke it feared it was under attack.
Millions of people who Googled the star's name were greeted with an error page rather than a list of results.
It warned users "your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application".
"It's true that between approximately 2.40PM Pacific and 3.15PM Pacific, some Google News users experienced difficulty accessing search results for queries related to Michael Jackson and saw the error page," said Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker.
It was around this time that the singer was officially pronounced dead.
Google's trends page showed that searches for Michael Jackson had reached such a volume that in its so called "hotness" gauge the topic was rated "volcanic".
The BBC news website reported that traffic to the site at 0400 BST was 48% higher than average.The internet suffered a number of slowdowns as people the world over rushed to verify... more
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The first iPhone application to accept nudity "The Hottest Girls" "...is temporarily sold out. The server usage is extremely high because of the popularity of this app. Thus, by not distributing the app, we can prevent our servers from crashing. Those who already have the app will still be able to use our app. To answer the question on everyone’s mind: Yes, the topless images will still be there when it is sold again," according to the applications development team.
So is this BS? Is this just them covering up for Apple pulling it? I don’t think so. - MG SieglerThe first iPhone application to accept nudity "The Hottest Girls"... more
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tched
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3 years ago
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I agree with the design similarities. Bing is pretty much an exact replica of Kayak when you look at them side-by-side. I'm not saying it was intentional on Microsoft's part, but they tend to look like the big, bad guys in a situation like this.
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Kayak, the popular multi-airline airfare search engine, thinks Microsoft Bing’s new travel search engine looks so much like its own that it’s confusing Kayak users. The travel search company sent Microsoft a legal letter last week telling them to cut it out, Wired.com has learned.
Microsoft heralded its travel search as one of the key ways that its revamped search engine Bing bested Google by helping users make decisions, rather than just finding information.
Its search results for an itinerary presents users with sliders and check boxes on the left that let searchers change times and specify airlines. Search results reload instantly as boxes are clicked and sliders slid.
There’s no question Bing feels like Kayak. When Microsoft showed us the search engine under embargo, this reporter’s first comment upon seeing the travel page demo’d was “This looks like Kayak.” Our Bing review described its interface as “uncomfortably close to Kayak’s,” an observation that others made as well.
Kayak noticed too.
“We have contacted them through official channels about concerns about the similarities between Bing and Kayak,” Kayak’s chief marketing officer Robert Birge told Wired.com “From the look and feel of their travel product, they seem to agree with our approach to the market.”
That’s careful language for “Microsoft copied our stuff wholesale.”
Microsoft’s Whitney Burk denies that there’s any copying going on.
“We are discussing the matter with Kayak,” Burk said in emailed statement. “Bing Travel is based on independent development by Microsoft and Farecast.com, which Microsoft acquired in 2008. Any contrary allegations are without merit.”
Copyright law offers some protection for a website’s look-and-feel, but it’s not easy to prove.
Others noticed as well.
For instance, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s David Radin reviewed Bing, noting that the travel site “feels so much like Kayak that without asking, I assumed Microsoft licensed the technology from Kayak. Can you say ‘eerily similar’?”
Douglas Sims, the president of an IT consulting firm in Tennessee, noted the similarity too, inspiring him to write a short essay on his website:
Bing Travel is like Kayak in more ways than just the layout and visual design. The navigation, the automatic loading of results from different airlines (using ajax), even the results themselves are almost identical.
In an interview, Sims said he had no connection to Kayak but was moved to write about the comparison because he was a longtime admirer of Kayak’s interface. In early June, he had friends writing to tell him how cool Microsoft’s search was.
“I felt offended,” Sims said. “I thought Kayak did an awesome job, and now my friends are giving credit to someone else.”
He noted that Microsoft’s travel search engine includes the same shading on the gray sliding bars as Kayak’s site does.
“I design stuff like this sometimes,” Sims said. “I’ve always said I can’t just copy other people’s work, you can’t just rip it off, but in hindsight, is it fair game? Maybe I should do that.”I agree with the design similarities. Bing is pretty much an exact replica of Kayak... more
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