technology
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15 May 2008 |
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Awfully cool footage of a jet-powered flightsuit!
The future is here (again) and for once it didn't come from California, which can only bring us men marrying men these days, harumph! ...just kidding! As soon as I get my airplane suit I'm jetting out west and coming back with a husband. For maximum gayness, we'll be holding hands as we swoop back over the Rockies.
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03 Jan 2008 |
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17 Dec 2007 |
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I dare any man not to wince during the carrot peeling portion of this TV commercial . . . it's like they've harnessed the worst aspect of sex on a beach.
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20 Jul 2007 |
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A robot Elvis head is now available, presumably to address your unmet social needs.
The king, sharing his tasteful pink undercoating with you
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17 Nov 2006 |
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Gee, what a surprise. Apparently it took all of 48 hours.
"The reader - I bought one for £250 - has to say hello to the chip and tell it that it is authorised to make contact. The key to that is in the date of birth, etc. Once they communicate, the conversation is encrypted, but I wrote some software in about 48 hours that made sense of it.
"The Home Office has adopted a very high encryption technology called 3DES - that is, to a military-level data-encryption standard times three. So they are using strong cryptography to prevent conversations between the passport and the reader being eavesdropped, but they are then breaking one of the fundamental principles of encryption by using non-secret information actually published in the passport to create a 'secret key'. That is the equivalent of installing a solid steel front door to your house and then putting the key under the mat."
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23 Jun 2006 |
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SawStop is a pretty cool table saw that keeps you from using it to cut hot dogs. It's got a built-in safety braking system that automagically shuts down upon contact with a hot dog. I'd imagine it also works if you accidently shove a digit or limb into it. Cool for woodworkers, not so cool for those bad movie woodshop fight scenes.
I'd imagine that my grandfather, a hobbyist woodworker in his day, would've said, "Bah! In my day, you lost the finger, and ya liked it!" (Note: grandpa died with 10 fingers.)
In all seriousness, watch the "Why SawStop?" video, which shows how it works a little over halfway through. It's pretty amazing.
[via the boing]
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21 May 2005 |
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The EFF needs your help to kill the Broadcast Flag in Congress. Write your representative and tell them what you think of crippled, big brother-infected technology.
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24 Mar 2005 |
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THIS is what I want for my Birthday!
"Tulip E-Go notebook inlaid with solid palladium white gold plates in which thousands of brilliant cut diamonds have been set. The quality is V.V.S. top-Wesselton and the total weight is 80.00 Crt.
The brilliant cut diamonds are microscopic and pave set with surgical precision. This magnificent end result is possible thanks to the use of brilliant cut diamonds with a large variety of diameters."
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06 Jan 2005 |
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Mac iTunes for PCs may be the the most garbage-y software I have ever loaded. Seriously, RealPlayer may have caused me less pain. In spite of everything wrong with it, thank god they got all the plastic-look buttons to match. It's real pretty.
...Real Men of Genius
(a fresh rant from jpeg, in a new format)
This one's for you Mister computer "soft" on-off switch inventor. For millions of years, machines knew their place, and humans held dominion. If you understood cause & effect, you could operate the space shuttle. But YOU had the courage to ask "What if the power switch only worked some of the time?"
Now whether your cd drive is grinding your Lindsey Lohan porno cd to plastic shavings or sparks are shooting out of your keyboard, you're not turning your system off till IT decides it's ready.
It might take a few minutes. It might take till Arbor Day.
Thanks to you, our computers sneer, "Push that On/Off button all you want, tech-wussie! I'm in control here."
So go cook a turkey, it's going to be a while,
and while you're at it, crack open a Bud Light
(bg vocals: Mister computer "soft" on-off switch inventor)
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06 Oct 2004 |
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Designed by a team of researchers from Institut National des Sciences Appliquées and the Hôpital de la Croix Rousse, both in Lyon, France, the device simulates the delivery of an infant using a hydraulic system which simulates the movement of a baby through its mother's pelvis.
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10 Sep 2004 |
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Dorkbot looks for gigantor cellphones thinking it'll help him pick up chicks.
"Imagine this: I'll walk into a bar and ask for a girl's number, then break out my phone," he said. "How could you say no to that?"
Uh, Eugene, like this: "No, gigantic cellphone dork."
via kottke
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24 Jul 2004 |
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Today I saw the word "Digicam" in type so small on a website that I thought it said "Digician," as in 'someone who works magic with digital technology.'
It's so horrible I'm thinking of putting it on my business cards.
Use it this week in a bullshit sentence of your own making.
Remember, you heard it here first.
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22 Jul 2004 |
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Looks like a cool phone....
Even if it is from Samsung
Continue reading "Best Cell Phone Commercial. Evah." »
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27 Jun 2004 |
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"It may soon be possible to carry around an AK-47 assault rifle and an iPod with you down the street - and be arrested for carrying the iPod."
...
In his floor speech introducing the measure, [Utah Senator Orrin] Hatch said that once people are given PCs, they are bound to infringe. (Many would agree with him there). So he frames his bill as a protection. Hatch said people weren't aware that they were breaking the law by running P2P software, (citing work by Harvard's Berkman Center, which says the Senator quoted them out of context) and therefore running "piracy machines" that had been designed to mislead their users. Therefore, his argument goes, the users are in need of protection from 'inducement'.
Guh. So, according to that logic, why don't we just start charging gun owners with murder right now? 'Cause you know eventually someone's gonna be induced to pop a cap in someone.
"But officer, I didn't mean to run that red light, my car induced me with all that horsepower!"
Would someone introduce a bill to protect me from uptight, ancient, out-of-touch Senators who will flip flop on an issue over a steak dinner and a lobbyist blowjob? Loosen the collar, Orrin, I think your brain is in need of oxygen.
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02 Jun 2004 |
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This project was initially fueled by the desire to explore the MIDI protocol. It was decided that this would be accomplished by building a MIDI device. I also aimed to make something novel that had never been done before. But to balance out the unusual nature of its design, I wanted to also to create something that was very musical.After much consideration of different technical design aspects and contemplating various musical ideas, I was able to arrive at a project that would fulfill all of my musical and engineering goals.An intelligent MIDI sequencer was designed with hamster control.
My theory is that Levy came up with the term Hamster Control after a couple of Cornell U. bong sessions and reverse engineered everything else. Unfortunately the mp3 example is less like Richard D. James (what I was hoping for) and more like... something definately not created by hamsters.
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19 May 2004 |
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Boycott Gillette uncovers Gillette's nefarious plans to track and photograph people who buy their products.
Thanks Adream!
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07 Mar 2004 |
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This site leaks internal memos (with commentary) about the evil thinking behind Realplayer, which I recall as the worst internet product ever devised.
"Real would resort to disgusting (and probably illegal) tricks. One page in the process would show the user some very legitimate choices above the "fold." However, beneath the fold, Real had options for additional plug-ins with dubious value such as sound enhancers and web accelerators, that were selected BY DEFAULT. If a user did not scroll down (and there was no indication that a user might need to do so) they would not see that there were choosing to purchase around $50 in additional software."
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28 Jan 2004 |
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Dutch firm Philips Electronics said on January 26, 2004 it was preparing to mass-produce a slim, book-sized display panel onto which consumers could download newspapers and magazines -- then roll up and put away. The 5-inch display, which can show detailed images, can be rolled up into a pen-sized holder. If connected to a mobile phone, it can also be used to download web pages, a book or email. Examples of the display are shown. (Philips via Reuters)
Another article on the devices
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23 Jan 2004 |
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12 Jan 2004 |
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When you first meet Steve Mann, it seems as if you've interrupted him appraising diamonds or doing some sort of specialized welding. Because the first thing you notice is the plastic frame that comes around his right ear and holds a lens over his right eye.
But quickly you see that there's more to his contraption: A tiny video camera is affixed to the plastic eyepiece. Multicolored wires wrap around the back of Mann's head. Red and white lights blink under his sweater.
Mann greets you, warmly at first, though he soon gets distracted by something on the tiny computer monitor wedged over his eye.
In fact, being with Mann sometimes feels like the ultimate, in-your-face version of having a dinner companion who talks on a cell phone.
...More about the cyborg experiments here.
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13 Nov 2003 |
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Holy crap this is cool. This seems like the type of vehicle that would "hum" in that sci-fi vehicle sort of way.
via more like this
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30 Oct 2003 |
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29 Oct 2003 |
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Cripees! It ain't even Halloween yet, and holiday shit has been out for weeks. So let's hop to it, lil' consumers! Feed the beast that is the good ol' U.S. of A. economy!
My Christmas List.
What do you want?
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19 Sep 2003 |
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Walkie-talkie type messaging on your cell phone (via software). Not earth shattering, but still kinda cool.
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24 Aug 2003 |
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Classes haven't even started yet and I've seen more than a few Segways zipping around campus. It turns out that Houston is a Segway test market with the first dealership (Segway of Texas), which provided them to some of the faculty at Rice.
Here's a kinda long article about Segways at Rice from the Houston Chronicle
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11 Aug 2003 |
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Hey Chris! You thought Galaga was annoying? Wait 'til I got hippos bellowing on my phone. Yee haw!
via boing boing
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31 Jul 2003 |
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It's the same guy who jumped off the Statue in Rio...
via Drudge
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28 Jul 2003 |
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysian (Reuters) -- Malaysian Muslim men can divorce their wives through text messages on mobile telephones...
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16 Jul 2003 |
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The developers of the Bowlingual dog translator device have continued their quest to bridge an understanding between different species with the introduction of Meowlingual, which they claim translates cat cries into human language.
---- snip ----
The dog translator was awarded the 2002 Ig Nobel Peace Prize for promoting harmony between the species by the US humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, July 16, 2003)
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09 Jul 2003 |
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Because surely the demographic that uses Wi-Fi is also the one that enjoys low grade fast food.
Ronald and an anonymous pink friend give it a try: "...single, very white clown transvestite with huge feet seeks voluptuous, kinky female for anonyomus drive-through service. Must be into burger grease, McNuggets..."
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30 Jun 2003 |
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Take a break and zone out to Hektor the wonder spraypaint-inkjet printer. Watch the movie.
via boing boing
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20 Jun 2003 |
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09 May 2003 |
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Pasadena's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA plan to send a satellite to crash into a comet in 2005 and aboard the craft will be a CD with the names of perhaps thousands of Earthlings.
Deep Impact will be the first mission to make a spectacular, football-stadium-sized crater, seven to 15 stories deep, into the speeding comet.
If you'd like your name on the CD, submit it here.
You get a nifty certificate too...
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29 Apr 2003 |
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I'm gettin an AK-MP3! Think anyone on the train would tell you to turn down your music with one of these on your hip?
via boing boing
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25 Apr 2003 |
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Bring pleasure to your Nokia phone...The Purring Kitty transforms Nokia mobile phones into discrete, vibrating massagers.
Its tender purring vibrations provide perfect company on even the loneliest winter nights.
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11 Apr 2003 |
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It's like do-it-yourself bartering!
(Note: I am in no way condoning this type of behavior. I just think it's clever.)
via boing boing
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08 Apr 2003 |
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Next thing you know, they'll be giving their soldiers sticks...
via the morning news
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01 Apr 2003 |
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27 Mar 2003 |
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Judging from the cooing at a demonstration of Sony Corp.'s diminutive SDR robot, few would dispute just how cute the humanoid machine is.
Its creator Masahiro Fujita, who called it "him" instead of "it," seemed to feel genuinely guilty as he pushed it over to show how easily it gets back up.
"I don't like this," he said.
But while Sony, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, may have succeeded in creating a cuddly humanoid robot, it still faces a daunting question.
Who would buy it?
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26 Mar 2003 |
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Q passes on a frighteningly cool movie of a Javelin missle test-fire. Holy crap.
QT movie 4.3 MB
Photos of test
via Q
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12 Mar 2003 |
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Japan's Sony Corp said on Monday it would start sales next month of the world's first DVD recorder that uses blue laser light and can pack a two-hour high-definition TV program onto a single disc. It won't be cheap, with a retail list price of 450,000 yen ($3,800) while low-end DVD recorders using conventional red lasers go for as little as 50,000-70,000 yen.
Sony's Blu-ray machine will be able to play red-laser discs using the DVD-R and DVD-RW formats, but not those using the DVD-RAM or DVD+RW formats.
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Someone ought to send out an internal email:
The music industry this week condemned the launch of two recording systems that will let people copy between 30 and 100 hours of music onto a single disc. The launches, from electronics giants Sony and Philips, are being seen as a potential pirates' charter.
"It's a no-brainer. Anything which lets people pirate more music like this has to be very bad news for the music industry," says a spokesman for Britain's record industry trade association, the BPI.
Why Sony should want to launch a recorder that might make piracy easier may seem surprising, as its Sony Music division makes and sells CDs. While Sony Music did not want to comment on its sister company's launch, Mike Tsurumi, a president of Sony Consumer Electronics in Berlin, insists that the move makes sense. "The music companies need to change their business model," he says.
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27 Feb 2003 |
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If you thought it would be impossible to make mass music any more flat and uncreative, think again. This program is sure to do the job. Take all the uniqueness and human idiosyncracies out of pop music and replace it with market-proven pop algorithms through the magic of machine logic.
Kill me now.
via Jim MacGregor
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26 Feb 2003 |
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21 Feb 2003 |
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Using a combination of trade tricks and clever programming, hackers have thoroughly compromised security at America Online, potentially exposing the personal information of AOL's 35 million users.
The most recent exploit, launched last week, gave a hacker full access to Merlin, AOL's latest customer database application. As a security measure, Merlin runs only on AOL's internal network, but savvy hackers have found a way to break in.
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19 Feb 2003 |
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The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures and stories will then be posted here.
Close to home...
via Qs Pal KK
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15 Feb 2003 |
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12 Feb 2003 |
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05 Feb 2003 |
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A Japanese scientist has developed a coat which appears to make the wearer invisible.
Perhaps this is the answer to John's post.
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04 Feb 2003 |
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"Dan, it's your father!" she shouted.
"Give me the phone," her husband replied. "You're messing with me."
"I just about fell out of my chair," Al Kinkade said. Kinkade, 49, had called to solicit a donation to a police and sheriff's Explorer Scout program.
(Not a good enough reason to ditch Privacy Manager)
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03 Feb 2003 |
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What happened to moving toward the relatively successful unmanned, lower-cost probes and robotics projects at NASA? Who doesn't love a spunky lil' robot explorer that can be re-sold as a LEGO kit?
Capitalism, of course, is supposed to weed out such inefficiencies. But in the American system, the shuttle's expense made the program politically attractive. Originally projected to cost $5 million per flight in today's dollars, each shuttle launch instead runs to around $500 million. Aerospace contractors love the fact that the shuttle launches cost so much.
Throwaway rockets can fail too. Last month a French-built Ariane exploded on lift-off. No one cared, except the insurance companies that covered the payload, because there was no crew aboard. NASA's insistence on sending a crew on every shuttle flight means risking precious human life for mindless tasks that automated devices can easily carry out. Did Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon really have to be there to push a couple of buttons on the Mediterranean Israeli Dust Experiment, the payload package he died to accompany to space?
And perhaps most sickenly:
The bottled water alone that crews use aboard the space station costs taxpayers almost half a million dollars a day. (No, that is not a misprint.) There are no scientific experiments aboard the space station that could not be done far more cheaply on unmanned probes. The only space-station research that does require crew is "life science," or studying the human body's response to space. Space life science is useful but means astronauts are on the station mainly to take one another's pulse, a pretty marginal goal for such an astronomical price.
via the morning news
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02 Feb 2003 |
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Fascinating article from 1980 on Columbia.
The main cause of delay is currently the shuttle's refractory tiles, which disperse the heat of reentry from the ship's nose and fuselage. Columbia must be fitted out with 33,000 of these tiles, each to be applied individually, each
