Category: Cool Stuff

The car of the future – details today

MM-car_of_the_future.jpg

In the future, we can expect some great advances in automotive technology.

LIGHTER, more powerful and comfortable cars, that will cost less, run further without adjustment and will be easier to handle, are being forecast, by automotive engineers.

. . .

In Europe automobiles have been made to run as far as eighty miles to the gallon of gasoline. Supercharging, or forcing the gas into the cylinders instead of allowing it to be drawn in by the suction of the piston, has enabled the weight of the motor to be cut down and resulted in performance undreamed of a few years ago.

Puts the cars we suffer with now to shame, doesn’t it? We’ll soon see improvements in pick-up, quieter and more fuel-efficient city driving, longer lasting tires, more resilient finishes on the paint jobs, and better long-term driving.

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Lights out? Lights on!

You’re working at your desk late at night. It’s dark outside. There’s a storm going on that makes you just want to curl up in bed and and sleep through it. You just have to finish a tiny bit more work and you can go to bed. Suddenly, the power is out in the house. You might as well go to bed now, since you can’t work in the dark. But getting to bed can now be tough, since the kids didn’t finish cleaning up before bed and you were too focused on your work to clean right away. Now there are obstacles between you and your bed, and man is it dark.

If you just had The Power-Failure Light installed, this wouldn’t be a problem.

lights-on.jpgThis device attaches between the socket and bulb of a standard table or floor lamp and automatically provides up to 8 hours of uninterrupted light from six bright LEDs as soon as power is lost, eliminating the need to search for flashlights during a blackout. Powered by built-in rechargeable batteries that automatically recharge via the lamp socket once power is restored and never require replacement, the device has an integrated photocell that detects ambient light and prevents the LEDs from turning on during the daytime or when power is restored. Compatible with incandescent and compact fluorescent bulbs. 5″ H x 5″ W x 3″ D. (3 1/2 lbs.)

It’s $40 (minus a nickel), but I can honestly say that I think it would be worth the price for 1-2 of these on each level of the house. I may just end up ordering one of these before the week is out. (via Gizmodo)

[tags]Hammacher Schlemmer, Power-Failure Light, Lights on when the power is off[/tags]

FallingWater – must-see computer generated movie

Take one of the most visually inventive and uniquely designed houses everwikipedia-FallingwaterWright_resize , get a fresh new method of presenting a modern view of it, and animate the whole thing. If you take the time to see it, you’ll find one of the neatest animations ever put online.

If you hit the movie, you’ll probably sit through 15-20 seconds of it and start to wonder “Why the hell did Randy suggest I watch this?” Trust me, you’re almost to the part that makes it worth seeing. You’ll go through another 10-15 seconds and think, after reading the above, “OK, now he’s just taunting me – there’s nothing to see here.”

At this point, you’ll start to see the animation, and it will all come together for you. Once you see:

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Centipede made by a girl?

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Just very recently, I found out that the old arcade game Centipede was programmed by a woman – Dona Bailey – the only woman programmer at Atari at the time. Although I sucked mightily at the game, I always loved Centipede. Unfortunately, the industry was not kind, nor did it recognize that she was worth keeping.

Did things change once you’d done Centipede?
Yes, but I’m not sure it was for the better! There was a lot of surly attention after that. It’s not always popular to do something [like] that — the first thing that happened, I was not ready for at all, and I still haven’t figured out how to deal with this part — people just started, y’know… the typical kind of thing that people would say was, either it was a fluke or I didn’t really do it, somebody else did it. I’m a very peaceful person, and I felt sick of fighting, so I really just disappeared, and I haven’t had contact with the industry for at least twenty years.

Eh, what can I say? Men weren’t very open to women in the industry then, and while I understand it is better now, I’m sure there are still places where women are viewed as outsiders to the gaming industry.

Regardless of that, though – the entire interview is pretty cool to read, really. She pretty much left gaming not too long after the success of Centipede, but is now back into it somewhat – she teaches a game design course at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Humanized products for improved work

While reading a commentary at Coding Horror on the fallibility of tabbed interfaces, I found reference to a really slick tool for better managing windows, processes, and yes, even tabs in Windows. Called Enso Launcher, this application gives you a stupidly simple method of finding the program or tab you want to use.

On average, it takes over 10 seconds to open Notepad using the Start menu–and that’s if you happen to remember that Notepad is in the Start menu. By the time you find it, you’ll probably have forgotten what you wanted to jot down in the first place. Enso Launcher typically takes just over half a second-20 times faster than the Start menu.

nso Launcher’s open command places applications, websites, and files at your fingertips. No more time wasted digging through the Start menu; no more time spent learning your web browser’s latest Bookmarks system. Enso Launcher even passes the Over the Phone Test-which the Start menu certainly doesn’t do. To see how all this works, click on the movie below.

There is a video on the site (which plays inline, so you don’t need to open another program or anything) showing just how simple the tool is to use.

After having looked at this tool, I decided to check out their other product – Enso Words – and let me tell you – this is the Humanized tool that really caught my interest. It is a universally accessible (for universal values equal to the computer you have it installed on and running) spell-checker that’s damn smart about working with you to correct spelling errors. From what I’ve seen of it, this is a real gem.

Spell check is a fundamental: wherever you type, you’ll need to check spelling. So why isn’t it available everywhere? With Enso Words, it is. From Microsoft Word to Mozilla Firefox to Macromedia Fireworks, Enso Words gives you a spell check that makes the others jealous. It’s simple and it’s elegant: it really feels like magic.

There is a video (again, inline) on the page that shows just how slick and smart this tool is. It’s a $20 (minus a nickel) purchase with a free trial download available. I plan on testing this on my desktop today or tomorrow when I have a few free minutes. If it works just as well as it appears to in the videos, I’ll be getting spendy on it. This looks to be even more useful and accessible than the online spellchecked SpellJax that I highlighted here recently in the asides section (right sidebar).

[tags]Words, Enso, Humanized, Spell checking, Useful tools, Stupidly simple, Interface, Design[/tags]

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LEGO Death Star II deal

It’s no longer a brand new set, but I really dig the LEGO Death Star II set. At the LEGO store, it lists for $300 (minus 1 penny).  For no particular reason, I was looking at this same set at Buy.com and saw they have it listed for $253 (minus 1 penny).

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Clearly, you need to go purchase one now, and buy one for me as well.  I will gladly accept your gift for no additional charge.

And if you want to see more on the building of this sucker, read up on this crazy detailed and picture-laden LiveJournal (and that’s a good thing) and/or check out this Flickr page where someone documents their build from unboxing to completion as well.  Final assembled set is damn big (approximately 25 inches tall) – not that size matters (I keep telling myself that).

[tags]LEGO, Death Star II, Star Wars, Size doesn’t matter, Crazy big, Cool[/tags]

Set your USB key up to auto-run on insertion

I’ve known this was possible for a while, but I hadn’t looked for nor stumbled upon instructions for putting an autorun file on a USB key and getting it to work. This week, obviously, I found the instructions over at Daily Cup of Tech for making this happen. I can see several good and nefarious uses for this.

The autorun.inf file is the key to getting your USB drive (or CD-ROM drive, for that matter) to perform certain actions automatically and customize it’s look in My Computer. The purpose of this article is to shed some light on how this can be done.

Topics covered are:

  • Autorun.inf Structure
  • Setting a Custom Icon
  • Naming Your USB Drive
  • Setting AutoPlay Options
  • Adding Context Menu Items
  • Changing Default Action
  • Viewing a File
  • School’s Out, Time To Play!

Unfortunately, the author doesn’t have anchors set at each heading, or I would link you directly to each section. Fortunately, the entire article is brief and pretty easy to follow, so this isn’t a big negative in the article layout.

USB key break-ins are a real security threat, and this kind of tutorial helps you make the security breach even easier if you are in to that kind of thing. Whether you depend on natural curiosity to cause the breach or use something like the above-linked tutorial to get a tool running and stealing what you need from your victim, the USB key is handy. This also means you should be aware that the bad guys are learning (or already know) these things and will use them to attack you some day.

So to end, the next natural question for you, the reader, should be “How do I stop this vulnerability from impacting my system/network/company?” now. Well, there are many places that have the answer. I haven’t found one that I would point out as The best way to do this – this Microsoft technet article has the necessary information if you already know your way around the registry, as does this more concise and clearer article. Other helpful points include this CD-Freaks forum post asking that question, as does this web site that seems to focus on autorun features/bugs/benefits. That last one is probably the clearest, so may be the one I point folks to in the future.

[tags]USB autorun, USB keys, Security, DIY, Daily cup of tech[/tags]

AMD to open ATI graphic specs

This is purely of interest to the small crowd fitting in the union of sets gamer – linux user – ATI user with the possibility of developer being an indicator of some note. Word on the street (or rather, on the most current Linux sites) is that an AMD representative has announced plans at the kernel summit to enable development of open source drivers for ATI graphics processors – at least for the R500 and forward.

A quick report from the kernel summit: AMD’s representative at the summit has announced that the company has made a decision to enable the development of open source drivers for all of its (ATI) graphics processors from the R500 going forward. There will be specifications available and a skeleton driver as well; a free 2D driver is anticipated by the end of the year. The rest will have to be written; freeing of the existing binary-only driver is not in the cards, and “that is better for everybody.” Things are looking good on this front. More in the kernel summit report to come.

That’s a serious boost to the credibility of an ATI-based Linux system for gamers at the very least. I know personally I have avoided ATI cards for years due to long-term Windows driver issues (which are slowly resolved, if ever) and barely useable at times Linux drivers. It’s hard to do, though, given how powerful ATI videocards have become, but until reliable drivers are there, I avoid them. Well, with the open source community working on them with more information, hopefully the Linux issues will soon be cleared up and I’ll be able to seriously consider an ATI card in a future upgrade.

The comments in the linked article are also worth perusing, just to get a feel for the reactions from the open source side of tech.

[tags]Linux, ATI, Open Source, Kernel summit, Graphics, GPU[/tags]

See toast toasting toasty-toasted bread

Mmmmm.  Toast.  I thought I’d posted about a similar gadget here before, but I can’t seem to find it on the Blahg now, so I must be mistaken.  View the toast-making goodness of the transparent toaster.

engadget-9-3-07-transparent_toaster This transparent toaster allows you to see the bread while it is toasting so you’re never surprised by toast that comes out too dark. This idea is based on the transparent heating glass featured in this issue. Although the glass does not currently get hot enough to toast bread, someday this application may be possible. The concept was developed by the Inventables Concept Studio.


I’m going out on a limb here and guessing that one wouldn’t want to butter their bread before popping it in here, though.  Just a handy tip from my awesome and over-sized brain to you.  (via Engadget)

[tags]Toast, Transparency, Mmmmm[/tags]

Beeeeeer!

Posted just for a few (i.e., two) folks I know who read the Blahg and are in to beer. Now you can simplify your brew creation by building The Device, throwing in your ingredients, and waiting for ambrosia to pour forth.

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Seems to take some of the fun out of brewing, though, doesn’t it? Oh – and you don’t actually get directions, so I’m perhaps a bit misleading suggesting you can build one yourself. But you can get a step-by-step view of the gadget at work. (via Gizmodo)

[tags]Beer, Beer – it’s what’s for dinner, Ambrosia, The Device[/tags]