Best New Technology

Is there nothing Lego cannot build? Guess not, as some hardcore Lego fans have managed to come up with an actual working electronic V8 engine that was created entirely from Lego Technic pieces. It took the inventor approximately half a year to come up with this, but I must say, the result is stunning to say the least. Good thing it doesn’t need any grease to run as things could get really messy from there onwards.

Photo: flattop341 / Flickr

Our ‘life without a cellphone experiment’ kicked up a lot of interest from readers (not least the estimable beer sipping, budgie loving John Brownlee of BoingBoing gadgets, who openly sneers at my almost-retro Sony Ericsson P900).

While my own experiment failed miserably (Brownlee: “Charlie Sorrel abandoned his quest to go a week without a cellphone within mere hours”) it’s worth looking at a few of the schemes you proposed, beginning with this quite excellent hack from regular Gadget Lab correspondent Andrea Biasi:

I’ve read some time ago about an Android application which used geographical data of the GPS to use different settings for different location. I didn’t inquire too much because I thought it was something like the supposed Vista feature which could recognize the “environment” and set itself differently depending on it.

But then came your post. And my idea. What about tweaking the aforementioned application to set a filtering list for your cellphone based on actual location. When I’m at work I don’t want mum to call me. Or when I’m at the pub I don’t want my boss to. And so on. I don’t have any idea if this feature is contained in the application I’m talking about. But the fact is that I don’t have any skill to implement such a thing and I don’t know how to suggest someone to do it. That is why I’m writing you to help me with my little cause: to create a virtual secretary who knows to whom I want to talk base on the location I’m in. Please spread the word. Life could be better.

This is great, and Andrea’s “virtual secretary” name fits it perfectly. Surely the point of technology is to make things easier for the user, and Android, with its open operating system, would surely be able to handle such a thing.

Others questioned my resolve. Regarding my need to use a phone as a doorbell, here’s reader “Frill”:

People in the 1870’s managed living on whatever floor you live on, without cell phones.

And this comment from Anonymous123:

Trust me, sir. If you didn’t have a cell phone, you could rearrange your life so it wasn’t necessary, just as humans have done for thousands of years before cell phones existed.

Both fair points, although this line of argument leads quickly to living in a cave and killing your own dinner. The point here is that it is possible to love technology and at the same time to despair at its social effects.

Much better were the accounts from readers who have successfully kicked the mobile habit. Bob, in the UK, has a home internet account from BT which gives him access to country-wide hotspots. He also uses the Fon service to get online, with the result that he can get his ipod Touch connected almost anywhere. This sounds like the perfect solution.

GreatWhiteNorth almost got killed thanks to his blackberry, and gave it up soon after:

There was an incident where the [Blackberry] went off and distracted me just as some junk fell off a truck in front of me. I hit the junk destroying two tires and rims and discovering just how lucky I am. Hence, BB always traveled in the trunk from that point onward.

What surprised me was how many of you already get by just fine without a ubiquitous connection. The general vibe in the comments on both posts was that of frustration at the intrusive nature of a mobile. Sure, you can ignore the calls, but the constant beeping is the sonic equivalent of the flashing blue lights on every home gadget: It is not just a form of pollution but, for many, a cause of anxiety.

To finish, a story of such astonishing backward thinking that we can only admire the dusty old minds that came up with it. From “sys admin”:

At our tennis club, cell phones are banned. If you want to reach someone, you have to call the bar and have a staff member find you, as though you were in 1975. There is a charm to this, a simple business call becomes an elaborate ceremony of urgency and courtesy.

I can almost image Lt. Columbo walking up to the bar, a few fingers in the air: “I told my office that I would be here, I hope you don’t mind.”

See Also:

Is It Possible to Live Without a Cellphone? [Gadget Lab]

A Week Without a Cellphone: The Results [Gadget Lab]

Maybe this will help shorten those long lines at the checkout counter. UCLA engineers say they have designed a bar code reader using a new imaging technique that is nearly a thousand times faster than the devices currently in use.

The new technique can produce one-dimensional bar codes with a frame rate on the order of 25 million frames per second, say the researchers.

Bar codes are big in retail for management of inventory but also used in other areas such as mail distribution. They are traditionally read by optically scanning the code’s alternating light and dark bars and then using a computer program to convert the resulting image into digital form.

Conventional bar code readers use either a laser beam for scanning or have a digital camera take a picture which is then recognized by the computer. Both methods limit the image-acquisition speed to less than 1,000 frames per second, say UCLA researchers.

Instead their scanner reads bar codes at a frame rate of 25 MHz, which is about 1,000 times faster than current technology. Typical camera-based bar code readers also require many optical-to-electrical converters  to capture the image as an array of pixel.

The UCLA developed scanner maps its image as a single pixel and is free of mechanically moving parts. It works by mapping the one-dimensional bar code image onto the spectrum of an ultrashort laser pulse. This is further mapped into an amplitude-modulated waveform, which is then captured with a single optical-to-electrical converter.

But till your favorite store gets this bar code reader— which may be a while— it is back to standing in those lines.

UCLA News Release

Photo: (Tom Loth/Flickr)

LG has officially announced the “World’s Slimmest 8 Megapixel Camera Phone”. We’re not surprised — LG’s schtick is to concentrate on the camera and tuck in the other phone functions around it, just like the Viewty we played with at this year’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The KC780 is just over half an inch thick (13.8mm), and can also shoot 30fps video.

A camera phone is undoubtedly handy, and we expect the new LG offering to be perfectly capable within the limitations of a tiny lens and sensor. With images of this size, though, you’ll be buying a few extra microSD cards (the phone has just 140MB of on-board memory). Other specifications are unclear, as LG has so far only released pictures of the slider phone.

We’re interested to know, though, what you, the Gadget Lab reader, thinks of cellphone cameras. Do you use them exclusively, or do you tote a proper camera too? Does the convenience make up for the inevitable loss in image quality? Tell us in the comments.

LG KC780 makes a go at the thinnest 8-megapixel cameraphone title [GSM Arena via New Launches]

The latest collaboration between two renowned brands, Acer and Seagate, has produced an outstanding improvement in notebook hard disk capacity, up to 500GB for new Acer laptops.  I, for one, am glad that Seagate has managed to meet the increasing demand for higher hard disk capacity on laptops.  As a frequent laptop user, I know how limiting it is to find out that I don’t have enough free space to meet my excessive multimedia needs.

The new 2.5-inch Seagate Momentus 5400.6 hard disk offers many great features including an overall areal density of 394 Gbytes per square inch.  For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the term, areal density is a parameter used to gauge the amount of bits that can be stored per unit length, area or volume.  Simply, it is always better to have a larger value for the areal density so you can store more data.  Most laptops in the current market only offer less than 200Gbytes per square inch of areal density.  In fact, most of the laptops barely reach 100Gbytes per square inch.

Let’s talk about the data transfer speed of the hard disk; this hard disk has a remarkable data transfer rate of 87 Megabytes per second.  That is faster than any other existing laptops operating on at 5400-rpm.  Of course, Seagate didn’t forget to include perpendicular recording technology which provides more than three times the value for storage density of conventional longitudinal recording. 

Durability-wise, Seagate has implemented a free-fall sensor called “G-Force Protection” to curb data losses upon a sudden fall.  The drive can handle up to 350 Gs when it is operating and up to a 1,000 Gs when not operating. 

Usually, these heavy specs would result in a power-sucking notebook that runs very hot.  Judging from my current notebook’s condition, even with a lot less incredible features, it tends to burn up so easily (and, of course, I don’t mean that literally!).  Rest assured as Seagate has firmly guaranteed that the drive is power-efficient.  In a nutshell, I think that the combination of high capacity, swift speed, and excellent durability makes this hard disk very interesting and will get me to check out the Acer notebooks that feature them.

Via [Seagate]

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Hot off the heels of a new DS rumor, here we are with the possible new displays for the said DS Part Deux. Could it just be the larger screens that are the only upgraded feature, or will we see this make an assault on the iphone with cellular capability? Would be interesting to see Nintendo up the ante in this department by throwing in as many goodies as possible (including the much needed graphics capability upgrade) so that Sony PSP fanboys can be silenced once and for all. Will Santa come early this year for Nintendo? Only time will tell.

I wonder whether the Samsung A637, also known as the Milky, is made in China. If so, does that mean it is tainted as well? Bad jokes aside, the Samsung Milky will come with the following specifications :-

• Dual-band EDGE and Dual-band WCDMA (850MHz/1900MHz)
• Bluetooth wireless access with A2DP
• 1.3 megapixel camera and camcorder
• Instant Messaging capability
• E-mail
• Alarm, calendar, calculator, record applications
• File viewer
• Multimedia Message Service (MMS)
• Multimedia capability (with included Music Player)
• Photo caller ID
• Speakerphone capability
• AT&T navigator with 30 days free trial
• Web browser

Looks like a budget phone by all means.

by Darren Murph, posted Sep 29th 2008 at 1:00PM

Now that we think about it, it’s been a hot minute since we’ve seen a new Stylistic tablet flow from the doors of Fujitsu-Siemens, but it has finally hit back with a new unit to keep the family alive. The Centrino 2-based ST6012 has been revealed on the firm’s website without much fanfare, though the specs are decent enough. We’re talking a Core 2 Duo SU9400 ULV processor, 12.1-inch WXGA (1,280 x 800) non-glare display, up to 4GB of RAM, optional WiFi / WWAN / Bluetooth modules, your choice of a 64GB SSD / 120GB to 320GB HDD, a built-in multicard reader, biometric scanner and a rather industrial motif. Mum’s the word on a price and release, and quite honestly, we can’t imagine those details ever being blasted from the rooftops.

[Via TabletPCReview]

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Aigo has begun to ship its Atom-powered P8860 MID for $699, making it available for the first time via official channels although the P8860 has been around on eBay for some time already. Word has it that Aigo has already inked a deal with both Intel and Microsoft, which means Windows XP drivers will be made available from the first of October onwards - an early Christmas present for people who have incomplete, touch screen-less XP installs.

After three unsuccessful flights, the fourth finally worked.  SpaceX has managed to get their Falcon 1 space craft into space.  Taking off from Kwajalein Atoll, an island in the South Pacific the Falcon 1 was able to fly into space, soaring above the International Space Station at a speed of 5200 meters per second.  The flight of the Falcon 1 makes it the first ever private space craft to actually get into space.

Previous Falcon 1 flights have ended in failure.  The third flight of the Falcon 1 ended in failure after just over three minutes when the release of the first stage rockets ended with a problem.  The second flight lasted for seven and a half minutes, and the first one lasting less than one minute.  SpaceX plans for more flights in 2009, hoping to get their Falcon 9 space craft in orbit during the next year.

With the Falcon 1 launching successfully, and the first Chinese space walk it seems space has become important again.  Perhaps with more launches from SpaceX civilian space travel will be possible in the coming years.  It’ll most likely be quite expensive at first, but eventually it will at least semi-affordable.

Read [Wired]

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