Very cool. I believe small cars and easily hourly rentable cars are going to dramatically increase in use in the future. This may well be one option. It looks fun.
The C1 is fully electric and gets 150 miles per charge. Lit Motors has target price is $13,000 with production starting in 2013.
Related: Toyota Scion iQ: 37 MPG – Wave Disk Engine Could Increase Efficiency 5 Times – Car Powered Using Compressed Air
Cell phone cameras have greatly increased the number of photos most of us have to share. Once you have them how to share them is the next question. There are various options that are pretty good for those that like them but also with some limitation: facebook (I don’t use it), Google’s Picasa (I don’t at all like how rigid Google is in how things are handled), Flickr and Smugbug (along with many others). I ran across a new site that seems like it might be nice: OpenPhoto.
The easiest way to signup is to use your dropbox account, for storage. If you don’t have a dropbox account yet, sign up (it is free).
If you have dropbox already, it should take less than 2 minutes to be up and running.
Good job, OpenPhoto. One feature I would like is to be able to edit the date of the photo (I have photos from the 1970s saying they are 5 months old (when converted to digital images) and I don’t see a way to edit it yet. This project is new, so that isn’t surprising. It would be nice to see that updated at some point.
Overall, it is very easy to use, and I really like how it keeps the photos in your control (to the extent your dropbox [or whatever you use] space is in your control). Very easy to assign rights (all rights reserved – or various creative commons licenses or your own license); on a per photo basis. You can also make photos public or private (for viewing over the web).
Unless you are sharing originals so other can print them out, for archival purposes (or something similar) you are probably wise to save the images in a much smaller file size. There is really no reason to upload 2 Mb images for people to look at on their monitor (unless there are going to zoom in like crazy). You can reduce the file sizes dramatically and what people see on their monitor will not change.
Here are my photos. It took me less than 10 minutes (and most of that was finding the photos and editing the text) for the first 2 I uploaded.
You can make groups, which is nice. Hopefully this allows you to share photos with groups (or will, at some point). I haven’t figured that part out yet. The software is open source, which I like. The idea behind it is to have something like wordpress that provide software that you can run for your own blog but this time it is to manage your own photos.
Related: Amazing New Light Field Camera: Adjust Focus After You Take the Picture – Curious Cat Travel Photo Essays – Curious Cat Travel Photo Blog
The Boxee Box is quite an excellent media hub. The Boxee allows you to manage your content and connect to the internet (by wireless or wired). You can even try out Boxee before you buy the box.
Download Boxee’s software and try it for free on your computer first, they will automatically import your account when you’re ready to buy a Boxee Box and bring the experience to your HDTV. Get tons of free stuff, and pay for the premium content you want. No monthly bill. No more paying for stuff you never watch.
You need to use you computer or external storage (the Boxee doesn’t have storage in the box) to watch your own content.
Boxee back
Related: Amazon’s Android Tablet, Kindle Fire, is Very Attractively Priced – Droid Incredible
Some people (me, for example) are bothered by noise much more than others are. I find it hard to sleep or concentrate when I am being distracted by random noises. Sound proofing (to prevent the noise from getting to you) is wonderful but often can not take care of all noise problems. In this case you essentially have to mask the noise with other noise.
Sleep Mate sound machine - it is small ( 5.8 x 5.8 x 3.8 inches ; 1.6 pounds)
The Sound Conditioner is a device specifically designed to produce sound similar to that of a fan but many (including me) find the sound more soothing than a fan. It is also very adjustable. But basically it just produces white noise by blowing air through adjustable openings. It also is nice if you don’t want to blow the air around your room (as a fan will do). It does require 115 volts (the leve used in the USA). They have an identical version called the Sleep Mate (but if you want something for an office the word, sleep can bother some managers). I would suggest getting the dual speed version (that is what I have).
Ecotones sound machine (it is also small 6.3 x 4.5 x 5.5 inches ; 2 pounds)
Related: Dealing with Noise Pollution in Your Condo – Kindle DX (the one that isn’t tiny) – Zojirushi Rice Cooker and Warmer
With the recent tragedy that hit Japan, Japanese companies have dedicated their time to finding solutions on how they could cope with threats from tsunami and natural disasters in the future. A small company named Cosmo Power came up with one answer with the Noah capsule.
Made from fiberglass, this capsule can hold up to 4 adults inside. Th gigantic tennis ball looking shelter has been tested to withstand crashes and impacts, even simulated dangers one could expect during earthquakes and tsunami. There is a small window so one can see outside and breathing holes located at the top. Recalling the videos of the Tsunami it is possible to imagine how this could have helped many of the victims of that recent tragedy.
Since the completion of Cosmo Power’s ark version, over 600 orders have been placed, at about $4,000 each. Hopefully, it can help save lives in any future calamities.
The video is in Japanese.
Imagine cooking perfect rice all the time that is a quality like of a restaurant rice but cooked it right at the comfort of home. Unbelievable? Well, actually it is possible with Zojirushi rice cooker. This is a no ordinary rice cooker because Zijorushi NS-LAC05XA uses the Fuzzy logic technology which controls the temperature of the rice cooker to let users cook any kind of rice, even rice like sushi, porridge, brown and white. Its front panel control has a colored LCD to display the timer and clock function. Cooked rice is always perfect and served hot all the time because Zojirushi rice cooker has an automatic warmer to keep the rice warm until you are ready to serve it.
The NS-LAC05XA rice cooker and warmer measures 11.5” x 9” x 7.25” which can cook up to 3 cups of rice in its non-stick inner pan. Its compact size is perfect for small kitchens. The retractable cord and spatula holder keeps the rice cooker tidy looking. This 450 watt Zojirushi rice cooker and warmer is not only stylish in design with its clear coated stainless, but is also durable which comes with a 1 year warranty.
Take a look at the many very positive reviews on Amazon, here are 2 short quotes from a couple of those reviews, The only way to make rice:
I set the timer in the morning and the rice is ready when I come home from work. When I walk in the door, my apartment smells of cooked rice, — which is surprisingly pleasant. The timer is a must especially for brown rice which takes one hour and 40 minutes to cook. If I come home late, the rice is still okay since it automatically goes into a keep warm mode when the cycle is completed.
Absolutely Love This Rice Cooker
The quality of rice and beans has been outstanding. Plus I can’t get over how much money I’m saving by not buying take-out, and I get to season the food to my liking. There is hardly any food that is cheaper, more comforting or nutritious than rice and beans, and you can keep the oil and butter to a minimum to keep the calories low while not feeling deprived.
Amazon has unveiled their new Android Tablet and it sells for just $199 for a 7″ multi-touch display. The tablet can use wifi but not cell phone signals to access the internet. Just this week, Amazon, also announced the large amount of content, available to USA Amazon customers only, that subscribe to Amazon Prime. I never really cared about faster shipping but features like a large library of content available for free streaming of 10,000 movies and TV shows makes the package very attractive, I think. The Kindle Fire is another in the long list of innovations from Amazon. I am very impressed with their management, leadership and willingness to focus on the long term and take risks with their investments.
The Amazon Fire has a heavily Amazon modified Android operating system. Amazon doesn’t do a good job of explaining what the limits on their marketing material the share really are. They hide how few people really have access to some features (like saying “18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines, and books” – without mentioning much of that is available to less than 5% of the population). Since they don’t make that clear, it is hard to know what other limitations they don’t make clear so outside the USA (95% of the population) you are on your own to guess what features are really available to you.
It has most of the features you would expect of a Android tablet: the ability to use the internet, app market, etc.
Unlike the previous Kindle options this offers color touch screen. Amazon is keeping the digital ink Kindle’s as their suggested book reading choice. Heavy users of the book reading function will likely keep a Kindle digital ink device. But the new device can also serve as a book reader, there are limitations of the current color technology that mean it just isn’t as great for long hours of book reading.
Amazon is touting the “cloud-accelerated” browser which does sound like a worthwhile innovation taking advantage of their Amazon Web Services cloud (AWS). The Amazon Silk browser is different in a radical new way. When you use Silk, without thinking about it or doing anything explicit, you’re calling on the computing speed and power of the AWS. We’ve refactored and rebuilt the browser software stack to push pieces of the computation into the AWS cloud. This lets Silk do more work, more quickly, and all at once.
Silk browser software resides both on Kindle Fire and on the massive server fleet that comprises the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2). With each page request, Silk dynamically determines a division of labor between the mobile hardware and Amazon EC2 (i.e. which browser sub-components run where) that takes into consideration factors like network conditions, page complexity and the location of any cached content.
Amazon EC2 is always connected to the backbone of the Internet where round-trip latency is 5 milliseconds or less to most web sites rather than the 100 milliseconds that’s typical over wireless connections. AWS also has peering relationships with major internet service providers, and many top sites are hosted on EC2. This means that many web requests will never leave the extended infrastructure of AWS, reducing transit times to only a few milliseconds. This is good, latency is an important, and often overlooked technical issue. It also seems a bit misleading, I think the latency your device experiences interacting with the cloud is higher (the technical details Amazon is touting are talking about communication within the cloud – which is good and helpful, just not quite as good as it sounds). The silk browser technology looks to be a very big innovation that will be very useful.
Related: Home Engineering: Reading in Bed – Really Widescreen Monitor (2880×900) – Zappos and Amazon Sitting in a Tree…
The price of the Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet illustrates once again that Amazon is still practicing what Jeff Bezos’ believes: driving down costs to customers and customer focus.
The Kindle DX is the gadget that combines being a bookworm and tech savvy at once. Gone are the days when one has to bring thick books with them to read anywhere. With Kindle DX, all books are saved on one small device.
Read various books in style with the 9.7 inch display that uses the latest technology in E-ink Pearl generation (providing 50% better contrast). There are also smaller Kindle’s if you prefer, but this DX version gives you the largest screen. With 1200 x 824 pixel resolution, read books in better contrast. Reading books, PDF, magazines, and newspaper has never been this stylish. Rotate the screen just by flipping the Kindle DX and have a landscape full width view of the display. Weighing only 18.9 ounce, the Kindle DX is the book on the go.
Get rid of bringing all loose documents and replace them with the Kindle DX. Save all files in PDF format and have access to any document you wish. The 4GB of internal memory of Kindle DX allows you to store as many as 3,500 books; it is like having a library in one small gadget.
Also, connect with the internet using the free 3G wireless connectivity and download latest e-books to your Kindle DX in no time.
The built in PDF reader software lets the user read stored e-books anytime and anywhere. Use the 5-way controller which lets the user select text and even highlight words. Look up words just by using the 5 way controller. Transform the conventional way of reading with Kindle DX. No more carrying of thick books. Get rid of the clutter of bringing piles of papers and documents. With just one small gadget, bring all the files anywhere you go. Whether it is work related, research, or leisure materials, it can be stored in Kindle. There is no need for a computer to install all the e-books and files in the Kindle DX. With the wireless application, send files from another computer or any device with wireless application directly to the Kindle DX.
The battery life can last up to 1 week with just single charge even when the wireless application is on. Turn off the wireless application and the Kindle DX can last up to two weeks. Charging the Kindle up only takes 4.5 hours using the power adapter which also supports USB 2.0.
Users not only read books in Kindle DX, one can also listen to audio files. With the built in speaker and 3.5 mm audio stereo jack, listening to music and reading book at the same time has never been this convenient.
Never get outdated of the latest news because Kindle connects you on the World Wide Web in an instant. Get updated with the latest happenings in the world wherever you may be. Download e-books, audio books and the like on the internet and receive the file in an instant. Read with style with the newest Kindle DX with new E ink technology.
You can also subscribe to blogs and have the content automatically delivered to your Kindle DX (using wifi), including our Curious Cat Management Blog.
Related: Amazon Innovation – There are two kinds of companies, those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less – Curious Cat Books
Raspberry 1 circuit board diagram
One great thing about technology is all the great disruptive innovation it makes possible. And while some gadgets cost a large amount of money it is also great how many really cheap but nevertheless extremely cool gadgets we get to choose from. The folks at Rasberry Pi are creating this computer (alpha boards have been sent to the manufacturer), that just a bit larger than a credit card, and is designed to plug into a TV or be combined with a touch screen for a low cost tablet. The expected price is $25 for a fully-configured system.
The ICs used in the design are an ARM-based application processor (center) and an SMSC LAN9512 USB 2.0 hub and 10/100 Ethernet controller (right and down from center). The SDRAM is mounted on top of the application processor in a PoP configuration.
Following the example of the BBC Micro, we intend to launch both a Model A device (lacking the LAN9512, and with 128MB of RAM) at the $25 price point, and a Model B device (including the LAN9512, and with 256MB of RAM) for a $5-10 additional cost. We remain confident of shipping before the end of 2011.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation is a UK registered charity which exists to promote the study of computer science and related topics, especially at school level, and to put the fun back into learning computing.
They are developing, manufacturing and distributing an ultra-low-cost computer, for use in teaching computer programming to children and expect the computer to have many other applications both in the developed and the developing world.
Provisional specification
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