[flv:http://www.archive.org/download/isforAto1953/isforAto1953.flv 320 263]
For those of you out there who want to learn a bit more about the Atom, here is an excellent 1950′s documentary by John Sutherland Productions. Remember kids: ‘Trust us with the control of technology, and we’ll give you progress without end’. General Electric that is.
Direct link to the Prelinger Archives here.
A new substance which negatively refracts light developed by researchers at Princeton, raises the theoretical possibility of bending light around objects and therefore render them invisible, alla Thermo-optic camouflage of Ghost in the Shell. Sweet.
Read the article from Wired here.
My old and faithful Minolta DimageX died about two weeks ago, her digital soul leaving this material world and starting its journey to camera heaven (or landfills I think they’re called…). You will be missed, although not for long. (more…)
I’m not really a smoker, but here is the one gift that can convert me in a flash: a handsome water resistant watch lighter. Now you know what I want for my birthday (b/way and 28th has them… I snapped the pic while waiting in line for my daily iced coffee).
Not a collectors item, but damn it’s close.
I followed Wired’s liveblog coverage of Steve Job’s presentation all day today…
New iPod with touchscreen = Love. Just gotta wait for it to have real storage, another year perhaps?
Google has recently launched Google Sky. Included within Google Earth 4.2, the SKY mode allows you to explore galaxies far-far away, the sky right above your location and perhaps even design flaws on the Death Star.
Thanks to my good friend Rocha (read the comments below) who pointed out a few articles / studies about this black screen energy-saving claims. It actually seems like black screens end up using more – not less- energy than white screens… Here’s the original post anyways
Heap media brings us Blackle, a google based search engine that helps us save energy every time we do a search.
In their own words: Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. “Image displayed is primarily a function of the user’s color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen.”
Since it’s powered by Google, its searches still deliver the same results we’ve come to love…
A few months ago, before Steve Jobs told us about the iPhone, an open source Linux-based free-from-your-lousy-provider phone was shown to the world. Openmoko, a Taiwan based company released on July 9th the developer’s version of their open source phone. The mass-market version (read: the rest of us idiots who don’t know how to program Linux, or anything else for that matter version) will be out in October.
The device itself isn’t as sexy as an iPhone, I agree, but it comes unlocked and its functionality promises to go beyond it.
Here is a fantastic project by Tad Hirsch, a researcher and PhD candidate in the Smart Cities Group at MIT’s Media Lab.
Tripwire is a site-specific installation responding to the unique relationship between the Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport and downtown San Jose, CA. Custom-built sensors hidden inside coconuts are hung from trees at several public locations to monitor noise produced by overflying aircraft. Detection of excessive aircraft noise triggers automated telephone calls to the airport’s complaint line on behalf of the city’s residents and wildlife. Documentation of noise incidents is archived for later analysis.
See more on the project here.
via [guerrilla innovation]
5 years after the proposal, the laptop for the masses will enter mass production.
“The laptop needs an order of magnitude less power than a typical laptop,” said Professor Bender. “That means you can power it by solar or human power.” Will we see in a few years a whole new class of bicycle-power apparatuses developed around the re-charging of these laptops in the developing countries were they’ll be deployed? You bet.
Read the BBC news here.