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This is the weblog of
Raymond Powers.
Here I will be sharing what I find of import, humor, concern, inspiration and on the transformational edge
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A Quote:
The first step . . . shall be to lose the way. --Galway Kinnell
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Raymond lives in Ojai, where the time now is:
04:34PM
Unique Readers:
Primarily
Public Domain
Everything I've written here, except my copyrighted
essays, poetry, lyrics, and music is hereby placed in the public
domain. The quotes from other people's writings, and the pictures
used might or might not be copyrighted, but are considered fair
use. Thus the license here would best be described as:
Primarily Public
Domain.
Please ask permission if there is any question in
regards to public domain usage.
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| Saturday, November 5, 2005 |  |
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 5 Nov 2005 @ 07:44
Clara L. found us this one, while watching late night telly. Oh, Clara, how could you? Anyhow, in stronger moment, she she wrote to us: “The website is quite an eyesore, but their idea is nice.” How true. If you can set aside the train-smash of a site, you’ll find a cord-less electric lawn mower, with some impressive specs. It is 50% quieter than a petrol mower, weighs in at 23 kg (51 lb) and runs for a 1hour 20 minutes on a full 12 hour charge (75% charge in 3-5 hrs). Furthermore it’s “estimated that a battery powered mower creates at least 85% less CO2 in comparison to a petrol mower, even when the electric power comes from brown coal generation.” (Maybe you have seen the figures, which they quote, that a single 2 stroke petrol mower emits, in just one hour of use, the equivalent volume of VOCs as about forty late model cars.
Enviromower figure their rechargeable battery will last more than 5 years, depending levels of use, and they will take them back for recycling. They buy ‘Green Power’ to run their own operations, and encourage mower users to do the same. $600 AUD and also available in New Zealand , United Kingdom and the EU. (Sorry, not yet in North America.
MORE ENVIRO_TECH NEWS HERE
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5 Nov 2005 @ 07:40
Philips design group has come up with a collection of LEDs bulbs. They have unusual shapes and change color with one touch, squeeze, or turn. These are part of the "The New Simplicity", where Philips will be concentrating on products that are designed to be multi-functional. In this case, the idea is that the bulbs serve the purpose of lamps and bulbs in the same device.
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| Thursday, October 13, 2005 | |
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13 Oct 2005 @ 20:44
Musical breast implants
Computer chips that store music could soon be built into a woman's breast implants.
One boob could hold an MP3 player and the other the person's whole music collection.
BT futurology, who have developed the idea, say it could be available within 15 years.
BT Laboratories' analyst Ian Pearson said flexible plastic electronics would sit inside the breast. A signal would be relayed to headphones, while the device would be controlled by Bluetooth using a panel on the wrist.
According to The Sun he said: "It is now very hard for me to thing of breast implants as just decorative. If a woman has something implanted permanently, it might as well do something useful."
The senors around the body linked through the electrical impulses in the chips may also be able to warn wearers about heart murmurs, blood pressure increases, diabetes and breast cancer. More >
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| Monday, October 3, 2005 | |
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3 Oct 2005 @ 02:43
This is something that has been going on behind the scenes for a couple of decades. However, as technology advances, one can wonder if some of the calamatous weather changes have been aided by man made interference.
Here is a host of links to educate about this. The first link is a Congressional Bill slated to be voted on yesterday.
S. 517: A bill to establish a Weather Modification Operations and Research Board, and for other purposes - DUE TO PASS YESTERDAY OCT 1st.!!! (is Congress in session on a Saturday?)
[link]
Scalar technology for weather control.
[link]
[link]
Meteorologist who just quit his job last week to dedicate his time to researching anomolies he's seen over the past decade.
[link]
http://www.alphalink.com.au/~noelmcd/articles/projects.htm
[link]
I listened to an interview with Trevor Constable which was fascinating. His explanation made sense.
[link],686,605.WKU.&OS=PN/4,686,605&RS=PN/4,686,605
WEATHER CONTROL AND WEATHER WARFARE
[link]
Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025
A Research Paper Presented To Air Force 2025
August 1996
[link]
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3 Oct 2005 @ 02:33
I want to teach the world to surf, says the man who invented the $100 laptop
By David Usborne in New York
Published: 30 September 2005
One man in Boston has a plan that he hopes will bridge the world's gaping digital divide - and quickly. The visionary is Nicholas Negroponte, director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his idea consists of a new kind of laptop computer that will cost just $100 (£57) to buy.
It will also be a little different in design from the sleek machines some of us in the west have learned to love or covet. It will be foldable in different ways, encased in bump-proof rubber and will include a hand-crank to give it power in those corners of the globe where electricity supply is patchy.
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| Wednesday, September 21, 2005 | |
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21 Sep 2005 @ 18:47
Hotel key cards
Remember this for the future:
You know how when you check out of a hotel that uses the credit-card-type room key, the clerk often will ask if you have your key(s) to turn in...or there is a box or slot on the Reception counter in which to put them?
It's good for the hotel because they save money by re-using those cards. But, it's not good for you, as revealed below.
From the Colorado Bureau of Investigation:
"Southern California law enforcement professionals assigned to detect new threats to personal security issues, recently discovered what type of information is embedded in the credit card type hotel room keys used throughout the industry.
Although room keys differ from hotel to hotel, a key obtained from the "Double Tree" chain that was being used for a regional Identity Theft Presentation was found to contain the following the information:
a.. Customers (your) name
b.. Customers partial home address
c.. Hotel room number
d.. Check in date and check out date
e.. Customer's (your) credit card number and expiration date!
When you turn them in to the front desk your personal information is there for any employee to access by simply scanning the card in the hotel scanner.
An employee can take a hand full of cards home and using a scanning device, access the information onto a laptop computer and go shopping at your expense.
Simply put, hotels do not erase the information on these cards until an employee re-issues the card to the next hotel guest. At that time, the new guest's information is electronically "overwritten" on the card and the previous guest's information is erased in the overwriting process. But until the card is rewritten for the next guest, it usually is kept in a drawer at the front desk with YOUR INFORMATION ON IT!!!!
The bottom line is: Keep the cards, take them home with you, or destroy them. NEVER leave them behind in the room or room wastebasket, and NEVER turn them in to the front desk when you check out of a room. They will not charge you for the card (it's illegal) and you'll be sure you are not leaving a lot of valuable personal information on it that could be easily lifted off with any simple scanning device card reader.
For the same reason, if you arrive at the airport and discover you still have the card key in your pocket, do not toss it in an airport trash basket.
Take it home and destroy it by cutting it up, especially through the
electronic information strip!
Information courtesy of: Sergeant K. Jorge,
Detective Sergeant,
Pasadena Police Department More >
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| Wednesday, September 7, 2005 | |
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 7 Sep 2005 @ 16:10
The Smart Car
[link]
This is being distributed by Mercedes-Benz in Canada yet not in the U.S. yet. It appears to be a really efficient design. Anyone have any info. as to the ifs and whens of availability in the U.S.
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| Sunday, August 21, 2005 | |
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21 Aug 2005 @ 03:34
URINE BATTERY TURNS PEE INTO POWER
By John Roach
National Geographic News
August 18, 2005
[link]
Before you next flush the toilet, consider this: Scientists in Singapore
have developed a battery powered by urine.
Researchers at the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology created
the credit card-size battery as a disposable power source for medical test
kits.
Scientists have been scrambling to create smaller, more efficient, and less
expensive "biochips" to test for diseases such as diabetes. Until now,
however, similarly small batteries to power the devices remained elusive.
Diagnostic test kits commonly analyze the chemical composition of a person's
urine to detect a malady. Ki Bang Lee and his colleagues realized that the
substance being tested -- urine -- could also power the test.
"In order to address this problem, we have designed a disposable battery on
a chip, which is activated by biofluids such as urine," Lee wrote in an
e-mail to National Geographic News.
The research team describes the battery in the current issue of the Journal
of Micromechanics and Microengineering.
Daniel Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory
at the University of California, Berkeley, said the technology is a welcome
innovation in a time of rising energy prices.
"All jokes [about] urine aside, what is needed are low-cost batteries. Š" he
said. "The other neat thing about this is the fact that it's basically a
biodegradable battery."
Urine Power
To make the battery, Lee and his colleagues soaked a piece of paper in a
solution of copper chloride and sandwiched it between strips of magnesium
and copper. This sandwich was then laminated between two sheets of
transparent plastic.
When a drop of urine is added to the paper through a slit in the plastic, a
chemical reaction takes place that produces electricity, Lee said.
The prototype battery produced about 1.5 volts, the same as a standard AA
battery, and runs for about 90 minutes. Researchers said the power, voltage,
and lifetime of the battery can be improved by adjusting the geometry and
materials used.
Urine contains many ions (electrically charged atoms), which allows the
electricity-producing chemical reaction to take place in the urine battery,
said UC Berkeley's Kammen. Other bodily fluids, such as tears, blood, and
semen, would work easily as well to activate the battery.
"Little bags of urine may generate chuckles," Kammen said. "But really urine
is just a nice example [of] a whole variety of compounds that do this
stuff." Even children's lunch-box fruit-juice packets are sufficient, he
added.
Alternative Energy
While medical devices inspired the urine battery, it can activate any
electric device with low power consumption, according to Lee, the battery's
co-inventor.
"For example, we can integrate a small cell phone and our battery on a
plastic card. This can be activated by body fluids, such as saliva, during
an emergency," he said.
According to Kammen the technology could even be applied to laptop
computers, mp3 players, televisions, and cars. Body-fluid-powered batteries
"can do all kinds of things. The issue is how they scale up" to produce more
power, he said.
One approach is to simply build larger batteries. Another method is to link
lots of little battery cells side by side, which is how the batteries in
laptop computers work, Kammen explained.
Kammen, who advocates government funding for alternative energy research,
says the wide number of applications for cheap and efficient
biofluid-powered batteries illustrates the value of research. "Investigation
leads to innovation," he said. More >
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| Thursday, August 18, 2005 | |
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18 Aug 2005 @ 23:40
Experimental Hybrid Cars Can Get Up to 250 MPG--But U.S. Automakers Aren't Interested
From
Published on Tuesday, August 16, 2005by the Associated Press
Experimental Hybrid Cars Get Up to 250 Mpg by Tim Molloy
Politicians and automakers say a car that can both reduce greenhouse gases and free America from its reliance on foreign oil is years or even decades away. Ron Gremban says such a car is parked in his garage.
It looks like a typical Toyota Prius hybrid, but in the trunk sits an 80-miles-per-gallon secret < a stack of 18 brick-sized batteries that boosts the car's high mileage with an extra electrical charge so it can burn even less fuel.
Gremban, an electrical engineer and committed environmentalist, spent several months and $3,000 tinkering with his car.
Like all hybrids, his Prius increases fuel efficiency by harnessing small amounts of electricity generated during braking and coasting. The extra batteries let him store extra power by plugging the car into a wall outlet at his home in this San Francisco suburb < all for about a quarter.
He's part of a small but growing movement. "Plug-in" hybrids aren't yet cost-efficient, but some of the dozen known experimental models have gotten up to 250 mpg.
They have support not only from environmentalists but also from conservative foreign policy hawks who insist Americans fuel terrorism through their gas guzzling.
And while the technology has existed for three decades, automakers are beginning to take notice, too.
So far, DaimlerChrysler AG is the only company that has committed to building its own plug-in hybrids, quietly pledging to make up to 40 vans for U.S. companies. But Toyota Motor Corp. officials who initially frowned on people altering their cars now say they may be able to learn from them. "They're like the hot rodders of yesterday who did everything to soup up their cars. It was all about horsepower and bling-bling, lots of chrome and accessories," said Cindy Knight, a Toyota spokeswoman. "Maybe the hot rodders of tomorrow are the people who want to get in there and see what they can do about increasing fuel economy."
The extra batteries let Gremban drive for 20 miles with a 50-50 mix of gas and electricity. Even after the car runs out of power from the batteries and switches to the standard hybrid mode, it gets the typical Prius fuel efficiency of around 45 mpg. As long as Gremban doesn't drive too far in a day, he says, he gets 80 mpg.
"The value of plug-in hybrids is they can dramatically reduce gasoline usage for the first few miles every day," Gremban said. "The average for people's usage of a car is somewhere around 30 to 40 miles per day. During that kind of driving, the plug-in hybrid can make a dramatic difference."
Backers of plug-in hybrids acknowledge that the electricity to boost their cars generally comes from fossil fuels that create greenhouse gases, but they say that process still produces far less pollution than oil. They also note that electricity could be generated cleanly from solar power.
Gremban rigged his car to promote the nonprofit CalCars Initiative, a San Francisco Bay area-based volunteer effort that argues automakers could mass produce plug-in hybrids at a reasonable price.
But Toyota and other car companies say they are worried about the cost, convenience and safety of plug-in hybrids < and note that consumers haven't embraced all-electric cars because of the inconvenience of recharging them like giant cell phones.
Automakers have spent millions of dollars telling motorists that hybrids don't need to be plugged in, and don't want to confuse the message. Nonetheless, plug-in hybrids are starting to get the backing of prominent hawks like former CIA director James Woolsey and Frank Gaffney, President Reagan's undersecretary of defense. They have joined Set America Free, a group that wants the government to spend $12 billion over four years on plug-in hybrids, alternative fuels and other measures to reduce foreign oil dependence.
Gaffney, who heads the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy, said Americans would embrace plug-ins if they understood arguments from him and others who say gasoline contributes to oil-rich Middle Eastern governments that support terrorism.
"The more we are consuming oil that either comes from places that are bent on our destruction or helping those who are ... the more we are enabling those who are trying to kill us," Gaffney said.
DaimlerChrysler spokesman Nick Cappa said plug-in hybrids are ideal for companies with fleets of vehicles that can be recharged at a central location at night. He declined to name the companies buying the vehicles and said he did not know the vehicles' mileage or cost, or when they would be available.
Others are modifying hybrids, too.
Monrovia-based Energy CS has converted two Priuses to get up to 230 mpg by using powerful lithium ion batteries. It is forming a new company, EDrive Systems, that will convert hybrids to plug-ins for about $12,000 starting next year, company vice president Greg Hanssen said.
University of California, Davis engineering professor Andy Frank built a plug-in hybrid from the ground up in 1972 and has since built seven others, one of which gets up to 250 mpg. They were converted from non-hybrids, including a Ford Taurus and Chevrolet Suburban.
Frank has spent $150,000 to $250,000 in research costs on each car, but believes automakers could mass-produce them by adding just $6,000 to each vehicle's price tag.
Instead, Frank said, automakers promise hydrogen-powered vehicles hailed by President Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, even though hydrogen's backers acknowledge the cars won't be widely available for years and would require a vast infrastructure of new fueling stations.
"They'd rather work on something that won't be in their lifetime, and that's this hydrogen economy stuff," Frank said. "They pick this kind of target to get the public off their back, essentially."
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| Monday, August 15, 2005 | |
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 15 Aug 2005 @ 23:36
Thin skin will help robots 'feel'
Japanese researchers have developed a flexible artificial skin that could give robots a humanlike sense of touch.
The team manufactured a type of "skin" capable of sensing pressure and another capable of sensing temperature.
These are supple enough to wrap around robot fingers and relatively cheap to make, the researchers have claimed.
The University of Tokyo team describe their work in the latest issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The materials they're using may not be completely novel but the integration appears to be something new
Douglas Weibel, Harvard University
The researchers explain how pressure-sensing and temperature-sensing networks can be laminated together, forming an artificial skin that can detect both properties simultaneously.
Takao Someya, lead author on the latest research, previously developed a form of artificial skin capable of sensing pressure.
But the ability to sense temperature as well allows the scientists to more closely imitate the functions of human skin.
Someya and his colleagues used electronic circuits as pressure sensors and semiconductors as temperature sensors. They embedded these sensors in a thin plastic film to create networks of sensors.
Organic materials
The transistors used in the circuits and the semiconductors both use "organic" materials based on chains of carbon atoms.
This makes them mechanically flexible and relatively inexpensive to fabricate.
"Both of those characteristics sound compelling. The material sounds like it could have lots of functions," Dr Douglas Weibel, of the department of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard University told the BBC News website.
"The materials they're using may not be completely novel but the integration appears to be something new."
The University of Tokyo scientists say their breakthrough has the potential to improve how robots will function in the real world.
And they add that there is no need to stop at simply imitating the functions of human skin.
"It will be possible in the near future to make an electronic skin that has functions that human skin lacks," the researchers write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Future artificial skins could incorporate sensors not only for pressure and temperature, but also for light, humidity, strain or sound, they add.
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15 Aug 2005 @ 23:34
Malaysians get tough on mobiles
By Jonathan Kent
BBC News, Kuala Lumpur
The Malaysian government is to put a stop to the anonymous use of mobiles.
From the end of the year, people using a prepaid service will have to register their details with phone companies.
The decision follows growing fears about the use of unregistered phones by members of violent militant groups either to communicate with one another or to trigger explosions.
"The main reason we are doing this is because of security," said Communications minister Lim Keng Yaik.
"It's getting very dangerous. Prepaid cards pose a security threat because nowadays terrorists are using cell phones to detonate bombs."
Rumours by text
Though Malaysia has been almost entirely free of the violence that has plagued other countries in South East Asia, the authorities here are also concerned about a number of instances where wild and unfounded rumours have been spread by text message.
In 2002 villagers in the state of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo fled their homes after SMS messages claimed that head-hunters were roaming the area.
A big number of prepaid users are foreign workers, and they do not have fixed addresses
Lim Keng Yaik, Communications minister
Taking the heads of warriors from rival villages as trophies was common in Sabah before the British colonial authorities put a stop to the practice, but the mere mention of head-hunters still has the power to fuel panic.
In January 2005, less than a month after the December tsunami disaster, thousands of people fled their homes around Semporna, also in Sabah, after text messages warned of another killer wave.
In both instances police believe the rumours were started by thieves who wanted to steal into empty villages to rustle water buffalo or ransack homes.
To stem such rumours the Malaysian government will require new users to show identity cards or passports when they buy a new sim card.
Existing users will have to register when their credit runs out and they have to buy more.
Challenging task
With 14 million out of Malaysia's 16 million mobile users using prepaid services, it promises to be a major task. It will not be helped by the transient status of some phone users.
"A big number of prepaid users are foreign workers, and they do not have fixed addresses," Mr Lim admitted.
Many just live in shacks in the jungle near to factories or on building sites. Nor does the Malaysian government have the best record in enforcing its numerous laws and directives.
However it is unlikely to face opposition from civil liberties groups, who say they have more pressing concerns.
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| Friday, July 22, 2005 | |
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22 Jul 2005 @ 01:44
Auto Greenwashing: New Hybrid Cars Emphasize Horsepower, Not Increased Gas Mileage
July 17, 2005
Hybrid Cars Burning Gas in the Drive for Power
By MATTHEW L. WALD
WASHINGTON, July 16 - Mark Buford is happy with the Honda Accord hybrid that he bought six months ago, and he has already driven it 13,000 miles. He was determined to buy a hybrid electric car, he said, and this one is clean, "green" and accelerates faster than the nonhybrid version. He just cannot count on it to save much gasoline.
Many people concerned with oil consumption, including President Bush and members of Congress, are pointing to hybrids - vehicles with electric motors as well as internal combustion engines - as a way to reduce fuel use and dependence on imported oil. The first ones to reach the market did that; the two-seat Honda Insight, introduced in December 1999, was rated at 70 miles per gallon, and it was followed by the five-seat Toyota Prius, also built for reduced fuel consumption. Those cars have no nonhybrid equivalents. Then came the Civic hybrid, designed to perform almost as well as the original, only using a lot less gasoline.
But the pendulum has swung. The 2005 Honda Accord hybrid gets about the same miles per gallon as the basic four-cylinder model, according to a review by Consumer Reports, a car-buyer's guide, and it saves only about two miles a gallon compared with the V-6 model on which it is based. Thanks to the hybrid technology, though, it accelerates better.
Hybrid technology, it seems, is being used in much the same way as earlier under-the-hood innovations that increased gasoline efficiency: to satisfy the American appetite for acceleration and bulk.
Despite the use of hybrids to achieve better performance with about the same fuel economy, consumers who buy the cars continue to get a tax credit that the Internal Revenue Service allows under a "clean fuels" program that does not take fuel savings into account.
And the image of hybrids as fuel-stingy workhorses persists. In a June 15 speech at an energy forum, Mr. Bush proposed a tax credit of up to $4,000 to "encourage people to make right choices in the marketplace that will make us less dependent on foreign sources of oil and to help improve our environment."
But some hybrids save hardly any fuel, energy efficiency advocates say. "The new ones are all being used for power," said Kateri Callahan, the president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a nonprofit advocacy group based here. Hybrids should be encouraged, Ms. Callahan said, because their electric components some day could be useful in an all-electric car, perhaps running on a fuel cell. But she added that the government should be careful about which hybrids it subsidizes through tax benefits. Now, she said, the car companies are "building to the high-end market. They think people want performance."
The companies may have sized up their customers pretty well. Mr. Buford, for example, bought his Accord hybrid in January, a month after the model came out, replacing a 2001 Accord coupe.
Mr. Buford, a telecommunications analyst at Kraft Foods who works in the Chicago area, said he decided on a hybrid because he wanted to "go green," although he added, "I wasn't willing to make any of the trade-offs normally associated with a hybrid." He said he liked the way that the electric motor on his new car kicked in early during acceleration, at a speed range in which the V-6 gasoline engine is relatively weak. And its emissions of smog-forming pollutants are low, he said. (The Environmental Protection Agency puts the hybrid and nonhybrid Accords in the same emissions
category).
If sold at list price, the hybrid costs about $3,300 more than the V-6 with no hybrid. Mr. Buford said he was not sure if the gas savings would ever pay for the difference. But in that price range - about $30,000 - many buyers are not looking for a car that is the cheapest to buy or to operate.
Mr. Buford said he expected that when he files his taxes next April, the purchase will cut his tax bill by about $600. The tax credit will begin to be phased out in 2006.
The Accord hybrid is not alone in using technology for power; the Toyota Highlander and the Lexus RX330, two premium vehicles, both gained horsepower when they were produced as hybrids. When Lexus created a hybrid version of the RX330 it kept the same 3.3-liter engine, but to get across the idea that the hybrid had as much power as a vehicle with a 4-liter engine it named it the RX400h.
In the Accord, the mechanism was simple. Honda took the model with the 3.0-liter V-6 engine, which generates 240 horsepower, and added a 16-horsepower electric system. That is in contrast to the Civic, in which Honda pulled out the standard 1.7-liter engine and replaced it with a 1.3-liter engine when it made a hybrid version of the car. Combined with the electric drive, the car's horsepower remained roughly constant.
Consumer Reports called the hybrid portion of the Accord a "green turbocharger." The main benefit is in getting from zero to 60 miles per hour in 6.9 seconds, compared with 9.0 seconds for the basic four-cylinder model. A Honda spokesman, Andrew Boyd, said the company already had hybrids that minimize fuel use, notably the Insight, for customers whose top priority was to save gasoline, and the Civic for customers who wanted a car that performs the same but uses less fuel. Performance in the Civic hybrid is slightly lower than the original model, Mr. Boyd said, and as a result it gets 36 miles per gallon instead of 29.
Mr. Boyd said the Accord split the benefit between fuel economy and performance. He did not describe its selling point as the ability to save gas, but "the appeal of a hybrid."
"The closer you get to the mainstream buyer, fuel economy is still part of the equation, but a smaller part," he said. "In the Accord, people will pay all kinds of money for more performance. We can deliver that performance, but in addition, with better fuel economy."
Hybrid technology seems to be heading the way of earlier technologies, which got more work out of a gallon of gasoline, like four valves per cylinder and variable valve timing, that have been used in the end to make cars accelerate faster, rather than to hold them steady in performance and to cut fuel consumption.
Daniel A. Lashof, a car expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said, "The horsepower wars have really gotten out of control in the last few years."
Acceleration is one indication of horsepower. According to the E.P.A., the average new vehicle accelerates from zero to 60 m.p.h. in under 10 seconds, down from 14 seconds in the early 1980's. The average weight has increased by about 750 pounds in the same period. If cars in the 2004 model year had the same weight and acceleration as cars did in 1987, according to the agency, they would get 20 percent better gas mileage.
Consumer Reports, in an article published in May, found that in actual on-the-road conditions the Accord hybrid averaged 25 m.p.g., versus 24 m.p.g. for the 4-cylinder model and 23 m.p.g. for the nonhybrid V-6. The E.P.A. figures show a larger benefit for the hybrid, but the agency's fuel economy figures are considered by many to be inaccurate because they do not reflect the way cars are actually driven.
The two-miles-per-gallon increase over the V-6, about 8 percent, is still significant, and federal tax rules, which are based on cost and not mileage benefit achieved, still give an Accord hybrid buyer a substantial subsidy. But 8 percent is not in the range that would make a substantial dent in American oil consumption. If every car in the country were converted to a hybrid with that improved mileage, the gain would be swallowed up in three to four years by growth in driving demand.
Mr. Buford said he got just what he wanted from the Accord, a hybrid with no sacrifices. "I wasn't prepared to give up anything to 'go green' - not performance, amenities, or space," he said.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company More >
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| Thursday, June 9, 2005 | |
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9 Jun 2005 @ 06:04
I jst bought a Powerbook G4 1.67. Hope I didn't jump the gun. Noooo...I love my little box.
This is from Cult of Mike
I didn’t believe the rumors when I read them. Apple moving away from the PPC to Intel? No way. I just didn’t believe it, it was that simple. What reason did Apple have to move away from the beloved IBM PowerPC to Intel? PPC was faster, and for sure would only be getting faster. IBM is developing Cell, what is sure to be the next generation of computing. We are seeing Apple competitors moving to PPC, Microsoft, has chosen this chipset for its next generation gaming console, and Sony’ PlayStation3 will be powered by the IBM Cell.
Yesterday afternoon, when I saw that the headlines were true, that Apple would move to Intel after all, I was shocked, appalled, why? My initial thoughts were that there was no way this would help Apple, this was the end of the line for Apple Computer. I decided to read and listen, find out what others though, then after I did the opinional research, listen to Jobs speak about the topic, and write this essay.
I didn’t understand a lot about it right away, because I didn’t listen to the keynote first. I agreed with much of what the gentlemen at TWiT had to say. All the software would have to be re-written, x86 and Intel didn’t look to have that strong of a future, and we would be looking at an almost halt in sales for at least the next 6 months.
After watching the keynote, I have some slightly different ideas on this. For starters, I realized that the speculation that TWiT had about everyone having to re-write their applications was 100% false. It’s not a matter of having to completely re-vamp an application; it’s a matter of recompiling and tweaking as Steve put it for us. A dual binary version of software will insure that those of us who still run PPC’s (I run two PPC PowerBooks) will be able to have upcoming versions of software. This also comfortsome in knowing that I don’t have to be worried next year when I walk into my local Apple store and want to get the new iLife, I know I wont have to have a new Macintel to run it. Rosetta is something that will help developers as well, this insures that even if a developer decides to not recompile for Intel, we’ll still be able to run PPC applications on the Macintel. The demo that Jobs showed at WWDC showed that on his 3.06ghz P4 with 2GB RAM, Rosetta ran without notice. I’m hoping there will be a reverse that allows people still running the PPC will be able to run the applications only compiled for the Macintel.
The other for me was, how would Apple survive if sales do halt in the next 6 months? Sure iPod and iTunes will flourish, but Apple needs to continue to move units. The majority of the new consumers will most likely be blind to the fact that the Macintel is coming, and will continue to switch away as nothing happened. But most of the current users, the geeks of the Mac world, are defiantly going to hold off on a purchase until we start to see the Macintels coming into play. I know that personally, I have just advised all family members, a few of which were about to click the “buy” button, to wait for the new Macintels to come out. It’s more and more people doing this that will kill Apple in this time of test.
I am starting to believe that this switch to the Macintel from PPC will be a rather good thing. My original thoughts were that this should in no way, shape, or form, happen. The more I read about it though, the better it became. This will push the prices of Macs down to a more reasonable level, a level that more people will be willing to dish out a few hundred more to get the beauty of a Mac and of an Apple. The other things that this will bring about is more dramatic updates to the notebook line from Apple, as well as bigger and better updates to the other computer lines as well.
There are a few things that scare me in this regard as well. Apple will be able to put a “G5” into the PowerBook, possibly a Pentium-M? A great and solid chip which should do worlds of good for the notebook line by Apple. And faster chip speeds in the other lines for computers for Apple as well. But this is the thing; the IBM PPC was always benchmarked with a “slower” speed than the Intel or the AMD. Hell, AMD decided to throw out clock speeds altogether and just give you a 2600+ chip name, which gave you an idea of what the speed was still. Steve Jobs used a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 at his WWDC keynote, a slower chip than the 2.7 GHz G5 that we see on the market right now. So why is this important? Well Jobs had promised us a year ago that we would see a 3Ghz G5 by now, and it doesn’t look like IBM will be releasing that number for some time now. Steve has to come through on his promise here, so, a chip change was needed.
Most of us also wanted to see a G5 PowerBook by now, unfortunately, IBM wouldn’t be able to do this for somewhere around two years. This is an insanely long time, something that again, Apple couldn’t wait for. This, was one of the key factors in this change. The Apple desktop line has pretty much been steady over the years, yet the notebook lines have skyrocketed in sales, it’s their baby right now and they have to take care of it by making bigger advances in the notebook line, something that the Pentium-M can produce.
That’s one of my reasons for the switch from PPC to Intel for Apple. Appearance, if it looks faster, if it looks more “up to date” with what the rest of the PC industry is seeing, then it should sell better. Unfortunately, there is a lot of truth to that.
But what does this mean? As we have seen with the PC industry, if you buy a computer on a Monday, the latest and greatest, on Friday that computer will be so outdated that you cant run the software that you bought a week later. Will this happen to Apple too? Will be seeing weekly upgrades? If, this were to happen, I would like to say now, that Apple, is a goner. Allow me to explain why.
Apple users dish out a lot of money on their systems, and they don’t mind doing it. Why? Because they know that it will be worth it in the end. They will be able to get a good 5 or 6 years out of their system. This is proven with people running Panther on their 300mhz G3 systems. People don’t mind spending extra money if they know they will be able to keep it around for a long time, with it being outdated sure, but not to the extent that they cant use it on a regular basis. A 3.06GHz “G5” coming out in Q1 is awesome, but in Q2 if there is a 4.0GHz “G5” the users will not be happy. It doesn’t feel nice to be outdated that fast. So Apple will surely have to plan these releases in a way that they can make them spaced out, and not too dramatic to scare off the user into waiting. They also have to keep up with the other PC’s powering Intel. A headache eh? That’s what was nice with the PPC, they were really the only computer with the exception of a few Linux flavors to be running PPC, so they set the launches, they set the industry standard.
What comes next? I wasn’t into computers in 1994, when we switched from m68k to PPC, mainly because I was 5, so I really don’t know. I’m a bit worried, but more than ever, optimistic. The more I look at this move, the more I realize this is going to be a good thing. This isn’t the end of the world as many people originally thought it would be. The new Intel chipset is going to be a good thing; it will have the ability to take Apple to new and better places in the long run. The IBM roadmap for the PPC ended up being one that was slower than Apple could handle. Apple right now needs to be able to develop newer and better computers to stay on top of the media industry. The PPC just couldn’t keep up on where Apple needed to go. IBM was also starting to look more into the Cell processor, another sidetrack for the PPC enhancement.
As I said, Apple has to stay on top of the media industry, again a concern about this (just when you thought I was about to finish up this post huh?). As we all know, the Apple Velocity Engine that is built into the PPC architecture makes the Apple PPC ideal for crunching FPN (Floating Point Numbers). It blows the doors, pants, socks, shoes, anything off of a comparable x86 chip. This worries me because we are moving to x86. FPN crunching is a necessity in gaming, and other media types, and we are moving to a chipset that is slower at this. Could we see a problem in the Apple Pro Series software line? My guess, my hope, is no, but at this point, it’s in the air from what I can see.
We will be fine, that’s what I’m telling myself at least. We will be fine during this move, as long as we as developers do our part to make this transition a smooth and effortless one, Apple will do their part, and we shouldn’t see anything too bad happening. This is a big test, Apple is doing one after another 5 years ago it was OS9 to OSX, and now its PPC to Intel, the difference, this one scares the fuck out of me.
Feel free to pass me related articles, I would love to read more about this, trade links to posts, or just chat with what your thoughts about all this are. I’m pretty much sure I have a solid opinion, that this will be a good thing, but at the same time, I’m scared for what could happen.
-Mike
1770 words | I know I made some words up, but hey, they worked. Excuse the horrible grammar in some spots too. More >
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| Wednesday, June 1, 2005 | |
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1 Jun 2005 @ 05:22
A small electric car attracts visitors' attention at the Eighth Beijing International Science Industry Exposition in Beijing on Thursday. The car, which is 2.3m long and 1.3m wide, can drive as far as 110km with a full charge and has a top speed of 50km per hour. More >
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| Thursday, April 7, 2005 | |
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7 Apr 2005 @ 06:20
Sony Invention Beams Sights, Sounds Into Brain
Wed Apr 6, 2:01 PM ET
Technology - Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - If you think video games are engrossing now, just wait: PlayStation maker Sony Corp (SNE.N). has been granted a patent for beaming sensory information directly into the brain.
The technique could one day be used to create videogames in which you can smell, taste, and touch, or to help people who are blind or deaf.
The U.S. patent, granted to Sony researcher Thomas Dawson, describes a technique for aiming ultrasonic pulses at specific areas of the brain to induce "sensory experiences" such as smells, sounds and images.
"The pulsed ultrasonic signal alters the neural timing in the cortex," the patent states. "No invasive surgery is needed to assist a person, such as a blind person, to view live and/or recorded images or hear sounds."
According to New Scientist magazine, the first to report on the patent, Sony's technique could be an improvement over an existing non-surgical method known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. This activates nerves using rapidly changing magnetic fields, but cannot be focused on small groups of brain cells.
Niels Birbaumer, a neuroscientist at the University of Tuebingen in Germany, told New Scientist he had looked at the Sony patent and "found it plausible." Birbaumer himself has developed a device that enables disabled people to communicate by reading their brain waves.
A Sony Electronics spokeswoman told the magazine that no experiments had been conducted, and that the patent "was based on an inspiration that this may someday be the direction that technology will take us."
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| Friday, March 18, 2005 | |
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 18 Mar 2005 @ 02:59
From Wired News
In a world with millions of refugees, numerous war zones and huge areas devastated by natural disaster, aid agencies and militaries have long needed a way to quickly erect shelters on demand.
Soon, there will be such a method. A pair of engineers in London have come up with a "building in a bag" -- a sack of cement-impregnated fabric. To erect the structure, all you have to do is add water to the bag and inflate it with air. Twelve hours later the Nissen-shaped shelter is dried out and ready for use.
Click thumbnails for full-size image:
A pair of engineers in London have come up with a 'building in a bag' -- a sack of cement-impregnated fabric. To erect the structure, all you have to do is add water to the bag and inflate it with air. Twelve hours later the Nissen-shaped shelter is dried out and ready for use. This schematic shows how the Concrete Canvas shelter is delivered and constructed, just with the addition of air and water. The sterile structure can be set up by a single person in 40 minutes and be ready for use in 12 hours.
The structure is intended to improve upon two current methods of providing emergency shelter: tents, which provide only poor protection, or prefabricated, portable buildings that are expensive and difficult to transport. Dubbed the Concrete Canvas, the shelter incorporates the best aspects of both forms. It is almost as easy to transport as a tent, but is as durable and secure as a portable building.
The inventors are engineers pursuing a master's degree in industrial design engineering at the Royal College of Art in London. William Crawford and Peter Brewin came up with the idea when they were thinking of an entry for the annual British Cement Association competition for new and innovative uses of concrete.
They thought of an inflatable concrete tent after hearing about inflatable structures that are built around broken gas pipes to carry out repairs.
"This gave us the idea of making a giant concrete eggshell for a shelter, using inflation to optimize the structure for a compressive load," said Brewin. "Eggs are entirely compressive structures with enormous strength for a very thin wall."
The idea won second prize in the cement association competition in 2004. Crawford and Brewin, who are both engineers and have worked, respectively, for the Ministry of Defense and as an officer in the British Army, were also inspired by the plaster-of paris-impregnated bandages used to set broken bones.
Crawford said he and Brewin have been developing the concept for 16 months and made eight full prototypes at one-eighth scale.
The inventors filed a patent, which covers the concept of creating structures using a cement-impregnated cloth bonded to an inflatable inner surface. Full-scale production is planned and could take off soon, as Concrete Canvas is short-listed for the New Business Challenge run by Imperial College London and the Tanaka Business School. The winner of the £25,000 ($48,000) prize will be announced next week.
The idea has already garnered several other awards, including the British Standards Institute Sustainable Design Award. This funded a trip to Uganda last year.
The pair spent a month meeting U.N. agencies and nongovernmental organizations, visiting refugee camps and demonstrating the prototype shelter. The response has been positive.
"If this was available now, we would buy 10 today," said Monica Castellarnau, program head for Medicins Sans Frontieres in Uganda.
Aid agency chiefs have been impressed by the simplicity and economy of the idea. A bag weighing 230 kilograms (approximately 500 pounds) inflates into a shelter with 16 square meters (172 square feet) of floor space. Cost is estimated at £1,100 ($2,100), while an equivalent-size Portakabin (a type of portable building widely used in the United Kingdom) costs about £4,000 ($7,700). The same-size tent costs about £600 ($1,150).
Concrete Canvas comes folded in a sealed plastic sack. The volume of the sack controls the water-to-cement ratio, eliminating the need for water measurement. You literally just add water.
"The shelter can also be delivered sterile," said Crawford. "This allows previously impossible surgical procedures to be performed in situ from day one of a crisis."
Markus Hohl, a lecturer on the Industrial Design Engineering course, praised the successful teamwork of Crawford and Brewin. "They've come up with a design that integrates plastic to inflate the structure and doubles as the inner skin; a wicking fabric that draws the water in and an external resin of concrete which holds the thing together: Concrete Canvas is triple clever."
Gareth Jones, former product development director of the award-winning vacuum-cleaner maker Dyson, admires the design simplicity and functionality of Concrete Canvas.
"The Concrete Canvas product tackles the key issues of portability, ease of assembly, durability and cost," he said. "The applications in the humanitarian field are immediate and obvious, but there are many other fields where this technology could successfully be deployed." More >
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| Monday, January 10, 2005 | |
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10 Jan 2005 @ 21:19
IE Browser Vulnerability
Reaches Critical Level
idm.net.au
1-9-5
An advisory has been published that warns users of critical vulnerabilities inside IE 6 which could allow hackers to execute spyware and pornography dialers on computers without the victim knowing anything about it.
Security company Secunia states that the exploit code could be used to infiltrate computers running Windows XP, even if Microsoft's Service Pack 2 patch has been used.
However, the company recommends that users should disable IE's Active X support to prevent the problem from happening, until Microsoft creates a suitable patch to match the problem. It also suggests that people should turn to a different browser product.
The Secunia Advisory says: "Some vulnerabilities have been discovered in Internet Explorer, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system, conduct cross-site/zone scripting and bypass a security feature in Microsoft Windows XP Sp2."
The three vulnerabilities are:
"1. Insufficient validation of drag and drop events from the "Internet" zone to local resources for valid images or media files with embedded HTML code. This can be exploited by e.g. a malicious website to plant arbitrary HTML documents on a user's system, which may allow the execution of arbitrary script code in the "Local Computer" zone.
"2. A security site/ zone restriction error, where an embedded HTML Help control on e.g. a malicious website references a specially crafted index (.hhk) file, can educate local HTML documents or inject arbitrary script code in context of a previous loaded document using a malicious javascript URI handler.
"Successful exploitation may allow execution of arbitrary HTML and script code in a user's browser session in context of arbitrary sites, or execution of local programs with parameters from the "Local Computer" zone using a HTML Help shortcut.
"3. A security site/zone restriction error in the handling of the "Related Topics" command in an embedded HTML Help control can be exploited by e.g. a malicious website to execute arbitrary script code in the context of arbitrary sites or zones."
Secunia has released a test here, so that users can check if their browser is affected by these vulnerabilities.
Staff at Secunia have said that Microsoft have known about the vulnerabilities for the last two months, and they are surprised that it has not released patches yet for them.
However, Microsoft has said that it is working hard to develop patches for these problems, but the reason for the delay is because it is making sure that the patches are robust enough to completely stop the problem.
Microsoft has suggested that people should check its safe browsing guidelines here to help them deal with the problems.
Copyright © 2002, Knapp Communications. All rights reserved.
[link]
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| Thursday, November 11, 2004 | |
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 11 Nov 2004 @ 15:24
It´s already looking like the MDI Air Car will be one of the major technological discoveries of the new century. Inventor Guy Négre has developed a car capable of a top speed of 110 km/h, 300 kilometres on one tank of fuel and at a cost of just a penny per kilometre. All of this at "zero pollution". In fact the car cleans the air it uses!
The Air Car More >
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| Wednesday, January 21, 2004 | |
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 21 Jan 2004 @ 17:46
BUILDING A BALANCING SCOOTER, Like the Segway
Self-balancing scooters, like the Segway are often thought to be technological miracles, but it is not actually very hard to build one. I built the one described here in about a week using off-the-shelf parts. I spent another week tweaking the high-speed stability, improving the steering control, and writing about it.
Although the Segway has several exotic components, mine is built from common low-tech parts like wheelchair motors and RC car batteries. The parts, even at small quantity retail prices, cost less than half of a genuine Segway. It also doesn't need complex or high-performance software. The first version was written in Python and used serial ports to talk to the gyroscope and motor controller. The current software, now in C running in an onboard 8-bit microcontroller, is only 500 lines of code... More >
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| Tuesday, December 23, 2003 | |
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23 Dec 2003 @ 01:33
Mmm...
CORNER SHOT™ - 'MAKES TIGHT CORNERS AN ADVANTAGE™'
The Ultimate System to Shoot Around Corners
The CORNER SHOT is the ultimate solution for dealing with the deadly threats that lurk "around the corner" in a variety of tactical situations encountered by military and law enforcement personnel, anti-terror units and SWAT teams operating in open or built-up areas, inside buildings, rooms and enclosed spaces, and especially in forced entry situations.
The CORNER SHOT has already been acquired by police and special forces units around the world.
The key to CORNER SHOT is the swing-hinge front section of the system, a state-of-the-art device that houses the handgun and a compact detachable color video camera. The unique lateral (both left and right) swinging mechanism enables the user to safely sweep, search or engage targets ‘around the corner’ with the camera transmitting what it sees directly to a video monitor. Both the video monitor and the remote trigger control for firing the pistol, together with all system operating switches, are fitted to the frame held by the user.
SHOOTING AROUND CORNERS
Conceived and designed by veteran counter-terrorism warfare specialists, the innovative CORNER SHOT is the outcome of a meticulous and thorough R&D process.
For the very first time, the CORNER SHOT offers a truly effective, state-of-the-art weapon system that may be deployed with deadly accuracy, at a lateral angle, from "around the corner", from behind a shelter, a cover or a barricade. The unique lateral traversing mechanism will not affect normal firearm performance.
SHOOTING FROM COVER
The CORNER SHOT may be employed to search spaces or engage targets "in the next room" or "down the street", with a high degree of accuracy, from "around the corner" or from a shelter, without exposing the user. It may be used in securing such openings as doors, windows and hatches with maximum effectiveness and minimum risk.
The CORNER SHOT adapts to fit most automatic handguns currently in use.
BUILT-IN FEATURES
Detachable, quick connecting color video camera
Color video monitor with visible fixed crosshairs
Monitor hood and sleeve
Video out socket
Tactical light source and beam shaper
Quick-change battery housing
Upper universal accessory rail
Folding stock
Dust-tight and protected against water jets
Complete with tactical soft carry case, user's manual and a set of maintenance and cleaning tools
OPTIONAL ACCESSORIES
Various camera and lens options (fisheye, low light, auto focus and others)
Video color monitor with electronic crosshairs adjuster and power level indicator
Visible and IR laser designator
Video transceiver and portable monitor kit in various frequencies and ranges
Quick change, rechargeable battery pack and charger
IR filter for tactical light
Detachable, collapsible bipod
Special purpose stock
Sharpshooters stock
Matching tactical vest and soft attachable carry case
Sturdy, waterproof carry case
Sling
OPTIONAL WEAPON ACCESSORIES
Silencer
Flash suppressor
Paintball kit
Red dot sight
CORNER SHOT is patented worldwide.
The CORNER SHOT system and its manufacture has been assessed and registered as meeting the international standard requirements: ISO 9001:2000. The system has a worldwide guarantee and service.
Design and specifications are subject to change without notice.
All text and photographs copyrighted © to Corner Shot Holdings L.L.C 2003.
CORNER SHOT™ is a Trade Mark of Corner Shot Holdings L.L.C.
Sold only to law enforcement agencies and security forces.
Please see us at the IACP Show in Philadelphia between 21 and24 October 2003 and at the MILIPOL in Paris between 18 and 21 November 2003.
Corner Shot Holdings LLC
201 Alhambra Circle, Suite 801
Coral Gables
Florida 33134
USA
Tel: +1 305 442 6322
Fax: +1 305 442 7322
Email: usa@cornershot.com
URL: www.cornershot.com
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Sounding Circle - Category: Technology
