Category: Web, Tech & Design

BMW’s First Hydrogen Cars In 2007

More cleaner energy efforts, this time from BMW…

German automaker BMW said that it would begin distributing the world’s first hydrogen-burning cars to selected users in the U.S. and Europe next year.

The cars are 7-Series sedans powered by 12-cylinder internal-combustion engines capable of burning gasoline or liquefied hydrogen.

BMW, which has been working on hydrogen fuel technology since 1978, will build and distribute about 100 of the vehicles for a variety of uses.

Users, who would not be charged for the cars, could include politicians, celebrities, drivers in corporate fleets and members of the public. Some would receive the cars for prolonged periods, others for short test drives.

General Motors Corp. and other big carmakers are working on fuel-cell vehicles that would use hydrogen in an electrochemical process to produce electricity to power a motor.
Ford Motor Co. and Japanese affiliate Mazda Motor Corp. also are working to develop internal-combustion engines that run on hydrogen.

[Source: LA Times]

I wonder if I’ll qualify to get one of those cars to test and play around with…
I mean wouldn’t they need some real world information from at least one person from the Africa and Middle East region, someone like me for example?

Amazon Unbox: Video Download Service

Amazon.com have finally released their online video download service by the name of Amazon Unbox.

Amazon Unbox will offer content from six major Hollywood studios, including 20th Century Fox and Warner Bros., as well as TV networks such as CBS and Fox and cable channels like Comedy Central and E! Entertainment.

It’s obvious Amazon.com rushed this service out quickly this week in an attempt to beat Apple to the market by a few days.

I haven’t had the chance to try it out yet, but it doesn’t look that promising from what I’ve read on Techdirt.

Apparently it brings nothing new to the market, simply another clone of the existing services with the same problems and downsides.
It only works on Windows; it has unflexible portability, unfair copy protection and limited usage; and the prices are relatively high.

So basically it looks like this service brings nothing new to the already dull video download market.

Something the video download business should have learned from the music download business is that it’s the little details in how you do it, how easy it is to use and how good the price is that counts.
Apple’s offer should be coming out in a few days now, and everyone’s expecting they’ll do it all in a slightly differently way and revolutionize the business just like they did with iTunes and the music download business.
I’m not as optimistic as everyone else because after all, Apple or not, a lot of it depends on how much the studios are willing to play ball, and it doesn’t look like they’re thinking straight yet. Anyway I’m sure Apple’s offering will come out better than what is available in the market now at least.

Develop Your Own Xbox 360 Games

Microsoft is announcing new tools today that it says will allow people with little technical background to create video games for Windows and the Xbox 360 gaming system.

Dubbed XNA Game Studio Express, the free software is expected to be available in beta form by the end of the month, with a final product available sometime this holiday season.

With this release, the software giant is hoping to lay the groundwork for what one day will be a thriving network of enthusiasts developing for one another, something akin to a YouTube for games.

The idea is to bring new blood into the video-game business, which has struggled to retain talent and recruit new developers, said Scott Henson, director of platform strategy for Microsoft’s game-developer group.

In the first incarnation, games developed using the free tools will be available only to like-minded hobbyists, not the Xbox community as a whole. By the end of the year, Microsoft will debut a $99 annual subscription service that allows developers to target their games to the Xbox 360.

Next spring, Microsoft hopes to have a broader set of tools that will allow for games to be created that can then be sold online through Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade.

I think this is a good and smart move by Microsoft to lure new and potentially creative people into the game design business. I also think that opening up the Xbox to become an accessible game platform that anyone can develop for will help build a better following for it and some sort of sense of community around it, which can only be good for the company.

[Sources: Seattle Times, CNet News]

Nabaztag: The Smart WiFi Bunny

wifibunny.jpgFrench company Violet has released a cool Wi-Fi Bunny by the name of Nabaztag, which means rabbit in Armenian.

The plastic bunny, which stands 23 cm tall and has a white cone-like body that lights up when it speaks, with ears like TV antennae can read out e-mails, mobile phone text messages and news, tell children to go to bed, wake you up alert one to how the stock market is doing, provide weather reports, give traffic updates and tell you about air quality in your city by receiving Internet feeds via a wireless Wi-Fi network.

Nabaztag costs 115 euros in France, 80 pounds in Britain and $150 in the United States. It is made in Shenzhen, China.

I think it’s a pretty cute, cool and interesting gadget with really nice features and capabilities.
I didn’t come across these when I was in Paris last march or I might have been lured into buying one.

For more details about the bunny, check out this review at : Come Across.

MyTobii P10 Eye Tracking PC

MyTobii P10Swedish company Tobii is about to release its MyTobii P10, a PC that can be controlled by tracking your eye movements using its own proprietary hardware and software.

Follow a calibrating dot on the screen with your eyes for 30 seconds, and then you’ll be able to control this PC without touching it at all. What’s even more remarkable tis that the company has figured out how to make this work in almost any lighting conditions, and even if you wear glasses.

The ability to mount the pc to a desk, bed or wheelchair should prove very helpful for people with disabilities.

The first version of this PC will cost around $17,000.
With that kind of money you could actually hire someone to follow your eye movements and then do whatever you want for you instead. But well it’s a cool technology and hopefully with time the price tag will shrink to something more reasonable and affordable.

[Via: Gizmodo]

Sony Mylo

Sony Mylo

Sony has gone along and unveiled a new handheld gadget called “Mylo”, which stands for “My Life Online”, that combines instant messaging, Web browsing, e-mailing, VoIP capabilities via Skype, music playing and photo viewing.
It features a slide-up 2.4-inch screen, 1GB flash, and a Memory Stick slot.

The device looks a bit like the PSP (PlayStation Portable), but less slick and slightly uglier, still better looking than some other gadgets out there.

The Mylo is aimed at the younger generation who spend a lot of their time on internet chat rooms or instant messaging their friends.

A drawback of the device is its reliance on wireless technology, there being no mobile phone service or plug-in connection options open, rendering it pretty useless in countries that are short on free wireless coverage.

Anyway talking of Sony devices, I have a friend who wants to sell his Special Edition Silver PlayStation 2, used but in good condition, modified to play burnt games, one controller, along with 35 games. The price: 280 Tunisian Dinars.
If you’re interested, send me an email and I’ll get you in contact with the guy.

Floating Magnetic Bed

Now this is cool…

floating_bed.jpgA young Dutch architect has created a floating bed which hovers above the ground through magnetic force and comes with a price tag of 1.2 million euros ($1.54 million).

Janjaap Ruijssenaars took inspiration for the bed — a sleek black platform, which took six years to develop and can double as a dining table or a plinth — from the mysterious monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 cult film “2001: A Space Odyssey.”

Magnets built into the floor and into the bed itself repel each other, pushing the bed up into the air. Thin steel cables tether the bed in place.

[Source: Yahoo! News]

Real real cool, huh?

I remember back when I was in high school, in physics class, I was quite fascinated by all the stuff surrounding magnetic energy and all; I would keep thinking about all the different cool things we could do using magnets and electrically generated magnetic fields. In my head, I worked out ways we could use it for transportation (trains, cars), lifting and hanging stuff, and a bunch of other cool stuff.

So now when I see some of the things I thought about coming true in real life or even portrayed in movies, it feels great that I thought of them too quite a time ago and figured out how it all could be done.

Microsoft’s Zune Portable Media Player

Zune playerAfter many rumours and leaked information and photos, Microsoft has finally confirmed the existence of Zune, its planned media player and iPod killer.

Under the Zune brand, Microsoft will be delivering a family of hardware and software products, the first of which, the media player, will be available this year. Pyxis is the codename for their iPod nano competitor which would also include video capabilities; Alexandria is the codename for the software that powers the Zune experience.

The device will have hard drive-based storage and integrated WiFi. The WiFi will be used for community-based music sharing/streaming, as well as internet access, which will give Zune players the ability to access Microsoft’s online music store from anywhere.

Microsoft will also be allowing users to share their content with the XBOX 360, Windows Media Center based PCs and Windows Mobile-based mobile phones.

A Zune viral marketing site has been launched at: ComingZune.com, and a blog at: Zune Insider.

More: engadget.

HP Unveils Memory Spot

Hewlett-Packard unveiled a memory chip the size of a tomato seed in its Palo Alto laboratories. The tiny chip, called the Memory Spot, can be attached unobtrusively to any object and carry media or data.

The Memory Spot will rival RFID tags in carrying information on movable physical objects. It has a 10 megabits-per-second data-transfer rate and can store up to 4 megabits of data.
The chip has an integrated antenna, which is why it is so much smaller than an RFID chip, which gets most of its size from the separately attached antennae. It receives power through inductive coupling from a special read-write device that extracts data from the memory on the chip.

The reading devices have yet to be developed, but HP thinks that mobile phone companies and PDA manufacturers will be interested in the technology.

HP demonstrated picture albums with the chip attached to the borders. When a reader touched the chip, audio from the picture was played. They also demonstrated waving a reader over the chip on a medicine bottle and getting the dosage, directions, and all other pertinent information from the prescription on the attached computer.

Other proposed applications include sending digital postcards with movies and sounds, attaching catalogs to merchandise, resumes to business cards, and digital information to a document in order to photocopy it without scanning.

Sounds really good, and a lot more cool and interesting things could come out of using technology like this, yet we must not forget all the privacy concerns that were raised because of RFID, and that would apply here as well if put in the wrong hands.

[Source: PCMag]