Sep 10, 2009

A working experiment in reusing 5 gallon buckets as low-tech structural building units.Let me start off by saying that I'm only involved in this project in the design and tech side, no real labor yet. I hope that doesn't ruin this instructable for you, if I missed anything you can check our project ...
By: markbyounger

CK is a wonderful, sociable Collie X whose owners' circumstances have sadly changed meaning that CK spends a lot of time alone in the garden. He must feel so sad. CK loves children and dogs, and he doesn't chase cats, so we think he sounds rather angelic!

Sep 10, 2009

Motorola and T-Mobile will introduce a new phone running Google's Android mobile operating system this holiday season, the two companies announced Thursday at a mobile technology conference in San Francisco.

The new phone, dubbed the Motorola CLIQ, combines the touchscreen interface popularized by the iPhone with the slide-out QWERTY keyboard common in many other phones. The device will feature integrated 3G and Wi-Fi connectivity, a 5-megapixel camera, 24 frames-per-second video capabilities, a standard headphone jack, and Google's mobile HTML browswer. Users of the CLIQ also will have access to the thousands of Android applications currently available.

More info after the jump.

Sep 10, 2009

What you're looking at might just be the tire of the future. At least that's what the military thinks, as it's testing out prototypes of this new airless tire.

The advantages of airless tires are obvious: they can't be punctured and they never go flat. But it clearly takes a lot of science to get the proper material that can stand up to the pressure of a multi-ton military vehicle sitting on top of it. I look forward to when these things are the standard on normal cars we see on the highways.

Scientific American via Make

Sep 10, 2009

Apple just greenlighted Rhapsody's iPhone and iPod Touch app, which will allow users to stream any of the service's 8 million songs — for a price, and a heftier one than the App Store usually sees. In a land where sub-$5 apps are king, Rhapsody (which is unrelated to — but improved by — the album cover pictured above from the band of the same name) offers a free taste of the program for the first seven days, but after that customers have to shell out $14.99 to continue using it. It's "the first time Apple Inc. has allowed an on-demand music streaming program on its devices in the United States," according to the New York Times.

For the iTunes-entrenched Apple crowd which also enjoys several excellent Internet radio streams, such as Pandora, it sounds like a bit of a raw deal. The move is probably geared toward generating a bit more scratch by getting some of Rhapsody's 75,000 existing subscribers to upgrade to a mobile plan rather than pull in new users, as Rhapsody offers a $12.99 computer-only option, with no way before this to interact with the iPhone.

Neil Smith, vice president of business management for Rhapsody America, told the New York Times that the app will allow the company to ''reach the iPod Touch and iPhone audience that was unavailable to us before.''

As for Apple, there's a benefit to the company, as well. If someone likes a song they are listening to through Rhapsody's streaming service, they can easily purchase it on iTunes, both the music service and Apple splitting the service. That, and you can also craft your own playlists using Rhapsody, whereas Pandora and similar services are more of a crap shoot.

Via New York Times

Sep 10, 2009

You've heard of flip phones, candybar phones and sliders — are you ready for the twirly phone? The Nokia Twist (model 7705) is a square-shaped phone (2.7 inches per side) that sports a swivel-out QWERTY keyboard. It's technically not the first swivel phone, but we've never seen one so… swivel-y. Also interesting: That ring in the corner that the keyboard swings around can light up in six different colors, and you can customize which color based on who in your address book is calling you. Handy.

As a Verizon phone, the Twist give you access to V Cast music and video, and it supports visual voice mail, à la the iPhone. It also boasts a full HTML browser, a 3MP camera, and a "post to blogs" function for easy uploading of your media to the Net. Oh, and a "built-in" mirror. Uh-huh. The phone will cost $100 after a $50 mail-in rebate.

We can't see smartphone fans loving this, but the novel form factor (with mirror!) and light ring are clearly aiming the Twist at the younger market. Will they bite? Quick test: Are you under 25? Do you want this?

Sep 10, 2009

Lurking underneath most of this whiz-bang mobile wizardry we show you every day is a data and voice plan, onerously expensive to the point of driving those of us who are less well-heeled to bankruptcy. And look who comes to the rescue: Sprint. How does $69 a month for unlimited everything sound? And that includes talking your fool head off 24/7 if you want to.

Sprint is hot. Yesterday it shows off the cute and elegant Palm Pixi smartphone, and then today slam-dunks its $69 a month plan that undercuts all of the other greedy cellphone providers by a mile. The plan includes the works:

Unlimited calls to any mobile phone, unlimited web surfing, Blackberry access, unlimited Direct Connect, unlimited text, picture, and video, and unlimited weekend minutes start at 7pm. Plus, the plan includes all the little extras like GPS Navigation, Music Premier, TV Premier, NFL Mobile Live, and NASCAR Sprint Cup Mobile.

How much cheaper is it? For example, if you want to use the iPhone in the least-expensive way possible, AT&T gouges you for more than $85 a month, and that only includes 200 voicemail messages, sometimes-available "unlimited" 3G data, no MMS (yet), and 550 minutes of talk time. That $85 a month amounts to more than a thousand dollars a year. Compared with Sprint's new deal, AT&T's service is a ripoff.

This is revolutionary. Competition is good. Could this be our first look at the "invisible hand" of the marketplace invading the cushy world of fat cat cellphone providers? Whatever happened to that concept of using the airwaves, which belong to us all, for the public good?

Sprint, via MobileCrunch

Sep 10, 2009

Snow Leopard, Apple's latest OS X operating system for Macs, debuted in late August to wide acclaim. Much of the praise has stemmed from the fact that the system boasted "no new features," according to Apple. Of course, Snow Leopard does have a few bells and whistles, but the system is defined, not by them, but by the fact that it's smaller and faster than its predecessor, Leopard. Consequently, reviews have focused on how brave and visionary Apple is for keeping things simple.

On the other hand: Yesterday Apple announced a new line iPods, as it does every fall. The iPod Nano has about a million new features, some of which struck me as unnecessary feature creep. Aren't iPods for music? Don't you already have a video camera in your cellphone? And now the Nano's a pedometer too? Both this year and last year, I was struck by how iPods are trying to do more and more, without adding features that anyone wants to use (remember last year's shake-to-shuffle for the Nano?). Here's a gadget that's known for being minimalist in a company that just based an entire operating system on the notion that "less is more."

Sense a contradiction here? Follow the Continue link to read more about Apple's split personality.