Waste Heat to Be Used by Conservatory ————————- Heat
generated by the Univ. of Notre Dame’s high-performance computing
department is being used to heat a local greenhouse. The department has
placed a containerized data center next to the Ella Morris and
Muessel-Ellison Botanical Co…
By: AngryRedhead
An HDTV may not seem necessary for our beloved elders who just want to get their Price Is Right on in peace, but TV Ears — which makes wireless listening devices that are like hearing aids for the television — is hoping that a slew of senior-friendly features will make its TV Ears TV attractive.
The 32-inch LCD covers all the basics of what you’d expect from a senior set, including a remote control with only six large buttons and an integrated transmitter that cuts down on how many wires there are to deal with. It’s also got a handy auto-shutdown feature that will put the set to sleep after four hours — in case the viewer has also gone sleepy-bye.
That all sounds great, but the biggest barrier to entry here is the price: $1,200. While that could buy you a sweet set for your youthful eyes, that $1,200 also includes delivery, installation and toll-free tech support. What are the chances your grandparents are going to call that “man I don’t know” on that “number I can never remember,” though, instead of calling their sweet, sweet grandkid who tried to replace their familial responsibilities with technology?
Via Engadget
Harry is an energetic and playful Springer Spaniel who is hoping to be adopted by someone with an active lifestyle. He loves people, especially if they give him lots of fuss and attention and he’d be happy to live with another dog. Harry has a very endearing pastime – he likes to collect socks and shoes!
Last time we saw a futuristic design from Deviantartist “Peanuts23,” it was the mean, lean JetBike. If the JetBike was designed for speed demons who love high-flying fun, then the JetScooter would be for the rest of us to take to the grocery store.
It’s got a front like a Vespa, but the sleek body will still rope in those who don’t like the aesthetic. Really, though, if you make it hover, I’ll definitely be into it. Check out more of the JetScooter in the gallery below.
Lucky is a rather beautiful 8 year old greyhound girl who has been waiting for a new home for quite some time. She’s very playful and friendly and could live with older children, but she’d prefer a home where she’ll be the only dog.
As a crowd of tech companies roll out tablets at the upcoming CES 2010, lurking underneath will be Apple’s alleged iSlate tablet. Rumors swirl everywhere, and now here’s yet another concept of what the actual Apple tablet might be like. That is, if it even exists, or if it will be actually be introduced on January 26 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
We’re hoping this 10-incher is the real thing. It trumps many of the other design concepts we’ve seen, differing in its absence of any buttons whatsoever. Steve Jobs hates buttons — so this design seems to have a ring of truth about it. Could this be close to the actual iSlate we might see at the end of this month?
Via Gizmodo
Attention motorheads: take back all the socks and ties you got for Christmas and plunk your moolaa down for this Desktop V Twin engine. Sure, you’re going to have to return a lot of gift detritus for this $1000 butane-fueled power plant, but get this: It really works.
Its two aluminum 1.5 mL cylinders start their internal combustion when you turn its brass flywheel, and then this little engine will spin at 1500 RPM for 10 minutes on a full tank of butane. It’s said to be “optimally balanced for minimum vibration and smooth operation,” but we’re wondering how loud this thing is.
Never mind that racket — just think how freaked out everyone will be when they see this little two-banger chugging away, right there on your desktop.
In Sept 09 Blue found what he thought was his forever home and he was absolutely thrilled because he really hated kennel life. Sadly it wasn’t to be and through no fault of his own he’s now back in rescue. He’s a super boy who loves people and has lived with other dogs. Please read his story to see if you can help him.
The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas starts late tomorrow, and DVICE will be live on the scene. Visit us regularly to see news and pictures of every breakthrough gadget, übersleek piece of gear and impossibly thin TV. All week long we’ll be blogging live from Vegas finding the greatest tech toys 2010 has to offer. More importantly, our experienced team will separate the real stories from those lame new “products” that aren’t worth your time.
Want more? You’ve got it — this year DVICE’s Twitter feed will post headlines as they happen. We’ll be tweeting live from the press conferences on Wednesday and from the show floor all week. We’ll also be giving away stuff via our Twitter feed, so keep checking our updates for a chance to win CES swag.
See you in Vegas — Geronimo!
Comet is going to make a special companion to some very lucky person. She is calm and gentle and all she wants from you is a snuggle and lots of love. She gets along with other dogs and children of all ages and she will always greet you with a waggy tail.
While this year’s CES will probably feature improbably thin HDTVs, expect next year’s screens to be so skinny they’d have to run around in the shower just to get wet.
How thick? A company called FLEx Lighting has figured out how to manufacture an LED backlight that’s a mere 0.5mm thin.
How do they accomplish this miracle? Using an innovative roll-to-roll process similar to the way OLEDs are created, the light from tiny LEDs is channeled to the screen using a flexible film light guide.
The result? Screens without bezels that show video all the way out to the edge, which could even evolve into flexible screens. Wow.
Via Technabob
Just a few minutes ago, Dubai officially opened the world’s tallest building. Until now, we thought it was going to be called the Burj Dubai, but get used to the name of the tallest building in the world: Burj Khalifa. Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammad surprised everyone when he named the gigantic building after Sheikh Khalifa, president of the United Arab Emirates.
How tall is this pointy, phallic beast? Until now, the height of the $1.5 billion building was an official secret, but we have the number for you: its 828 meters, or 2717 feet tall. That’s 1000 feet taller than the previous recordholder, the 101-story Taipei 101.
The half-mile-high building is the tallest man-made structure ever built, eclipsing even previous recordholder, the 2,121-foot Warsaw radio mast. Another amazing record: the fastest elevators in the world, traveling at 40 mph.
Burj Khalifa, via Times Now
Mophie, maker of slim-’n-handy battery-extending Juicepack Air iPhone cases, now ventures into the world of credit card readers with its product that’ll be rolled out at CES 2010 this week. Imagine that — now everybody with an iPhone will be able to accept MasterCard, Visa, Discover, or American Express. At last, an easy way to pay for those $20 sandwiches on airplanes.
This credit card reader is attached to the bottom of an iPhone case, and includes a transaction application that makes it so all stores can be as hip and trendy as Apple retail outlets, eschewing cash registers altogether. But wait, isn’t there a chip on credit cards that might make all this physical swiping unecessary?
Via Pocket Lint
Remember that Popcorn Hour box that plays just about any video with awesome power, but has an awful user interface? Its daddy, Syabas, just created its little brother, named Popbox, and it’s packing features that almost match the power of its clunky sibling, but takes its entire user experience way into the future.
The best feature of this new streaming network media player is its user interface (see the gallery below), showing you whatever content you have on an external USB, flash drive, or network with a level of beauty that’s about 10 years ahead of the Popcorn Hour box. Best of all, most of the power of the Popcorn Hour is still inside, playing 1080p over HDMI at a surprisingly high bit rate of 100 Mb per second. Besides that, we like its sweet new smaller design that’s fanless for ultraquiet TV viewing. And yeah, it plays back almost every video format known to man and woman, including the pirate staple, Matroska files (.mkv).
Syabas signed on a handful of online channels that the Popcorn Hour doesn’t have, such as Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, MLB and Shoutcast, but sadly, there’s no Hulu yet. Syabas told us in an interview there are more channels on the way, so stay tuned. If you’d like to fiddle with BitTorrent with this Popbox like you can with the Popcorn Hour, you’re out of luck, too. It also lacks the internal drive of the Popcorn Hour. Not to worry, we saved the best news for last: it’ll cost you $129 when it rolls out in March. We’ll get a close-up look at this baby coming up at CES this week.
Aside from lithium-ion batteries, cell phones and electric cars don’t have all that much in common. Or do they? A new luxury electric minivan from Luxgen, a Taiwanese company, was unveiled at the Dubai International Auto Show (irony?). It utilizes the same technology found in HTC smart phones to combine luxury, electric power, and advanced technology all in the same package.
So will it actually work, or is just more pie-in-the-sky vaporware?
What’s the newest military technology? Lasers. But not pew-pew lasers, like you might be imagining. More like “ow, my eyes!” lasers.
Yes, a new military-grade laser is able to blind people from up to 2.5 miles away. Sure, it’s not meant to blind people, just to “hail and warn” them, but come on. They could aim this thing at an airplane and blind the pilots from the ground. We’ll see just how they end up using it.
BE Meyers via Danger Room via Gizmodo
This is Part One of a three part interview with Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors. They recently displayed their Rally Fighter at the 2009 SEMA show and look to change the way cars are designed, and built.
Next week the Detroit Auto Show will kick off the North American International Auto Show circuit. Over 700 cars will be on display, including several concepts such as an electric Fiat 500 (which will share booth space with Maserati and Ferrari). Only a handful of these cars will make it to production as companies go back to the drawing board to come up with a “winner” they hope the public will buy.
Jay Rogers, CEO of Local Motors, is trying to change all that. Instead of designing a car he hopes people will buy, he is gathering a community of enthusiasts to design a car they want to buy. The result is the Rally Fighter, an off-road car/truck (cruck? trar?) that can get over 30 mpg with 425 ft-lbs of torque that sets a new standard for car design.
You can already use your iPhone to control your iTunes on your computer using Apple’s Remote app, but you’ve never been able to use your iPhone as your TV’s remote control. But that’s about to change.
A company called L5 Technology is releasing the L5 Remote next month, a $50 infrared dongle paired with a free app that turns your iPhone into the ultimate universal remote. The app lets you drag and drop buttons around on the screen to set up just how you want it to work for your various devices. The dongle doesn’t require batteries, and it looks pretty sweet, although we’ll have to see how it actually works before getting too excited.
The Loop via Silicon Alley Insider
A Formula 3 racing car made entirely out of recycled and renewable materials could be a sign of things to come in the automotive industry. At least, that is the hope of some British researchers who have built WorldFirst , an unusual automobile made mostly using recycled plastic water and juice bottles, potato starch, carrot fibers and other materials one normally expects to find in the recycling or compost bin. [More]
Editor’s Note: Scientific American ‘s George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels in Solar at Home (formerly 60-Second Solar). Read his introduction here and see all posts here .
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