HP TouchSmart

I saw the HP TouchSmart yesterday and tried it out very briefly. As with Windows CE, I got an immediate sense that there's a huge mismatch between the I/O device and the UI, i.e., that a much better UI could be made given the possibilities of the input and output capabilities of the hardware.
I don't know whether the screen supports multi-touch (sensing multiple fingers at the same time), but, I didn't have time to ponder where in a Windows UI I might find something to test on.
Still, you can passably tap buttons, except even there, I tried to hit the close 'X' button at the top right corner of the screen, and, well, I couldn't. The bezel around the screen juts out at a 90 degree angle 1 or 2 millimeters beyond the last pixel, and it's a massive 1/2" or so high, so fingers can't go there. Back to the drawing board.
Still, HP makes some wonderful video ads.

F.I.B.

PolarisMotor in Italy has some very fun-looking vehicles.

Thanks to Q for the link.

Amazing Prosthetics

WIRED has an article (including a video) of a prosthetic arm designed by Dean Kamen. It looks like a very nice segue to the Segway.

Andromeda Strain?

Apparently, some bacteria of the Pseudomonas and Sphingomonas families like to eat plastic.

Al Mo GTS (Go to Sleep)

Toy-makers out there, here is what I would like: A soft animal toy remote controlled by a parent to give such useful messages as "It's time to close our eyes and go to sleep now. Please hold me tight!"
This would take advantage of children often paying more attention to others than to their parents. ;-)

Fun Image Processing with a Wii

Here is a TED Talk about some fun things you can do for a few dollars using a Wii remote control's infrared camera.

Fun Drawing Program

Doodle
Originally uploaded by Mannby

I looked for a drawing program that was simple to use, free, and covered the whole screen, for Anantika to use while visiting the office, and I found this gorgeous application for the Mac: ArtRage.

Google Conference on Scalability 2007

The videos from the Google Scalability Conference are now available online.

Jeff's talk, above, had lots of interesting stats on Google's operations.

My My Frosty

$2.5K Car

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/01/10/1325207&from=rss

"After months of rumors and tantalizing leaks, Tata Motors has finally unveiled the Tata Nano, its already legendary $2,500 car that promises to change the face of not only the Indian car market, but the global auto industry. The tiny car is a four door, five seat hatch, powered by a 30 HP engine that gets 54 miles per gallon."

Gasoline from CO2

"Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico have found a way of using sunlight to recycle carbon dioxide and produce fuels like methanol or gasoline."

"He and Stechel said the technology could be 15 to 20 years from viability on an industrial scale.
The Sandia team originally developed the CR5 to generate hydrogen for use in fuel cells. If the device's rings are exposed to steam instead of carbon dioxide, they generate hydrogen. But the scientists switched to carbon monoxide, so the fuels they produce would be compatible with existing infrastructure."

Sounds very interesting. I assume the process for generating gasoline from carbon monoxide is well known. I would hate to see carbon monoxide floating around....

Color-blindness Simulation

Here is a site that lets you simulate viewing other sites as they would appear to color blind people of various types: http://colorfilter.wickline.org/

Thanks to Dan Fox for the link.

DIY Drones

I think my kids' children will be able to have dragons flying around in their bedroom, spraying cold fire on roaring hand-sized bears roaming the far corners of the shelves.

Or, maybe it will come sooner: http://diydrones.com/

CELLHUP

Have you ever made or received an unintentional/pocket call? Then this one's for you:

Cell phones should be made to understand a simple numerical sequence, e.g. *55*, that makes the receiving side hang up and make a special sound to alert the owner what happened.

So, if you receive a "pocket call" simply press *55*.

Chumby

A very interesting open hardware project.

New MP3 Compressor Claims 2X Smaller Files

http://www.wired.com/software/softwarereviews/news/2007/09/shrinkmytunes

Magic Image Resizing

This video demonstrates a wonderful image processing technique. I guess photos can definitely not be believed any more, even a live photo feed....

Thanks to Q for the link.

Broadband Upgrade

http://www.thelocal.se/7869/20070712/

Wikipedia Shrinking

A new text compression algorithm has been developed that is very close to the range of compression achievable by humans.

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/0055257&from=rss

Open Source Phone

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/09/0049249&from=rss