Monthly Archives: October 2005

Most of the time natural disasters lie in the back of our minds. But current events have brought them to the forefront. An ongoing theme in the coverage of Katrina and the Pakistani earthquake is the role technology will play in helping cope with disasters like these in the future.

One example is how blogs responded in the aftermath of Katrina (or will respond with future Katrinas), but another theme is with good old fashion gadgets.

A Japanese research firm Oyo has made a gadget that can pinpoint the exact location (and depth) of a person buried alive in a natural disaster.

The gadget works like a radar and bounces off a breathing chest, so even if the person cannot move under rubble, as long as they can breath, this gadget will detect them.

Hopefully we won’t find any use for it soon, but I’m glad to know that energy is being spent in this field.

I am not one for plastic surgery. We are the way we are. Nature, God, fate, whatever you believe in, has us looking just the way we should look.

Windows was not created by God, nature, fate, or anything else of similar caliber. Therefore I deem it a green light to pump up the bust, suck out the fat, and give your old XP installation a facelift.

Powertoys made by Microsoft, for Microsoft is my plastic surgeon of choice. Tools and trinkets like SyncToy, ClearType Tuner, Alt-Tab Replacement, and Image Resizer are among the few interesting Powertoys offered.

Sure the name PowerToys yields an image of enormous jackhammers, 50” rotary saws, and 300bhp chain saws. But these little tweaks are still pretty cool after the letdown of a deceitful name.

In-flight internet has been a reality for a little while (yes, there are perks we still don’t get in the U.S.), but today New Scientist reports on a Boeing flight demonstrating a few other goodies – WiFi plus live television and support for cell phones.

Apparently Boeing leased some bandwidth from satellites with coverage of the northern hemisphere, broadcasting the BBC, CNBC, Euronews and Eurosport News. When it comes to voice service, options include VOIP and low-power onboard base stations that work with standard GSM phones.

Remaining hurdles include clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration in the U.S. and the Civil Aviation Authority in the U.K., largely to demonstrate that the stuff doesn’t interfere with the aircraft’s onboard equipment.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m a kid standing outside of a candy store chock full of sweets that are making my mouth water…and the damn door’s still locked.

I’ve seen the future of internet mapping technology, and the word is WOW! We all started with Microsoft’s Streets & Maps on CD, and it was incredibly useful. The internet brought us Mapquest, and Yahoo Maps, and now it was always up to date with links to everything around a spot. I started playing with the Google Earth software a few weeks ago. The satellite images with street map overlays provide detail that make me feel like I work at the CIA with a satellite at my disposal.

Today, I found out about A9 which is in beta. Their database is limited to only a few cities currently. They combined MapQuest maps, with 360 degree pics down the street. Want to know what you’ll see at an intersection? Just scroll around. to get any more detail, you’ll need to actually go there.

Punk kids and their spray-paint. Graffiti started in New York in the 80’s as a way for kids to try and create a street persona. Since then it has become synonymous with street gangs claiming territory. But dorks have now redefined what graffiti is with Grafedia.

If you ever come by some blue graffiti it could be a hyperlink. The blue marks on a stop sign have within them instructions. Usually they are a name @ Grafedia dot net. So follow the instructions and go to Grafedia and find the name. Within that name you will find links to video or music content. Their graffiti becomes a means to communicate digital art with you via the real world. Crazy no?

I’ve spent the past few weeks enjoying a free trial of Netflix, building a sizeable rental queue, diligently watching my discs shortly after they arrive, shooting them (literally, I wish) into the mail and waiting for what’s next. I admit, Netflix has done a remarkable job of placing distribution centers near major urban areas across the country – they claim 90 percent of Americans live within 1-day mail service of a Netflix facility – but I still sit here at my desk, wanting more.

I just read a very interesting press release (from yesterday), in which GameFly, the Netflix-like online video game rental service, just announced a partnership with the U.S. Postal Service to improve the speed of delivery of rental games.

Dubbed “FastReturn,” the system notifies GameFly as soon as a returned game is scanned by a local post office, so the service can mail out the customer’s next rental right away. According to GameFly, FastReturn promises to improve delivery times by as much as three days.

Soo…Netflix…I smell an upcoming deal with the USPS, right? You’re not going to let GameFly be the innovator, are you? Since I started my Netflix trial, one of my rentals has been lost in transit, while discs mailed together seem to somewhat too frequently are reported as received several days apart. I realize the system is an inexact science at best, but come on! This seems like a great way to increase efficiency for a very small cost, with zero additional effort needed by the customer.

Snap snap! I’ve got movies to watch!

I stumbled on this just a few minutes ago and have kept it running in the background while I work – National Geographic’s WildCam Africa, a live video feed from a place called Pete’s pond, part of Botswana’s Mashatu Game Researve. For the past 30 minutes (starting at 9:45 EST) I’ve been watching an empty pond become a resting place for a herd of elephants, as a trickle of fleet-footed youngsters lead to a stream of adults.

As the site reads, it all came about as a result of some “technical ingenuity, tinkering with satellite coordinates, some switching and routing of video data, and no small share of critterproofing.” Great stuff. The site also has a small “video highlights” section with clips of Wildebeests, Warthogs, Baboons and more. Peak viewing hours are listed as 7 am – noon and 4-6 pm. (Botswana is 6 hours ahead of the east coast of the U.S.).

The camera has the ability to move, which surprised me when it first happened, so if you don’t see anything when it first loads, be patient. If no large animals show up, there’s always the pleasant sound of birds chirping. If you can’t commune with nature, it looks like the web can bring it to you. Finally! 😉

It looks like a slew of folks responded to San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom’s request for proposals on ways to provide city residents with inexpensive (or free) WiFi, the most prominent being everyone’s favorite search engine. As far as I’ve learned, they’ve released a VPN (virtual private network) client, though my attempts to download the damn thing haven’t met with much success…I’m betting they’ve taken the appropriate servers down due to load or somesuch concern, as these things tend to get large pretty fast.

If you’re curious, search for “google vpn client“, or visit http://wifi.google.com. At the time of this post, the second link merely redirects to google.com.

But back to the details of the WiFi: the G-boys hope to blanket SF with a FREE 300Kbps network. I’ve read a lot of complaints about the speed, but keep in mind that this comes from hyper-progressive tech geeks who all complain about the lack of expansion ports in things like Mac Minis and the 100-song capacity of the iTunes phone. For the millions of people out there with little to no ‘net access – the targets of a low cost, municipality-wide internet availability solution – 300Kbps will be sweet.

Man, I wish I was in SF now. Hopefully soon, self…hopefully soon.