Many people have just one OS (Operating System) on their computers these days. Hardcore geekazoids like myself, may have more than one, but only one can be run at the same time. Switching from Windows XP Pro to Windows 2000, and then to Red Hat Linux 9.0 prove to be a bit of a pain. The pro to multiple operating systems in my opinion are the applications. My AutoCad release runs on Win 2000, Red Hat Linux has tons of free software, and Windows XP keeps me up to date with the rest of the world.

XenSource makes a product called the Xen hypervisor, which allows a computer to run more than one OS at a time. It supposedly is “a very thin layer of software that essentially presents to the operating system an idealized hardware abstraction”. I’d love to get my greasy little hands on this hypervisor! Expected due dates are set somewhere along the lines of 2010.

And the winner, with 744 points, coming in a total of 7 points above the second place: Teeee Mooooobiiilleeee.

T-mobile (I have no idea what the T stands for) has come out on top according to J.D. Power and Associates. We’re talking billing, promotions, customer service, and cost, are just that much nicer on the T side of things. Cingular raked in 711, Sprint PCS a 709 and Nextel dropped in with 704 overall points. This is all good news to yours truly considering I have been with Sprint and Nextel, the two losers of today’s competition results. It’s good to know that my sidekick is a winner this time!

In the 80’s you needed a big boom box to carry on your shoulder, bumping your favorite tune as loud as you could. Soon, the new boom box might just be a patch on your shoulder. A Korean research firm has developed a technology to mass produce sound speakers that are as flexible as fabric.

Speakers will never look the same again. In fact, we may never see another speaker, in the traditional sense, if this takes off. Just weave your speaker into your sweater and have a blast.

I ‘ve had the Sirius Sportster Satellite Radio for about 2 weeks now. In this time I have installed, listened, and enjoyed. The first week of Sirius radio entertainment was channeled to my audio amplifier via a line-in stereo jack which plugs into the rear of my car stereo. Since this feature is not available on every car stereo, Sirius has built in an FM transmitter. For the second week of my Sirius experience I restricted myself to the FM transmitter of the Sirius Sportster.

The handset transmits an FM signal, chosen by the user, and fed through a wire antenna, in hopes of your car stereo picking up the signal. My limited iPod experiences with Monster Cable and Griffin FM modulators have not been satisfactory. Therefore, I did not expect much from Sirius.

Upon FM setup, I dialed into 88.7 both on the Sportster and my car FM radio. The sound came through with no interruptions, and the sound quality was higher than my initial low expectation. I wasn’t impressed just yet, could the Sportster maintain a nice strong signal throughout a day of San Francisco driving?

The FM transmitter has a very broad range of frequencies, opposed to some modulators which are limited to the low 80’s or 90’s. I found the best frequency to be 90.9 FM for city driving.

I drove the ups and downs of the city of San Francisco for half of the day listening to Jazz, news, weather in New York, Bjork, Jack Johnson, and Ludacris. After a few hours of jammin’ FM style I switched over to the original set up of the Siruis line-out to aux input. There was a very noticeable difference in sound quality. The FM transmission seems to lose the richness of the low frequency sound.

Here’s a quick video of me cruising the streets of San Francisco with the Sirius Sportster blasting.

Results:
Using the FM modulator works well, but not as solid as the aux input.
The Sirius radio is a definite plus for any driving experience.

The laser was invented in 1958, but CD players, laser pointers, and hair removal took a few decades before the laser was implemented into these world changing inventions. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is not on the exact same timeline, but there are global impacting inventions popping up with the RFID technology.
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Technology such as this can be implemented in just about any scenario I can think of, so I asked Monahan to think of some ideas for me.

I think the transmitters will continue to get smaller, so the number of uses
and applications can be expanded. I think there is a market for traffic
control, service businesses (such as automobile) so they can greet their
Customers, and track when and how long a car was in for service. I also
think the Hospital Market has huge potential for tracking assets.

We already have interest from companies to track employees and have
integrated access control with RFID to protect laptops from being removed
from property unless it is with a properly tagged owner. Mustering is
another great application where in the event of an emergency, employees must
evacuate to a safe area and log in. RFID is perfect for performing a “head
count”.

I was curious, how fool proof is this system. If I were to damage a RFID transmitter, how would the system respond? “Each RFID tag has a Tamper Switch built in that when violated can be programmed to transmit alarm bursts and then render the tag inoperative.”

The units are accessible over the internet or a local network, if deactivation or reprogramming is needed remotely.

I personally don’t have kids, a garage, or a want for internetrestriction, but I have a huge need for a system like this integrated into my life. First thing I’d do is RFID my car and program an alarm sound so I don’t get caught parking in the way of the weekly street sweeper. The RFID system would have paid for itself on that single implementation!

If I were a bad blogger, I’d keep the Nanofactory Product Catalog a secret. I could probably milk another 5-10 posts from this baby. Although some of the “products” are speculative, like solar powered lawn grass, they are all the kinds of ideas that make you go hmmm.

Many of the product descriptions assume a post-nanofactory fictional history, but the site assures us that its technical consultant, Chris Phoenix of the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, has put great effort into making all product descriptions fall within the plausible capabilities of theoretical molecular manufacturing. This includes a biomass food machine. Any kind of biomass goes in, and tasty food comes out.

Not all the ideas are pure speculation though. Some are labeled “in development” and make you smile about the bright future with bite sized gadgets that can do it all.

If you are looking for an eco friendly alternative to the Mini or Prius, here may lie your solution. The Smart Car, currently zipping through streets in Europe for the past seven years, is going to be imported into the US by a small Santa Clara Ca. Company, Zap. When I was in Switzerland a few years back, I remember seeing this zooming throught the narrow streets, delivering pizzas or transporting people around.

The Zap is 8 feet 2 inches long, or slightly more than half the length of the Prius, and at 1,588 pounds, it is nearly 40 percent lighter than the Mini Cooper. The three-cylinder car appeals to urban dwellers who need to squeeze into small parking spaces and like the stylish colors.

The customizable car will be sold with door panels in a variety of colors that can be switched “within the time it takes to drink a latte,” Campbell said.

In its current form, the Smart could be sold in 45 states, but not in California and four others that adhere to the nation’s toughest emissions standards.

“The European version of the car is rated to get 60 miles per gallon. However, to meet the tougher U.S. emissions standards, the car received an initial Environmental Protection Agency rating of just 37 mpg. He said the company’s internal tests indicate that the modified car should get at least 50 mpg, so it has asked the EPA for a retest.

Nevertheless, it remains to be seen if this small, reletively unsafe car, will be sucessfull in the states, for its been loosing money in Europe for a few years now.

In the Stone Age grocery shopping was an analog task. You wrote down your shopping list, perhaps with something as quaint as a pencil. Traveled to the store, hopefully everything was refrigerated and after getting all your items you would call it a day.

Now there is a new way to shop. IBM and Springboard Retail Networks are each working on their own version of a computerized shopping cart. The cart can guide you through the aisles using a GPS like map. It won’t count your calories, but it can ring you up, making the grocery store a one-stop hassle free encounter. You’ll never get lost looking for pickles again, the cart will take you to them, just like you were on a treasure hunt.

But, seeing as how it will cost a store 160,000 to get fully equipped with the smart shopping carts, I have a feeling we won’t be seeing them at Costco anytime soon.

Found City is one of a growing number of Folksonomies. But don’t tell them that, they like to say they are in the Folkmapping business. A Folksonomy can be thought of, more or less, as a new brand of site that focuses on tagging. Graffiti is back, except now it has nothing to do with spray paint and everything to do with how we organize (tag) our digital information. Flickr is one of the most popular Folksonomies.

With Found City (currently only available in Manhattan), you can take a picture of an interesting city object, like an abandoned building, and tag the photo registering it at Found City. The result is a Craiglist, Mapquest montage that lets you see where other people have come across, tagged and registered other abandoned buildings.

This site is super-beta, but it could be kinda cool once it takes off. I hope they start a version of it in SF. I would like to find out where the rest of the gnarly Civic Center trees are planted.

The Xbox, that little bundle of wires and joy, is at it again. First off, we should note that Showtime, the cable movie giant second only to HBO, is going to be giving away Xbox games as part of a promotion to new subscribers. But contest announcements aside, lets get down to the real news.

Bill Gates is a big talker lately. Just the other day he went on record saying cars should eventually get smart enough to prevent themselves from crashing. He said it standing next to Henry Ford Jr. no less. So today, it’s no surprise that the king of all dorks mentioned some big plans for the next Xbox design.

It will be an entertainmnet hub akin to a PC according to Gates. Microsoft really wants to focus on the multi role playing games that let you network up while you play. The new Xbox might have a very Windows like interface that lets you play games, listen to music and chat with other gamers in a manner that could only be called PC-like. Put some Microsoft Word document capability there and you might have the next big college campus computer.