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August
gPad for November?
 Rivals to the iPad are
hardly new, in fact we were reporting on clones and knock-offs weeks before the
iPad hit the street but here’s one that may well send a shiver down the spines
of the good folk at Apple. Gizmodo reportd that Google is planning to launch
their own tablet PC on November 26th. As expected the gPad, which we’ll call it
for lack of an official name, will be running Google’s Chrome operating system,
it is being made by HTC and in the US, where it will naturally be launched
first, it will be tied to the Verizon network. The specs are still speculative,
as it were but the smart money is on a 1280 x 720 multitouch screen, a 32Gb
solid state drive, 2Gb of RAM, webcam, 3G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.
The really important stuff, like the price, will have to wait until nearer the
date, but it’s a fair bet it won’t cost more than the iPad, and if Google
really wants to get this thing off the ground, like as not it will be a good
bit cheaper.
1908
Revive Moist Mobiles
 Maybe it hasn’t happened to
you yet, but the chances are that sooner or later your mobile phone, MP3 player
or digital camera is going to get wet. The how and why isn’t important, but
what happens to it next will decide if it survives. There are many possible
strategies but most experts recommend that you quickly remove the battery, give
it a good shake to remove as much water as possible then place your dripping
device on a warm surface or radiator, leave it overnight and pray to your gods
that it will be alright. But if you are in Japan there’s another option. JMC
Risk Solutions have developed the ‘Dryer Box’, which the makers say uses a
secret technology to get your gadget back on its feet in 30 minutes. The Dryer
Box is now being installed in a number of Tokyo camera shops and a session will
set you back around £8.00 on a no fix no fee basis; If and when it makes it to
our damp shores we’ll let you know.
1608
Self Destructive Drive
 This sounds like the sort
of thing that anyone handling sensitive data may be interested in. It’s the
Toshiba ‘Wipe’ drive, which combines self-encryption with automated data
erasure. Everything that’s stored on the drive is automatically encrypted but
the clever bit is that when the drive is powered down or removed the encryption
key is deleted rendering all of the sensitive data it contains unreadable to
drive copiers or scanners. There are obvious applications for computer users but
Toshiba is also targeting high-end copiers and printers, which also have hard
drives and can hold a lot of sensitive data that’s easily retrievable by those
in the know. Could this be an end to all of those highly publicised stories about
laptops being lost, stolen or accidentally sold? Probably not but it’s a step
in the right direction.
1208
Smashing Pi into 5 Trillion
Bits
 This is the custom made computer, built
by US undergraduate student Alexander
Yee and Shigeru Koday that has just set the new record by calculating the
value of pi to 5 trillion digits. And in case you
were wondering it only took 90 days. By the way Gizmodo reports that the last digit is 2… For PC petrol heads
the spec is as follows. It uses 2 Intel Xenon X5680 processors (equivalent to
24 hyperthreaded cores) running at 3.33 Ghz, it has 98Gb of RAM, 20 hard drives
with a total capacity of 35 terabytes and it runs Windows Server 2008. Oh yes,
and if you want to build one for yourself it’ll cost you the thick end of
£6,300.
0908
Bright Light Cycle
 Being a bit of a cyclist I know only too well that as soon
as I mount my trusty machine I effectively become invisible to motorists and
pedestrians, so anything that grabs the attention of those about to crash into
me is very welcome indeed. Which brings us to Cyglo, a UK company, previously
known as Night Bright Tyre that has figured out a way to embed LEDs into bike
tyre treads and walls. The LEDs can be on all of the time, or flash, for even
higher visibility and there’s no need to switch them on and off, they’re
activated as soon as the wheels start turning. Now I would love to tell you how
much they cost and where you can buy them from but they are not yet in
production. Word has it that all the
paperwork is now complete with patents granted and funding in place so with a
bit of luck it won’t be too long before the streets at night look like something
out of Tron.
0508
GSM Mobile Hacked Via
Laptop
 It has long been supposed
that the GSM mobile phone system was pretty secure and safe from hackers, well,
it is, ish… Needless to say that there are ways and means for well-resourced
and connected spooks and security agencies, but to date it has been beyond the
ability of the average backyard nosey parker, but maybe not for much longer.
Engadget reports that Chris Paget, who has a track record for breaking
supposedly secure technology – in a helpful way of course, he’s one of the good
guys. He has revealed what could be a sizeable flaw in 2G GSM. At the recent
DefCon security conference he was able to trick a number of mobile phone users
into making calls through his laptop. The idea appears to be absurdly simple.
Basically he set up his laptop – connected to a couple of small antennas -- as
a phoney (pun intended) mobile base station, indistinguishable to phones and
most users from the real thing. His kit exploited a feature in the GSM system
that tells the phone to log onto the base station with the strongest signal. No
doubt the phone companies will dismiss it as a stunt but so-called ISMI capture
is one of the techniques used by security agencies, though their equipment is a
darn sight more complicated, and a lot more expensive, so watch what you say...
0208
July
Under the Hitachi
Microscope
 We don’t hear a lot from
Hitachi these days, thanks to some regrettable cost cutting on the PR front,
but apparently they are still in business and news has just reached us of a concept
gadget called the Life Microscope. It’s appearance coincides with Hitachi’s
100th birthday bash in Tokyo and the idea is this wristwatch style monitor
records the wearer’s every movement. It’s a bit like a smart pedometer, and in
addition to how far you walk or run each day, it can also tell when you are
awake of asleep, how much time you spend sitting down or at rest. All of the
captured data can then be downloaded to a PC for analysis. No word yet on what the
average punter is supposed to do with this information though it would probably
be of interest to fitness freaks and doctors.
2607
New Wi-Fi Vulnerability Revealed
 Or at least it will be in
the next few days at the highly entertaining Black Hat Conference. This annual
get together of security experts – on both sides of the fence – has become the
place to reveal newly discovered computer and network loopholes and flaws. It’s usually to be
followed by lots of nervous press releases from manufacturers and software
companies, either promising fixes, or claiming the security issues are
non-existent or irrelevant.
This one, reported by
Engadget and uncovered by security researcher Craig Heffner, highlights a
long-standing problem with wireless routers known as DNS Rebinding. Heffner developed
a tool that managed to crack open more than half of the thirty routers it was
tested on, including popular models from the likes of Belkin and Linksys. Internet
and network traffic passing through hacked routers can be intercepted or
redirected, potentially allowing remote access to files on a user’s computer.
Although the full extent of this vulnerability has yet to be revealed Heffner
says there’s a lot users can do to protect their routers. This includes
changing the setup menu’s default password and IP address, which will help
until the manufacturers come up with a more permanent solution.
2207
Shake and Batt
 Remember those rechargeable
torches that you charge up by shaking vigorously? Well, Brother, the printer manufacturer
has applied a similar technology to a range of double A and triple A cells. The
Vibration-power Generating Battery or VpGB isn’t rechargeable as such, it only
produces power whilst it is being shook, and it only produces a few milliwatts,
so it’s range of applications is a tad limited but one obvious use would be for
TV remote controls – it could be the only exercise some couch potatoes ever
get, and joggers couple probably get up enough steam to power an MP3 player.
Prototypes are up and running so it’s still a little way from the shops but if
the price is right, if might be the last battery you ever have to buy for your
TV handset.
1907
Hiss or Blast From The
Past?
 Believe it or not it’s
almost 50 years since Philips first launched the Compact Cassette (the first
models appeared in 1962) and although it’s been officially and effectively
defunct for at least the past ten years, it refuses to die. Tens of millions of
cassettes are still in circulation and festering away in attics and garages;
many of them contain treasured recordings, but they will eventually fade away
so here’s a way to save them. It’s the Hideoto cassette player from the
Japanese company Tec. It can either be powered from a pair of AA cells and used
like a regular Walkman personal stereo, or you can plug it into your PC’s USB
port, which not only power’s the device but also allows you to copy tapes to
your hard drive, or convert them to MP3s using the supplied software. It’s due
out soon and should cost in the region of £35 - £40 when it reaches these
shores.
1507
Hot Apple Fry
 Traditionally in the days
or weeks following a new Apple product launch the web is alive with stories of
faults and foibles, and so it came to pass with the iPhone antenna and the signal
strength debacle. Apple jumped in quickly to defuse the situation with sage advice
on how to hold the thing, and a promise of a software update to reconfigure the
signal bars, but here’s a new one. Gizmodo reports that a US user’s new iPhone
overheated and caught fire when it was connected to their computer by a USB
lead. The hapless owner touched the phone and received minor burns for their
trouble. Apparently it was due to a faulty USB port and hopefully rare but
Apple does seem to have a bit of a track record with flammable gadgets, so we’ll
have to wait and see if this was just an unfortunate one-off.
1207
Future Firefox
 More Firefox news, this
time it’s an opportunity for you to get a taste of the next version of the
ever-popular browser by trying out the beta version of Firefox 4. Mozilla are
keen to know what you think about it, and there are a lot of new features to
play with. The Add On Manager has had a major revamp, making it easier to
customise the way Firefox looks and works, it supports HD Quality HTML5 high
definition video, there are improvements to security and privacy, including
fixes for loopholes in some web standards that could expose your browsing
history. Crash protection has been uprated and if a rogue plugin causes
problems Firefox should be able to recover without freezing and there has been
some long overdue tweaks to reduce start-up time and page loads. In case you
need reminding beta programs can be unstable and may contain bugs, so it’s
probably not a good idea to ditch your existing version of Firefox just yet,
and be warned that some add-on may not work, but that’s the sort of thing the
folks at Mozilla want to find out, so if you fancy giving them a hand, why not give
it a whirl?
0807
Budget Airline Beater
 Anyone who has travelled
with a budget airline recently will know all about the increasingly severe
carry-on luggage restrictions. Soon all you’ll be allowed is a small paper bag.
Well, here’s a way to beat them, the Scottevest
SeC Travel Coat. Who needs a regulation-sized suitcase when you have one of
these? It has internal pockets for everything, including – of course – a big
one with touchscreen access for your iPad and two more ‘clear touch’ pockets
for a smartphone and mp3 player. There are pouches and cable holes in the
collar for your ear or headphones, pockets for a digital camera, memory modules
and Bluetooth devices, and here are the ones we like best. At the bottom there
are two shoe and wardrobe pouches for a couple of shirts and your spare footwear.
Above those are two more for water bottles, drinks and airline approved liquid
containers, your travel documents, keys and we have no doubt – this has yet to
be confirmed – a kitchen sink and a toilet as well (the last two we made up).
Price and availability has yet to be confirmed, and we have serious doubts that
wearing one you’ll still be able to sit down but if you can get a netbook in
that iPad pouch you can count us in…
0507
Windows 8 Details Leaked
 It will come as no surprise
to anyone that only a matter of months after the launch of Windows 7 that work
is already under way on it’s replacement, Windows 8. So far the details have
been fairly sketchy but according to Engadget someone at Microsoft’s HQ in
Redmond has been careless and let slip a number of images, including a concept of what a W8 PC might look like. It's
clearly meant for
internal presentations and discussion. The feature list is more of a wish list
at this stage but if genuine it provides an interesting insight into what the
future holds. One of the most welcome aspirations
is faster start-up and near instantaneous wake from sleep. It will almost
certainly support super fast USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 3.0, there’s talk of facial
recognition for log-in, optimisations for slate PCs and laptops, one-touch
factory reset, with protection for user files, for painless crash recovery,
hard drive encryption, ambient light sensitivity and a broad hint that support
for FireWire may be dropped. Don’t get too excited, it will be at least a year
before anything tangible emerges and Windows 7 looks like it will be good for
at least another five years, so there’s no need to put off buying a new PC just
yet.
0107
June
Obama
Gets Internet Switch
 In addition to his big red nuclear button US
President Obama has just been given what amounts to a big on/off switch for the
Internet, well, parts of it anyway. The US Senate has nodded through legislation
that gives him the authority to protect the infrastructure of the Internet
during an emergency. It covers specific systems and assets, which, if disrupted
could have catastrophic effects. For the record this bill is called Protecting
Cyberspace as a National Asset Act and
is an update of an existing Communications bill, drafted back in
1934.
2806
The WORM That Won’t Forget
 The WORM in question is
Sandisk’s new Write Once Read Many times SD memory card. Now why, you may be
asking would anyone want such a thing, a memory card that you can only write to
once and cannot erase? Well, it’s clearly not much use to the likes of you and
me but it has a lot of applications in the security and surveillance industry,
police and military. The thing is that if its used to store data, video, audio
recordings, surveillance, testimonies, electronic vote and so on, it cannot be
tampered or fiddled around with, as would be the case with a rewritable memory,
so it is suitable for evidential purposes. What’s more the data these cards can
store is said to be good for at least 100 years, though quite how they worked
that out, and whether or not they’ll still be around to make good on their
warranties, is anyone’s guess.
2406
Pull
The Other One
 Here’s
something we’ve all wanted to do but never dared try (or if you did, it almost
certainly ended in fireworks…). It’s a UK standard three-pin mains plug that is
designed to be safely pulled out of the socket by the cable. In fact the
thinking behind it is quite subtle. It’s actually more of a safety feature,
basically to stop you tripping over mains leads, and it gets around a little
known safety regulations that says it shouldn’t be possible for a plug to
spring apart and expose live wires or contacts if someone trips over the cable.
Designed by Konstantinos Ladas, it’s still at a fairly early stage of
development so no details as yet on the price or availability, and speaking as
someone who has tripped over their fair share of cables, I can’t wait.
2106
XP
End of the Line
 It’s
official, Windows XP, the most used, loved and loathed operating system in
history is finally coming to an end. Actually it was killed off two years ago,
but Microsoft kept it going by allowing netbook manufacturers to install it on
their wares, until October 22nd 2010. There have been suggestions that this
date would be extended once again, but no, it appears that Microsoft is sticking
to its guns. It probably won’t cause too many problems, more than 80 percent of
netbooks are now running Windows 7 and the gazillions of PCs still using XP
aren’t going to stop working overnight. Support for this venerable operating
system will continue to be available for many years to come, if not from
Microsoft then from hundreds of thousands of websites and forums that by now
must have catalogued just about every possible fault condition.
1406
Bath to the Future
 Futurist
flat dwellers are going to love this concept bathroom podule design for
Whirlpool. It’s called the Sub-Tub and here we see it in the half-open
position. When it is closed the top side has a couple of swish-looking of wash
basins with a facing mirror, When it’s open, behind the washbasins (don’t
forget to pull out the plug before you open it…) there’s a large OLED screen
and below that there’s a bathtub, so you can watch the telly while you have a
soak. It’s still very much at the wouldn’t-that-be-a-good-idea stage and
there’s no word as yet as to how they’re going to avoid steaming up the screen,
and the wisdom of having electricity and water in such close proximity but it
all looks very exciting and if you pop along to the Behance studios
website, who are responsible for the design, you can see what it looks like
with a naked lady in it.
1006
Slice Up Your SIM
 It’s just as well most
owners of first generation iPads are Apple enthusiasts, they need to be to put
up with the sainted gadget’s various shortcomings but here’s another one you may
not have known about. If you’re after a 3G model and have visions of popping
the SIM from your mobile phone or broadband dongle into it, think again. It
uses the new MicroSIM format, so your SIM simply won’t fit. The good news is that it
can be made to fit, with a pair of scissors and a steady hand, but here’s a
better way. It’s called Cut My Sim, and
its sole purpose in life is to use it’s stainless steel blades to trim a
standard SIM down to size. It also comes with an adaptor so should the need
arise you can convert your trimmed SIM back to the way it was. The first batch
has just sold out but such is the demand that more are in the pipeline, and one
can be all yours for around £15.00.
0706
Laws Takes to the Skies
 We always knew that one day
someone would invent a death ray, and they have, but it’s still, shall we say,
a touch bulky. In fact this one isn’t the first, far from it, but it’s clearly
much further along than most of the other’s we’ve seen over the years. It comes
to us courtesy of Wired and it’s called the Laser Weapons System or Laws. It
has been put together by the US Navy’s technology division (NAVSEA) and it is designed
to protect ships from aerial attack with a blast of high-power laser light. It
works too and according to the report it has proved successful in trials,
knocking down unmanned drones in a series of tests at China Lake in California.
Technical details are obviously a bit scarce but by the looks of it, it will
require a fair amount of power to do its stuff, clearly not something you can
plug into a 13 amp wall socket, judging by those cables, which probably rules out
a portable version for a while to come, but no doubt they’re working on it…
0306
May
iPed Trumps iPad?
 As I predicted some time
ago Apple’s iPad would be mercilessly cloned, copied and ripped off, and it has
come to pass. Japanese television station TBS has been reporting on one of the
first, called the iPed, It has apparently just gone on sale in China for the
equivalent of around £90, or around a fifth of the cost of an iPad and by all
accounts it’s got a very promising sounding spec. This includes the Open Source
Android operating system running on Intel chips with a decent touch screen all
of the usual wi-fi and 3G connectivity options. It’s a little heavier than an
iPad but otherwise they look pretty much the same (even better according to
some commentators). The increasingly popular open source OS means freedom from
Apple’s straightjacket controls on software and peripherals and the price is
certainly going to raise a few eyebrows. If and when it reaches the west it’ll
doubtless costs a bit more but there’s little doubt that machines like this
could soon be flooding the market. Many of them will be truly awful but some,
possibly including the iPed, have the potential to put a real dent in Apple’s
market.
3105
Googlers Waste £84m
 Last week you may have
noticed that Google ran one of it’s occasional guest logos, but this one was
different. Instead of a static image or cartoon it was a functional game of
Pac-Man, in the shape of the Google logo, celebrating the game’s 30th
birthday. It was fantastically popular
so much so that some clever Dick has worked out that users wasted some 5
million hours playing the game, costing businesses and industry around the
world an estimated £64 million in lost working hours and productivity. Don’t
worry if you missed it, it’s still available in the Google Logos archive at http://www.google.com/pacman/. If you
didn’t get a chance to play with the hidden Easter Egg feature, all you have to
do is click the Insert Coin button a second time and you get to play with Ms.
Pac-Man as well.
2605
Head Start on Whiter Teeth
 Yes, of course it’s obvious,
they’re headphones for making your teeth whiter… Okay, maybe that needs some
explaining. I am indebted to Chickpick for alerting us to Beaming White’s Forever White
teeth whitening headset kit. It’s a DIY outfit that the blurb says will turn
your off colour gnashers pearly white in an hour. You pop a cheek retractor
into your mouth, douse your teeth with a peroxide gel, put on the headset with
it’s LED gizmo, point them at your teeth and switch it on to activate the gel.
Now all you have to do is sit back and listen to some soothing tunes from your
personal stereo while it does its work. The kit includes the headset with it’s
2.5watt LED beamer, a battery pack for 3 AA cells, a 4ml vial of hydrogen
peroxide gel – enough for 15 applications -- the cheek retractor and it all
fits neatly in a sleek carry case. It
all sounds pretty simple but one word of warning, best do it in private, unless
you want start an alien invasion alert.
2405
LED Li-Fi?
 It’s one of those clever sounding ideas
that pop up from time to time but now, with the rapidly falling costs of high
efficiency LED light bulbs there’s serious talk of wireless waves being replaced
by light beams in home and office networks. The plan is to send and receive data
to and from suitably equipped laptops and other wireless devices using ceiling
mounted LED lights. Researchers at Boston University have managed to achieve
data throughput speeds of 10Mb/s so it’s certainly up to the job. There are
plenty of advantages too, it should be reasonably secure, only devices in
direct line of sight of the lights and receptors could access the network, it
uses very little power, and it should put an end to the scare stories about the
safety of wireless systems. It all sounds too good to be true but we can see a
couple of problems. It’s going to be a lot more expensive, what with all the
cabling and infrastructure and then there’s the apparently wasteful need to
keep the lights on during daylight hours. But it’s early days and
we are absolutely confident that the mighty brains working on the concept have that last one figured out…
2005
iPhone Goes Critical
 Our unhealthy interest in radioactivity and love of gadgetry
comes together in this item of news from the University of Utah. Researchers
there have come up with a new app for the iPhone. It’s a visual virtualisation
of the core of a nuclear reactor that allows the lucky user to predict the
performance and life expectancy of atomic power plants. Don’t get too excited,
though, from what we can see you can’t have fun by making it blow up or melt
down, it’s a serious research tool and due to the sensitivity of the data it
contains it is not publicly available but a spokesperson for the University
says it’s something they’ll be looking at. Meanwhile, our sister site anythingradioactive is aware of several
companies and a number of individuals who are looking at ways of turning the
iPhone into a pocket Geiger Counter. It would involve an add-on detector module
and an app to provide the fancy graphics, do the counting make the appropriate
clicking sounds. It’s certainly do-able and stranger things have happened but
we’re not holding our breath…
1705
OLED Obsolete?
 If you have been keeping up
with flat-screen technologies you will be aware that today’s LCD and plasma
screens are already old hat and waiting in the wings is a new generation of
screens using Organic Light Emitting Diodes or OLEDs. And very good they are
too, promising brighter and sharper images from thinner panels, with lower
power consumption thrown in for good measure. There’s already a couple of
screens on the market, though at this stage of the game they are small and very
expensive. At the moment OLEDs are more likely to be found in mobile phones and
MP3 players, but no sooner have we girded our loins for the new displays than
news arrives of OLET or Organic Light Emitting Transistors. OLETs hail from the
Institute of Nanustructured Materials in Bologna and researcher Michele Muccini,
who claims that the new semiconductor structure can be made into even thinner displays
than OLEDs, and they will be between two and one hundred times more efficient
at turning electricity into light. Early adopters, consider yourself duly warned…
1005
3D Seeing Double
 Personally I can’t get
enough of new media formats; the confusion surrounding new technologies and the
occasional formats battle has kept me and a good number of tech journos in beer
vouchers for years, and the lunacy shows no signs of letting up. Take 3D TV for
example, there was no way the manufacturers could all get together and agree a
common standard before launching it on an unsuspecting public. There just had
to be several rival and incompatible formats, and there are, but this one comes
with an extra twist, quite literally. The story, via Engadget is that Panasonic
and Samsung are using the same technology for their LCD shutter glasses. Great,
I hear you say, and the two systems are broadly compatible; however, in order
to use one maker’s glasses with another’s TV, the glasses will be have to worn
upside down as the wiring to the LCD lenses is the opposite way around. The
good news is that there are plans for a common standard, but as with all new
gadgets, it’s a minefield at the moment and if you want to play safe, give it
year and wait for the dust to settle. That’s good advice in any case for 3D TV,
unless you really enjoy watching Shrek and the tiny handful of 3D movies currently
available.
0605
Farewell Floppy Old Friend
 Although it has been
effectively obsolete for at least the last five years, what may now be the
final nail in the coffin of the venerable 3.5-inch (90mm) floppy disc has been
hammered home by Sony. In an almost unnoticed announcement it says it has
stopped manufacturing blank floppies, despite continuing sales of several
million discs each year. Sony ceased production of drives last autumn but if
you are still using them you can relax, for a while a least. There are at least
three, and probably quite a few more companies still churning out blanks and
there’s plenty of unsold stock making its way through the system, so you may
have a year or so before supplies dry up.
Although the 1.44Mb
capacity of a standard 3.5-inch floppy is now virtually useless for any sort of
serious data storage, the format has served us well, despite its legendary
unreliability. It was introduced in 1982 and although Sony didn’t actually
invent it, it was based on Sony technology, developed from an unsuccessful 90mm
disc format. It’s a salutary reminder that no format lasts forever and it
follows that time is running out for the data storage formats we’re using right
now. CD-ROM is now well past it’s sell by date and the chances are it will be
next to go within the next 5 years.
0305
April
McAfee Mess up XP
 I’m guessing that not many XP
users with McAfee virus protection will be reading this if they’ve recently updated
their security software… There is a good chance that they’ve downloaded
a rogue file, contained in DAT 5958, which can cause a major loss of
functionality, repeated restarts and befuddled networking. Apparently many tens
of thousands of computers have been affected, it could even run into millions
and it’s all down to the McAfee update mistakenly zapping the critical
svchost.exe file. This can start a catastrophic chain reaction that will not get
better… The update has now been removed and McAfee boffins have been working
around the clock to sort out a fix, which you can find in find in Alert
5958, and here which involves starting the machine in Safe mode and manually restoring
svchost.exe, or downloading an automated tool. That’s fine if you are PC savvy
and still have web access, if you are cut off and not happy with solo tinkering
there’s a telephone helpline, which for the UK is 020
79490107.
2904
Plugging into Plants
 Researchers at Stanford
University are getting quite excited over a way of directly extracting
electricity from plants, that’s clean and green and the only ‘waste’ product is
oxygen. Apparently they’ve worked out a way to insert a microscopic gold ‘nanoelectrode’
into a plant cell – algae, the smelly stuff in ponds, seems to be the favourite at the moment. When
they hit the right spot, where photosynthesis occurs and light is converted
into energy, the electrode picks up electrons, generating a tiny current. When
they say tiny, they mean it. A single
cell generates around one picoampere. Someone has helpfully done the sums and
it turns out you would need to tap into a trillion cells for one hour to get
the equivalent amount of energy stored in a single AA cell. That’s a lot of
electrode poking for such little return but there’s worse to come. Plugging
into a cell kills it after around an hour. Clearly there is more work to be
done but as with all these things, where there’s a will there’s a way. Who
knows, maybe one day they’ll breed genetically modified cells with little
battery connectors attached…
2604
iPad Alternative?
 Even before the iPad was
launched the crafty folks in China were busy working on fakes and knock-offs,
though so far the turnout has been a bit disappointing. Now. however, news
reaches us, via Engadget, of the Moonse E-700, a 7-inch tablet PC that’s
rumoured to be going on sale soon for a little over £100. Apparently it will
use a Cortex A8 processor, running the increasingly usable Android 1.5
software. It’ll have SD card for storage, built-in wi-fi, 5-hours battery life,
720p HD playback on its 800 x 480 resolution screen and a couple of things
still on the iPad wish-list, including a built-in camera and USB port. It’s
going to weigh in at a little under 400 grams, or around half the weight of an
iPad. No details on a launch just yet but we wouldn’t mind betting it’ll be in
the shops in plenty of time for Christmas.
1904
Future Light Fantastic
 If you’ve just spent the
last few years diligently switching from wasteful and inefficient incandescent
filament light bulbs to compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) then here’s some good
(and bad) news for you. Whilst CFLs are a lot better than filament lamps when it
comes to saving power they have a sting (or two) in the tail. They contain a
small amount of mercury, which is nasty stuff and needs be disposed of
carefully, and a fair number of people simply don’t like the light they
produce.
The answer is LED lighting,
it's even more efficient when it comes to turning electricity into light,
LEDs last longer than CFLs, they’re more easily dimmable than CFLs and the
light can be tailored to suit almost any taste. The only trouble is that until
now it’s been difficult to make a diffused LED light; they’re great for spots
but poor at wide area illumination. Behold the new GE Energy Smart bulb, it has
the lot, they look ultra-cool and they use the mighty Cree LEDs that are used in super powerful torches. It gives off a bright white, evenly diffused
light in all directions. It’s very efficient; a 9-watt LED bulb produces the
same amount of light as a 40-watt filament bulb or around ten percent less power
than a CFL, and they reckon they’ll last between 17 and 20 years. So what’s the
catch? It’s the price. At the moment they’ll set you back around £30 to £40
each. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius to figure out that the cost of
re-fitting a whole house with this type of LED lighting is going to be
astronomical and the payback time is going to in the order of 10 to 15 years.
The good news is that juts like CFLs they will get eventually cheaper, so
pencil this one in for 2012 – 2015, hopefully...
1504
Retro Goldringer
 If you have more money than
sense please let me know because I can do you a great deal on a phone that’s
just like the new Prive Gold cellphone. The Prive is based on the classic
Motorola ‘brick’ phone of the 1980s and it’s made of gold, encrusted with
diamonds. As an added bonus the phone bit actually works too, which is just as
well with a price tag of almost £140,000. Now this is where I can help. If you’re
an aspiring bling gadget wannabee on a really tight budget. I have got a real
Motorola 8500 quietly mouldering away in my loft. For a fraction of the price
of a Prive – let’s say 10 percent of the cost of a real one -- I’ll spray my phone gold,
stick on a few diamond-like gems, I’ll even transplant the guts of a modern
phone for you, and all for just £14,000 now is that a bargain or what? Please form
an orderly queue, I’m taking orders now…
1204
Big Toe Clicker
 It’s called a Flip Flop Mouse
and it’s not as weird as it sounds. This foot controlled mouse, designed by Liu
Yi could be a boon to those who, through upper limb disabilities cannot use
their arms or hands to control a conventional mouse. It’s been ergonomically
designed to allow it to be gripped by the toes – just like a flip-flop -- and
there are pressure sensors beneath the big toe and second toe that function as
mouse buttons. It’s a wireless mouse, so there are no cables to get tangled and
the only flaw we can see in the design is the lack of a heating element, so it
could get a bit parky using it in the depths of winter
0804
And We’re Off -- iPad
Problem part 1…
 The soon to be sainted iPad
has only been out (in the US at least) a couple of days and already reports are
circulating of problems. According to Engadget it concerns the inability of
many powered USB hubs, PCs and laptops to supply enough current to charge the
iPad’s battery. Apple computers are apparently okay, as is the supplied adaptor
of course, but it could be a nuisance for owners, who are used to being able to
charge their iPhones or iPods from any handy USB port or adaptor. In fact the
only people who will welcome he news are travel adaptor manufacturers who can
smell an opportunity to sell a pricey accessory to Apple iThingy users a mile
off.
0504
Wiggle Your Brain
 There’s been quite a lot
lately about 3D TV. Sky is busy trialling a service and several manufacturers
are coming out with products in the next few months. I have to say I’m
experiencing a certain amount of deja vu, having witnessed at least a dozen 3D
TV launches in the past 25 years, but maybe this is the one…
Anyway, pretty
well all of the technologies on offer require the viewer to wear glasses,
usually either polarised, or LCD shuttered, which really isn’t much of an
advance from the old green/red tinted glasses or Anaglyph method. There’s also
a lot of work being done on lenticular sceens, which displays multiple images
through a series of microscopic prisms so that each eye sees a slightly
different view, and you don’t need glasses. But here’s another method that
doesn’t rely on special screens or glasses. It’s called Wiggle Stereoscopy and
it simply displays two images, shot on cameras spaced an eye’s width apart and shown
in rapid succession. The 3D effect is quite good but the slow flash rate
probably means it’ll never be much more than a curiosity, but make up your own
mind. There’s some examples and links at: http://wiggle.sourceforge.net/, plus
a facility to create your own wiggle stereographs and you’ll find the first
Wiggle 3D music video from Blue Roses on You
Tube.
0104
March
Changing Times for Wireless
 Incontinence is certainly no
laughing matter and we’re ever mindful of the fact that for most of us good
health is only a temporary condition, nevertheless we couldn’t resist the
briefest of wry smiles after hearing about the SIM System
electronic underpants. The basic concept is that when sensors embedded in the
wearer’s pads detect moisture it sends an alert via a wireless link to a
monitoring station, at a nursing home for instance, so staff can provide prompt
assistance to a patient, when they need it. Over a period of several days the
timing and frequency of the alerts is analysed, which could help carers and
medical professionals determine if there’s pattern and subsequently assist with
treatment or care strategies. Hopefully we’ll never have need of such a device
– though the odds don’t look good as we live longer – so it’s good to know
technology can help if, or rather when our plumbing lets us down.
2903
Vampire Killers Coming Soon
 Okay, here’s something else
to be concerned about. It’s been dubbed Vampire Power Drain and it’s the small
but significant power usage of idle gadget mains chargers and adaptors, or Wall
Warts as our American cousins like to call them. Whilst the power drain of an
individual charger usually amounts to only a few hundred milliwatts you don’t
need to be a mathematician or environmentalist to understand that a several
tens of millions of them quietly stewing away adds up to a big waste of energy.
If you don’t believe it just feel your charger after it has been left plugged
(but not connected to anything) after just an hour or so. It will feel slightly
warm, and that’s wasted energy. To get back to the story, a number of companies
are making a fuss about their new zero drain (or as near as makes no
difference) chargers and adaptors. EcoCharge recently launched in the US boasts
a standby power consumption of just 0.025 watts (compared with a typical 0.3 –
0.5 watts for most regular chargers. Other chargers with genuinely zero consumption
are also in the pipeline. This is clearly good news for poor old Mother Earth but
I have to state the obvious, that any charger can defeat the scourge of Vampire
Power Drain by removing it from the mains plug, or switching it off, when it’s
not being used. Now that wasn’t
difficult, was it…
2503
See Through Science
 Here’s another of those intriguing
scientific discoveries that you just know you’ll never hear of again, but you
never know… There’s always that tiny chance this is another big one that will change
our lives. It’s a rather exciting sounding ‘photonic metamaterial’ and in
theory anything made from it, or encased in it becomes invisible. That’s right,
we’re talking Harry Potter-type cloaks of invisibility. The precise details are
still a tad sketchy but the boffins at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in
Germany say it works by changing the speed and direction at which light travels
through the material, and they reckon that eventually it should be possible to
hide any object of any size. So what’s the catch? Well, there’s clearly some
work still to be done on scaling up the technology. So far it has only been
able to render invisible a microscopic particle of gold measuring just a few
microns across, but as they say, it’s a work in progress…
2203
Toyota Troubles a Cosmic
Cause?
 Reports have begun to circulate in the press
that the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating a
claim from an anonymous scientist that cosmic rays are behind the recent spate
of Toyota malfunctions. It’s actually not as daft as it sounds; high-energy
particles from our Sun and other sources can have a devastating effect on
electronic gizmos and electrical circuits. Communication satellites are
routinely put into standby mode during periods of intense sunspot activity and
solar radiation has been blamed for major power outages. It sounds quite plausible
and it should be easy to check, by correlating Toyota incidents with spikes in
cosmic radiation. I suspect that it’s now only a matter of time before someone
suggests that Toyota owners should wear tin-foil hats and stay off the roads during daylight hours…
1803
Sulphur Sparks Up Lithium
 News of yet another
super-efficient battery technology reaches us from Stanford University via
Engadget. This one sounds interesting as it promises a battery with10 times the
storage capacity or energy density as current Lithium-Ion batteries, and a
fourfold increase in life expectancy. The key to this impressive trick is a
nanotube Lithium-Sulphur cathode, and as a bonus it overcomes one of the
problems with conventional lithium-metal cathodes. It’s called ‘branching’ and
apparently during normal use branch-like structures grow through the insulating
layer that separates the battery’s anode and cathode; this can cause short
circuits and in extreme cases the battery can even explode. Past experience
tells us not to get too excited; these developments have a habit of sinking
without trace but like those intrepid researchers and their tireless search for
the better battery we never give up hope…
1503
More Scary Robot News, Part
10
 It’s much worse than I
feared, reports have surfaced (via Gizmodo), of attempts to create a super race
of robots in Russia. This image dates back to 1967 and shows a so-called
domestic robot called Electron. Apparently he, or it is able to understand 112
commands, it can waltz and play chess and stands just over 7 feet tall. If the
Ruskies could do all that 30 years ago what are their robots capable of now? There
are more even scarier pictures of Electron and his chums on the Cyberneticzoo site. Flee before it
is too late, just stay out of my tree…
11/03/10
Protect Your Gadgets &
Goolies
 Hats and trousers off to wtfheans for their newest jeans. They’re
designed to protect that which men hold most dear, namely their gadgets, and
the family jewels. First the gadget features, and these include a pocket
specifically designed for an iPhone or iPod Touch (or similar device). It’s
positioned to stop your precious getting crunched when you sit down, and padded
with a microfibre material that promises to keep it safe, and even give it a
quick polish when you put it in or take it out. There’s also a hidden pocket
for a memory stick, to keep your data cost and safe. Lastly there’s added
padding around the nether regions, which the maker’s say is meant to keep a
chap’s undercarriage warm – though I seem to remember reading somewhere that
this wasn’t necessarily a good thing, but I suppose it beats popping a pair of socks
down there…
0803
Windows 7 RC Self-Destructs
 Just in case any of you are
still using the free release candidate (RC) version of the operating system,
you will start noticing strange goings-in. The trial period
has now ended and it begins with warning pop-ups, and unannounced twice-hourly
shutdowns; anything you are working on will not be saved. This will continue
until June 1st when it goes into ‘non-genuine’ mode, at which point a permanent
warning notice appears on the screen, the wallpaper disappears and it will no
longer be possible to download updates. Be warned, there are a number of fixes
on the Internet that claim to be able to fix Windows 7 Release Candidate’s
suicidal tendency but as far as I’m aware none of them work properly and some
of them contain viruses or malware.
0403
Black and Blue
 Can’t afford a Blackberry?
Well, you might just be able to run to a Blueberry @9500, just don’t expect it
to be compatible with Blackberry’s email service or apps. Yes, it’s a fake, and
a pretty shameless one at that, and it’s not the first time the Malaysian
company CSL has had a pop at Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of
the genuine article. On paper the spec is quite impressive, it has dual SIM
slots, a Micro SD card reader, camera, optical trackpad, a number of ‘Islamic’
features, wi-fi and the cheeky beggars have even fitted it with an analogue TV tuner. It’s priced to sell, at around £120
but there’s not much danger of you getting hold of one in your local high
street, at least not above the counter…
01/03/10
February
Compact Flash 5.0 Promises
Petabytes
 That’s 144 Petabytes to be
precise, and if you want that in good old Gigabytes, that’s around 150994944 of them. Data
transfer speeds are said to be in the order of 32Mb per second, but before you
get too excited, no such card or storage chip exists, yet... The newly
announced spec from the Compact Flash
Association is basically a re-vamp of the way data on a memory card can be
accessed, using a faster and more efficient 48-bit address, which opens the way
for the theoretical 144Pb storage capacity. It’s sounds impressive but it’s
worth remembering that 64-bit systems can theoretically address up to
16-Exabytes of data, which is 16384 petabytes, or 16777216 terabytes in old
money. It sounds terrifying, but I only have to think back to the late 1970s
and my first home-built computer, which had an impressive1 kilobyte of memory A
few years later and my first hard disc drive had a massive 10 megabytes of
capacity; I remember thinking at the time that it would take years to fill it up…
2502
Safety Stick
 USB memory sticks are
really easy to lose and when said stick contains secret, sensitive or personal
data it is a real cause for concern. Of course, if you take the trouble to
encrypt your data it needn’t be a problem, but who can remember to do that? It
needn’t be a problem if your data is stored on a Corsair Flash Padlock; this
has built in 256-bit hardware encryption with PIN coded access. The drive has a
built-in keypad for setting 4 – 10 digit PINs and if anyone tried to have multiple
goes it locks them out. It’s available with 8Gb of storage and with a selling
price of around £45, that’s another very good incentive not to lose it!
2202
Electronic Gas Guzzler
 You know how it is when you
run short of oxygen? Well, apparently they do in Japan and I am indebted to
Engadget for alerting me to the Oxyfit
Mobile Oxygen Supply, dubbed the personal oxygen-booster; just the job when you run a bit short of the
old O2. In case you are thinking it’s just a bottle of compressed gas, think
again. This is a high-tech oxygen generator, powered by a re-chargeable
lithium-ion battery that keeps it running for up to 5 hours. It comes with a tube
and respirator thingy and is housed in a backpack that weighs in at around
1.5kg. In case you are still wondering what it’s all about, the blurb says it can
‘boost brainpower and metabolism’, and let you run further, work longer and even
lose weight! Oh yes, and it’ll cost you the thick end of £1700. Clearly sales of
this device to lots of brainy, oxygen deprived rich kids should be encouraged, leaving
more of the natural stuff for the rest of us.
1802
Microsoft Takes Action Over
Activation
 A word to the wise, if you
are not sure about the legitimacy of that copy of Windows 7 you are running on
your PC prepare for your chickens to come home to roost. This week Microsoft
will be releasing an update that ferrets out the numerous bogus activation
scams that allow PCs to run unlicensed, counterfeit or pirated copies of Win 7.
The update uses over 70 ‘signature’ files to check for iffy installations. This
is a new strategy, in the past activation checks looked for unauthorised OEM
product keys; this method detects the much more subtle changes made to the
operating system by the various activation hacks. If it finds anything
suspicious Windows goes into unactivated mode with black wallpaper plus regular
pop-ups and warnings to make sure the user knows that Microsoft knows they are
running unlicensed software, although apparently no other functions will be
disabled.
1502
Cutting Edge Security
 This has to be one of the
oddest things yet designed to plug into a computer’s USB socket. See if you can
guess what it’s for. The name might give you a clue, it’s called the
Impressioner and the pointy end fits into a car door keyhole. Still confused,
well, when you insert the device the tip reads the pins inside the lock barrel,
passing the information back to the computer, which generates a code that can
be read by a cutting machine to produce a perfect key. It’s the brainchild of a
couple of US students, who, according to Popular Mechanics, came up with the
idea whilst working for a locksmith. It came to them after seeing how much
trouble experts were having making car keys for locks when they didn’t have the
necessary ID codes. Before you ask it will only be sold to authorised
locksmiths and it can be remotely shut down if it is being used fraudulently.
This model can only cope with the basic mechanical car locks fitted to older
cars so it’s not much use on the fancy electronic systems used on many modern
cars, but they’re working on that too, apparently…
11/02/10
Windows 7 Battery Basher?
 In amongst the pre-launch
hype surrounding Windows 7 was the claim that it would be lighter on laptop and
netbook batteries, extending running times, compared with XP and Vista. My own
experiences have been reasonably positive, nothing dramatic mind you, but I
certainly seem to be getting a few extra minutes out of my test machines now
running Win 7. However, since the launch a growing number of users have been
reporting the opposite effect with significantly shorter running times and in
some cases, Windows 7 is telling them that their batteries need to be replaced.
Microsoft is reported to be investigating the problem, which first arose during
the pre-launch beta test and judging by the increase in complaints there does
indeed seem to be a problem. One of the possibilities seems to be the PC’s BIOS
as this is where Win 7 gets its information about the battery. If and when
Microsoft gets to the bottom of it we’ll let you know.
0402
More Disturbing Robot News
 Here’s another piece of
robot news to give you the willies. It’s a humanoid robot baby, called
Diego-San, designed by the twisted techs in the Machine Perception Lab at the
University of California and Japanese robotics company Kokoro. It’s supposed to
be modelled on a 1 year old child and is apparently designed to help
researchers study infant motor skills, so they say... If you ask me it’s all a
bit weird, why invent a robot baby when the real things are plentiful and a lot
cheaper to make. I can’t stress how important it is for everyone to be on their
guard against this kind of thing, you’ve seen the movies, it’s happening
people!
01/02/10
January
Wooden It Be Nice, part 5…
 If many more gadget
companies jump on the eco-green bandwagon we’ll have to add splinters and deathwatch
beetle to the list of hazards posed by these devices. Based in France, Lexon
are big on the use of sustainable materials with a growing (no pun intended) range
of products encased in wood or made using bioplastics, derived from mashed up
vegetables. It also includes a number of solar powered and wind-up widgets,
like this rather natty looking bamboo radio, called the LA 81 Safe. You might
also be interested in a bamboo clock radio, calculator and there’s even a bamboo
coffee set.
2801
Wristy Business
 It’s called the GeoSkeeper
and it has to be the simplest mobile phone yet, though it’s primary role is not
for making and taking phone calls. It’s aimed at the young, elderly and
vulnerable and it’s intended for emergency use. The key feature is the
emergency button, which can be programmed to send out an alert and provide whoever
need to know with the wearer’s precise location, thanks to the built-in GPS
tracker. The mobile phone has a speakerphone facility and calls can be made using
the pre-programmed speed-dial button, to a doctor, parent, carer and so on. No
details yet on price or availability but if you want to know more pop along to
the Aerotel
website.
2501
Now They Can Climb…
 My long-running campaign to
warn the world of the dangers of
robots continues to go unheeded and more evidence – if it were needed – of
their intention to take over the comes from Germany and Canada. According to
Engadget research teams at the Technical University of Dortmund and University
of Canada have developed a robot that can climb
walls. Fortunately for us humans at this early stage said wall needs to
have strategically placed metal loops, but the robot is autonomous and can
figure out the best route to the top, and if you happen to be up there you just
know what it’s going to do to you! How long before it can do without the hoops,
surely a tree-climbing robot can’t be far away then there will be no place to
hide.
2101
New IE Vulnerability behind
Google’s Chinese Concerns
 A new security loophole has
been discovered in Microsoft Internet Explorer. According to Engadget this is
behind the recent news that Google’s Gmail system had been compromised by
Chinese-based hackers, attempting to intercept the mail of human rights
activists. Microsoft isn’t saying too much about the flaw at the moment, just
the usual ‘…vulnerability that could allow remote code execution’ blurb.
Presumably this is to stop it going any further and allow time to sort out a
patch. So far it only seems to have affected Chinese users of Gmail and IE but
as usual the advice is to switch to a safer browser, like Firefox, if you are
concerned about your online security.
1810
Coke Fuelled Phone
 The sequence of photos
tells the whole story but for those of you still perplexed by the thought of
pouring a can of Coke into a mobile phone here’s the explanation. The images come
from the website of one Daizi
Zheng, a Chinese born designer, now living in London and his work is part
of a project to design an eco-friendly phone for Nokia. His idea is to use a
‘bio battery’, which turns carbohydrates, specifically sugar, into electricity
using an enzyme catalyst. The technology is still very much in its infancy but Sony has been busy in this
area. Prototypes have been developed that are capable of powering small devices.
Research suggests that they could last three to four times as long as current
lithium ion batteries and there is every reason to suppose there will be on-going
improvements in size and performance. Bio Battery’s eco credentials are
impressive and there’s no nasty waste with water and oxygen the only by-products
of producing energy. There’s still a lot of work to do but the concept is sound
and one day topping up your mobile phone could have a whole new meaning!
1401
Wi-Di and Wi Not?
 Wi-Di or Wireless Display
is one of those about-time-too technologies that we’ve all been waiting for,
but not for much longer it seems. Wi-Di is now a reality and the first devices,
probably from Netgear and Toshiba, that will allow you to wirelessly stream HD video from your laptop to your HDTV
will be going on sale in the US in next few weeks. Wi-Di is based on the WiMax
N Standard and laptops that use it must be Intel based and running Windows 7,
so it’s not for everyone and will take a while to filter through but it could
be big! The only question now is how to say Wi-Di? The obvious pronunciations
‘widdy’ and ‘we-die’ are a both bit weak so my money is on the favourite, ‘wide-eye’.
1101
Sony Backing SD but Sticking
With Sticks
 One of the more interesting items to come out of this
year’s Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas is news that Sony are about to
start making SD memory cards. Apparently it doesn’t mean the end of the Sony
Memory Stick, which Sony has stuck grimly with, even though just about everyone
else uses the near universal SD format. You can see why they’re doing it,
though, SD cards and the many mini and micro variants are used in everything
from cameras to mobile phones and MP3 players, and just about everything in
between. Obviously it would be crazy for Sony to miss out on this massive
market. Nevertheless, it reminds me somewhat of a time, back in the 1980s, when
Sony suddenly started building VHS recorders, swearing blind they were still
committed to making Betamax VCRs…
0701
Print a Pancreas
 We have become accustomed
to printers being able to do all sorts of clever things, but here’s one that
tops them all. It’s called the 3D Bio-Printer, developed by Invetech, and if
you haven’t guessed by now, it is designed to ‘print’ biological structures by
placing cells of almost any type into the required 3D patterns. Using a
preformed scaffold users can construct replacement tissues for diseased or
damaged organs, apparently they can even print you a new tooth. This is the
first production model and the manufacturers are hoping researchers will
develop ways of using the machine to solve real world problems. Don’t get too
excited though, it’s still very much at the development stage and we doubt very
much that you’ll see one in PC World anytime soon, but if you do, you can bet
the refill cartridges are going to cost a packet, and we dread to think what’s
in them…
0401
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