Dean Kamon's Segway Vs. Clive Sinclairs C5

The latest buzz on the innovative human transport system known as Segway is it seems to be growing in popularity both by the public and by those using them, there has been a lame and rash outbreak of state, county, and city legislation to ban them before they even hit the street. Fueled mostly by fear of the unknown, this will likely be reversed as the power of this technology plods forward with progress. ( I say "Garn!" to the snakey naysayers who stand in the way of progress.)

Visit the newly bloggrolled Segway News to hear the latest

And then there is this This from the BBC about the maker of a human transport dud threatening to challenge the Segway. I wish Sinclair luck, as competition has a way of spurring on good ideas.

Body Monitor Wear

BodyMedia
A kind of wearable Mood Stats for the body, wirelessly networked for monitoring, storing, and processing caloric intake, activity levels, and sleep habits.
I think this is a great tool that could have a host of uses, the question is will it be lowcost and widely available?

by way of K10K

No real title just kind of spacing out and rambling on...

While getting power from blood isn't exactly new (dracula) and human batteries aren't new either (Matrix), actaully getting electrical current from a human body is quite novel. According to the story you could power 1000 watts or enough to power a lightbulb.
Based on this hand cranked charger for a Sony Play Station Game Boy, my question is could you reverse engineer this to increase a person's energy level by adding a hand crank charger to them? More seriously though a plugin port where one could draw temporary or low amounts of currency could be pretty handy.

New Social Networking Tool

This San Francisco based startup claims that while the service is free, they intend on making revenue from job listings and feature placement through their online social networking tool Tribe. Stating it is a "friend of a friend of a friend" refferal system, the site, in beta, does little to explain the details of how it works (unless you register first). However, A list blog BoingBoing writer, Cory Doctorow, claims it is not quite the "meat market" Friendster has become and gives it good marks. Developing...

Respecting the Keepers of the Bean

'Fourbucks vandalized?
While Starbucks is a little over the top with their over caffinated legal defense of the Starbucks precious brand, kids today ougtha have enough respect to let a guy get a decent over priced cup of coffee from a corporate monstor who under pays foriegn labor for thier high quality java beans! It has gone too far I tell you. (I am a grumpy old man.) Back in my day we didn't organize "protests" by shutting down coffee shops, we showed our decent towards corporate greed by going into the woods and drinking cheap beer until we passed out! Growing our hair out and wearing bellbottems!

I Feel Nothing Buttons

Or "touchless" interactive holograms that are claimed will be soon used for "public information kiosks with eye-popping video images" and ATMs. . and we thought pop-up ads on our computers were bad.
HoloTouch a new startup claims this will be used as a hygenic interface to control cell phones and medical equipment and should be appearing in New York soon.

Via Slashdot

Funny

Just clipped this new blog called "relevant/irrelevant: I decide"
Simple to the point and it crack-a-me-up.

Food for thought

When I commented about McDonalds selling you a flashbaked memory of a HappyMeal via wirless server to your neural net, I wasn't aware scientists were already working on simulated food.
| Read more here
Via the not offline Futurismic

"Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" review (minor spoilers)

The first Terminator movie was a phenom with underground appeal to the likes of cult classics like Road Warrior and Mad Max. But T2 with it's advanced effects and action put it on the level of summer blockbusters like Total Recall and True Lies. People of all ages left the theatre with their minds blown do to the wowser effects and creepy dark plot. Young folks identified with Edward Furlong's character John Connor , and women liked the new GI Jane version of Sara Conner played by Beauty and the Beast series Linda Hamilton. A tough act to follow.
The third episode in the saga, did not really try. Because of this I think the public and the industry tucked it aside in the flood of summer hits. However, this was good follow up the first two movies and successfully held on to the T1's cult vibe, and T2's dark sci-fi plotline. However, with a title like the Rise of the machines they could have spent a little more time expounding on that.
While T3 did not exactly display the effects advances of T2 and more recent Matrix. It has some ground breaking action scenes and fun bylines and humorous cornball breaks akin to "I'll Be back". (I won't bore you with the true account, amidst my travels, of a dinner eaten at a Denny's, in the Negro section of a big city, where my loose lipped company slid his chair back and loudly proclaimed "I'll Be Black".)
I think fans of books like Down and Out and movies like Brazil, should not be frightened by the commercialism of a "big" movie like this. The "poor performance" in the box office may be more closely tied to a weak ad campaign, as the only ads I saw for it were the new 2003 T3 edition of the Dodge Dakota! The highlight of the entire movie was this, the fact when I saw the first movie, it was entirely fantasy, but this movie with the history of the take over of machines and the internet "Skynet" and it's early Red Planet style kill robots are far to real and plausible and seemed like fiction imitating real life.
The Terminatrix played by Kristanna Loken wasn't as creepy as the jail cell morphing robo cop T-1000 unit in T2 nor did the film convince me that the T-X model was that superior to the T-1000, after all it couldn't even handle a common military supercolider. Although the fax by voice through her cell phone to hack the internet was novel. Nick Stahl who played John Connor actually did a pretty good job, at first I was disappointed that they didn't just get Edward Furlong, but his replacement was deep and complex enough, even for a young unknown, to pull it off. The other major critisism, is what happens in many time travel movies; the temptation in a sequel to keep going back and rewriting history. As in Back to the Future.

I give this movie an A- for the thought provoking plotline, and classic entertainment. Even though James Cameron, who gave the film a thumbs up, did not direct this one, Jonathan Mostow did a good job of making something worth seeing that has a Planet of the Apes style humanity verses evil message. While I am sure the big action is most complimented by the bigscreen, Terminator fans will be just as happy waiting for the rental. Would I by the DVD? Yes and I don't own the other two.

Now the question is will Arnie go for the governorship? I think he will. 1) The making of T3 seems like a good ending to his movie career. 2) Why go on Leno to announce your not running. 3) California has history with movie star governors.
The next question is he qualified? While I am sure having a lot of fame and money is good experience for a governor, the failure of Planet Hollywood may not be a good indicator of his expertise. We will have to wait and see how he plans on addressing 28 billion in debt.

PS Cannot get me for infringment cuz' it is political satire ha-ha!

Ole Eichhorn newly Blogrolled

You may want to visit Critical Section a blog scored from our vacationing and advertising it friend Tim Oren over at DueDiligence.
A self proclaimed Theist/Darwinist, Ole's writing is good and his subjects are many of the same you will see around here, (although he is much smarter and an acomplished developer.) The downside is the layout of his blog is hard to follow as there are only occasional post headings, and no comments. Since he crams so many ideas into one post it would be hard to use the permalinks. Not to mention light green on light blue creates inviso links on my laptop.

Minor design flaws aside, Critical Section has some great links like PVRBlog for those of you who have been following PVR's (Tivo) and up to date news like this link to former MP3.com owner's new venture Lindows who are selling complete computers now at $169. (Sans monitor)

Sony's Video Glasses

Several years ago I had read with excitement an article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer about a Washington company who was in the process of mass producing eyeglasses that were a video headset. They claimed they would be on the market in no time, at $120 a piece and promised they would replace the standard tv monitor. Of course you can imagine my surprise when years later nothing seemed to materialize. I did a CD rom project for a national virtual reality company selling software to the educational community, and they seemed fine with mounting these giant orange on a toothpick headsets on unsuspecting school children. Alas enter the Sony GlassTron. Which I can only guess was an aquistion of the company mentioned in the newspaper. While the glasses appears to be a flop in that they are not very functional for $500, the subsequent upgrades may take on yet. I think the name has got to go. It makes me think spotless dishes. A good name should be HedTech, Eye-TV, E-shades or ViewCog or something. | Full review Here
Via the newly bloggrolled Ole Eichhorn's Critical Section

Your Phone Says You Need Milk

Check to see if you're out of butter by looking in your fridge with your cell phone. According to the ElectricNews that is the plan.

Thought 1: An entire "life network" of cameras, from your work cubicle to your garage. Obsesive Compulsives would have a hay day. Or possibly a whole new generation of young people would be transformed by this technology into obsessives?

Thought 2: If we think distracted drivers are bad now, wait until they are looking at their phones as they meander down the road.

Thought 3: VC folk, invest in any company who is developing video camera detection equipment. "Camera Free" will be the new marketing phrase.

Thought 4: A new never ending paradox/ reality entertainment venue: web pages that shows video feeds of people looking at their "life networks" on cell cameras. Or web pages that show video feeds of people online looking at video feeds of people looking at their "life networks" on cell cameras. Or...well you get the point.

Thought 5: Must stop thinking about camera phones. (Also hoping that people who smoke weed aren't reading this blog.)

Terraforming Mars Marching On?

This story from Scienceagogo on high test earth micro-organisms that could potentially thrive on Mars is just a little jolting. What could the implications of seeding life on an other planet be? What if some freakish mutation proliferates and eats our kids a thousand years from now? Okay, so I am paranoid. It just seems like a big step to be spreading bacteria and small organisms about on various planets Johnny Appleseed style. Hey why not use it to store our trash and nuclear waste too? (a joke) But I guess if we were able to make Mars inhabitable it would be a worthwhile endevour. Speaking of which I must plug one of my fav sci-fi flicks: Red Planet with Val Kilmer. The freaking robot dog is the same creepy that the machines gave me in T3 (another under valued sci-fi movie) Okay another less techy and more situational sci-fi fav is Enemy Mine with Dennis Quaid and Ben Vareen.

(10 shot' claims that T3 is not her kind of movie, and I have to agree it is a "guy movie" but I don't think it is a total chick flop.)

Home Decor goes Wi-Fi

Although Jakob Dylan may want some royalties, Wallflower is a wireless picture frame that slideshows photos served from your computer.
While it seems to be developmental and the $500+ price tag is not exactly a bargain. I love the idea. They need to be REAL big and cheap and use OLED technology.
Via Blogdex

Blogroll Update

While Blogger has been updating and fixing it's API, it has reaped havoc on the Whuffie template. Disappearing post titles last week, and upload files in the wrong directories, and the loss of some of those on the blogroll and link section. If you were one of them lemme know. We will put you back. (To blogger's credit Blog Control was fast, prompt, & courteous.)

Be sure to check out some of the newly 'rolled:

• Jean Chu | Hiving
ABerkeleyy area blogger who has a nice clean site and is a keen photographer.
(Not to mention here 'bitchun blog name)

• Phillip M. Tarrone | flashenabled
A great techno gadget blog. Clean and informative.

•
Josh Wolfe | Forbes & Wolfe

"...An insider's blog on the science, markets, and undiscovered trends of nanotech.
A must-read companion to the Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report." (I guess forbes doesn't post at least I have not seen anything from him yet.)

• neuroprosthesis blog

"Science news related to biomorphic robots, android and humanoid robot helpers, cyborgs, brain mapping, neural implants, bionic organs, prosthetic limbs, spinal cord regeneration with a goal to alleviate movement disorders and related disabilities. "
Great nicely done news blog with a great bunch of links. (The home site needs work though, white lettering on black background is so hard to read.)

• Roland Piquepaille | Technology Trends

"How new technologies are modifying our way of life." Nicely done, well written, often politically left blog.

• Erik & Mark Baard | The Baard
"Reporting on Science and Society"

Again, nicely done, well written, often politically left blog. (But what do you expect from Boston author's who have published with Village Voice and plastic.com?)

Favorite Blog quote

"I don't think people who own birds should be allowed to shop at donut stores"

Pirates of the Caribbean Review (No spoliers)

While I went to the movie with low expectations based on a few of the reviews I had heard, I was confident that Johnny Dep would at least be entertaining as he has in most of the movies I have seen him in. I was not disappointed. I had thought that maybe Dep would not be in the whole movie or something lame like that (Okay I am still smarting from Jody Foster in Return From Witch Mountain) But it was defiantly a Dep movie. All the hub-ub about his eye make up and dark portrayal of a pirate was trumped though. Maybe if he would have taken a hit of a bong or something. While there was that magical feel of classic Disney movies it was very light and brief in a bedknobs and broomsticksy way, and I did find myself thinking the movie to be a bit a long a few times. Dep did a great job as a Pirate Captain and injected needed levity in a movie about a ship piloted by hundreds of undead skeleton pirates. They would have done well to add a Bob Hope type of character for more levity. (But that is just me missing Bob Hope and his Pirate'capades) The special affects were outstanding, moonlight revealing skeletal bones as characters dashed about it's beams. The plot line was intelligent, there were some good laughs, and the adventure was emmersive. Worth seeing on the big screen. Don't take kids that are younger than 8. Would I buy the DVD? Sure.

Overall I give it a B+. Had they lowered the death count and made it more accessible for children and added a funny character or two, (say Will Farrel or Chris Rock) It could have been an A list made for the whole family Disney epic.

Disney In Trouble?

Okay Euro Disney, who has not been doing well even after a second park opened recently in Paris. The double tanking venture is now looking to "Big Mama in USA" to bail them out. Perhaps it is time for an ad-hoc comittee to come in and re-imagineer the place? | More from the Evening Standard

Wireless liquid level sensing

While I wouldn't exactly qualify this as "what the world needs next is.." material, it is an interesting use of RFID technology. (ultimately a deadbeat waiter will just ignore the sensor indicator to talk to the hostess anyway.) Iglassware from Mitsubishi Electronics
Via DueDiligence Via Ole Eichhorn

DNA in Your Fingerprints

Something PreCrime might use? A new patented way of extracting 10 "nanograms" of DNA from a print in 15 minutes positively identifying anyone. This article explains in more detail and goes on to mention privacy issues and genetic profiling. | Read UPI story here