Tag: duncan geere
DIY solar batteries *nearly* work
There’s something so wonderfully simple about this concept that I wish it would work better than it does. Ni-MH batteries that have a flexible photovoltaic cell wrapped around them, so that they recharge by just being left on a windowsill.
Unfortunately, the solar cells currently only charge the battery with a tiny, weak trickle, but if they were built into a proper unit, combined with capacitors and the electronics to up the efficiency of the energy conversion, then they could do considerably better.
On a related note, how many devices do you have that still use traditional batteries? Very few, I’d wager – perhaps just a TV remote and a set of portable speakers. Everything’s rechargable these days, and a jolly good thing too.
Harman Kardon launches HK990 amplifier and HD990 CD player
Top-end audio manufacturer Harman Kardon has just announced the “most powerful” amplifier that the company has ever produced, as well as a matching CD player, for those of you still trading in plastic discs.
I could happily regurgitate the press release about how the amplifier’s power is achieved with its “EzSet/EQ room optimisation”, but all you really need to know is that it sounds lovely. The CD player sounds similarly lovely, thanks to a built-in digital sound processor, and linear smoothing to stop jitters.
Both models are available now from your favourite local Hi-Fi retailer, and they’ll cost you £1000 for the amp and £500 for the CD player. That’s relatively affordable, so if you’re looking to start up a separates collection, then this would be a great place to start.
Turning on the Large Hadron Collider (again) in June will be… Tom Hanks
That’s right, ladies and gentlemen – Forrest Gump will be pressing the big red button when the Large Hadron Collider comes back on in June, potentially dooming us all into getting sucked into a vast black hole. If I do end up ending my life in that way, I’ll be a little happier knowing that it was all Tom Hanks’ fault.
In a scene right out of Blackpool’s Christmas Lights, a Hollywood actor will be taking precedence over the world’s biggest and brightest minds to switch back on the massive, costly, science experiment that was switched off shortly after it was turned on, following a massive plasma leak.
Seriously, though – why Tom Hanks? It’s not like they need the publicity that a Hollywood star will bring to the proceedings. In fact, his presence only detracts from the event, and makes whoever booked him look very foolish indeed. I don’t have anything against Hanks, in fact I enjoy his work, but seriously – in big gold, shining letters – WHY?
(via Crunchgear)
Toshiba TG01 product demo video surfaces
If Dan’s demonstration video wasn’t quite enough for you, and you can’t get enough of the hot TG01 action, then Toshiba’s put together a video for you. They clearly show off the innovative UI and gesture controls. Enough chat. Here it is:
(via Akihabaranews)
Hardware mashups: Toaster crammed into old VCR
You need this in your life.
It’s an old VCR, modded with the innards of a toaster so that any bread you put in will be lightly browned. Best of all, the toast gets “VHS” stamped on it.
I’m waiting for a version where an old NES is modded, so that you can toast in that. It’d be the exact inverse mod of the Nintoaster. Here’s a video of the toaster VCR in action:
(via Craziest Gadgets)
Dell launching PC software and games download service
Massive PC ubercorporation Dell hasn’t got the best reputation with gamers, despite owning the expensive Alienware gaming PC brand. That hasn’t deterred them, however, from launching a download service where you’ll be able to get PC games and software, as well as music.
Codemasters, Sega, Electronic Arts, Eidos and Atari have signed up on the gaming front to offer titles including Burnout Paradise: The Ultimate Box, Spore, Tomb Raider: Underworld, F.E.A.R. 2, Alone in the Dark and Football Manager Live. You’ll notice that none of those, with the possible exception of F.E.A.R. 2, could be called “gamer’s” games.
That might be because gamers are generally already invested in one download store -Valve’s Steam. I think Dell realizes that they’re going to find that audience very tricky to crack, so they’re aiming at a more mainstream target demographic instead.
As well as games, the service also offers software from Kaspersky, Nero and Lavasoft, presumably Kaspersky Antivirus, Nero Burning Rom and Lavasoft Ad-Aware respectively. It’s a bit of a shame for PC owners, because programs duplicating the functionality of all those bits of software are widely, and legally, available on the internet for free (for home use).
Lastly, there’s also music. Albums from “major artists” are available, there’s no DRM, and there’ll be new titles on a weekly basis. The catalogue doesn’t look incredible, and the prices aren’t any better than other download sites, but I suppose it could be handy for people who haven’t checked out Spotify yet.
The Dell download store will roll out across Europe in the next few months, starting with the UK, France and Germany. It’s been up and running in the USA for a while, and the UK site is here.
Pirate Bay trial day three – the "King Kong" defence
As we’ve reported on developments in the Pirate Bay’s trial for two days running now, I don’t see why we shouldn’t carry on, so long as there’s interesting stuff to share.
Today’s session was cut rather short, but the whole trial is still ahead of schedule. It began with the prosecutor presenting his amended charges (following the withdrawing of half of them) and outlining the damages sought by the content owners.
Interestingly, they’re calling every download a lost sale, and multiplying any damages by 10 if they were leaked before release, or otherwise unavailable online. In one case, the Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau doubled all their damages to account for a “loss of goodwill”.
In the second half of the session, the defence responded, and reacting to the new charges, again asserted their innocence. Each picked holes in the case of the prosecution, but nothing we hadn’t heard before until Carl Lundström’s lawyer, Per E Samuelsson took the floor.
“EU directive 2000/31/EG says that he who provides an information service is not responsible for the information that is being transferred. In order to be responsible, the service provider must initiate the transfer. But the admins of The Pirate Bay don’t initiate transfers. It’s the users that do and they are physically identifiable people. They call themselves names like King Kong,”
“According to legal procedure, the accusations must be against an individual and there must be a close tie between the perpetrators of a crime and those who are assisting. This tie has not been shown. The prosecutor must show that Carl Lundström personally has interacted with the user King Kong, who may very well be found in the jungles of Cambodia,”
Basically, he’s saying that for the defendants to be guilty, they need to have personally been involved with every interaction between sharers and downloaders – simply setting up the noticeboard isn’t good enough, especially as there are plenty of people using that same noticeboard for sharing perfectly legitimate content.
Following that statement, the court adjourned the case until tomorrow. On brokep’s fantastic Twitter stream, he relates that everyone then went for pizza together. He asked the prosecution to pick up the bill. They refused.
Sony showers us with Cyber-shot cameras
It’s only been a matter of weeks since Sony last dropped a Cyber-shot camera on us, and already here’s five more. You’ve got to wonder what the life cycle for their products is. Still, here they are, and they’re numerous, so we best get cracking.
T900 and T90
The T900 and T90 are up first. They’re slim (15mm for the T900, and 14mm for the T90), pack a 12.1-megapixel sensor, a 4x optical zoom and can record in 720p HD. The T900 has a 3.5″ touchscreen, and the T90’s is smaller at just 3″. Both have image stabilisation, face and smile detection, and automatic scene recognition. They’ll be available in April, no pricing info yet.
W270
Next is the W270. It’s much the same as the T900 and T90, in that it has a 12.1-megapixel sensor, can record 720p HD and has image stabilisation, face and smile detection, and automatic scene recognition. Its differentiating factor is that its zoom goes up to 5x, and it has a 28mm wide angle lens. The display isn’t touch, unfortunately, but it’s 2.7″ across. Available in mid-March.
H20
Then there’s the Cyber-shot H20, which reduces the megapixel count to 10.1, but pumps up the zoom to 10x. One for stalkers then, I suppose. Again, it’s got 720p HD recording and the aforementioned software goodness. A 3″ non-touch LCD rounds things off. This one will be available in April.
S930
Lastly, there’s the S930, which picks the worst of all the above, presenting a 10.1-megapixel sensor and 3x optical zoom. It’s got the same load of software features as above, and a 2.4″ LCD display. Available in April.
All the models come in a range of colours – silver, black, red, bronze, pink, brown, blue and gold across the range. Not all colours are available on all cameras though, confusingly. Now, if anyone can explain the logic behind the model numbers to me, then I’ll be a very happy man.
Kern – the iPhone game for font geeks
Kerning, if you’re unaware, is the process of adjusting the distance between letters in typography, and now someone’s made a game of the process, and published it for the iPhone. It’s called “Kern”.
It works a little like Tetris – you position a letter at the bottom, and a word falls into place around it. The objective is to get it as close as possible to a perfect kern. It’s not easy, unless you have a perfect eye and a very steady finger.
As you can imagine, the design is absolutely impeccable. It’s enormously geeky, too, but that’s not really going to put off hardcore typographers now, is it? Here’s a video of it in action:
Kern (via Technabob)
Seety: gazumping Google Street View for London
Google’s been taking its sweet time over the release of Street View for the UK, and as happens when you take too long over something, another company’s gone and done it instead. Well, not the whole of the UK, just central London, but that’s good enough for me.
Visiting Seety.co.uk, you get a Google Map of central London, and you just click to open up a Street-View esque image of the area, which you can then navigate around with arrows. All faces are blurred, and some of the smaller roads haven’t quite been indexed, but the majority of central London is present and correct.
It stretches most of the way up Holloway Road to the north, and not very far south – just down to Elephant and Castle. Out east it stretches approximately to Bow and Limehouse, and west, you don’t make it much further than Shepherd’s Bush. It needs a bit of extension, then, but what’s present is very impressive, especially given the higgledy-piggledy layout of London’s streets compared to American cities.
It’s unfortunate, though, that as soon as Google brings out its own Street View product, which can’t be far off, then this will become mostly obsolete. Still, in the meantime, enjoy looking around London, and if you find anything interesting, send us the screenshot!
