Monday, June 26, 2006

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Motorola Portable Power

Motorola Portable Power P970




The P970 is essentially a 1700mAh rechargeable battery in a curvy PEBL-like casing with a USB port on top. It weighs just 79g and measures 7.4 x 5.1 x 2.4cm. Motorola is pitching the product as an accessory for its own phones and accessories, but we'd bet it will prove handy for other gadgets that can recharge through their mini USB ports, such as phones, PDA and MP3 players.

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The Beerbelly

The Beerbelly is a great way to bring along beverages wherever you go:




The Beerbelly brings Freedom to the Beverage! Now you can drink WHAT you want, WHEN you want, WHERE you want, with no hassles and for less money! What more could you ask for—now you can drink your favorite beverage at the movies, the ballgame, on the plane, you decide.
 
The Beerbelly: Is made up of a neoprene “sling” and a polyurethane “bladder” with a tube for dispensing. The bladder is held in an insulated pouch in the sling which is worn under your clothing for concealment. When worn, it looks just like a beerbelly.

Thursday, June 8, 2006

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The oldest computer in the world

PhysOrg covers the Antikythera Mechanism; the oldest computer in the world



A team of Greek and British scientists probing the secrets of the Antikythera Mechanism has managed to decipher ancient Greek inscriptions unseen for over 2,000 years, members of the project say.


"Part of the text on the machine, over 1,000 characters, had already been deciphered, but we have succeeded in doubling this total," said physician Yiannis Bitsakis, part of a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from universities in Athens, Salonika and Cardiff, the Athens National Archaeological Museum and the Hewlett-Packard company.


"We have now deciphered 95 percent of the text," he told AFP.


Scooped out of a Roman shipwreck located in 1900 by sponge divers near the southern Greek island of Antikythera, and kept at the Athens National Archaeological Museum, the Mechanism contains over 30 bronze wheels and dials, and is covered in astronomical inscriptions.


Probably operated by crank, it survives in three main pieces and some smaller fragments.


"(The device) could calculate the position of certain stars, at least the Sun and Moon, and perhaps predict astronomical phenomena," said astrophysicist Xenophon Moussas of Athens University.

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Easier WiFi connections with Hitchhiker

Hitchhiker makes life easier if you connect to different WiFi networks:


Features:



  • Support Dell X51v and other WM5 devices

  • Support both WEP and WPA-PSK encryption

  • Speedy connect to wireless Internet via public hotspot

  • Fire-and-forget, one click away from the wireless Internet

  • Change IP address without manually cycling WLAN device

  • "IP Fastlane" input for rapid IP address input

  • Secure Internet access with WEP and WPA-PSK

  • Reconfigure system settings for optimal connection speed

  • Perform complicated Internet connectivity tests automatically

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Typhoon personal supercomputer

Tyan unleashes 16-core 'personal' supercomputer:



Taiwan's Tyan today pledged to ship a deskside "personal supercomputer" powered by eight Intel low-voltage 'Woodcrest' Xeon processors and packing up to 48GB of memory in the fourth quarter.
...
Named Typhoon - it'll "blow you away", quipped Tyan CEO Symon Change - the 68 x 36 x 32cm system contains four removable motherboard units, each with a pair of dual-core Xeon 5100-series LV CPUs and 12GB of registered 533MHz or 667MHz DDR 2 SDRAM. Each 'node' board can take a single SATA storage devices.


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Candy Grabber

Have fun while you enjoy your sweets with the mini Candy Crabber:




Once you've popped one of the tokens in the slot, you have just one minute and fifteen seconds (but who’s counting) to manoeuvre your grabber into position using the three levers, grab your candy and release it down the shoot. Truly horrible and yet strangely nostalgic carnival music plays while you desperately try to grab stuff, and gets faster and faster as your time runs out. When you do succeed in liberating your sweets, a motion sensor triggers off some tacky but satisfying applause!