Monthly Archives: September 2002

general September 26, 2002 posted by

Take this tablet and see me in the morning..

Canadian battery company Electrovaya has branched out and announced a new Tablet PC which it claims will run for between 10 and 16 hours on one charge. This apparently gives The Scribber around 4 times more battery time than competitive products, which may actually make the Tablet format a viable alternative to laptop computers for many people. The product is due out in November of this year, and no price has been announced. [via The Register]

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general September 26, 2002 posted by

Hydrogen fuel hype

Hmm, there’s definitely a big media push on to extol the value of hydrogen fuel as an alternative to fossil versions at the moment. Everywhere I look I see articles on the subject, for the home, cars, laptops etc etc. The latest is this Salon piece which gives a fairly broad brush overview. I’ve said it before, but I really think that this is in some way an attempt by the Western powers to psychologically prepare us for a transition…

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general September 26, 2002 posted by

Dance crazy

Apparently there’s a new dance craze going the rounds, only it’s not in the disco. This time it’s all the fault of those new arcade machines called Dance Dance Revolution, on which you cavort around following flashing light sequences in time to music. There’s even a DDR Freak Web site devoted to enthusiasts. I got my daughter the Jungle Book Groove Party home version for Playstation a while back, and she and her friends love it. They cart it around…

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general September 26, 2002 posted by

Dinky Bluetooth mobile phone headset

The new Sony Ericsson HBH-60 mobile phone headset looks really dinky. It’s about 3 inches long and should be compatible with most phone handsets. Available before the end of the year, but no price announced as yet.

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general September 26, 2002 posted by

Creepy cloning

I’ve got to admit that this Washington Post article on the advent of cloned food creeps me out quite a bit. I think it’s because a) cloning animals treats them as ‘things’ rather than ‘beings’, and b) because everything seems to be forgiven in the pursuit of profit. The article continually talks about how much money is involved. The Mad Cow (CJD) and Foot & Mouth episodes over here have brought all this food factory farming stuff too close to…

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general September 25, 2002 posted by

Mega wars

Uh-oh! Looks like we’ve got ourselves a pixel war. Days/hours/minutes after Canon releases an 11 megapixel digital camera, Kodak tops it with a 14 megapixel product. The DCS Pro 14n looks to be a mighty cool piece of hardware, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see it relegated to ‘has been’ within months once Nikon, Minolta, Fujifilm and the rest of the crew get their act together. To get an idea of just what all this megapixel stuff means in…

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general September 25, 2002 posted by

Mirror, mirror…

File Mirrors is a clever site which offers alternative locations for some of the most popular file downloads on the Net. Particularly useful when a new patch, game or demo is released and the usual sources are all congested with early birds. Worth a bookmark if you’re a regular old file leech like me.

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general September 25, 2002 posted by

Tiny Moz

The clever folks at Mozilla have released a cut down and tiny (uh 8MB is tiny?) browser called Phoenix. Not sure why they called it that if it’s new, but whatever. It’s quite nice and fairly quick, even though it is still very much a work-in-progress.

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general September 25, 2002 posted by

Mini PenCam

Huh, you can’t turn a corner nowadays without stumbling over a teensy weensy digicam. This ‘ere wonder from Aiptek is the MiniPenCam 1.3. It’s a 1.3 megapixel CMOS camera which is very small. No preview LCD, but it does take reasonable pictures as you can see here (for some reason Gizmo calls it the PressCam, but don’t let that bother you). Priced at around $70.00 (or �70.00 of course!)

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general September 25, 2002 posted by

Old versions

Need an old version of a particular software package (perhaps because it’s the only one that will work on your machine?). Then hie thee to OldVersion.com. OK, so they’ve only got 29 programs, but it’s a growing list, which includes useful stuff like Real Player and AOL.

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general September 25, 2002 posted by

Book worms only need apply.

The Bookmobile project from the Internet Archive folks is really cool. It’s basically a mobile digital library which will travel round the US stopping at schools and libraries etc, where it will download public domain e-books and print them for people on demand. Now how fab is that? [via boingboing] It also serves as a timely reminder that if ever lengthening copyright continue to strangle creative arts in the way it has been doing, this kind of project will never…

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general September 25, 2002 posted by

Magnificent obsessions

Picked up a couple of fab fun sites from a Metafilter discussion a while back, which demonstrate just how weird we are as a species. The Magnificent Obsessions site features such gems as The Duct Tape Guys and Charlie’s Tattoo Museum, whilst the semi-dormant wwweirdness offers such delicious morsels as Alien Abductions Incorporated (if they won’t contact you, contact us!) and The Pig Page. You’ve just got to laff, haven’t ya!

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general September 25, 2002 posted by

‘He’s alive, Jim…’

This Beeb article takes a look at a new ‘Star Trek’ type device which can measures our vital signs simply by shining a light on the body. Apparently it’s based on something called photoplethysmography. What I want to know is, will it make those groovy bleeping noises as well?

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general September 25, 2002 posted by

Finders keepers

The Wireless RF Electronic Locator is the perfect gift for the terminally forgetful. Attach a small beeper to any or all of your oft lost items, and at the touch of a button retrieve said item when it beeps at you from under the cushions. At least that’s the theory. Range 30 feet, price $49.95. [via boingboing]

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general September 25, 2002 posted by

Brother is that a small printer

The Brother MW-100 printer is a teeny 300 dpi thermal printer. One charge of the lithium ion batteries lasts for 100 prints and it links via infra red or USB. Warning: Japanese site. More in English here.

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