Monthly Archives: February 2004

general February 28, 2004 posted by

Spy cellphone.

The SPY-PH-NOKIA 8310 cellphone is an ordinary mobile phone that makes and receives calls as normal but – ‘when the phone is called using the previously programmed spyphone number, it automatically answers without any ringing or lights and the display appears as if it is on ordinary standby.’ In other words when called with a special number it silently goes into transmit mode and broadcasts whatever the mic picks up from the environment. Sneaky is not the word, eh? You…

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general February 28, 2004 posted by

Remote control.

Hook your camcorder up to a $149.99 PowerPod Robot Tripod to let you tilt, pan and zoom it at will, and then download the free TrackerCam software which lets you view your cam from any mobile phone and voil� – quite a neat security or fun application for all the family. Check out the live demos for an idea of what I mean!

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general February 28, 2004 posted by

Shopping topping.

Ouch. Google has just released it’s Froogle catalog search engine as a wireless Smartphone service. That’s right, you can now wander into any store and view an instant online search of a competitive price on a product you’re interested in. They’ll need to tidy up the search results a lot (i.e. remove the duplicates or very similar results guys!) in order to make it totally zowie, but they will. ‘To use Froogle via wml-enabled mobile, users point their phone’s browser…

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general February 28, 2004 posted by

If the face fits…

Toshiba’s VU-R710A Face Pass product is a face recognition system that won’t let you enter or exit a location unless your face literally ‘fits’. No mention of hungover, bloodshot eyes and 48 hour stubble affecting the results, so we suspect that the developers have thought of that. ‘The system unlocks a building door only when the picture of an employee matches a pre-registered digital color image of the person.’

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general February 28, 2004 posted by

Bright light bag.

I genuinely cannot for the life of me think why this has taken so long to reach development stage. Bree’s Smart Surface Technology is a new cool (ie no heat) lighting source for the inside of women’s handbags. ‘What’s more, the luminescent film developed by Bayer Polymers and Lumitec lights up on both sides. So when used as a compartment divider inside a handbag, it can bathe two compartments in a pleasant light simultaneously. A battery provides the necessary energy…

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general February 28, 2004 posted by

CIA museum.

The CIA Museum features all kinds of funky spy gear which look like fun. Especially some of the more way out items like the catfish drop off device, into which you stash your precious microfilm or secret ink messages or whatever. Not open to the public though, unfortunately.

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general February 28, 2004 posted by

iPod suit.

The iPod SportSuit is a 2mm rubberised neoprene, velcro and plastic adorned delight designed to protect your precious from nasty falls, scrapes and bashes. The only major damage you should sustain on order will be the $24.95 hit on the wallet.

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general February 28, 2004 posted by

AnorakWorld.

The Virtual Worlds Review is a site dedicated to ‘persistent online social virtual worlds’. Now don’t forget kiddies, you also need to eat and breathe real oxygen occasionally in order to keep things pleasant. ‘Fakeworld…This world is not a cozy place to hang out and make friends, but it’s worth a visit just to see the hysterical avatar dance moves.’

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general February 28, 2004 posted by

Auntie P2P.

This Register report suggests that the BBC will be using Peer to Peer technology to deliver its content to computer and mobile devices very soon. Wow, you mean P2P can be used for something other than piracy? [/sarcasm off] ‘The BBC’s new media director, Ashley Highfield, said that a P2P network will allow the BBC to handle the volume of traffic it expects when the Internet Media Player (IMP) goes live. The IMP will enable users to download or stream…

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general February 28, 2004 posted by

Real Eyes.

The RealEyes Digitizer technology is interesting and rather clever. It basically allows camera phones to act as scanners for capturing newspaper adverts, diagrams and maps or anything graphical. The company is even looking at OCR applications which could convert snaps into text. This sort of application could really take off once higher resolution camera phones start to arrive on the market in force.

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general February 28, 2004 posted by

Super cluster.

The Proteus Mini-Cluster. Why fiddle about paying through the nose for a super-computer when you can build a 3.6 GFLP one in your bedroom out of a cluster of mini-itx board computers running FreeBSD? ‘No official benchmarks have been run, but for simple computational tasks the mini cluster appears to be faster than four 2.4 GHz pentium 4 mcahines [sic] used in parallel, at a fraction of the cost and power use.’

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general February 26, 2004 posted by

Cute kiddies.

This ABCNews story looks at the quest for human like robots. ‘In a decade or so, people may not have to tidy their house, clean up after the dog, or even nag their spouse to do chores. A friendly, human-like robot will take care of routine tasks, and it won’t whine or fight back.’

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general February 26, 2004 posted by

Teeny mems.

OK, we’ve had small keychain memory modules. And even had micro modules. Now Iomega introduces to the world the MicroMini [Japanese] USB memory stick. 128MB in the size of a paperclip.

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general February 26, 2004 posted by

Butt of the jokes.

So some guy in the US has come up with a little gadget that locks the 9 key on mobile phones to stop you inadvertently calling emergency services when you sit down on your handset. Huh? Has no-one heard of the inbuilt keylock function on most modern handsets? ‘The 63-year-old RV repair specialist from Tualatin has begun marketing a patented cell phone button guard designed to cut back on accidental 911 calls. The raised, stick-on oval fits around the “9”…

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