Posts by Category: cool tech

Funky stuff, man!

cool tech March 27, 2007 posted by

Blue Phire Laser – fight your own format war

Blue Phire Laser. Forget about the Blu-Ray vs HD battle dude, get in on your own private format war by purchasing one of these ultra trendy blue laser thingies. No, we have no chuffin’ idea what you can do with it either, but we’re sure you’ll get a bit of respect when you whip it out at your next Women’s Institute meeting. Unfortunately we don’t think it’ll break the copy protection on your new Sony Playstation 3 discs either. $999.00….


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cool tech March 27, 2007 posted by

Aeroscraft – Thunderbird 2 lives

The Aeroscraft is absolute proof that fact follows fiction. It’s Thunderbird 2 isn’t it? Well isn’t it?  The revolutionary concept of the partially buoyant craft is a rigid hull structure, the latest Aeros proprietary technologies – Full Authority Direct Organic Lift Control (FADOLC), dynamic buoyancy management system – allowing to unload without re-ballasting, innovative structure design, and low speed control capability have resulted in generation of the fourth type of air vehicle. The exceptional features of Aeroscraft, such as vertical…


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cool tech March 19, 2007 posted by

Off grid electricity gets real – (at a price)

The Stuart Island Energy Initiative proves that you can manufacture electricity enough to power your home along with some spare Hydrogen if you’re prepared to work for it. And spend around $50,000. Which is way better than spending $500,000 of course. And here’s a useful link if you want to learn more about domestic Hydrogen and fuel cell tech.   What are our goals? We were tired of hauling banks of 120 lb batteries to our remote, off-the-grid island home. We were tired…


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cool tech March 15, 2007 posted by

SkypeFind – local listings in your Skype client

SkypeFind is a new beta feature from the upcoming Skype 3.1 which is highly significant, although I haven’t seen anyone talking about it as such. They’re basically offering local listings search and user reviews of businesses in your area all done from the comfort of your Skype client. Yep, VoIP goes search. It’s important because the consensus is that local search is going to be *huge* as the technology evolves, and so Skype is really entering an arena already populated by mega-corps…


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cool tech March 9, 2007 posted by

OpenCourseWare – education for free

OpenCourseWare is collaborative effort between 100 or more educational bodies which aims to share educational materials under an open (i.e. free of charge and restriction) licence. That’s pretty cool.  An OpenCourseWare is a free and open digital publication of high quality university-level teaching materials – including syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, and exams – organized as courses. OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiatives typically do not provide a degree, credit or certification, or access to instructors. The materials are made available under open licenses,…


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cool tech March 7, 2007 posted by

Call-Em-All – telephone call broadcasting for your group

Call-Em-All is a telephone voice broadcast system. You set up your list of phone numbers, pay up front or set up a monthly account and when you want to broadcast to your list, just record the message on your PC and press send. $7.50 for 25 numbers, non-profits catered for. Interesting app.  Call-Em-All’s voice broadcasting service will allow you to easily record a message in your own voice or any voice you choose and automatically send it to every phone…


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cool tech March 6, 2007 posted by

iCoustic – the acoustic guitar gets all digital on us

The iCoustic Guitar. Take an ordinary looking acoustic guitar, embed a speaker in the soundhole, throw in an amplifier and a heap of clever electronics which let you plug in an external recording system and media players and you’ve got a pretty awesome solo musical instrument. MP3 Mode lets you play tracks from your iPod through the speaker and Pro Mode gives you recording and playback from a Korg ToneWorks PXR4. Watch the video demo from developer Ken Preece. Nice one. $749.00…


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cool tech March 6, 2007 posted by

Tumblr – quick and dirty..ahem…clean blogging

Tumblr is a kind of cross between blogging, bookmarking and scrap-booking. We like this. For some reason it works, even though it doesn’t sound like much of a tech advance. The interface is clean, the components sensible, it’s got great features and it’s cool. It helps also that Chad Fowler’s name is associated with this somehow. We like Chad.  What’s a tumblelog? To make a simple analogy: If blogs are journals, tumblelogs are scrapbooks. You can also look at tumblelogs as…


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cool tech March 1, 2007 posted by

Move Tracks – create your road trip playlist using iTunes and Google Maps

Move Tracks is so clearly a ‘wow, what a cool idea’ project. Basically it’s a mashup between iTunes and Google Maps which lets you create a playlist for your journey based on the time the trip will take and the tracks you choose. Set the route, select the audio tracks and press Send, and the playlist will be created and installed in iTunes ready for synching. Still a bit rough and ready, but definitely a ‘cool app’ in every sense of the word. You’ll…


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Bookmark This! February 28, 2007 posted by

Gtalk2VoIP – IM gets SIP and PSTN power

Gtalk2VoIP is a totally fascinating service which links together IM services like Google Talk, MSN and Yahoo! Messenger with SIP phones and ordinary landlines and lets you make voice calls between them all. What makes this different is that everything is controlled from your instant messenger program of choice, which is a pretty cool way of handling things. The help and setup interface is still a little too…ahem…rustic for my liking, but the concept looks great and they have done a plug-in for Google…


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cool tech February 23, 2007 posted by

Tango! – tackling speech handicaps, 21st century style

The Tango! is a new communications device aimed at helping those with severe speech problems, such as those with Cerebral Palsy and Autism, to communicate. The Windows CE based unit combines a digital camera and flash, with a recordable phrase generator which speaks a sentence out loud via a synthesised voice when a large icon button is pressed. There are a few of these ‘augmentative and alternative communicators’ around, but this one seems to be quite innovative. Priced at $6,899.00 or…


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cool tech February 21, 2007 posted by

The ultimate home office system – 32 Terrabytes and counting…

I would have to venture a guess that Stefan Didak’s gargantuan 32 Terrabyte, 8 system, seven screen (plus two laptops) home office computer system qualifies as just about the largest you’re going to find in a private dwelling. Yeah, almost.  What happens if you turn all that equipment on? The light in the neighborhood dims a little, starts to flicker, then the lights in part of the city go out, and once everything is up and running, the lights slowly come…


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cool tech February 20, 2007 posted by

Botanicalls – dial-a-drink for thirsty plants

The Botanicalls Project is just genius. A small sensor in each plant pot is connected to a telephone switchboard, which in turn can call a number when the soil is dry. Brilliant. OK, so it’s slightly scary too. The thought of your plants randomly calling you at different times of the day or night with requests for water, or thanking you for watering them, is just a bit too Little Shop of Horrors maybe. [Via InventorSpot]  A soil moisture sensor…


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cool tech February 20, 2007 posted by

Whisher – cool free WiFi sharing community

Whisher. Public Wi-Fi services are a rip off. We all know it. Wireless broadband should be free and it should be everywhere. Well maybe services like Whisher will help break the current system and provide a genuinely useful global Wi-Fi sharing community. It’s not the first such service (FON springs to mind) but it looks to be one of the easiest to use. Just download and install the software and bingo, you can share your Wi-Fi connection wherever you are. And…


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cool tech February 19, 2007 posted by

Arcade Reality – augmented reality gaming comes to the camera phone

Long time Ferret readers will remember five years ago when we first mentioned the ARQuake augmented reality gaming project which let you play Quake on a portable computer, headset and GPS unit. At that point it was very much a college project, and even today it involves quite a bit of clunky equipment (weighing 6 kilograms and incorporating a full 2GHz belt worn computer). Well guess what? Something similar has just made its way onto the Palm Treo, using nothing more sophisticated…


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