Monthly Archives: August 2008
BGP route man-in-the-middle attack outlined
Waterproofing is hot!
We have had in rapid succession a transparent water repellent coating
and Golden Shellback which water and dustproofs.
Vivien Muller design: PhotonSynthese
Startup Delayer Staggers Your Startup Apps for Smoother Loading
Windows only: Free application Startup Delayer staggers the applications that launch when you log in to Windows by user-defined increments. The reason: To mitigate the common startup bottleneck caused by all of your startup applications fighting to run at the same time.
Featured Windows Download: Startup Delayer Staggers Your Startup Apps for Smoother Loading
Draganflyer X6 – UAV Helicopter Aerial Video Platform
This thing flies your camera wherever you want it – fast!
Very cool videos
The Dubai Ziggurat: 1 million living souls in a pyramid, entirely self-contained
Pyramids and ziggurats represent an oddly survivable form of architecture. Built by civilizations such as the Egyptians, Mayans and Babylonians, several of these testaments to ancient ingenuity are still standing after thousands of years. Timelinks, a design firm based in Dubai, has unveiled plans to make a pyramid of its own — one that could house a million people, feature an efficient vertically-and-horizontally-running public transportation system, and generate all of the energy it needs.
It may sound like just another concept that’ll never be a reality, but Timelinks already set about patenting the design as well as the technology that would make it possible. The structure, nearly a whole square mile by design, would use a combination of steam, wind, and other alternative energy-gathering methods to keep itself entirely off the grid. There would also be “green spaces” that would provide the pyramidal city with agricultural space, to provide food and green-based commerce.
With so many designs out there for arcologies, it may be just a matter of time before the modern city is replaced by one of these carbon-neutral enclaves.
URL Location
CVT i3101 iPhone Dock
usniff.com Torrent aggregator
Subtitles
Sublight also downloads and manages your subtitles
Cloud computing – the best definition I’ve heard yet
It’s been called a lot of things: utility computing, grid computing, distributed computing, and now cloud computing. You can come up with any CTO-friendly name you like, but they all mean the same shit: Renting your quickly depreciating physical assets out because your software company is out of ideas for computer programs.
There’s more…
Cancer surgery by colour
IOGEAR’s Wireless USB to VGA kit
Certified by the USB-IF, this unit enables any machine with a spare USB port to stream video to a TV or projector with resolutions as high as 720p. So long as your USB dongle is plugged into your machine and the VGA adapter is connected to a display, you’ll be good to go within a 30-foot radius. According to IOGEAR, the product is only compatible with Windows XP 32-bit or Vista 32- / 64-bit, but those with no qualms about that can grab one next month for $229.95
Kuwait building world’s tallest tower, huge rail network
There are some big plans underway in Subiya, Kuwait in Madinat al-Hareer, the City of Silk. Not only are they planning to erect the world’s tallest tower, stealing the crown from Dubai, but they’re also planning on creating a hugely ambitious rail network that would link the Middle East with China.
The railway will connect places such as Kuwait, Damascus, Baghdad and Iran with cities in China and in between, with the hub starting in Subiya. The complex around the tower will also include all sorts of recreation and business attractions, including a wildlife sanctuary. It’s all seems kind of hodgepodge, but when it’s all complete after a $132 billion bill, I’m sure it’ll be more than impressive.
Nike’s armor-plated war truck comes in peace (and with its own skate ramp)
Known as the Nike 6.0 Ill Mobile, the monstrous fun wagon you see pictured above came from ad/design firm Hub Strategy, which the shoe company tasked with making something that would make people stop and say, “Holy crap!” The first thing Hub Strategy did? Repurpose an amphibious armor-plated war-truck from 1959 into a mobile extreme sport HQ for Mountain Dew’s Action Sports Tour.
It’s got a skate ramp at the back and rails along the sides to grind on, as well as its own wakeboard water tower and racks for BMX bicycles and surfboards. No respectable HQ would be complete without some creature comforts, though, and it’s got ’em in spades: a barbecue, sleep-in camper shell, sound options ranging from waterproof CD players and remote controlled iPods and, we imagine, an unlimited supply of Mountain Dew.
And they managed to slap it all together in under three weeks. No one is saying how much Nike spent on the project, but the viral reaction to something like this — cellphone pictures, blog posts, word of mouth — can be worth more than a regular ad on television. The Ill Mobile will be touring around the country.
Dedicated gaming table crowns you King of the geeks
Are you the type of gamer who needs to get every latest input device and display for your killer rig? If gaming peripherals are just piling up on the floor of your bachelor pad, perhaps this gaming table from Digital Edge can get things under control. I just wouldn’t put it anywhere a potential girlfriend might happen to see it.
Designed specifically with CH Products controllers in mind, you get three levels of shelves for all your stuff, including enough room for three monitors. All that’s missing is a chair, but I suppose you could use one of these.
The Gaming Table is available now for $379.
When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite
2015 concept BMW certainly is futuristic
What are cars going to look like in the year 2015? Well, I’m guessing they’re going to look kind of like our cars to day, but maybe a touch more aerodynamic. But hey, what do I know? When asked the same question, Transportation Design students at Turin-based IED (istituto Europeo di Design) came up with something quite a bit different.
The concept design for BMW they came up with looks like it belongs in 2115, not 2015. The BMW ZX-6 Concept by Jai Ho Yoo and Lukas Vanek is full of crazy curves and lines, and while yes, it is more aerodynamic, I’m not sure just how practical it is. But hey, maybe by 2015 we won’t care about practical cars, instead purchasing our vehicles based solely on how crazy they look. If so, this one is a definite winner.
Stunning Ferrari Monza concept is ready for takeoff
While most crazy fast concept cars use aerodynamics to keep the wheels firmly planted on the ground, designer Iman Maghsoudi has taken the opposite tack with his wild Ferrari Monza concept. Once you reach a predetermined speed, an onboard computer changes the car’s aerodynamic profile, using winglets called canards ahead of the front wheels to create lift which reduces friction. In most cases, the resulting vehicle would be called an airplane, but with the Monza, ground effects come into play to keep it on terra firma.
I’ll admit that I’m no aerodynamic engineer, but this all sounds a little far fetched. Still, you’ve got to admit that it looks amazing.
Drive to the south pole in style in the Lotus CIV
When your aim is to travel across the great ice plains of Antarctica, a normal car or truck meant for highways and regular streets probably isn’t going to meet your specific needs. You need a vehicle designed for the wide expanses of ice down on the bottom of the world.
The Lotus Concept Ice Vehicle (CIV) is made for the Antarctic. Scooting around on ice runners rather than wheels and moved forward with a propeller, it’s definitely not like any car you’ve ever seen. It only seats one, but the chances are good that you won’t be bringing anyone to soccer practice in Antarctica. It runs on biofuel, which makes it nice and environmentally friendly, and it has a spiked foot that is lowered down onto the ice as a brake. If you’ve got to make it to the south pole in style, accept no substitutes.
1% of potential geothermal energy could deliver power for 26,000 years
geothermal-power-process.jpgIn case you weren’t aware, below the surface of the earth there’s a sea of insanely hot material that’s constantly swirling around. When tapped, that heat source can be used as geothermal power. With so much down there, why aren’t we using it more? That’s a question asked in Australia, where a study determined that a mere 1% of Australia’s geothermal power potential could provide the nation with a whopping 26,000 years of energy. The trick is getting it out.
A report from the Australian Geothermal Energy Association lays out how it would work, including drilling down a whopping 2.8 miles into the surface of the earth to tap into that hot magma. In order to reach 20% of electricity demands using this system, it would require a $10.45 billion project that would take over a decade to complete. But hey, once it’s done you’ve got clean energy coming up from below. And that sounds just great to us.
Hinterland electric vehicle looks like a bulbous bullet train
Of all the electric car designs we’ve seen, this one is the most puzzling yet. The Hinterland Project starts with the shape of an airplane fuselage and turns it into a sustainable vehicle. However, it looks more like an electric tin can with wheels to us. The idea is its aerodynamic shape and lightweight aluminum chassis will increase the vehicle’s range, solving one of the most pressing problems plaguing electric vehicles circa 2008.
Maybe the car’s Canadian designer Martin Aubé is onto something. Think of it this way: if car buyers can be conned into driving the millions of toaster-shaped rattletraps traveling the nation’s highways now, given sufficient advertising, there’s no reason why gullible consumers won’t snap up cars that look like swollen locomotives.
Intel wireless power is pure magic, most efficient yet
The final frontier of wireless tech is upon us, with Intel showing off its electricity flying through the air with better efficiency than ever. While it’s not the first wireless power transmitting device we’ve seen, this one uses resonance rather than induction, and boasts 75% efficiency. Hey, that means if you send 100 watts across the room, 75 of those watts will actually make it to the other side.
For now, the prototype is in the form of two copper rings that resonate together at a certain frequency, magically transmitting electricity from one to the other. Of course the tinfoil hat-wearing cranks will want to know where that extra 25% of the obviously deadly radiation goes on its way from here to there, but Intel says never mind that; it’s safe for us, it’s just that the gadgets will get fried with the current tech.
As soon as this is perfected, we’ll be in for a techno treat. Imagine wirelessly charging up your cell phone, or quickly installing some truly wireless speakers, or placing a wireless toaster on your kitchen table. The possibilities are endless. But in this era of energy price hikes, do we really want to throw away 25% of the power just for the sake of convenience?
Australian student fashions solar cells out of nail polish as only MacGyver could
What do you get when you bring together a pizza oven, some nail polish and inkjet printers? Solar cells. You and I may be scratching our heads, but the woman behind the process known as iJet, Nicole Kuepper, won two Australian Museum Eureka Prizes — Australia’s top science awards. The real beauty of Ms. Kuepper’s accomplishment — beyond the simple recipe — is that a low-heat process like this is both cost effective and easily replicated, meaning that developing countries could get everything they need for cheap, renewable energy using junk you could find at a garage sale.
How does it work? We don’t know, and probably won’t be able to find out as it has just been recently patented, but it feels like a better world already.
Satellite Damage Assessment For Tskhinvali, South Ossetia, Georgia (as of 22 Aug 2008
This map presents a satellite-based damage assessment for the city of Tskhinvali, South Ossetia, Georgia following the armed conflict between Georgian and Russian military forces in August 2008. Damaged buildings have been identified with WorldView-1 and Formosat-2 satellite imagery acquired on 19 August 2008 at a spatial resolution of 50cm and 2m respectively. An estimated total of 438 buildings within the mapped extent of Tskhinvali have been classified either as destroyed or severely damaged. An important preliminary finding of this satellite damage analysis is the observed heavy concentration of building damages within clearly defined residential areas. Please note, this is an initial damage assessment and has not yet been independently validated on the ground.