British student invents fridge fit for Africa.If it's not already explained well enough in the image from Mail Online, this rather small "eco-fridge" is a really great idea. Instead of the food inside the container getting hot the water does and evaporates. It's so simple and yet this is the first time I ever heard of this type of system. I had no idea water could keep a cylinder of food at 6C (42.8F). It's no ice box, but I can imagine that this incredible invention is a blessing to the poor in Africa. I'm sure it won't be easy to constantly replenish this portable fridge with fresh water to keep it working, but it's better than the alternative and I'm sure there will be a few improvements some time in the future. Thanks Emily Cummins for emphasizing the point that brilliant inventions don't have to be complicated or expensive. I wish her good luck and hope Africans will have slightly better lives from now on.
Nintendo's DSi Pros and Cons.When I first saw Nintendo's next generation handheld system the DS (Dual Screen), I thought was big, gray, and awesome! It had really cool features and great new games but could still play my old GBA games too. Within a month of the North America release, I bought my very own system. I've spent many hours playing with it but ever since the announcement of the DS Lite, I've been wanting to get rid of my original style Nintendo DS -- or as most like to refer to it as the "brick" -- and get a thinner, all around better version. I didn't want to get a DS Lite, however, because I knew Nintendo was going to come out with a second redesign that would be even better than the Lite. I waited patiently... FOR MORE THAN 2 YEARS and, finally, Nintendo has announced it's third platform, the DSi. It'll have bigger screens, an even slimmer design, and not one but two cameras! But it replaces the GBA slot with an SD card slot, which is both good for new ways to store and view media but also bad since I won't get to relive all those old GBA games again or be able to grip my DS when playing Guitar Hero: On Tour. I'm not sure what to do. The DSi with two cameras sounds like another huge opportunity for more innovative games, but do I really want to give up the backwards compatibility the Lite offers? I suppose I have over seven months to decide on what to do before the DSi comes to America. In the mean time, I'll give my "brick" one last good work out until I buy a Lite or DSi.
Incredible video and photo editing could start a new technological era.Even though I have a digital camera that can take video, I still want a professional video camera. Why? Because video sucks! It's always grainy and the colors are all wrong. Even expensive commercial video cameras are only a slight improvement. But then I saw this video on Gizmodo. Watch it first and then read on...
Wasn't that amazing?! My jaw was dropped the entire time. This technology is going to change everything. I mean you can finally put that video capturing feature on your camera into action and then just edit it later to make it look like a film crew from a movie set shot it. Then think about all the cool effects you can do with your video. This is going to save so much time and effort for those special effect guys.
This reminds me a lot of another superb editing technology called scene carving. There's a video posted on TechCrunch that you should definitely check out. Go ahead and watch it and read the rest when it's over...
Isn't that sweet?! Just think of the possibilities. Photoshop fanatics will be dying to use this.
Media companies must live with charging $0.If you've read my previous post on getting free music then you know how easy it is to get free music, movies, games, and just about anything digital. Why would you want to pay money and spend the extra time purchasing something that you can get super fast without a penny out of pocket? All these organizations are hoping to put an end to illegal downloading but how? The RIAA tried suing and, although they won a few cases, they also lost a few cases. In Canada, they want a $5 increase on all customers' internet bills to be split between media companies but I'm sure those who just use the internet to send email to their kids won't be too happy about that. Comcast, along with other ISPs, tried to block bittorrent traffic but they're facing heavy backlash from strong torrent supporters. What can they do? As long as you can share information there will always be media file sharing. Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, and other artists are beginning to embrace the free era by giving their fans the chance to pay or not to pay. And it was a huge success! Now a lot of it was free publicity which attracted customers to check it out and support those who support free stuff, but still, they made money by giving their music away. Joss Stone is cool with it because she wants her fans to listen and share her music and also pay to go to her concert but she's getting the hang of it. The movie industry on the other hand is just plain ridiculous. All the "downloading isn't free" posters are saying that all the people who make the movies lose money from illegal downloads. How much are those actors paid per movie? Fourteen million? Twenty? It's absurd how much they get. Why don't they just severely cut their pay, since most of them make at least three movies a year, and only give them $5 mil for a movie and give the extra they saved to those who worked their asses off to make the movie?! Take a hint from hulu and have every media company release their content online for free and just have a few advertisements. It may not make them the millions or billions of dollars a month that they're used to but at least the customers are happy.
Comcast is incapable of providing good service, prices, and support.I can't tell you how many times people have told me how much they despise Comcast. My family had Comcast way back when and we just dropped them after they raised their prices by 150%. We only had basic cable through them and they were charging us nearly $100 per month by the time we canceled their service. My uncle has cable and internet with them and he's billed almost $150 per month! I'm glad we switched to WOW (only offered in Mid-West) and now we get cable and internet on as many TVs and computers as we want for only $55 per month. Our friends have Comcast and I nor their own tech guy can get their computers to connect to the internet. Then Comcast practically blocked all BitTorrent (a file sharing system) users by severly limiting their access. They're soon to be sued over this as Threat Level reports. Now I'm reading a slew of horror stories about incredibly aweful Comcast encounters including this one. When a couple tried to transfer their Comcast internet to their temporary residence at the woman's Grandfather's house, who only has Comcast cable, they run into more than just a problem. The Comcast tech guy blew up over the misunderstanding of having a separate bill for cable and another for internet so he accused the 74 year-old Grandfather of hijacking cable, shut off their television service which they still had to pay for, and disrespected the entire family. After an ordeal with other Comcast support, the daughter was able to get through to someone who fixed the situation with minor and insulting compensation. I hate Comcast.
Despite it's success, Nintendo needs to step it up.
I'm sure you're at least aware of Nintendo's huge hits, the Wii and the Nintendo DS. But even though the DS is still selling well fours years after its first release and the Wii system is still hard to find anywhere, Nintendo hasn't been satisfying the masses as pointed out by Wii Fanboy. First of all, both systems have totally revolutionized how most of us live now and that's no joke. Both systems are easy to use, fun, and cheap. It's a killer combination. Because the Wii offers gamers the chance to move rather than button-mash Nintendo has increased its demographic to nearly anyone. They're putting Wiis in physical therapy centers and retirement homes because it's great, fun exercise for them. I mean, my 90 year-old Grandpa has a Wii! You can surf the net, check the news and weather, and interact with other players in a safe environment on the Wii. The DS is similar in that you can also surf the web, chat with other players, and just about run your whole life with its fantastic line of games. My Weight Loss Coach, Brain Age, My Spanish Coach, Flash Focus, and Cooking Guide (UK) are just the beginnings of how the DS is going from game system to life system. But, like I said, people keep demanding more so I've come up with a list of things Nintendo needs to improve on.
- Wii storage shortage - after a few games saves, channels, and Wii Wares installed on your Wii you've suddenly run out of room to put it all! Most have suggested playing straight from an inserted SD card but we'll see how they solve this problem.
- Cooking Guide (USA) - for some reason this game is predicted to only sell well in Europe but I think they need to give North America a chance and offer it here. I would certainly buy it in a heartbeat and I'm sure others would too if they saw its potential.
- Balance board games - Sure the Wii Fit is an enormous success but I want to do more with my $90 dual-scale accessory than just yoga. I want my moneys worth!
- DS Novel - If I want to bring a few books with me while I travel and I'm already going to take my DS why not combine the two by packing a bunch of classic literature pieces on a DS cartridge?
- Animal Crossing Wii - The Gamecube version was like The Sims on crack but the Wii is lacking it's own version and if they make one it's going to be ten times better than its predecessor.
- Pokemon Platinum - For a company that comes out with 100 new characters and not one, but two new games about them practically every year it sure seems strange for them to be so late on one of the most anticipated Pokemon titles for the DS.
- New Wii colors - The DS has about a 1,000 different colors and designs yet the Wii just has plain ol' white. What gives?
- My (insert language here) Coach - It's great that we have French and Spanish and English in Asia, but what about the other 500 languages in the world? I'm looking forward to My Chinese Coach myself.
- More DLC, please - So far, the downloadable content (DLC) for the Wii has been slow and not all that great. I'm sure once they fix the storage problem the Nintendo servers will crash from all the downloads.
- DS redesign - This is why I still have my Original Style "Phat" DS. The Lite is great and all but I know the next system version will be twice as good.
Internet has reached one trillion unique web pages.
Too bad you will never see the above message any time soon because Google has announced it has indexed over 1 trillion sites.
This is huge literally and metaphorically.
It would seem at this rate of growth the internet will contain just about every piece of information out there.
Soon there won't be a single fact that only exists on paper.
If you're reading this there's no doubt that you've contributed to the internet's vast knowledge database somehow.
I guess there's nothing to celebrate until Google hits the 1 quadrillion mark.
I can't wait!
Since I have little time to write up a full summarized report on all the really sweet inventions and secrets I've come across while at college, I'm just gonna put them all in one big list.- Have someone else take over your cell phone contract, get a temporary one, and find a better plan without having to wait for the contract to end.
- Create a visually appealing virtual desktop with myGoya just in case your real desktop isn't enough.
- Chat with people looking at the same website as you or leave messages for others to read about the website with Chatsum or Xpanity.
- Cooking 16 healthy burgers at home is cheaper than buying 16 fattening, sodium filled McDonald's burgers.
- With the way we're using resources, the earth is expected to "expire" by 2050.
- If heated at 680 degrees, a teflon coated pan WILL release toxic gases that can make you ill or possible cause death.
- British scientists are positive that they have created a "miracle tube" that can cut heating bills in half because it produces more energy than is put into it.
- A technology that can possibly fit over 1 terabyte (20 times larger than a full Blu-ray disk) of data onto a single disk could end the Blu-ray vs HD-DVD battle.
- Turn any laptop into a tablet pc with this cool pen.
- Quantum computer technology can greatly increase processing power and speed on normal computers.
- Magnetically powered refrigerator that doesn't need electricity to come out in 2010.
- Anti-aging pill could be on the market in 10 years by forcing the activation of the SIRT2 gene normally activated through eating a strict low-calorie diet.
- "Pollution-eating cement" actually speeds up the chemical process of turning air pollutants into less dangerous compounds like water, carbon dioxide, and nitrates.
- Bottle turns dirty water into clean drinking water in seconds without constantly changing the filter will prove valuable to millions of people.
- Pee powered batteries are reusable up to 10 years but only give out a third of the power that alkaline batteries produce.
- Clever student came up with a way to create power by adding odd looking wind turbines to highways that rotate when cars pass underneath making a lot of energy.
- Ethanol as a fuel source is a scam because it costs almost as much as gasoline and while "our current ethanol production represents only 3.5 percent of our gasoline consumption... it consumes twenty percent of the entire U.S. corn crop, causing the price of corn to double..."
- Sugar cane is MUCH more efficient than ethanol as a fuel source but with so high tariffs how can we even get it over here?
- Vehicles can run on compressed air leaving behind no pollutants and can go extremely long distances at speeds up to 135 mph on a single tank while refueling takes a matter of hours over night.
- Burning salt water using radio waves may be the next big, not to mention abundant, fuel source.
- Apparently smart people tend to be liberal while the not-so-educated people will most likely be conservative says this study.
- Student punished for wearing religious attire while school thinks it's disruptive.
- "Bush Administration Says Warrantless Eavesdropping Cannot Be Questioned"
- Leaders of America, Canada, and Mexico could be planning to combine all three countries into a very frightening and all powerful super-government.
- The Federal Reserve is an illegal private bank creating money out of thin air while convincing people for nearly 100 years that a piece of paper has value.
- Government is using authorities to crush opponents in order to create a Police State through Operation FALCON.
- The facts about 9/11 are alarming to the point that our government could have perpetrated or at least allowed it to happen.
- The best way to keep Americans ignorant to what's going on and to not question the government is to have political debates but limit the spectrum of topics to give the illusion of free thinking when it's really just propaganda.
- Speak out, and actually be heard, for or against something with YouMob.
Bill to stick it to the mobile phone industry.Finally, a bill that doesn't limit our rights: it gives them to the people. The Cell Phone Empowerment Act of 2007, summarized on The Consumerist, would prevent crazy fees and practices that cell phone companies have been using to screw its customers for years. This would finally right most of the wrongs imposed on us by those bastards. Here are the basic changes:
1. Early termination fees (ETF) would be cut in half after the first year.
2. Coverage maps would be made public and dead zones would be revealed.
3. Stupid fees would be stopped and only authorized ones would be allowed.
4. Any contract changes would have to be shown to customers in writing and wouldn't take effect for 30 days.
5. No more locked phones!
An entire kitchen, including the sink, in one space-saving cylindrical cabinet.Probably the best invention for a kitchen since the microwave, "kitchen-in-a-cylinder" has everything anyone would ever need to cook food in one compact design. It has a mini-fridge, microwave, oven, stove, pantry, sink, dishwasher, and (surprisingly) plenty of counter space. When it's not in use there's a sliding door that covers it all off for a nice clean look. I'm sure apartment architects and people who rent will rejoice when they hear of this amazing kitchen innovation that will yield more space for the bath, bed, or living room. This might be the perfect thing to even have in small vacation homes, college dorms, or ski lofts.
Making something molecule by molecule holds much potential to create anything imaginable.Not too long ago, scientists came up with a kind of object printer that puts together a product from just atoms and molecules stored in containers using a downloaded blue print. You can watch a video of that here. Then they were able to make this incredible tiny energy storage device, basically a battery, that was black, lightweight, flexible, super resilient to temperature, and it could be powered by blood or perspiration! Well they've come up with "metal rubber." Unlike metal foil that crinkles and holds its shape rather well, "metal rubber" works like rubber in that it's flexible and can return to its normal shape after being molded, but it can conduct electricity. As you can assume, demand is extremely high for this 12" square sample that takes about three days to piece together. The possibilities could be endless for "metal rubber" but it's clear that possibilities are infinite when it comes to nanotechnology.
View new stories and posts from your favorite sites all in one place.It's surprising to me that so many people haven't discovered or fully understand RSS. If you have a lot of websites or blogs that you like you don't have to go to each one looking for updates. With RSS all the updates come to you. It's very simple:
1. Find and click an RSS feed symbol (usually orange or blue) whenever you want to be notified as soon as something new is posted on a site that you like.
2. Now, using Google Reader, which is the easiest out of all readers to manage, you can be informed of any updates that occur on that site just by having a google account.
3. Go nuts by clicking RSS symbols on all your favorite sites and if you don't want them in Google Reader any more then you can just click "unsubscribe" under "Feed Settings."
That's all you need to know! Now of course you could use other RSS readers but the best thing about using the google version is that with the same account you can have email with Gmail and a calendar with Gcal and all the other benefits that come with google.
Find a video with one easy search.Calling your site the "ultimate" is pretty bold, but the Gujam video search engine can really back up their claim. It's exactly like google with a simplistic design and results page but it searches video sites like YouTube, Veoh, The Daily Motion, Meta Cafe, and many more. Now you can easily find videos from lonelygirl15, as pictured above, with ease. If you don't find the video you're looking for with Gujam then it just doesn't exist.
View the top stories from digg, reddit, fark, etc. all on one convenient page.
It couldn't be any easier to find the best stories, pictures, and news that's happening now. Jimmyr really does a nice job at organizing everything recent and up-to-date on his site. There are others like it, which you can find on the right under "Best Lists," but nothing compares to the simplicity and ease of use of Jimmyr. I use it everyday because it changes constantly so I always know what's new and interesting on the internet.
Everything you type into google is closely monitored, but there's a safer way.
It may come as a shock, but google, the most widely used online search engine, not only keeps track of what you search for at what time under your IP address but also allows authorities to view these records whenever they like. Now this can be used for good, but do you really think a multi-billion dollar company gives a crap about doing the right thing? Most likely, they're in it for money and power. But how do you combat google's spying without giving up on your favorite search site? Use googlonymous: the 100% free and anonymous search site that gives you google results without giving out your personal information. It even has a documentary on it's site that provides further details of other companies that are recording your every move and how you're helping them do it without knowing.
BBC admits it has been infiltrated by Microsoft
Now that BBC will use the iPlayer, only users with Windows may be able to view BBC's online content because all control over "on-line distribution of BBC programming" is now Microsoft's responsibility according to Defective by Design. With so many high-up British officials in awe of Bill Gates from the new Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, to BBC's Director of New Media and Technology it was only natural that corruption set in and BBC give it's online power to their biggest fan, Gates. If you want to protest this Defective by Design is conducting a petition and a protest at BBC Television Studios in London on Tuesday August 14
View websites based off your interests with StumbleUpon.It's never been easier to surf the web. If you enjoy sites with science, humor, videos, hacking, or anything else you can think up, StumbleUpon will show you sites that people have labeled as such. It's simple to sign-up, download (firefox) or download (internet explorer), and use StumbleUpon. Once you have the toolbar installed all you have to do is check the topics you want to see, click the Stumble! button, and then you're taken to a site that other users with similar tastes have liked. You can then select if you liked it or not by clicking the thumbs up or down buttons and then click Stumble! again to be taken to a new site. If you suddenly discover a really good website that no one else has, then click "I like it!" to label the site and give a quick review so others can enjoy it too. At any time you can click on the Favorites button to see all the sites that you visited while using StumbleUpon. It's just that easy to use, but be careful, it's VERY addictive.
The feature-rich Archos mp3/video players easily beat any iPod.
I'm going to discuss the absolutely amazing Archos 604 WiFi. The screen is as big as the PSP's (about 4" diagonal) but it's also a touch screen for easy navigation. It has a respectable 30Gb hard drive to store everything from music to videos to photos and more. You can customize practically everything, such as the background with one of your own photos. The removable battery lasts for about 15 hours playing music while video watching will give you 5 solid hours. There's an external speaker for listening without the headphones, a built-in microphone for recording audio on the go, and there's a kick stand in the back to prop up the player when watching videos. With a separate dock, you can even record tv shows just like a DVR. And because it's WiFi, you can even access the internet for free to check email, write on forums, and check your blog. In fact, I did this entire post on my Archos (save for a bit of adjustments later on). The only draw backs are the price (upwards of $300) and you can only watch online videos from sites like youtube.com on the 605 model which costs a bit more. Does an iPod have all that? Didn't think so.
British student invents fridge fit for Africa.
