Bookcase/Stairs

Lifehacker features a blurb on this stairway/bookcase in a London flat. More pix available at the link at the bottom of the blurb.

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Buses as Mobile Sensors

From ICT Results:

Public buses could be transformed into mobile sensing platforms, sending out information for traffic management, road safety and even hazard alerts thanks to the work of European researchers.

Modern buses could be used as mobile sensing platforms, sending out live information that can be used to control traffic and detect road hazards, according to European researchers.

The research could help improve road safety, allowing traffic controllers, police and other services to access up-to-date information from any number of public buses already on the streets.

In a test, the researchers equipped city buses with environmental sensors and cameras, allowing the vehicles to become transmitters of measurements, warnings and live or recorded videos to anyone allowed to access the data.

Full Article.

(Hat tip: Slashdot)
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Samsungs new 256GB Solid State Drive

Wow. That's fast... and production of SSDs is fast too. In other words, don't buy yet.

The new Samsung 256GB SSD is also the thinnest drive with the largest capacity to be offered with a SATA II interface.
Performance data of the new Samsung 256GB SSD features a sequential read speed of 200 megabytes per second (MB/s) and sequential write speed of 160MB/s.
The Samsung MLC-based 2.5-inch 256GB SSD is about 2.4 times faster than a typical HDD. Furthermore, the new 256 GB SSD is only 9.5 millimeters (mm) thick, and measures 100.3x69.85 mm.

(Hat tip: Slashdot)
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Torrent Aggregators Obsolete Soon?

With the US and other G8 countries trying to outlaw The Pirate Bay and its ilk, an anonymous reader suggests that a solution may have emerged out of Cornell University. A new open-source project called Cubit is an Azureus plugin that provides decentralized approximate keyword search of torrents in the network.

One such is Cubit. From their website:

Cubit creates alongside BitTorrent a lightweight peer-to-peer network designed from the ground up to enable rapid and accurate approximate searches. It performs the searches without relying on any centralized components, and therefore is immune to legal and technical attacks targeting torrent aggregators. Additional technical details can be found in the approach section.

I haven't tried it. But might.

(Hat tip: Slashdot)
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Brazlian Beetles the Key to Fill the Need for Speed?

Wired Top Stories:

For decades, scientists have dreamed of computer chips that manipulate light rather than electricity. Unlike electrons, photons can cross paths without interfering with each other, so optical chips could compute in three dimensions rather than two, crunching data in seconds that now takes weeks to process.

For now, though, optical computing remains a dream. The chips require crystals that channel photons as nimbly as silicon channels electrons -- and though engineers have been able to imagine the ideal photonic crystal, they've been unable to build it.

Enter a beetle known as Lamprocyphus augustus. In a study published this week in Physical Review E, researchers at the University of Utah describe how the inch-long Brazilian beetle's iridescent green scales are composed of chitin arranged by evolution in precisely the molecular configuration that has confounded the would-be fabricators of optical computers.

By using the scales as a semiconductor mold, researchers hope to finally build the perfect photonic crystal.

Full Article.
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The SuperHero Shoping Basket

From Wired GadgetLab:

Some super heroes are born with special powers (Superman), some are transformed by a tragic and improbable scientific accidents (Spiderman, Hulk) and some just kick butt with their amazing gadget hacking skills (Batman, MacGyver). You'll need precisely one guess to know which we prefer here at Gadget Lab. That's why we've put together a list of ways that you, too, can become a schizophrenic, Lycra-clad crime fighter.

The list.
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YouTomb for banned YouTube Vids

From Underwire:

Where do videos go when they "die" or are booted off YouTube for copyright infringement?

Meet YouTomb.

Created by a group of MIT students, the virtual video graveyard combs through Google's data and archives information about clips that have been removed from YouTube.

Banned clips aren't available for viewing or download on YouTomb -- that's not the purpose of the site, says Dean Jansen, one of project creators.

"We're not interested in bootlegged videos of [anime show] Naruto that got taken down," said Jansen in a phone interview Tuesday. "It's about fair use, and remixes or performances forced off YouTube."

Full Article.
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Netflix vs. Apple TV

What's not mentioned in the article I cited below is the fact that picture quality of the Netflix stream is "near DVD quality."

Apple TV, on the other hand, streams moves at either DVD quality, or, for a dollar more, in 720p HD.

But here's the rub: Apple TV is pricey on the front end ($299) and pricey on the back end ($2.99 for a library movie in DVD quality, $3.99 for HD; $3.99 fr a new release in DVD, $4.99 in HD). You hae 30 days to start watching and 24 hours to finish once you start.

Compare that to Netflix at $8.99 for unlimited streams (even of the same movie) plus regular snail mail rentals. That's after the front end cost of $99 for the set-top box.

Neither have an amazing amount of titles at this point, but it seems to me that's an issue that time itself will solve.

So the big question one has to ask, I guess, is what's more important? Quality or price?

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The Best of Martin Brest

Someone was nice enough to cobble together a lot of the best scenes from Midnight Run and stick it on YouTube.

This movie stands the test of time. This has been one of my favorite movies since I first saw it. De Niro and Grodin are hilarious together. Dennis Farina wasn't this good again until Get Shorty. Every performance in this film is near flawless. And the movie, aside from being funny, is great.

[NSFW Language]

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Audio Added

Didn't seem right to talk about this great music without providing some samples, so I figured out how to embed audio. Check out the samples on the original posts.
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Fela Kuti and the Africa 70: Expensive Shit

This is one of my favorite albums. Two tracks. Fela Kuti at the top of his game. Classified as Afrobeat, the sound is Funk and Jazz. It's just like candy for the ear.

The title track gets you right in the gut. If you only get one Fela Kuti album, this is the one. But after you get this one, you'll want more. Couple of 4 min snippets:

Expensive Shit:

Water Get No Enemy:

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Times 1.0.4 from Acrylic (Leopard Only)

This is the best looking newsreader I've seen. It's beautiful, easy to set up, and easy to use.

The current version has some bugs, but several update releases on the way to 2.0 should address most of them.

You can set up your own sections. Place feeds in any of the three areas on the page. It's really cool.

The drawbacks are, if you have, say more than five feed for a given section (like Technology) then you'll quickly find that this program has its functional limits. It can take the feeds, but You'll have to do some scrolling.

But if you're a light feed reader, this maybe just what you're looking for. It's much more quintessentially Mac-ish than other news-readers. Aesthetically pleasing, easy to use, and makes people go "Hey, what's that?"

For heavy feed readers, though. Stick to Google Reader or some such.

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I Am Guardedly SUPER FREAKIN' excited

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Delicious Library 1.6.6

Wow.

Always dreamed of cataloging your DVDs, Books, or CDs? Maybe even started once or twice, but realized it would take you until you're in the nursing home and that would be only if you stopped collecting now?

Well, here's the answer.

Delicious Library looks great runs great and is a cinch to use. You'd never guess how they make this easy, and when I tell you, you won't believe that it works, not well, anyway.

Here's what you do: You get a DVD, you fire up the program, then you select the iSight camera option. You are then presenting with a laser scanner window. You hold the DVD's UPC up to the scanner, and, almost every time, it scans.

The program then connects to Amazon.com and PRESTO! You have added the title to your library, not only (in 90%) of the cases with the exact edition (and cover image) but also with all the other online content for that entry on Amazon.

We scanned all our movies in over the weekend (actually my daughter did about half of them - it was Neat-Oh)... and about 15% wouldn't scan. But for those that don't scan, the remedy isn't just a manual build. You simply find what you're looking for on Amazon and grab the ASIN number (the B0000XXXX) and C&P into the program and PRESTO! it's just like you scanned it.

Once done, you can do all those nifty things like search for how many movies you own with Al Pacino in them. Or movies by whichever director.

You are also two clicks form making a Borrower Profile (which links directly to Address Book) into which you can drag the DVDs that the Borrower is borrowing. It the moves in their profile, and automatically generates a due date, which it also documents in Calendar.

This is as easy as it will ever get.

And it does it with Books and CDs as well.

Five Stars.

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Movies on Demand

I've been watching this market closely, because it's always been a ultimate of mine to be able to have movies a remote button push away.

I've found that I'm much more likely to watch a movie I want to see if I happen to see it coming on cable (with no commercials) than I am to get up, go find the DVD in my collection, and go put it in. Sad, but true: I'll record one I have in collection on my DVR, so I can avoid this activity.

So I have long been waiting for computer storage and digital film quality to find an equilibrium which would allow me to to stare digital copies of all my DVDs on a central home server that I could get to from a UI on my TV. using my remote and only my remote.

The Xbox entertainment center thing, and Apple TV has come close, but not quite where I want them to be. Now we've taken a step closer with Netflix's introduction into the market (pictured above).


Now we're definitely on the right track and it's streaming so I don't need to own the films outright. $8.99/mo gets you unlimited movies. Of course that's after paying $100 for the set-top box. But compared with Apple TVs $299 price tag, that's pretty cheap.

The only thing that bothers me about this is the reduction in visual quality. What's it look like? Being as the only DVDs I will happily get up and put in are the few Blu-Rays I have acquired so far. Is the quality on streaming movies comparable to regular digital television or is it more comparable to YouTube?

Speaking of which... who really wants to watch YouTube on their Big Screen? Anybody. I certainly don't. It's looks bad enough on the little screen (not to mention the content of most YouTube videos would hardly warrant a $299 purchase). I'm a Mac User and fan. But I'm also a slave to the free-market, and I think Apple just got spanked by Netflix.

Wait and see, I guess. But with this, we're getting closer to what we all really want: Streaming Telepathic Entertainment in 7.1 surround.


(Courtesy of AppleInsider)

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Idris Muhammad: Power of Soul

This album is a gem. From the title track (a cover of the Jimi Hendrix song) to the last track ("Loran's Dance," my personal fav on the album) the album casts a spell, and if you're in the mood for something a little mellow but not ambient, some good jazz with the kick of mid-70's funk, look no further.

There's enough bass here to call it funk, but it's jazz with a heavy funk influence. If you're familiar with the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique, you'll undoubtedly recognize the opening measures from "Loran's Dance," because they open that B-Boys album.

Loran's Dance:

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