Tea Vui Huang introduces a new application for Multimedia Messaging (MMS): bite-size podcasts. An MMS message is a multimedia presentation that encompasses images and audio clips. This innovative new telco software converts Enhanced Podcasts into chapters of MMS messages. The MMS podcasts can then be fetched on demand by the user, or pushed to the user on a subscription basis. Link.
Getting the word out on this…“We strongly support the rescue of the Stanford Radio Telescope Dishes by the Friends of the Bracewell Observatory Association (FBOA) to open up the world of radio astronomy to Stanford’s faculty, students, and community! In light of the number of Stanford faculty and students who have already signed up to use the facility, FBOA’s readiness to provide long-term funding and expert maintenance, and the fact that it carries a $10 million replacement cost, we feel it would be a tragedy for the telescope to be demolished for no compelling reason. We urge you to suspend the planned demolition, and accept FBOA’s offer to fully fund, refurbish, and maintain the observatory”… Link.
Hey, wouldn’t it be cool to make a cannon that can shoot a potato a couple hundred yards? And wouldn’t it be cool to put a motor on a shopping cart and see how fast that sucker can go? And wouldn’t it be really cool to hook up your living room couch to a device that makes it shake whenever there’s an explosion on the TV show you’re watching?…Funny article about MAKE… Link.
Battle Kits are designed along the lines of the most successful combat robot ever: BioHazard. We started with some of the key features in BioHazard and developed four rugged, low-profile, high-performance, mobile platforms on which you can build the next killer robot! Thanks Doug! Link.
...cool project by Canadian engineer Steve Lapp who modified his 2001 Prius by installing solar panels on the roof. It is admitted that the car is still a rough prototype, but so far the fuel economy improvement are of 10%, a respectable figure; for reference, Honda completely redesigned the Honda Civic engine for the 2006 model and achieved a 6% increase in fuel economy… Link.
Fossil isn’t going to SPOT any longer, looks bad- but this watch project looks amazing! eWatch is a wearable computing system that can be worn on your wrist. It has several sensors that gather information about the user and the environment. It can attract the user’s attention with visual and/or tactile notifications. eWatch supports wireless Bluetooth communication which allows it to interface with a computer, PDA, or cellular phone. The wrist watch form factor allows open exposure to the environment making it ideal for ascertaining user state information. This also means that eWatch is instantly viewable and always accessible to the user. Link.
The IMSAI 8080 computer system (circa 1976) has been re-released by the original company. The case accepts a modern PC motherboard alongside the vintage S-100 system. Think of it as the ultimate old-meets-new case mod, complete with lots of switches and flashing lights. [