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Mobile pollution sensors deployed

2009-06-30T13:37:50Z

Cyclists, buses, cars and even pedestrians become mobile pollution detectors in a UK initiative.

ZigBee Alliances developing Green Power standards for energy harvesting devices

2009-06-29T19:13:00Z

Home automation industry folks, heads up: the ZigBee Alliance has announced the development of a Green Power feature set, which is the first step in creating a global standard technology for energy harvesting devices. When it becomes available sometime at the end of 2009, you and your fellow ZigBee Alliance members will finally be able to create and market self-powered whatsits that communicate on ZigBee and ZigBee PRO networks. Here's hoping that NEC takes full advantage of this for the next iteration of its award-winning Carbon Ball game! Full PR after the break.

Continue reading ZigBee Alliances developing Green Power standards for energy harvesting devices

Filed under: Household

ZigBee Alliances developing Green Power standards for energy harvesting devices originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Universal phone charger agreed

2009-06-29T11:55:26Z

Deal with the European Commission could bring a "one size fits all" phone charger into production.

Video: UK Folding Plug concept could flatten that bulky British adapter

2009-06-23T12:03:00Z

Of all the AC adapters stuffed into your personal item when globetrotting, the plug used in Merry Old England must surely be the most cumbersome -- its three copper prongs flung to the extremes of a giant block of plastic. That Victorian holdover gets a major re-do with this UK Folding Plug concept. The two horizontal prongs rotate themselves in-line with the top, vertical one, and the body of the adapter then folds in half, resulting in a thickness of about 1cm. Interestingly the plug would still work in either position, with a slimline power strip envisioned to accept three of these slender lovelies at once. It's positively brilliant, but is just a concept at this point, and while we don't have any news to pass along about its likelihood for production, surely some manufacturer will watch the video after the break and start churning these out by the millions.

[Via Pocket-lint]

Continue reading Video: UK Folding Plug concept could flatten that bulky British adapter

Filed under: Peripherals

Video: UK Folding Plug concept could flatten that bulky British adapter originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tech Article: Ruby on Rails on Oracle - A Simple Tutorial (updated for Rails 2.3)

2009-01-05T23:50:17Z

This popular article for Rails-riders has been updated for Rails 2.3, ActiveRecord Oracle enhanced adapter, and Oracle Database 11g.

Bookmark this on Delicious - Saved by OracleTechnologyNetwork to oracle otn rubyonrails oss opensource webdev web2.0 11g ruby otnheadlines - More about this bookmark

Video: Tele Atlas' photorealistic city models to aid navigation, terrorism

2009-05-20T11:34:00Z

Navigation devices are everywhere and just keep getting better and better thanks to the 3D maps provided by the likes of Tele Atlas (owned by TomTom) and NAVTEQ (owned by Nokia). Now Tele Atlas is announcing its photorealistic "Advanced City Models" destined for in-car and portable navigation systems and mobile devices. In June, Tele Atlas will release 40 maps based on BLOM arial imagery for cities across Europe -- hundreds more cities, including those in North America and Asia, will be available in 2010. Remember, Google already has laid ink to paper to give it rights to Tele Atlas maps for use in Google's mobile, desktop, and on-line offerings. And with Tele Atlas maps loaded on PSPs and navigators from Pioneer, Mio, and of course TomTom, just think of this as a hint of what's to come.

Continue reading Video: Tele Atlas' photorealistic city models to aid navigation, terrorism

Filed under: GPS, Handhelds

Video: Tele Atlas' photorealistic city models to aid navigation, terrorism originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 May 2009 06:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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DisplayLink for Linux turns a humble wireless router into a beautiful PC

2009-05-18T22:12:00Z

Our inner nerd was already completely thrilled at the release of DisplayLink driver source code for Linux, but he's positively frothing at this elegant implementation. It's simply a Linux-based, OpenWRT router (the ASUS WL-500g Premium, to be specific) with a Samsung U70 USB display and a keyboard plugged in, but the DisplayLink driver turns what would be otherwise a headless, networking-only server into a totally elegant PC. Sure, that 300MHz embedded processor won't be powering past your Atom-powered machines or pretty much any other "modern" hardware, but it's basically a tinker's dream -- suddenly almost anything with a USB port and a processor somewhere within it could become a computer with the right amount of know-how.

Filed under: Desktops, Displays, Networking

DisplayLink for Linux turns a humble wireless router into a beautiful PC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 May 2009 17:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marvell's SheevaPlug Linux PC fits in its power adapter

2009-02-24T21:48:00Z

Marvell has the technology and the vision, and if the company gets its way the world will soon be overrun by lilliputian Linux machines. Hiding in wall warts and the like, these guys will begin quietly taking over tasks that we once relegated to servers and desktop machines. To this end, the company has just announced that they'll be making the SheevaPlug dev kit available. This is the platform that PogoPlug is based on, consisting of a 1.2GHz Kirkwood processor, 512MB flash storage, 512MB DRAM, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and USB 2.0. This bad boy supports many standard Linux 2.6 kernel distributions, and the whole thing plugs directly into a standard wall socket, drawing "less than one tenth of the power of a typical PC" while in use. Currently available for $99, the company says that it anticipates a price drop to $49 "in the near future."

Filed under: Desktops

Marvell's SheevaPlug Linux PC fits in its power adapter originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Is the Relational Database Doomed?

2009-02-13T21:12:00Z

DB Guy writes "There's an article over on Read Write Web about what the future of relational databases looks like when faced with new challenges to its dominance from key/value stores, such as SimpleDB, CouchDB, Project Voldemort and BigTable. The conclusion suggests that relational databases and key value stores aren't really mutually exclusive and instead are different tools for different requirements."

How To Encourage Workers To Suggest Innovation?

2009-02-13T20:18:00Z

An anonymous reader writes "The software company where I work has an Innovation and Knowledge program that encourages workers to provide ideas for new products and suggestions to improve the work place, productivity or welfare. The ideas and suggestions are evaluated by a board that decides whether they should be implemented or not. The group of workers with more ideas participates in a raffle to receive a prize. I would like to know what other programs people have seen like this and how they differ. What is the best way to encourage workers to suggest new products to be made / researched by the company?"

Charting Components For LWUIT

2008-12-20T06:45:00Z

My google alerts page poped up this article which I can only read using google translate... The animated gif on the page looks very and it did bring my attention to the fact that java4less now has LWUIT support in their chart components which seem like a very useful tool.

Samson introduces highly portable $49 USB Go Mic

2008-12-18T20:51:00Z

For the podcaster-on-the-go, there's always a need for a portable microphone to get through less-than-ideal situations. Clearly, Samson Technologies is lookin' out, as the simply titled Go Mic provides all that and a bag of chips. The "pocket-sized" USB microphone comes with a built-in mount for siting atop one's laptop display and can be used to record audio in a variety of scenarios (Skype, lectures, etc.). It's supposedly plug-and-play with both Macs and PCs, and it features a 20Hz to 18 kHz frequency response, selectable cardioid / omni directional polar recording pattern and a condenser transducer with pressure gradient. Speak up in one (available in black or white) right now for $49; full release is after the break.

Continue reading Samson introduces highly portable $49 USB Go Mic

Filed under: Peripherals, Portable Audio

Samson introduces highly portable $49 USB Go Mic originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 15:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The pitfalls of biometrics

2008-11-07T17:19:54Z

How biometric checks can fail

Vendee Globe

2008-11-09T10:23:15Z

A look at the technology aboard a racing yacht

Prevent Gmail From Emailing Under the Influence

2008-10-08T04:29:00Z

mikesd81 writes "Google has developed 'Mail Goggles,' a Gmail add-on that makes sending email from Gmail more difficult during certain times (which you can set). If you have Mail Goggles installed, it will force you to answer a series of math questions before sending out any new messages. You can adjust the math difficulty and times this option is in effect. If you get any of the questions wrong, Mail Goggles will say, 'Water and bed for you. Or try again.' Of course, if you set the math settings too high, you may have a tough time solving some of those problems in under 60 seconds, even when sober. Then again, if you're sober, you could just turn Mail Goggles off and hit send on that impassioned letter to your ex-boyfriend/girlfriend or that flame to your boss."

Belkin's FlyWire hands-on at CEDIA

2008-09-05T20:39:00Z

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Peripherals, Wireless

Belkin has been dangling its FlyWire wireless HD box for, what, ever now? Thankfully, it seems that all the kinks have been worked out, and the October ship date should actually stick. A few tidbits we learned while hanging out at the outfit's CEDIA booth: first, we confirmed that the technology within the device is AMIMON's, so we're guessing it's WHDI. Secondly, we heard that the retail price of the top-end AV69003 may scoot up to $1,499 when it's finally released. We know, that's a lot of coin to make your components cord-free, but the demonstration showing off Blu-ray streaming through thin air was nothing short of astounding. No hiccups, no jaggies, no hints whatsoever that there wasn't a direct HDMI connection. Check the box (and the receiver) out in the flesh over at Engadget HD.

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JVC demonstrates prototype wireless HDMI box, plans to launch in Q1 2009

2008-09-05T21:31:00Z

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Wireless

With Belkin's FlyWire just about to hit the market, JVC's planning to ride the wave and produce a wireless HDMI box of its very own. The unit was said to be a last minute addition to its CEDIA arsenal, and the representatives on hand weren't even briefed on what wireless technology the demo was using. Of note, there was a live demo involving no smoke nor mirrors, where the box received a 1080p signal via HDMI and beamed it out to a hidden receiver that was connected to an HDTV via (you guessed it) HDMI. JVC is obviously aiming for consumers with just one primary set-top-box (a PS3, for instance), and the plug-and-play nature means it can work with any source and any display so long as HDMI is involved. Pricing hasn't been set, but we were told to expect a Q1 2009 launch. Check out the prototype in the gallery below.

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Oracle enhanced adapter presentation at RejectConf in Berlin

2008-09-06T13:05:43Z

I just returned from RailsConf Europe in Berlin and attended a lot of good Ruby and Rails related sessions.

I also tried to submit there my session proposal about using Rails with Oracle but as there were too many good proposals and as my topic was with too narrow topic then it was not accepted. Therefore I used opportunity to give 5 minutes presentation about Oracle enhanced adapter in RejectConf where anybody could present anything.

Here are my slides that I used in this presentation. And at least one participant was interested in this topics as he uses Rails and Oracle and did not know about my adapter.

My next public appearance is planned at Oracle OpenWorld unconference where I have recerved time slot on Thursday, September 25th at 10am. Please come there if you are attending Oracle OpenWorld and are interested in how to use Ruby on Rails with your legacy Oracle databases.

Atom-based Shuttle X27 priced at $189

2008-08-29T10:03:00Z

Filed under: Desktops

Shuttle's Atom-based X27 mini-PC is definitely pretty intriguing if you're looking to play around with getting a PC in the living room or even in your car, and it's just gotten the modder-friendly price of $189. That's almost impulse-purchase territory -- we're definitely looking forward to seeing what kind of trouble people get into with these when it hits next month.

Update: We just talked to Shuttle and they told us that $189 is just for a barebones rig -- no chip, memory or hard drive. Fully spec'd with an Atom, you're looking at $500+ -- which is ridiculous, since the MSI Wind barebones nettop runs $139 with an Atom chip. Oh well.

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Logitech Squeezebox Boom hits the stage

2008-08-28T05:01:00Z

Filed under: Home Entertainment

It's been a month since we first caught a glimpse of the sharp-looking Logitech Squeezebox Boom, but the wireless network speakers are official today, coming in at a list price of $299. Yeah, it's basically a standard-issue Squeezebox with a built-in amp and speakers, but that's a pretty solid idea, especially since we're guessing the 24-bit Burr Brown D/A converter and bi-amped 3-inch woofers and 3/4-inch tweeters will offer up some decent sound. Everything else is regular Squeezebox kit -- 802.11g WiFi, SqueezeNetwork, optical and S/PDIF out, VFD display, 10/100Base-T Ethernet -- so if you're looking to expand your system, this is probably a pretty solid way of getting it done. Expect to see this one on shelves next month. One more pic after the break.

Continue reading Logitech Squeezebox Boom hits the stage

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