iPhones! iPads! Android! And yes, Windows Phone 7! We’ve updated all of our essential apps lists to include a few forgotten favorites, some long awaited arrivals and, as always, even more amazing apps. Be sure to check out the iPad and Windows Phone 7 lists! More »
The iconic London cab is getting a touch of green, as the first fuel cell-powered cabs have hits the streets of the British capital.
One of the zero-emissions cabs made a trip around the city last week, but the plan is to have an entire fleet of the cars servicing London by next year, which just happens to be the year when London will be hosting the Olympic Games. How many cars will be in the fleet wasn’t announced.
The cars themselves are powered by a fuel cell/battery hybrid system that gives them a range of 250 miles, and also allows for “rapid refuelling,” which would be a necessity for a car that’s on the road virtually all day long.
Via Engadget
Don’t get us wrong, we think electric vehicles are totally rad and all, but there’s still the whole recharging thing that makes us a little wary. That’s why we’re stoked to hear that Better Place’s first battery swap station for EVs (and not just special Japanese cabbies) has officially opened its doors in Israel… for owners of the Renault Fluence Z.E. All it takes is an RFID card to enter the carwash-esque structure, and robots from below swap out your empty battery for a fully charged alternative while you occupy yourself for three minutes. No word on how much it’ll cost for the opportunity, but we’ve got an inkling it won’t be cheap. Fortunately, we’ve got apps and “get you home” guarantees for that additional peace of mind, but we do hope the concept eventually makes its way over to our shores. Of course, we’re also still waiting for eternal battery life in all of our electronics, but until that day comes invisible robots changing batteries for us will suffice.
Israel gets its first EV battery swap station, makes charging stations obsolete originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 13:14:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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This scientifically sexy app is like your own personal sex coach and brings a whole new dimension to the term “gadget lover.”
40 farmers from the tiny Canadian province of Prince Edward Island are utilizing new software to help manage their fertilizer use. And they’re doing it from an iPhone.
The new app, called PEI AgriLogic, as developed by a software company in Quebec in conjunction with PEI’s department of agriculture. It keeps track of how much fertilizer a farmer uses, which in turn helps determine how much nitrogen is being put into the ground. The farmer simply records voice messages throughout the day, and the app transcribes them for easy record keeping.
“The very last thing we want to do is work a long day and come home and have to enter a pile of notes into something,” one farmer told the CBC.
The province hopes to double the size of the pilot program next year, before hopefully making it available province wide.
It’s a bit less silly than the National Day of Unplugging, but unless your weekend starts on Thursday, there’s nary a snowball’s chance in Hades that you’re going to skip tonight’s network comedy lineup in order to do something that you can clearly put off until tomorrow. But what if, dear readers, your data doesn’t make until tomorrow? What if those images from your first date vanish into the ether? What if you spend $4,598 next week in vain as a perplexed computer technician asks you if you’d ever considered backing your critical data up? For those that choose to act on World Backup Day, that future isn’t one you’ll have to consider, and a host of online backup services are urging you to sign up today in order to protect what’s most important to you: your stash of decidedly unbecoming Facebook messages. We’d also suggest investing in a NAS or RAID setup for your home, but throwing everything into a fireproof safe four miles below Arches National Park probably isn’t a bad idea, either. You know — in case your fail-safe fails. Not that we’d ever consider fear mongering…
World Backup Day reminds you to backup your world, today originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The Samsung Gem is another budget Android smartphone to join U.S. Cellular’s lineup.
Originally posted at Dialed In
[Thanks, Alex]
Continue reading Vestas unveils massive 7-megawatt offshore wind turbine (video)
Vestas unveils massive 7-megawatt offshore wind turbine (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Finally all’s well in the Sandy Bridge camp, Intel exorcizing the demons and getting its current generation of hardware flowing smoothly. You know what that means: it’s time for the next, a revision called X79 that will supersede the current X58 chipset sometime toward the beginning of 2012. According to the leaked slide above, X79 motherboards will feature 2011-pin LGA sockets for E-series CPUs, where ‘E’ stands for “Enthusiast” not “Elephant.” 14 SATA connections are available, 10 of which will manage 6Gb/s, and another 14 USB 2.0 ports means you can have just about every USB-powered member of the Crapgadget Hall of Fame connected simultaneously. That said, there’s no mention of a single USB 3.0 port, something of a bummer for those hoping that standard would be, well, standard by 2012. Of course Intel’s thrown its weight behind Light Peak Thunderbolt, but curiously there’s no integrated support for that, either.
Intels of Intel’s X79 chipset exposed: 14 USB 2.0 ports but not a one with 3.0? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 31 Mar 2011 12:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
There’s nothing you can do to prevent another Terminator movie. But if you have a buck, you can do something to stop real Terminators…or at least ensure that they’ll like us when they show up. More »
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