Mar 23
The Great Northern Popcorn Vortex Cotton Candy Machine brings the sugary taste of warm-weather outings into the home.
Originally posted at Appliances and Kitchen Gadgets
Mar 23
BMW launches DriveNow, the ‘premium’ car sharing service with a Dell Streak on every dash (video)
Posted in: germany, Mini, streak, Today's Chili, video
If you liked the idea of the Car2go service we profiled a few weeks back, Smart fortwos available for rent by the minute with and some pretty fancy tracking apps to help you find them, but maybe you wanted to drive something a little bit bigger, BMW has you covered. Well, assuming “you” are German or at least living in Germany. The company has launched its own car sharing service it calls DriveNow. This one is billed as a “premium” — though curiously none of the company’s truly premium models will be offered. That said, the Minis and 1 Series autos that make up the initial fleet are hardly low-rent, and we’d be utterly shocked if the upcoming i3 didn’t get added to the mix down the road too.
Usage details are still a little bit scarce, but we do know that each car will have a dash-mounted Dell Streak through which users will log in after unlocking the car doors with an RFID-equipped membership card or even a suitably endowed drivers license. Renting a car costs 29 cents per minute, up to €14.90 (about $21) per hour, and there will be 300 cars available at first starting in the Munich area. If you’re not in Munich it’s tough cookies for now, but BMW is hoping to have one million members worldwide by 2020. Maybe one of them will be you.
BMW launches DriveNow, the ‘premium’ car sharing service with a Dell Streak on every dash (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 13:42:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mar 23
Jabra introduces the Freeway
Posted in: Today's ChiliJabra introduces the Jabra Freeway, a Bluetooth in-car speakerphone with three speakers, an FM transmitter, and voice controls.
Originally posted at CTIA 2011
Mar 23
An industry group concludes its phone camera quality scoring system works. Expect it to arrive this year–if others can be persuaded to use it.
Originally posted at Deep Tech
Mar 23
Kingston’s Class 10 microSD family gets bigger, stays tiny
Posted in: flash, memory, storage, Today's Chili
Kingston is putting an extra boost the smallest of its tiny memory cards. The popular provider of flash storage is upping its 4GB and 8GB microSDHC cards from Class 4 specifications (up to a 4 MB/s transfer rate) to a whopping Class 10 spec and all of its 10 MB/s goodness. The newly announced models join a 16GB version that has been available for several months. By completing the family tree of Class 10 cards, Kingston is offering faster all-round performance for file transfers on smartphones, quicker write times for microSD-wielding cameras and basically a few seconds of your life back — at lower prices than before, though you’ll still be paying a premium compared to slower cards. Our microSDHC-accepting devices are itching to hop aboard this speedier train of data storage, and luckily we won’t have to wait long. The two memory cards start shipping at the end of March and are being offered with an available Mobility Kit, which includes an SD adapter and a USB card reader. But, if you want a full-fat 32GB model, you’ll have to wait for Q2 of 2011 like the rest of us. Pricing starts at $22 for a 4GB model up to $138 for the 16GB model — check after the break for full breakdown of prices and more in the PR.Continue reading Kingston’s Class 10 microSD family gets bigger, stays tiny
Kingston’s Class 10 microSD family gets bigger, stays tiny originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 13:20:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Mar 23
If 'coincidence' doesn't exist in the Apple lexicon, then what's this all about?
(Credit:
Reddit)
The 404 Digest for Episode 783
- Apple pulls a Christian iPhone app promising a cure for homosexuality.
- “But I’m a Cheerleader” is a satirical film about a fictitious homosexual-rehabilitation camp.
- Time Warner Cable is forced to remove 17 channels from its iPad app.
- Netflix strikes an exclusive deal for David Fincher’s new show, “House of Cards.”
- Netflix streaming may lose some Showtime programs.
- Pranks go digital with TxtSpoof.
- A visitor from Toronto controls Times Square video screens…for real this time.
- A conceptual solution to Jeff’s multiuser iPad profile issue.
Episode 783
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Originally posted at The 404 Podcast
Mar 23
The Tibetan Plateau is the highest plateau in the world, with an average elevation of over 4,500 meters. And soon it will be home to the world’s most elevated solar power plant.
SunTech Power Holdings will be setting up a plant in the region, which will provide an estimated 20,000 mega watt hours (MWh) of energy to the surrounding region each year. Previously, the region relied mainly on hydroelectric energy to provide much of its power.
“With intense sunlight and cool temperatures, Tibet is extremely well suited for the utilisation of advanced photovoltaic technology,” explained SunTech CEO Dr Zhengrong Shi.
Once completed the plant will be located more than 4,000 meters above sea level. No word yet on when the completion date is expected to be.
Via Inhabitat
Mar 23
x-Ar exoskeleton arm keeps repetitive tasks from doing you harm (video)
Posted in: arm, Today's Chili, video
The spring-loaded technology behind the Steadicam has just found another use — the x-Ar exoskeleton arm, which attaches to your wrists to reduce or eliminate the feeling of weight. Just unveiled at the Applied Ergonomics Conference in Florida this week, the mechanism mounts to a chair or other stable object and loosely cuffs your arms, allowing for a fairly extraordinary range of motion while bearing “the weight of your arm and small objects.” (Sledgehammer-wielding workers will probably be better served by one of these.) While manufacturer Equipois suggests that the arm will likely see use in factories, assembly lines and the like where workers are subject to repetitive stress, we can also think of a few bloggers who wouldn’t mind taking a little strain off their wrists. PR after the break.
Continue reading x-Ar exoskeleton arm keeps repetitive tasks from doing you harm (video)
x-Ar exoskeleton arm keeps repetitive tasks from doing you harm (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 12:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Mar 23
Ford to use AT&T wireless network to connect new Ford Focus Electric.
Originally posted at The Car Tech blog
Mar 23
Microsoft Begins Windows Phone 7 “NoDo” Update
Posted in: Miscellaneous Tech, mobile, Today's Chili, windows phone 7
Windows Phone 7 users, the moment you’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived. After fits and starts, Microsoft is finally beginning the wide-scale rollout of its first major update to the mobile platform, including the ability to copy/paste, startup and shutdown speed improvements, faster app access to phone memory so your apps launch faster, and more.
The update, called “NoDo,” has already begin hitting some WP7 phones, according to a post at WinRumors. Un-branded Windows Phones will get the update first, and while Microsoft says they’ve released the update to wireless carriers to push to carrier-branded phones, it’s up to them to release or block the update from their users. Unfortunately, that means that most North American WP7 owners will have to wait until their carrier pushes the update down to them.
The update also includes some improvements to phone performance over Wi-Fi, updates to the on-board Outlook client, and an update to the Windows Phone Marketplace so users can more easily search for and find the apps they want to install. Considering some of the previous issues carriers have had with Windows Phone 7 updates, it would make sense if they’re a little hesitant to open the floodgates, but with WP7 owners clamoring for it, it’s just a matter of time.
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