Articles Archive for April 2008
Laptops »
There many who are trying to design good laptop concepts and when I say good I mean attractive and practical lappies. Not many of them manage to do it, but today let’s take a look at one of the best. HP tried to develop a very thin laptop and for this prototype they prepared a folding screen, like the one of a tablet PC. The display features touchscreen and you can write with the help of a digital input pen. I know that I’m impressed by its thinness and so …
Storage »
Nowadays flash drives have become both very small and stylish, all we need more is storage capacity and usefulness. The drive we are talking about isn’t world’s best in storage capacity, but really an interesting concept.
Called FLX, the USB drive is flexible and this helps keeping it’s size small and also the silicone makes it safer, if dropped. It was designed by Jacek Ryn, a design student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk, Poland and uses a colored silicone that offers it’s elasticity.
Gadgets »
Personally, I am really fond of clocks but there are some concepts that don’t impress me much. Somehow I felt that something was forcing me to show it to you. This clock concept was designed by David from Ironic Sans and it’s called BulbDial Clock.
The concept looks more like a clock of our ancestors but it doesn’t use sunlight to function, but some lamps that rotate around the central pole. Although it’s only a concept, it would look great in dim spaces and restaurants.
Storage »
The chips that Super Talent are offering are simply incredible. The thing that makes me say that they are very tiny and now the 8GB flash drive is the smallest in the world. The miniature chips measure about 31.3mm x 12.4mm x 3.4mm and they are available for a price of about $35.
The Pico Series supports 200 MB/s meaning about 200x of transfer speed. Its manufacturers made them “portable”, as you can wear them as a necklace or attach them to keychains and cell phones.
Source
Gadgets »
Is very good that once in a while you go out on a picnic and now it can be more fun because Oded Shorer develop a nice green concept. The concept is called Parasolar and it provides power for lights and to charge devices, as well as heating and cooling for your “luggage”.
The Parasolar has been endowed with the ability to absorb the light from the sun and to provide energy all day and all night. The Parasolar is easy to carry and very adjustable. The concept features one output …
Reviews »
Online communities are the best ways to meet old friends and make new ones. If you feel alone or just want to chat with someone, an online community is the best site to find a person who you might like to talk with. Also, those communities can also be useful to find a date.
There are a lot of singles searching for a partner and if you are one of them too, you might be lucky and meet your half there. Another utility of a website like this is if you …
Energy »
Solar Technology have announced plans to improve Freeloader’s solar panel by halving the charge time. Although we can see that its panel is also slightly bigger, the major part will be played by a new type of photovoltaic cells, which are rated at 1.5 Watts.
The two modifications should translate to a four hours charge time for the Freeloader, and can be done in any weather conditions due to the panel’s weather proofing. Of course, the charge time differs from a type of weather to another, but the 210 x 159mm …
Accessories »
These new sunglasses use a 1.3 megapixel camera along with a rechargeable Li-ion and are perfect for taking pictures of someone without them knowing. The camera is controlled through a small remote control that also enables you to listen to MP3s, so you’ll be entertained while in a surveillance mission :)
The camera captures still images at a 1280 X 1024 resolution and has a 1GB storage space. They include USB 2.0 connectivity and a pair of earbuds for the entertaining part. Because of the pretty noticeable modules flanking the sides, …
LED »
You can now play bocce ball even after the sun is down, using the new LED Bocce. They come in a set of 9 white, yellow, red, green and blue balls that have embedded LEDs. The LED lights are powered by small batteries like the ones you use for your watch and they make the balls stay illuminated for three minutes at a time.
The set comes in a wooden storage case that makes them easy to carry. The game is for 2 to 8 players and can be purchased for …
LED »
If you were thinking to buy some fancy LEDs, I know that will be attracted by these new Wind-Lit Solar LEDs. The lighting is very cool and the power for the LEDs comes from renewable energies - solar and wind power. As they are hanged outside during daylight, they will harvest energy and all night long the LEDs will nicely light up even the darkest side of an interior.
Misc. »
There is no doubt that in the next years the Internet will only become faster and faster and the first step is going to be made by the city of St. Paul, Minnesota. They will begin to provide a bandwidth of about 160Mbps for download and 120Mbps for upload. This generation of fast cable Internet is called DOCSIS 3.0 and will be provided by Comcast. There is only one problem - this high-speed bandwidth will cost about $150 per month for a 50Mbps line, but this is a small price …
LED »
Everybody in the world loves LEDs. These tiny lighting devices are drawing anyone’s attention no matter what. After you will watch the video below I am sure you will love them even more. This is a totally unique use for the LEDs and I think that the kids will need the parental advisory to watch the video. It’s better that I stop writing and let you check out one of the best use for the LEDs.
Transportation »
How do you begin describing this… car? When I first came across a photo of this baby I just froze and stared at it for about 20 seconds. I loved Audi’s R8 concept, but the Mazda designers have truly outdone themselves with this one. Taiki means ‘atmosphere’ in Japanese.
Mazda declared the car as ‘a design that visually expresses the flow of air’ and you can tell that just by looking at the front and back of the vehicle. The finesse of the curves makes them almost intangible, and makes you …
WiFi »
Google, Microsoft and other renowned companies united their forces trying to obtain permission to use the “white space”, an unused portion of the airwaves spectrum. Federal Communication Commission (FCC), the agency who is in charge with regulation of al non-Federal Government use of the radio spectrum, has already received a six page letter, containing the possible impact of using this part of the spectrum, such as cheaper and easier access to the Internet through small devices all over the US. It’s a pity, in Google specialists’ opinion, to let this …
Hardware »
The SpursEngine co-processor chip has just been released for testing purposes, as the Toshiba engineers believe it is almost ready for common use. The processor was inspired by Sony’s PS3 Cell, and contains a hardware codec that decodes and encodes MPEG-2/H.264 videos and uses 4 processor cores instead of the 8 from Cell.
It was designed to handle video manipulation and graphics processing in real time and can handle all its assigned tasks. The processor already went through tests, like gesture control, HD video transcoding or facial recognition.
The co-processor has a great …

