Technology

Jet Powered Cell Phones

This entry was posted in Economics Energy Technology on by

And they might help keep you warm in the winter:

Though the turbine�s blades span an area smaller than a dime, they spin at more than a million revolutions per minute and are designed to produce enough electricity to power handheld electronics. In the foreseeable future, Epstein expects, his tiny turbines will serve as a battery replacement, first for soldiers and then for consumers. But he has an even more ambitious vision: that small clusters of the engines could serve as home generating plants, freeing consumers from the power grid, with its occasional black- and brownouts….
Epstein�s immediate goal, however, is to use these miniature engines as a cheap and efficient alternative to batteries for cell phones, digital cameras, PDAs, laptop computers, and other portable electronic devices. The motivation is simple: batteries are heavy and expensive and require frequent recharging. And they don�t produce much electricity, for all their size and weight.
On a per watt basis these things apparently will be smaller and more efficient then comparable fuel cells. But they do have a bit of an exhaust issue.
Read the rest.

Government Helping the Needy

This entry was posted in Capitalism Economics FCC Libertarianism Technology Television on by

I know some of you have probably forked over big bucks for that new HDTV set and are enjoying some excellent picture quality. I haven’t and have yet to see one at a size and price point that makes me say, “I have got to have that.” And, I also haven’t seen the value in buying that digital cable package. Basic does just fine for the few hours a week that I watch TV.
Since there are apparently a lot of other folks like me out and about our ever helpful federal government is accelerating its work on behalf of big electronics:

It’s one of the biggest technical changes in television since color TV: the digital transition. And because many Americans remain in the dark about it, federal regulators began an education campaign Monday to enlighten them.
Remind me, please, just why it was congress needed to set a target date for “all digital” and why the FCC needs to be spending tax money to act as the marketing arm for the electronics industry in what seems no more than a wealth transfer exercise.
When the perceived value hits the right point people will buy the stuff in droves.

It’s Gone and Nothin’s Gonna to Bring it Back

This entry was posted in Archive.org Information Music Technology on by

Well, maybe there is a way to get back that old file that you can’t find. Especially if it was ever on the WWW. Kim’s story (shortened a bit):

I have a client with a site that’s been in operation since early 2000, and we recently discovered that a couple of archived issues of her newsletter from that time were missing. We’ve ported the site over to several new designs over the years, ….
I was convinced they were simply gone for good, but then I had a last ditch idea: the Wayback Machine. I went and put in her site, checked back to one of the 2000 versions, and sure enough, there were the missing archives. I recreated the pages on her site, and now I’m a hero.
The Wayback Machine definitely has practical applications.
Yep, another great use of an already indispensible resource. I use the audio section of Archive.org to listen to and download great music on a regular basis. And there is much more.

Microsoft, Security and your Pocketbook

This entry was posted in Internet Marketing Microsoft Technology on by

It does not look like Microsoft is taking security as seriously as their cash flow:

Microsoft this week reiterated that it would keep the new version of Microsoft’s IE Web browser available only as part of the recently released Windows XP operating system, Service Pack 2. The upgrade to XP from any previous Windows versions is $99 when ordered from Microsoft. Starting from scratch, the operating system costs $199.
That, analysts say, is a steep price to pay to secure a browser that swept the market as a free, standalone product.
“It’s a problem that people should have to pay for a whole OS upgrade to get a safe browser,” said Michael Cherry, analyst with Directions on Microsoft in Redmond, Wash. “It does look like a certain amount of this is to encourage upgrade to XP.”
This is, though, just the tip of the iceberg. Many of these older systems, 49.2% of the Microsoft OS base, run on machines that can not support XP in a usable form. My family has 3 of these as well as a couple newer machines that have the memory and processor speed to support XP.
So, it is not just a matter of a $99 or $199 OS for the many people who would have to by new hardware to support XP.
But, this is also one reason why I run Firefox and Thunderbird on all our PCs.