All Mike's List, All the Time
Have you seen
"Mike's List: The Raw Feed?" It's my constantly updated
repository for stories
I'm thinking about writing up for the Mike's List newsletter. I
post them to get your feedback and contributions. The stories
posted aren't "ready for prime time," and are vastly more
numerous than what I send out in the e-mail newsletter. But if
you want to know what's happening before anyone else,
check it out! (RSS
enthusiasts, go
here.)
Researchers to Build Robot Suit
The University of
Tsukuba, Mitsui and 30 smaller companies plan to develop what they call a
"robot suit" to help the elderly and disabled walk and,
presumably, fight crime. The suit, code-named HAL-3 (Hybrid
Assistive Leg), will feature a computer and battery backpack and four
actuators attached to the wearer's knees and hip joints.
After the
Hype: Stuff That Failed
New York City's
Taxi and Limousine Commission has decreed that the 515
interactive, internet-connected touch screens installed in the
back seats of city cabs be
shut down, saying that the trial was a miserable
failure. In the best case, New Yorkers were apathetic about
the devices. In the worst case, they were annoyed.
After
failing to identify a singe criminal in two years, Tampa's
controversial face-recognition system is being scrapped. The
idea was to photograph random citizens and use sophisticated
software to compare their faces against a database of 30,000
mug shots.
Spy Pics of Next Windows Leaked
New
spy pictures of the next version of Microsoft Windows,
code-named "Longhorn," have been
leaked on the Internet. These are not the "Luna" user
interface shots, previously leaked, but rather the more highly
evolved new "Aero" interface.
Gamer Sues Software Company for
'Mental Anguish'
A Beijing PC gamer
playing "Red Moon" had built up an arsenal of virtual weapons
over a period of two years. Suddenly, they vanished, and the
gamer is
suing the creator of the game for replacement of the weapons and for
"mental anguish."
Startup Creates Silent
Water-Cooled System for PCs
Mountain
View-based Cooligy has created a pump that uses
electro-osmosis to move water in its PC cooling system. It
has
no moving parts and is perfectly silent. The pump was
developed by mechanical engineer Ken Goodson at Stanford
University.
Don't Try This At Home
University of
Toronto engineering student Keigo Lizuka has posted
instructions for using
Saran Wrap to transform your laptop screen into a 3D display.
Sign of the
Times
A
travel entrepreneur named Mike now offers
Segway Tours of Paris. He provides the Segways, and guides a
group of conspicuous Americans around the City of Lights at 12
mph.
IM Software Adds Nearby
Strangers to Your Buddy List
New free software
called Trepia lists other online instant messenger users based on
how close they are to you geographically, starting with
people on the same network in the same room.
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Found Video
Check out
Disney's new dinosaur robot,
Lucky. It walks around, interacts with visitors and
leaves disgusting piles of batteries all over the park.
Here
are
the
videos.
Speaking of animal robots, have you
seen the
new Aibo?
Natural City is a
Korean futuristic thriller.
Here's the trailer. (If anyone has information on this
conspicuously awesome film, please let me know.)
Girl Gamers to
Get Calorie-Counting Game
Sony plans to sell
its EyeToy Playstation 2 camera in the U.S. and Asia in time for
the holiday season after hot sales in Europe. One EyeToy game,
called EyeToy: Groove, requires the player to flail about,
making shapes to music using
arms and legs. The camera watches the player's
movements and calculates calories burned, awarding points for
pounds shed. Girls: It really doesn't get anymore condescending
than this.
Proof You Can Buy Anything on the
Web
How about a
Star Trek Enterprise
scooter? The special collector's edition 50cc bike was created
to mark the video and DVD launch of Star Trek Nemesis, and will
go on a Japanese Internet auction starting September 29. Or how
about a
fold-up house. Perfect for campers who don't like roughing
it! You can also buy the
Social Security numbers of CIA Director George Tenet and
Attorney General John Ashcroft, for example. For $26 each.
Cell Phone Follies
A new production called "Goin'
Dot Com! -- The Musical," follows the rise and fall of
fictional "RentalPuppy.com." Audience members at San Francisco's
Eureka Theater are urged before the opening curtain to please
turn on their cell phones and pagers.
Conductor Bernd Kremling of the
Drumming Hands orchestra in Wuerzburg uses
cell phone ringtones ranging from Bach and Mozart to 'Old
MacDonald Had a Farm' in his concerts. Unfortunately, some gigs
have been played in areas without connectivity.
A Dutch company
has launched the first soap opera by MMS, called Jon-Zuid.
Pictures of the famous actors and accompanying text are sent to
phones several times a day.
Here's a demo.
A businessman
admits importing
illegal cell jammers into Scotland and selling them to
hotels across the country. The benefit to his customers is that
by jamming their calls, they'll be forced to pay high prices for
in-house phones.
Mike's List on
the Radio
Craig Crossman's
Computer America features Mike Elgan every
Thursday night. The show runs from 7pm to 9pm SVT (Silicon Valley Time). Listen
to Computer America on your local Business TalkRadio station or
over
the Internet every weeknight. Don't miss Computer
America!
Office of Naval
Research to Release Tiny Atomic Clock
The
Office of Naval Research next month will unveil a super-accurate
atomic clock no bigger than a matchbox. The Rubidium Atomic
Clock will lose only about one second every 10,000 years. No
information on how it will be sold or for how much was
announced.
The Media Is the Mess
A Dutch magazine
found that CD-R disks can become uselessly unreadable
after just two years. Your backups, music, software
applications and digital photographs may already have been
transformed by time into just so many beverage coasters.
Gotta-Get-It
Gadget
The Nokia Music
Stand turns some Nokia phones into a
third-rate personal stereo system and speakerphone.
Version 3.0 of the SCOTTeVEST jacket features 30 pockets, 20
zippers and plenty of space for gadgets.
A Yale University
scientist unveiled
new sunglasses in Singapore that sound an alarm when
the wearer's body temperature goes too high. Hong Kong's Giant
Wireless Technology said they should have products on the market
based on the "TempAlert" technology next year.
The
Bluetooth CAR-100 is a tiny racecar that can be controlled with
a Sony Ericsson mobile phone. The car has two gears and can be
navigated from up to 32 feet away using a phone's keypad or
joystick. The car will be available in Q4 '03.
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Wacky
Web Sites
What would happen if zombies
showed up en masse in a city. The
Zombie Infection Simulation web site attempts to find out.
(Author Kevan Davis told me: "I wrote it as an idle experiment
in emergent behavior - that by throwing a lot of stupid
rule-following individuals together, complex behavior can arise.
I've learned that a simple 'move towards moving things and
attack them if they turn out to be human' is quite a good model
of zombie intelligence, allowing small zombie mobs to form as a
side effect of attacking humans. The simulation also
demonstrates the danger of panic in a human crowd, the ease with
which two slow, stupid zombies can infect an entire alleyway if
they happen to wander in at either end, and the importance of
looking around corners...")
Interview a virtual Hitler on the
Interview Adolf Hitler web site! It's very "heil tech"!
The latest fad
in Korea (or Japan -- the Web site is Korean):
Playing dead for the camera.
How much can you really tell
about someone by the way they walk? The
Bio Motion Lab Walker demonstrates the answer: quite a bit.
They do it by stripping away all other data other than merely
the motion of walking, then lets you tweak variables like male
or female, happy or sad, etc. Amazing.
Follow-Up:
Pentagon Approves Digital Bugle for Military Funerals
I
told you almost a year
ago that the Pentagon was testing a digital bugle, which is
inserted into the horn of a real bugle. When the "player"
presses a button, the gadget plays taps flawlessly without human
intervention. The
Department of Defense announced this week it has approved
the use of the computerized bugle at military funerals.
Twisted
Games
Ping Pong Cannon
Catch 33
Air Hockey
Bug Bomber
Mata Nui
Office Space
Rocket Mania
Udder Insanity
Reader Comment
Mike,
About your article
titled "Smart Mobs So Dumb", in the latest issue, you might want
to look at the concept of "Flash Crowds", created 32 years ago
(1971) by Science Fiction author Larry Niven.
Here's an
online reference to it.
Here's another.
Tim Bonham
_______
Mike,
There was something similar to smart
mobs that started on ICQ a long time back. One person would
leave an offline message to all his ICQ mates to come online at
a specific time. There were occasions when 80% of my list on ICQ
were online simultaneously.
And the silly thing we did? We started chain message on ICQ. And
through e-mail. It wasn't unusual to get the same message from
20-30 people on such days. Once we also started sending people
to a local Bombay site. That site got loads of hits and went
down due to over usage of bandwidth.
Alas nowadays hardly any one still uses ICQ. And other
messengers like MSN don't have the ability to send the same
offline message to your entire list.
Kind regards,
Ankesh Kothari
_______
Mike,
Regarding your item "How Can You
Save Money On Printer Ink?" in which you pointed out that it can
be cheaper to buy a new printer with cartridges than the
cartridges alone: I purchased an HP Office Jet Ki-80 4 function
ink jet printer copier, fax, and scanner. It came with
cartridges but they were not fully filled, more like10 to15
percent of capacity and I had to purchase additional fully
filled cartridges with a few weeks. There is no free lunch, at
least for long.
William S. Hornbaker
_______
Mike,
The point about printers being
cheaper than new cartridges is partially correct. If you look
closely at the HP cartridges you get with a new printer, you
will see that they are a sub number of the replacements! These
original cartridges are actually smaller than the replacements!
Thus you only get about half the ink, so you have to buy sooner!
If you can when buying a new HP inkjet, insist on NEW cartridge
NOT the sawed-off ones in the machine. I don't know about other
brands but I've seen it on 5 different HP models!
MikeD
_______
Mike,
Just wanted to let you know that Pretec now has the iDisk tiny
(the quarter-sized USB drive) available direct
from their
website.
I haven't ordered one yet but I plan to soon. I'll make sure to
send you a review when I do.
Craig Kovatch
I'd like to hear from you! Send me an e-mail and let me know
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Big Number o' the Week
500,000,000 -
The number of mobile phones IDC
expects to be sold worldwide during 2004.
Mystery Pic o'
the Week
What is it? Send YOUR guess to [email protected] (be sure to say where you live).
If you're first with the right answer, I'll print your name in the
next issue of Mike's List!
 LAST WEEK'S
MYSTERY PIC:
No, it's not a contact lens applier
being tested on Shrek's sidekick, "Donkey," a "monkey eye
extractor" or even a "picture of a horse tearfully watching Seabiscuit," as suggested by some readers. It's a picture of a
steer having his retina photographed with an infrared camera for
identification purposes. The camera is part of the OptiReader
system, which uses GPS and a computer with a database to record
where the cow was and when, plus other information about the
animal, including lineage. Once data is entered, it cannot be
altered. Congratulations to Michael King of Cheyenne, Wyoming,
for being first with the right answer!
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