A Look Ahead

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN! Time for self-aggrandizing pundits to trot out vague-yet-obvious technology predictions for the coming year -- or lie about how right they were last year. Or both!

Therefore, I am boldly predicting that 2004 will be the year of wireless again. Enterprises will spend more on IT than small businesses. PCs will become both faster and cheaper, though mine won't.

These were the same predictions I made last year, and I was right on target.

Ok, forget the tech predictions. There are plenty out there already and no one cares.

I will predict, however, that Mike's List will come out more frequently (by popular demand), that the ranks of subscribers will grow by more than 100 per week, on average, and that 2004 will be marked as "The Year of Mike's List" by TIME Magazine.

Thanks for your readership. And Happy New Year!

What Do You Call a Desktop PC That's Smaller Than a PDA?

T-Engine recently demonstrated in Tokyo its "T-Cube" Micro PC. The computer is a cube smaller than three inches on each side (52mm�52mm�45mm). Most of the sides are taken over by ports, including USB 2.x, Ethernet, audio and CompactFlash. T-Engine hasn't announced a price, but it should go on sale in Asia this March.

Nielsen: Car Brand Reveals Online Behavior

A Nielsen//NetRatings report shows that a person's online behavior can be predicted if you know what kind of car he drives. For example, BMW owners are heavy visitors to travel sites, while FIAT drivers like homemaker-oriented sites. Ford owners visit the Peugeot site more than other car owners. Hmmm.

Toshiba Sells Wireless Bone-Conduction Pillow

Toshiba Consumer Marketing started shipping yesterday a wireless bone-conduction pillow. The sound vibrates your skull, which transmits the vibration to your inner ear. The person whose head is on the pillow can hear it; anyone else in the bed (not likely for the kind of people who would buy this...) will not. The sound is sent to the pillow from your stereo via an included infrared transmitter.

Virtual 'Burning Man' Created for MS Flight Simulator

Oakland artist Andrew Johnstone has built an interactive, 3D Burning Man Black Rock City for Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 and 2004. Burning Man is a crazy festival that takes place annually in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.

Only In Japan

A Japanese company called Solid Alliance sells what it calls the i-Duck USB Memory Storage device. The i-Duck supports USB 1.1, holds 16 megabytes of data and lights up when its plugged in. Quack!

Don't Waste Your Money!

Found Video

Martial arts enthusiasts will get a kick out of this one. Tae Kwon Do studios in Korea are using a remote controlled Tae Kwon Do sparring robot. Here's the video.

The latest version of Sony's "Qrio" robot can actually run like a human. Here's the video. The company's Digital Creatures Laboratory developed a new control software system that allows the robot to take both feet off the ground, according to Toshitada Doi, president of the laboratory. Qrio can also dance and pitch a mean fast ball.

Follow Up

I told you in Mike's List 71 September 6 that Beijing PC gamer Li Hongchen sued the creator of "Red Moon" for replacement of his stolen virtual weapons (they just vanished one day) plus compensation for "mental anguish." In December, the Beijing Chaoyang District People's Court ruled in Li's favor, ordering the company to return his weapons, which were reportedly stolen by a hacker in February, according to the Chinese news service Xinhuanet. The company, Beijing-based Arctic Ice Technology, was accused by the court of having inadequate security, which lead to the virtual theft. It is unclear whether the company will have to pay Li money for his "mental anguish." Lawsuits over online "possessions" were unprecedented, even in Europe, Japan and the United States.

Lying with PhotoShop

Don't try Extreme Segway moves with a real "human transporter." It's much safer -- and almost as much fun -- with PhotoShop.

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!

Reader Web Site o' the Week

A Mike's List reader called Brendon pointed me to his site LearnKey Direct: "From Cisco certifications and MCSE practice exams to CompTIA's A+ and Network+ training, LearnKey Direct is your complete source for IT certification training."

Get YOUR web site on the high-traffic Mike's List Reader Links page. HERE'S HOW! 

Gotta-Get-It Gadgets

Ever thought about getting an underwater digital camera? You may already have one. Check the Aiko Trading Company web site to see if they sell an underwater housing for your existing digital camera.

Toshiba Corporation researchers have created a .85-inch hard drive -- smaller than some coins. The capacity is a whopping 2 to 3 gigabytes, according to reports coming out of Japan. The drive should become available in 2005.

Wacky Web Sites

The 419 Eater site scams the Nigerian scammers for your entertainment.

Write your own songs and have famous singers belt them out at the Let Them Sing It To You web site. It's worse than it sounds.

The creation of brand names in unfamiliar languages is a hazardous business. Fortunately, the Marketing Translation Mistakes web site is there to record these international PR disasters.

I've told you about several timely clocks in the past. Here's one I haven't seen before -- and it's a screensaver, too.

Finally: A French-language site featuring spectacular truck crashes!

For reasons unexplained by science, some music CDs feature "hidden" songs unlisted on the CD jacket. The Hidden Song Archive tells you where to look.

Morphases is the best face editor anywhere. Why anyone would want to edit faces I have no idea.

Twisted Games

Catapult Game

Trampoline

Flip Flap

Robootik

Shuffle the Penguin

Big Number o' the Week

One in Seven (Jupiter Research says one in seven "customer-facing" web sites contains errors bad enough to cause "visitor defection.")

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 "pictures from the Hubbell telescope before it was fitted for new glasses," "a stripper as seen through the bottom of a beer glass," or even the "Shroud of Turin" as suggested by some readers (nor is it, as one "Lord of the Rings" enthusiast proposed, "The Eye of Sauron behind cheesecloth"). In fact, it's just your average Playboy centerfold from the 1970s. Digital artist Jason Salavon (www.salavon.com) told me that he "wrote a piece of code (in C) to perform pixel averaging on the digitized centerfolds, 120 images for each decade." The piece I used for last issue's Mystery Pic is entitled, "Every Playboy Centerfold, the 1970's," but there are other decades represented as well. Mega Mike's List Congratulations to Justin Bruno of Verona, New Jersey, USA, for being first with the right answer!

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