[New York Times]
Brawn beat brains in the old days of automobiles. To make cars faster, people bolted bigger air intakes, carburetors and exhaust pipes onto giant muscle car engines. Tuning adjustments were simple, requiring only screwdrivers and wrenches.
In the mid-1980’s, control of the engine slipped out of the average mechanic’s hands and into the so-called black boxes housing onboard computers.
[Read the rest of Need a Tuneup? Become a Hacker]
[Wired]
The new Healthmap website digests information from a variety of sources ranging from the World Health Organization to Google News and plots the spread of about 50 diseases on a continually updated global map. It was developed as a side project by two staffers at the Children’s Hospital Informatics Program in Boston — physician John Brownstein and software developer Clark Freifeld. [Read the rest of Get Your Daily Plague Forecast.]
[New York Times]
In the old days of digital television, a year or two ago, choices were simple. If the screen measured under 37 inches diagonally, it would be a liquid-crystal-display panel. From about 37 to 43 inches, it would probably be a plasma panel. And larger sizes would be rear- or front-projection sets.
[Read the rest of Picking a Picture]
[Wired]
Researchers in Switzerland are developing a new nano technology they claim will double the range of colors that future TVs can produce — displaying every hue the human eye can see. By comparison, most of today’s TVs — be they plasmas, LCDs or projectors — display only about half the visible colors.
[Read the rest of New Tech for Hyper Color TV]
[Wired]
A new line of 3-D televisions by Philips uses the familiar trick of sending slightly different images to the left and right eyes — mimicking our stereoscopic view of the real world. But where old-fashioned 3-D movies rely on the special glasses to block images meant for the other eye, Philips’ WOWvx technology places tiny lenses over each of the millions of red, green and blue sub pixels that make up an LCD or plasma screen. The lenses cause each sub pixel to project light at one of nine angles fanning out in front of the display.
[Read the rest of 3-D TV That Actually Works]
[Wired]
Tiny, laser-based projectors could transform these pocket-size devices into full-blown entertainment systems by shining images onto walls, tabletops or the backs of airplane seats. In a bright room, the handheld projectors would produce images about as bright and big as a 10-inch laptop screen, said Greg Niven, the vice president of marketing at laser maker Novalux. “If you turn the lights out, you could make the projection 10 feet,” he said.
[Read the rest of Lasers Project the Big Picture]
[Slate]
Before last month, Dell had made only one attempt to look cool in its 22-year history. I don’t need to tell you that the “Dell dude” wasn’t the coolest guy on the planet. Dell’s second attempt to win street cred, its recent acquisition of the hip, gamer-friendly computer manufacturer Alienware, will probably prove more successful. That’s because Dell has accepted the fact that it simply is not cool, and the only way for it to get a cool brand is to buy one.
[Read the rest of Dell’s Quest for Cool]
[Laptop Magazine. No online version.]
Profile of (subsequently failed) mobile startup Amp’d. Article available only as a 1MB big image! Continue reading
[New York Times]
Shopping for a mobile phone can quickly become bleary-eyed drudgery, as I discovered after my beloved Samsung SPH-i500 (a flip phone with Palm organizer) died from age and neglect.
Phone makers are spawning a confusing array of new models in all colors, shapes and sizes. Selecting a cellular service provider is no easy task either.
I had my pick of regional carriers and four national companies – Cingular (which acquired AT&T Wireless), T-Mobile, Sprint Nextel and Verizon Wireless.
[Read the rest of A Cellphone and a Plan for Just About Any Situation]
[New York Times]
A new study by the Consumer Electronics Association shows that American homes spent $1,250, on average, for electronics last year. Though it may sound like a lot, that is barely enough for a medium-size flat-screen TV. So even gadget-crazy Americans have to weigh priorities – deciding what older gear they can still live with and what demands an upgrade. For shoppers, it can be a difficult decision: buy products on sale that have last year’s technology, or get the latest even if it means paying more. (Or perhaps wait even longer, for the next generation.)
[Read the rest of Is It Time to Upgrade?]
