Alps Electronics has decided to take the occasionally annoying sensitivity of some capacitive trackpads to a new extreme, demoing a technology that can accurately sense fingers without coming in direct contact with them. The system is able to sense movements at an admittedly modest range of 3cm, from which distance users can control applications with a range of gestures.
Check out the Hong Kong Apple store online and you’ll see a couple of lines of text that’ll tempt, tease and beguile you if you’re dreaming of an unlocked iPhone 3G: “iPhone 3G purchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier. Simply insert the SIM from your current phone into iPhone 3G and connect to iTunes 8 to complete activation.” About $US700 will get you an unlocked 8GB version, and the 16GB is just $US800. Handy for the dev team, no doubt. [Hong Kong Apple Store via Slashphone]
Pansonic’s line of Toughbook laptops is already pretty extensive, but it’s getting more so: Panasonic’s just come up with the 8-series of “business-rugged” notebooks. The F8, T8 and W8 all come with a Gobi 3G mobile broadband system built in for roaming internet access. The F8 is being called the “world’s lightest 3G-ready notebook with a 14.1 inch wide display and an internal optical drive,” weighs 1.7 kg and has spill-resistant keyboard and integrated handle. The W8 is an ultraportable with 12.1-inch screen, 7-hour battery, and the T8 is similar but with tablet PC options. All are designed to withstand more than the usual share of knocks and bangs, and rugged businesspersons will be pleased to note they’re out November for $US2,100 for the W8 and T8 and $US2,500 for the F8. Extensive press release below.
We’re on the home straight (sorry couldn’t resist). With just 3 sleeps to go until Top Gear Australia graces our screens, another sneak peek has hit You Tube. If the preview is any indication, the local version of the popular UK program should make for entertaining viewing.
ZDNet is telling the world that Microsoft megastar and man-mountain Steve Ballmer will be heading to Australia in November to speak at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney.
If you want to hear the PC-man scream at you about the latest Microsoft innovations and the digital economy, you’ll need to pony up some cash – CEDA members can volunteer to be lambasted by Ballmer’s well-renowned shouting for $143 each, while non-CEDA members will need $199.10 (because that 10 cents makes a difference) to enjoy the experience.
Let’s just hope his presentation is light on the Vista innovations, and heavy on the Windows 7 innovations…
[ZDNet]
The days of loud, obnoxious motorsport may well be coming to an end, with Honda announcing that they will be debuting their 100% ethanol powered V8 engines at the Gold Coast Indy race in October.
The ethanol engines use a plant-based fuel which burns cleanly with less air pollution, as opposed to the traditional methanol engines used by Indy cars. Yet they still manage to squeeze out the performance, with cars capable of hitting 160kph in less than three seconds.
Generally ethanol isn’t considered to be a suitable replacement for fossil fuels as it requires vast amounts of plant life to convert into fuel, and that can eat into the plants being used to feed us. However, last year Honda uncovered a tech that can just convert the inedible bits of food into fuel, kind of like Mr Fusion in the Back To The Future II DeLorean (or not).
Hopefully we’ll see this tech develop into the consumer (and time travel) space.
Just a reminder that you’ve only got four days left to enter WDs competition to win a 640GB hard drive. It’s quite possible the easiest competition you’ll ever enter, and the prize is one of those things that you always need more of – storage.
Now I don’t know about you, but every time I think I need to buy more storage, I tend to find something else to spend my money on. Like car rego. Or Xbox games. Or food. That’s why this comp is so fantastic – if you win, you won’t constantly have to burn stuff to disk because you wasted your storage money on pizza and beer.
To enter the comp, just click here and follow the instructions. Simple.
Some of you P2P fans may want to know about a new coalition called Arts + Labs. It may sound like some kind of open-source hippie think tank, but it’s actually a powerful alignment of film and music copyright owners (NBC Universal, Viacom and the Songwriters Guild of America) and tech firms and ISPs (Microsoft, Cisco Systems and AT&T). It’s a group that could put together a pretty serious anti-piracy system without much trouble. Saul Hansell at the NY Times says the group claims that “network operators must have the flexibility to manage and expand their networks to defend against net pollution and illegal file trafficking which threatens to congest and delay the network for all consumers.” Hansell interprets this as a call to filter packets, and put the kibosh on any dubious transfers.
Last weekend I was up in the Hunter Valley at the Media Connect Influence forum with other leading technology journalists, networking and checking out some of the latest technologies. And, through my ability to ride a virtual horse better than anyone else on Sunday night, I won a pair of Sennheiser PXC 450 noise-cancelling headphones.
While the headphones aren’t exactly new, they’re still impressive enough for me to want to share the experience with you guys. While I haven’t had much of a chance to really test them out properly, I have had enough of a hands on to tell you that these headphones are like a rugby union prop – they’re big, but they get around and they perform well. Really well.
A sink-in-a-drawer is a great idea, right up to the point when you realise what a bad idea it is. Sure, you know, makeshift loft studio in lower Manhattan, no room for toilet and sink in the bathroom—why not put it in a drawer, and slide it away when you’re destined for the throne? But by now you already know the catch: Unless you have a nice little space-time fabric rip, you’re going to be taking up floor space in the room adjacent to the bathroom, maybe a kitchen or a closet where small amounts of room are more cherished. Sure, some of you have unused dumbwaiter shafts that would be perfecto, but for the rest of us, the idea is just dumb. [Better Homes and Gardens via Apartment Therapy]
