Telstra Selling 32GB HTC One XL (4G) From June 5 
Aussie Teen's Picture Of Cash On Facebook Leads To Home Robbery 
Motorola Defy Mini Review 
The Downside Of Living In A Digital World 
Australia, NZ And South Africa To Share Square Kilometre Array 
Watch That Tiny $74 1.5GHz Android-Powered Thumb-Puter In Action A new report from MIT is linking aeroplanes to deaths… on the ground. The study suggests that aeroplanes flying at their normal altitude (10,000m) are emitting dangerous pollutants that contribute to 8000 deaths a year.
Potholes, while ruining tyres and causing intense levels of irritation, could be put to good use soon if Levant Power Corporation’s plans to develop a shock absorber that harnesses the energy made from potholes’ jolts actually go ahead.
Turns out you can make biofuel from just about any oily plant product. Corn may be the standard, but coffee works at least as well, and it makes your car smell like a Starbucks!
AU: Old news.
It’s rare to find a pump that doesn’t have a latch to lock into the “on” position, but if you find one, the Gas Gripper will keep you from overexerting your forearms while filling up.
Seeing a Windows blue screen of death is fine, if annoying, if you’re just balancing your chequebook, but what if you see it in more…precarious situations? Like when you’re pumping gas? Reader Dave saw this at a San Diego Shell station, after which he bravely continued filling up—but not without hiding his face behind his arm to shield himself from the inevitable gas station explosions of death. You’re a ballsy man, Dave. See the close up after the jump. [Thanks Dave!]
We played with Gas Cubby, the car maintenance tracking tool for iPhone, and can say that the $US5 is a pretty low price to pay if you really want to keep your ride in good condition. Among its many hardcore features are petrol price fill-up tracking and graphing, service tracking and data (insurance, VIN) storage. We all know that we’re supposed to get and document regular service on our cars, but who the hell remembers? By tracking your petrol purchases (which you get much more frequently), Gas Cubby will remind you of when those tires need rotating or when filters need replacement. Pretty damn good for $US5, I’d say. [Gas Cubby]
Google gets it. They understand. While they’re thinking about starting their own countries and creating a whole new mobile platform (and rolling around on rollerblades while doing it), they understand that regular folk are struggling, especially at the petrol pump.
That’s why they’ve launched a gadget for iGoogle which tells you the price of any petrol station in Australia. They update the information twice daily – so the information is going to be fairly accurate – and you can search either by suburb, price or brand.
You can download the gadget for your iGoogle homepage here. It’s a free download, so there isn’t any reason why you shouldn’t use it, unless of course you prefer to walk or catch public transport. In which case – kudos to you for being better than the rest of us…
Furukawa, a Tokyo-based tech company, has developed a thermoelectric conversion material that’s said to be able to boost the fuel efficiency of cars by 2% by converting about 7% of exhaust heat into electricity. Unlike conventional thermoelectric conversion materials, which warm up as a whole when one side is exposed to heat, this new material generates energy via the difference in temperature between its two sides. Apparently, that makes it much more efficient. They’re currently working to improve the system, but they hope to have it ready for mass production by 2011, at which point that 2% will solve the petrol crisis single-handedly. Just hang in there for a few more years! [Nikkei via CrunchGear]
Pumping gas into a diesel engine, or vice versa, is a big no-no that may well screw up your engine. We all know that, don’t we? But for those, uh, “fuel-type challenged” people out there that get it wrong, there’s this new Fuel Checker gizmo. You install it inside your filler flap, and touch the pump nozzle to it before filling up: it’ll check the type and flash green for go, and red for no. No idea how it works, but it comes in gasoline or diesel versions. Or you could, you know… read the label on the pump and double check the colour of the nozzle you’re holding, and save yourself US$40. AU: Seriously? I drive a diesel, and I’ve never ever ever come close to putting unleaded in the tank. Is this a common occurrence?
If Hollywood has taught us anything at all, it’s that playing around with DNA leads to disaster. Wonderful, entertaining disaster. In the real world, things aren’t so clear cut, but the prospect of creating super-bugs that will either turn humans into zombies or just kill us outright hasn’t stopped some Silicon Valley entrepreneurs from LS9 from creating a bacteria that essentially just shits crude oil.
The bacteria start out as either industrial yeast or nonpathogenic strains of E. coli. They then have a little bit of DNA-grade surgery done to them, before being fed “feedstock” which is essentially any substance that can be broken down to sugars, like wheat, corn or woodchips. The bacteria have a mad party where they eat and drink too much, then spend the following day on a single-cell organism-sized toilet where they poop out crude oil, which is collected by people in white suits and sold for $150 a barrel. Or something like that, anyway.
