Technology

The Ultimate Bug Zapper

Posted by Andrew at 9:17 AM on February 19, 2010

At TED 2010, Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures Laboratory showed off its Photonic Fence proof of concept. Basically, this is a very capable mosquito killer, which uses lasers to shoot the wee monsters out of the sky at up to 100 times a second.

The concept is targetted (sorry) for malarial regions, potentially hospitals or schools, and the technology is able to tell the difference between a mosquito and other objects based on size and wing-beat frequency, thus allowing mosquitos to be zapped but bees to be left alone.

The setup does require some configuration with a light reflective screen – you can’t just plonk the gadget down and let it get on with it – and while malaria control is a worthy goal, I can’t help but wonder if there are better commercial opportunities in protecting high-value crops.

There’s a video on the Ventures Lab site (link above) which shows the device in action.

Apparently this is just a proof-of-concept made out of readily available parts and they’re looking for commercial partners to see if it’s a viable concept. Expect to see the mosquito laser turret in a few years.

Tags: Laser, mosquito

Posted in Technology

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When Green Doesn’t work – LED Lights in Green Bay

Posted by Jeffrey Powers at 10:48 PM on December 11, 2009

So we had this pretty big snowstorm pass through the Midwest. Over a foot of snow, added to a plethora of horrible conditions. But one forseen issue happened that simply came from making the planet greener.

Light Emitting Diodes.

Green Bay WI put in some high – efficiency LED traffic lights throughout the town. The idea was straightforward. Save on electricity, save on bulb replacement and use the money in other places. Great plan… except for the unforseen snow….

What happened was the LED bulbs did not produce enough heat to melt the snow and ice off. The snow blew up into the light and the protective cover did just that – protected the snow and blocked drivers from seeing the lights.

West Bend, WI had the same problem. However, this was the first time in 7 years that it caused concern and an accident. The city created a special scraper to clean the lens. There is a special cover that heats up in cold weather to melt ice, but it’s simply too expensive.

Since this is the first time since installation, there is not a big concern over it. City officials simply tell people to be careful if the light is covered in snow.

Tags: green bay, led, Light, light emitting diode, snow, snowstorm, WI, winter

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Google Maps Navigation vs. TomTom One

Posted by Mike Dell at 7:27 PM on November 30, 2009

I, like a lot of us, had to travel over the Thanksgiving weekend. In my case, I had to travel to Grand Haven Michigan ( about 150 miles south of where I live ). I just got the Motorola Droid with Google Maps Navigation and wanted to compare it with my 1 year old TomTom One.

First, around town.. The TomTom is quite good at finding businesses and not quite as good at finding addresses. The touch screen is easy to manipulate and it doesn’t take too long to get your address entered into the device. Once you get it in there, it will take you to within a block or so of the correct address. It’s not perfect. The Google Maps app on the droid take a bit longer to load the address into then the TomTom ( you will have to pullover to do it on the fly ) but once it’s in there, the Droid is much more accurate. Both do a great job with businesses and the Droid’s Google Maps app works with voice quite well as long as you don’t have to read the whole address to it. For finding a McDonald’s or Starbucks, it’s perfect.

Now for the long trip… There are 2 ways to go out of Traverse City to get to Grand Haven. The slightly longer but faster route though Grand Rapids on US131 and I-96 or the shorter US31 along the lake shore. Knowing that there is a detour around a bridge in the Cadillac Area, it makes it quicker to go the US31 route. With the TomTom, it has no idea about the bridge being out so it wanted to route us via US131 and Grand Rapids. But, thanks to TomTom’s choice of “fastest route” “shortest route” or “avoid freeways” I was able to select “avoid freeways” and it routed me the way I wanted to go. The Google Maps App is supposed to know when there is detours and not route you through them unless it thinks it is the fastest way to go ( no option for shortest or other routing that I found ). It did show the section of closed road but it routed us on it anyway. So I ignored it. I wanted to see how far along TomTom’s route it took the Droid to catch on that we were not going that way and re-route us. The verdict? 15 miles. We were on the road for at least 15 miles and the Google Maps on the Droid wanted us to turn at ever intersection to get us back to the closed road. Once it got the fact we were going the other way, it was right on with the TomTom.

The TomTom One can be had right now for about $90 if you shop around and it a great all around navigator. It has lots of options of routing, voices and what info it displayed on the screen. You can have the time you will arrive at your end point and your speed, the speed limit of the road you are on among other things like that plus a nice 3D display of the road in front of you (map, not video ) The Google Maps Navigation does not have any real options as far as routing, display info or anything like that. Just a nice map, the street names, and how many hours and minutes to your destination. It does, however have Satellite views of the route and when you get where you are going or come to an intersection, it will show you street view of the area which could be nice if you don’t already know where you are.

One thing the Droid does better with Google Maps over the TomTom is that it reads you the street names. The TomTom one doesn’t (although you can get a model that does) Also, on the droid, you can’t change the voice (yet).

All in all, I would say the Droid with Google Maps Navigation is OK for a navigator if you don’t have a stand alone unit. You will want to get a car charger for it as the battery won’t last but a couple of hours running with the display on all the time. The thing that gets me excited about this App and the Android phone is it will improve over time with updates and other 3rd party software. The TomTom is more or less stuck with what it is. They do update the TomTom from time to time, but it can only do what it can do. You won’t go wrong with a TomTom for the price. I’m happy with both and will use both depending on the situation.

I’m loving all the other things the Droid does and will update you on my switch from Blackberry in future posts.

Posted in Droid, GPS, Technology, application, google

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Emerging Healthcare Technology

Posted by Andrew at 3:43 AM on November 25, 2009

Earlier this week I attended a seminar on “Emerging Healthcare Technologies”, presented by the University of Ulster. The content was fairly high-level but focussed on several areas that are in various stages of development but will reach the market in the next few years.

The first area was that of providing easy-to-use self monitoring devices, often with local data storage or wireless connections to the Internet. Examples shown were for heart monitoring or for blood sugar levels such as the one shown here. Much of the design focus was to get to the device to look like a gadget rather than a medical device and from the prototypes that were shown, they’re succeeding. There was also the promise of a “laboratory on a chip”, much like the one discussed here. This is a single device which can be programmed to diagnose multiple conditions and brings the potential benefit of cost reduction through mass production.

The second area was on assistive technologies, typically for those with early stages of dementia. Imagine a house equipped with a variety of sensors, including motion detectors, fridge door sensors, sensors on cookers. Now imagine a computer monitoring this with rules based on “If the cooker is on but there’s no motion in the kitchen, alert the occupant” or If the fridge door is open for more than two minutes, remind the occupant”, with appropriate escalation procedures to 3^rd parties if the problem persists. A system was also demonstrated that reminded the occupant what to do if they hadn’t done it yet, e.g. put on your clothes, brush their teeth, eat your breakfast, but it could also help with cookery by taking the person through recipes step-by-step. The interface for most of those was large flatscreens. Obviously, there are concerns regarding privacy but the purpose of these systems is to keep the individual in their own home and not moved into a residential home until their condition worsens.

The third area was that of well-being and most of us will have seen gadgets like the Nike+ running system. We can expect to see more of these systems which attempt to encourage well-being through the integration of multiple technologies such as heart-rate monitoring, GPS and social networking. The presenter commented on the relative costs involved. As it’s primarily a “toy”, it’s easy to produce a quite complex device for less than a 100 GBP. However, as soon as it becomes a medical device, costs soar with regulatory testing and approval.

Finally, a couple of small devices about the size of a pack of playing cards were shown off. They weren’t specifically medical devices, but their feature was that they were aware of each other and could communicate with each other using RF. There was a simple demonstration of the devices passing information between themselves using lights on the devices and their own relative positions. However, you could also see how a Lego-like construction system would permit units with different capabilities to be assembled easily and quickly and yet act as single device.

All very interesting and quietly reassuring for someone who might need to rely on this tech in a decade or two.

Tags: healthcare, Technology

Posted in Information, Technology

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An Unusual Fish Finder

Posted by fogview at 8:26 AM on September 2, 2009

I was out running on the levee this morning and a small fishing boat zoomed by with a man and a small dog. I watched as the dog ran to the front of the boat, started barking and then turning in circles. The man immediately stopped the boat and dropped his fishing line into the water. The dog was still barking and watching the water. A minute later the man pulled out one fish and then another. This went on for a few minutes and then the man and dog took off for another site unknown.

So what does this have to do with tech? It just goes to show that some times the best solution is not always the latest high tech gadget, and can be something as simple as man’s best friend.

73’s, Tom

Tags: boat, dog, fishing

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Cash for Clunkers for your Computer?

Posted by Jeffrey Powers at 10:12 AM on August 28, 2009

A couple weeks ago I changed out my computer to a new Quad Core machine. I won’t go into details because I talked about it in a previous post called Changing out to a new computer. Nonetheless, I have been impressed with the new functionality and possible energy savings that I am getting. It does get me to wondering – should your computer be part of this “Cash for Clunkers” program?

The US did a C4C on automobiles that ended last week. Now the government is talking about allowing you rebates to change out appliances. Your refridgerator, washer, dryer and even heating – A/C units could be affected to rebates. Run on a slightly different system, you buy the appliance, then send in paperwork for the rebate. Disposal – I would guess – is your responsability.

I started thinking about the computer; It’s been sometimes referred to as an appliance. The old P166 takes a lot of power to run. Therefore, should a personal computer be a C4C?

The new machine I got was an AMD Phenom II – a Quad core machine. The Motherboard touts 140 Watt usage. Add hard drives and other items, you would want a power supply of about 450 Watts, even though usage may never take you to that amount of power. If I was to run 4 machines with that same power, they would hit about200-300 Watts each – depending on what I have installed in them. Then we have the heat factor: Let’s just say I might as well paint the wall blue and fill the room with sand because that room will be as warm as a Island day.

I have replaced 3 computers with 1. The power consumption is going to be a lot lower than before. I turn off my machines, but I know that a lot of people leave their machines running and hope that power save mode kicks in. Still, I like the idea of consolodating the machines down and saving power. By the way – I still have 2 other machines I use.

I have an old Apple G4. This machine has the PowerPC chip inside. When Apple moved to Intel, they touted that power and heat issues were part of the reasons why. Therefore, if you use a PowerPC G5 or Dual G5 to run your business, you might be really paying for a new machine just to keep that current computer running.

While we probably wont see a program for computers, you might want to consider upgrading that old machine in the basement. You might find that within a couple years that computer will pay for itself.And yes, the CRT should be replaced, too. You can find a 15″ or 17″ flat panel for as low as $30-$50 if you don’t want to buy new. I just bought a 15″ LCD monitor a few weeks ago at a garage sale for $5.

Tags: AMD, Apple, cash for clunkers, Consumer, Electronics, G5, Intel, power, power usage, powerpc, Technology, watt, watts

Posted in Technology

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Preparing to move overseas with technology (Not Todd!)

Posted by Nolan at 8:48 AM on August 6, 2009

airplane My wife and I, contributing editor Nolan, are just 4 weeks away from moving to a developing country for at least a year of humanitarian work. So what about moving with technology? First off what is not making the move?

Desktop computers and second monitors. Nope not going to make the suitcase. To much weight too much space.
Television & Players. Our 22 inch Samsung and dvd player are being given to a friend. Will certainly miss the screen and its vivid movies.
Bose audio system. This was a tough one. Its is a small 2 speaker/1 woofer system that sounds wonderful. I really debated taking it. The end decision came down to trying to clear customs in entering the country. It would probably “get lost” in transit.
Cell phones. No CDMA where we are going so the 6 year run with Verizon is over. Going to try to beg out of my contract to avoid the fee since I have 5 months left on my contract.
Printer. Once again to much space. Will look for one in country.

What is going to make the trip? Small in size items.

My wife and I each have a mac. They will both make the trip. Mine, newer, will be covered by international travel insurance against theft and accidental damage. My wife’s is 3.5 years old so we will pray over it!
Four portable hard drives in our carry-on luggage. All Seagate Free Agent drives. 1 drive for each computer that will be our daily back-up drive. 1 drive that serves as our clone and will be backed up once a month at the second office location. 1 drive that contains all of our home media (interpret that how you will, but no DVD’s or CD’s are going with us).
One desktop drive packed in a suitcase. Belongs to the organization and contains video footage (Reverse backed up to one of the portable drives).
Two still cameras. One point and shoot and one DSLR. DSLR will be insured.
One HD SSD video camera and cordless mic system. Getting decent video and audio will be important in this trip, but needed a small size without a huge (and thereby dangerous) investment.
Two iPods. One Nano and One Touch.
Power converters. These are heavy and will cost some extra money, but having dependable converters for stateside stuff is important. Those easily available in country are not dependable (learned that the hard way last trip).
Google Voice, Magic Jack, Local Phone. Another article later on how we are able to use these for easy stateside calling later.
Prayer and a rabbits foot. Somehow we need all of this to not be stolen, confiscated, or taxed up the wazoo.

What is the condition of the internet over there? First off, I have left off the exact location for personal and safety reasons. Let’s just say it is a developing country. The internet is present but slow. I expect upload speeds of somewhere between 56-128kb. It seemed like a solid connection most of the time since our VOIP calls to them work well. The pricing is either by the MB or unlimited at about $20/month. Everything works well as long as there is power and/or the back-up power supply lasts.

So here we go. A technology geek, hobby web-developer, going over to help people. 5 years ago there would have been zero internet. Going now I am blessed. Looking forward to corresponding and writing in the future from yet another technology perspective.

Tags: moving, portable, Technology

Posted in Information, Technology, internet

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Is it safe to go Home?

Posted by fogview at 2:36 PM on May 29, 2009

Garmin_gps I love my GPS and use it whenever I’m going to a new place. Last night I had to go photograph a band at a small club in San Francisco so I programmed the address into my GPS. I also used it to get home since the one-way streets in San Francisco can be confusing at night. Like most users I have a place called Home in my GPS address book. Handy, but is that really safe?

There was story in the news a few months back about thieves breaking into cars at long-term airport parking lots and stealing GPS devices from the cars. The thieves know the owner is away and may even have observed the family leaving for a family vacation. What better time to break into a house when the family is on vacation. Even better, if there is a GPS in the car, there is a good chance it has a Home favorite that leads directly to the goodies.

The take-away here is to not have a Home favorite or entry in your GPS address book. All you need to do is change the name to something else: Bob’s home; Doctor; Church. (If you travel a lot the thief may wonder why you’re going to Church every other day if he/she looks through your GPS Recent/History entries.) If you really want to be really careful, don’t use your GPS to lead directly to your house, but some place close. I changed mine to a shopping center two miles from my house.

It’s also not a good idea to have anything left in your car that has your home address. I think it’s safe to block out your address on your car registration and proof of insurance forms. If you are ever questioned, you can say you did it for security reasons.

Technology is a great time-saver but you need to be careful. Be safe out there!

73’s, Tom

Tags: airport, fogview, Garmin, GPS, safety

Posted in Security, Technology, Transportation

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Australia to get Fibre to the Premesis

Posted by todd at 11:38 PM on April 7, 2009

The Australian Government has announced that they have scrapped the tender process for a company to build an FTTN network, and will instead build its own new network that will put fibre out to 90% of all Australian homes. This is a FTTP which means that apartments will be sharing access to the fibre rather than getting one each. Home owners though will get 100Mbs fibre right to their front door.

This is great policy in terms of IT, economic stimulus and social equity. Surprisingly good from the same policy makers that brought us the great Australian firewall (more on this later). Rather than leaving it up to businesses to make economic decisions on where they can make the best profits from placing infrastructure, the government has decided to ensure everyone gets a chance by funding access for everyone. Suppliers of Internet services will then provide their services on top of this. This is identical to other utilities where the government supplies the base infrastructure to the homes and the service providers pay for access to provide their services over it.

Not only does it help to ensure everyone in the country has access to high speed broadband, it also increases the ability for true competition to exist in the market. Currently all of the Telco infrastructure is privately owned by the major carriers who despite some legislative controls, can block access to their competitors. This will allow smaller and local businesses to offer competitive options for Internet services and creative bundling of services like phone, broadband, television, etc.

What will still be lacking is the quality of service to the outside world which is restricted by the distance we are from everything. Our links to the US are not large enough to get good throughput from there now, and upping the links to everyones homes will not improve this situation. It could produce new options for local businesses though for high definition content hosted within country.

I am not holding my breath until the roll-out reaches my house as it will be an 8 year project in total. We might finally get to the technological level promised for the 90’s.

Tags: Australians to get FTTP

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How the Troops Watch the Superbowl? GBS!

Posted by susabelle at 12:45 PM on January 29, 2009

When the Steelers play the Cardinals this Sunday, 1 million are guaranteed to watch. That is why a Superbowl commercial is so expensive. But now, those 1 million people will include troops overseas.

Global Broadcast Service, a satellite communications system, will be broadcasting the game over their systems. No matter where you are – desert, mountains or even underwater – if you are set up to get the signal, you will be able to get the game.

GBS does have an advantage in that area – their communications system is already there. The company was developed to deliver imagery to troops. The systems were originally set up for the Persian Gulf War and have been used ever since.

This is not the first time they have used this system to broadcast the Superbowl – limited transmissions have been sent since 2002. This is the first time they will be broadcasting it to everyone. Since this is an IP based transmission, troops will not need a television to watch their favorite team play.

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What direction for the corporate desktop?

Posted by todd at 6:04 AM on January 28, 2009

I have seen a number of mentions of a new thin client terminal by a company called Pano Logic. Their claim is to be the “future of desktop computing”, to which they are focused more on the corporate than the home desktop. Thin client is essentially where corporate computing began, with all compute power centralised and users running from dumb terminals.

There have been multiple attempts to resurrect the theory, Sun being one of the more recent attempts. Terminal services are common in most organisations, although the terminal sessions are almost always run on full desktops rather than on specialised terminal devices. While most of the PC vendors launched specialsed terminal versions in the early 2000’s all dropped them when the market did not materialise as expected.

Pano has added a few things to the model. Their box has no moving parts at all and the client is completely embedded in the firmware. They also have some graphical redirection IP embedded in which allows them to offer a 1600×1200 desktop. They have also packaged the whole thing into a small and attractive case. If you take a look at your site you will see that they definitely get good marks for industrial styling.

I feel though that this product is likely to suffer the same fate of previous attempts at resurrecting this market. PC’s are just too cheap, and users like to have local storage. Once the cost of the monitor is removed, a corporate PC typically runs well under $1000 and with current SOE images can be treated as essentially a commodity component. For most organisations the cost of desktop support is in the applications not the hardware.

A technology more likely to take hold is a new one from Citrix that allows any computer to easily run a corporate desktop. Essentially it means that rather than using your employer supplied notebook, you could use your own at work. Your company would give you an allowance to fund that device. Also when you connected to a VPN service from your home computer, you would get the complete service of your corporate login rather than restricted services.

With the hypervisor ready platforms that are available today switching between personal and corporate images would be quick and seamless. I talk with many corporate IT groups in my day job, and a large number of them are looking at ways to do just this. Rather than manage a hardware SOE they want to be able to purchase whatever is easiest for them. With notebook users they are also sick of meeting all the requests for the latest trendy notebook. As these requests often come from executives and senior management they are often hard to ignore.

While the Pano system does have a few advantages for the IT department, never underestimate the power of users to determine what the standards end up being.

Tags: new technology from citrix more likely to succeed than Pano Logic

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Android for Pre likely, with or without Palm

Posted by todd at 5:43 AM on January 22, 2009

In my article on Pre last week I mentioned that Palm would do well to investigate having an Android or Windows Mobile version. According to Engadget, if Palm does not put out an Android version, the hacker community might do it for them. Given that the processor in their phone is not a proprietary one it should be possible for someone to do provided they can get access to the bootloader.

I believe it is in Palm’s best interest to get an Android version out to market before the ‘jailbreak’ versions start. If they do they will retain control of their platform. I am also pretty sure they will also gain a huge amount of geek cred and accelerate their market share.

Tags: Android for Pre with or without Palm

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Is Pre enough to save Palm?

Posted by todd at 5:16 AM on January 15, 2009

Palm’s long awaited responce to it’s rapidly disappearing market was finally released at CES. If you have not yet seen the details of the Pre listen to #442, or check out the Engadget wrap-up of the product.

The product itself looks pretty good. I think the smaller size is attractive without compromising the viewing space, and having a fast OS is essential. I am not confident that this will be the product to recapture market share for Palm, and not just because the name is a little tacky and derivative.

Palm is late to the market. Blackberry and HP did much to move the PDA market to the smartphone before Apple’s entry heated the market white hot. Since then Apple has released a second generation phone, RIM has produced a response product, the first Android phone has been released and all the traditional mobile phone companies have released some form of competing product.

While there is space for a good alternative phone to carve out a small niche for itself, Palm cannot afford to be that company. It is too large to survive as a niche player in this market, and they do not have a suite of other products to support them. In order to save their company they need this product to be a big player, prefferably top 3 in this market.

While the product seems at this stage to be good enough to compete, most of the potential customers have already purchased a phone from one of their competitors. For them to catch the amount of market they needed, the Pre needed to not just be good enough to compete, it needed to have something bigger and better, and it does not have that. Typically if you are late to market you need to be either perceptibly better or significantly cheaper if you want to get market share and the Pre is neither of these.

I am also concerned with their decision to also include a new operating system. The decision was probably made quite some time ago, and changing tack mid stream would have delayed the product even further. Unfortunately for Palm now though, to get the same applications as their competitors they will need to develop them in house or bribe companies to make Palm versions. While it does give them better control over the product features they may have been able to make the splash they needed if they had made it an Android phone. Or they could have teamed with the other laggard in this market and used the Windows OS. Palm have previously had both PalmOS and Windows versions of their PDAs on the market, so maybe this is something we will see later in the year.

The feature that has my interest the most though is the Synergy information correlation engine which pulls together information from the different applications on the phone that it finds it can link, like linkin your contact, facebook friend and gmail details for your friends. This is the type of feature that would make a lot of difference to me. This is unlikely to create the sort of strategic advantage they need as it software and too easy for their competitors to copy quickly.