PhoneSecure
On 12 January, 2005, by se99jmk
I'm not generally an insecure person. I'm perfectly happy with carrying in excess of ?1000 in electronics on my person... well, maybe I should get some protection after all, and I've found it, in the form of PhoneSecure.
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Phraselator
On 12 January, 2005, by se99jmk
One step closer to the babelfish from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
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Epson fabricates 20-layer PCB using InkJet tec
On 05 November, 2004, by Dreadnought
Epson has fabricated a 200micron thick 20 layer using their own InkJet technology with a conductive ink containing silver micro-particles measuring from several nanometers to several tens of nanometers in diameter, and a newly developed insulator ink.
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PetaPixel displays, 100TB storage and more...
On 05 November, 2004, by Dreadnought
Colossal Storage is developing 14M dpi or 200Tpixels per square inch of near-non-volatile display. It is based on a ferroelectric material which gives each pixel a state retension of up to 12 hours. Display resolutions of up to 4Petapixel will be possible with this technology.
Colossal Storage is also developing a holographic media which can store 10TB on a single 3?" disc. The theory behind it can go up to 1.5Exabytes (1.5x10^1
.
They are currently looking for companies who are interresting in licensing the products.
Click here to read more...
You and ZZZ Online
article written by : killdashnine released on : 07 May, 2004 | send killdashnine a private message! killdashnine's rating : ***** |
This is just a quick note to all you ZZZ readers out there. If you have any interest in writing, we'd really like to hear from you. ZZZ has come a long way throughout the 4+ years of it's life, but right now we have a serious lack of regular writers. We have added several people to our ranks, but what we really need now is 2-3 creative individuals who are willing to provide witty and unique content to the site.
Just about any registered member of ZZZ may contribute via the Submissions Area of the site (this will appear on Your Menu when you register and activate your account). From there, you can draft articles, upload small images into your personal directory, and work at your own pace. When you're ready, you can submit your work for review.
You can read more about how you'd go about writing for ZZZ by reading our Guidelines and checking our FAQ, but for detailed information please contact killdashnine.
What we are really looking for is a few people with some street cred in the fields of science and technology in general who perhaps already write in their own weblog but have come to the realization that there is power in numbers. ZZZ is a community-based e-zine with our focus on a unique niche market of the internet. We don't hope to copy Slashdot, Gizmodo, or other websites which mostly regurgitate interesting sci-tech news and show flashy toys but then leave you flat when it comes to the "in house" details. On the contrary, we'd like to find some authors out there who write with a personal bent and dig up unique things or at the very least leave you with that refreshing "hmmmm" after you've read their work.
If you've got the time and the talent, if you read tech journals for fun, if you spend your nights scouring the internet for the most bizarre reads and images instead of sleeping, you are already one of us! Please help us to restore our roster of creative geeks and keep ZZZ Online rolling along.
If you don't have the time, but still have interest, feel free to send us thoughts and ideas for upcoming articles. Also, if you have your own site, please post one of our banners and we'll return the favor:
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ZZZ gets well over a Million hits per month, so if you're a lonely blogger, here's your chance for an open audience. Even if you have your own site, we'd be happy to have you post your articles in both locations. Feel free to contact killdashnine for more details!
Thanks,
ZZZ Online
Taxis in the Sky
article written by : killdashnine released on : 07 May, 2004 | send killdashnine a private message! killdashnine's rating : ***** |
If you've ever had a bad experience with public transportation, you realize that there's a virtually unlimited room for improvement. Berlin's U-Bahn and the transportation systems of New York and Washington D.C. seemed to be pretty good people movers, but then again they all lack the personal touch ... there's no individual (take me here) attitude, no attention to the personal aspect of transportation. It's all about mass transit ... getting hoardes of people from Point A to Point B as quickly as possible.
Let's talk worst-case scenario. I recall an evening where my fiance? and I decided to take a cab to a company Christmas party. A few inches of snow coated the roads that evening and we thought that with alcohol involved, it'd be best to let someone else do the driving.
No, not this worst-case!
In the cab ride to downtown St. Louis, our ex-New York City taxi driver felt obliged to tell us about all of his beliefs ... how he hated sports, believed he was God's gift to women and (in the same breath) that women should be "barefoot and pregnant". By the end of the ride, we were so enraged that we nearly refused to pay the fare, but in some ways were shaken by the jehu effect ... we were thankful enough that we hadn't been killed by his horrible aggressive driving (obviously part of the taxi driver training program!).
SkyWeb Express
So ... (long breathy pause) ... how do you avoid this kind of situation? Going back a way to Issue 112 of ZZZ where we discussed a "FROG" or Free Ranging On Grid approach to public transit in Iceland. The original problem was: "The buses don't go where I want to go, wait until I am done there, and then take me back." Sure, like rude and disrespectful cab drivers do?
One answer to this is SkyWeb Express. This is a proposed mini-monorail system for the Greater Minneapolis area.
Little cab, free range.
"SkyWeb Express is very user friendly. Just swipe a pre-paid card through a stanchion in front of an empty waiting vehicle, punch in the destination number, take a seat in the vehicle and our computer control system will sweep you non-stop to your destination.
It operates on demand whenever you need it. Empty vehicles wait for you - not the other way around. The ride is private. You don't share your trip with strangers, just with your family or friends. - Skywebexpress.com"
So the single most important thing here is that someone is actually designing tech for the convenience of the user (for a change)!
Of interest to ZZZers out there with a Physics bent will be the drive mechanism, a linear induction motor which propels the vehicle forward or brakes it according to the need via a series of electromagnets. You can find an additional discussion of linear induction on skyweb's site or read about other monorail systems like The Seraphim motor.
Where you going, foo?!
The SkyWeb Express isn't going anywhere, yet. Like anything, people have to buy into public transportation which often turns into tax levies, which people aren't often happy about. Despite that, when I think about my local mass transit debacle here in St. Louis (Metrolink) light rail system which has taken 10 years to finally go somewhere useful, SkyWeb may have a better chance.
"SkyWeb Express can be installed for a fraction of the cost of other rail systems. The costs are low for two reasons. First, we don?t require the purchases of miles of expense right of way. True, we do require rights of way. But the small metal poles do not require much space and can generally be placed on public land at no cost. And even when SkyWeb Express crosses private property, only air rights are needed. Second, the construction process is fast, saving millions of dollars."
So when the basics are covered and, for a large city, some estimated $61 million dollars can be covered by Federal matches and other investments, you've got yourself a transit system!
Practical uses ... taking you someplace to exercise? Umm, why don't you just ride there?
here for a bigger image
Frog Legs?
Ok then, we're back to FROG, but this time in the Netherlands. FROG Navigation Systems and its subsidiaries like ParkShuttle discussion at Washington.edu"
Shuttling people around autonomously ...
Where were these guys during the DARPA Grand Challenge? Well Free Ranging On Grid technology doesn't take that much intelligence for one ... these aren't autonomous ground vehicles:
"Each vehicle has an on-board computer which stores an electronic map of the area in which the vehicle is required to operate. Using this map, the vehicle is able to plan its route to drive from point A to point B. The vehicle's starting position is known. As soon as the vehicle starts to move, it measures the distance traveled by means of encoders that count the number of wheel revolutions. At bends it is possible to calculate the vehicle's position from the angle of the wheels. This method may suffer from slight inaccuracies as a result of changes in vehicle load (full or empty) or an uneven or slippery road surface. For this reason, a number of calibration points are required at regular distances to check the calculated position and adjust it when necessary. These points are magnets embedded in the road surface. Each vehicle measures the location of magnets by means of a magnet ruler. Positioning accuracy of better than 3 cm is achieved, sufficient for the vehicle to come to a halt right next to the platform at a stop. - ParkShuttle discussion at Washington.edu"
Whew. From this, it seems safe. More notes on the ParkShuttle projectare here. A better representation on how this works can be found at the University of Washington's website. By the way, the next generation of the ParkShuttle is currently in development.
More Pictures of Autonomous Vehicles: Peoplemovers.nl
CyberCabs
Maybe we're on the way towards an autonomous future ... are we going to see the JohnnyCab someday?
Where to, Goverrnor Schwarzenegger?.
The CyberCab (by the same manufacturer in the Netherlands) is similar ... still ground-based.
Look Ma! No steering wheel!
This was used successfully in the 2002 Floridae horticultural show, autonomously taking visitors around a track to view the gardens. Interesting, but the details behind the navigational systems and mechanisms that automate the cybercabs is still somewhat unclear to me (DARPA-style unclear, that is) the environmental and sociological impact is intriguing:
"In the canton of Vaud, which I mentioned above, there is a town of 15 000 inhabitants on the banks of Lake Geneva called Nyon. The number of cabs permanently in operation would be about 1500, equal to about a tenth of the population. The parking space needed for them is shown in Figure 4. When the cars that are nowadays parked along the streets are removed, a great deal of space would be made available for the new small-scale cybercabs (Figure 6). The cab's screen would show the traffic network for the whole area, the parking slots, and, if required, people's addresses and houses. Once the destination has been entered, the route, nearest recommended parking slot, present position of the cab, and estimated travelling and arrival times appear on the screen. The cab can be left at any point along the route where it will be automatically directed to the nearest parking space, just like taxis today return to the nearest rank (Figure 5). " - Finnish Road Administration Website
Interesting to say the least. The future is here to some extent, although honestly, I won't be happy until the cars are autonomous and they are FLYING!
- killdashnine
Issue Image!
I thought that fuel for cars was high enough, but when airplanes are lining up outside the gas station, we must not have it so bad!