Coffee Table to Run iTunes Connection

A company "Savant" are set to build a coffee table powered by Apple to run iTunes at home.



The idea is that from the coffee table on can use a 40" touchscreen that is fully integrated with iTunes.

The table is powered by a Mac hidden in the table. It will access a user's music, photos, movies and provide home automation functions. From the coffee table one can select to show movies, photos and other video on a home theater system, or can run music and pipe it through the home using a home audio system.



This is similar to what was announced by Microsoft except that the Apple innovation connects a table to iTunes.

Not sure I like the table, maybe it might be made available in a selection of furniture some of which may be more appealing than the table shown.

Read the rest of this entry »

Holiday Lighting Remote Kit

Tired of climbing behind your Christmas tree to turn it on? I always come out with a hair full of tinsel, which is a nice look, but more New Year''s, don''t you think?

This year we''re using Smart Home''s INSTEON Wireless Remote Starter kit which controls all your outside Christmas lights, that tasteful blow-up Santa on the lawn, and the holiday Douglas fir.

Smart Home tells us that the INSTEON Holiday Lighting Starter Kit can be set up "in less than five minutes" (it took me a little longer) to control any connected device remotely using a simple "Plug and Tap" setup process. For example, to control "linked" devices, you can tap one of the RemoteLinc''s buttons on or off, or you can hold a button to brighten or dim. Each of the six ON/OFF buttons on the RemoteLinc can be set up to control every light or just one light in your home remotely. (It can be used over 150'' from the Access Point .)



For only $89.99 you can simplify your holidays -- and leave the tinsel for the blow-out New Year''s party. Some lucky POPGADGET email subscriber will win one of these, so make sure you''re on Santa''s favorites list.

Read the rest of this entry »

About noise canceling headphones

One of the common mistakes we all make when wearing headphones is that we crank up the volume when there is noise around us. This is the worst thing to do according to Electronic House in the article "The Buzz on Noise Canceling Headphones"



Real noise-cancelling headphones have a microphone on the outside of your headphones. The noise is then translated to an opposing sound wave that is then fed into your headphones along with the music. The sound waves that are provided with your music cancels out the sounds from around you.

Read the rest of this entry »

Motorola Now Number 3

Ouch. According to Gartner, Motorola has sold 38% less phones in the third quarter of this year than the same quarter of last year. Samsung has taken over the number 2 spot, while Nokia now enjoys 38% market share. All despite total mobile sales increasing by 15% to reach 289 units.

Gartner's report speculates on the reason behind Motorola's troubles:
Its problems have been two-fold, according to (Gartner analyst) Milanesi. Motorola hasn't developed a phone to ignite the imagination in the way its popular Razr did a few years ago, she said, leaving it with a weak line-up. "The Razr2 has done okay, but it's not had the same impact that the first Razr did," she said.


In addition, Motorola's sales into the channel - or the phones it ships to retailers - have been weak, she said. This was offset in the first half of the year because retailers had a buildup of Motorola stock, which they could sell at low prices to boost shipments, she said. "This quarter the sales into the channel are still weak, but they don't have much inventory to do fire sales like they could in Q1 and Q2."
In the same breath, Milanesi calls Nokia "unassailable," selling over 110 million phones in just one quarter. So it looks like that the dominance of the Finns isn't changing any time soon. Which suits me just fine. Let's just see what the other industry analyst companies say.

Read the rest of this entry »

Still in the dark on Steve Jobs

Last month, I did a blog entry slagging off at the Apple board and its total failure of corporate governance, keeping shareholders in the dark about Steve Jobs, his health and the likelihood or otherwise of him staying at the company.

If nothing else, the board confirmed its ineptitude at the firm's annual shareholders meeting. As Reuters reports, the board just said Jobs remained deeply involved with the company, without spelling out exactly how, and refused to answer questions about reports that the US Securities and Exchange Commission was examining Apple's conduct in disclosing Jobs' health problems.

That's not to say shareholders seem to care that much. According to that report, they even sang "Happy Birthday" for the boy who turned 54 this week.

Still, they should be concerned. As David Coursey at PCWorld says, Steve Jobs is unlikely to return to Apple. He was more or less sending that signal by skipping the shareholders' meeting. And that, as Coursey says, raises questions about Apple's future. "As long as Steve Jobs can read a memo or look at designs and say, "this one, not that one," Apple is remains in good hands. But, we have already seen what happens when Apple loses i(t)s vision. When that happens, as it eventually must, its not clear Apple's creative culture will be able to pick up where one man's vision leaves off."

Read the rest of this entry »

I Mean Seriously, Americ

America, you"ve got to be kidding me. Did you really fall for all the sentimental crap the producers shoveled out about personality-free performer Michael Sarver? Apparently you did because the sympathetic yet bland roughneck earned a place in the American Idol top twelve last night, baffling thousands of people who surely expected that spot to go to Anoop Desai, Ricky Braddy, or at least Tatiana del Toro. In Ricky, we would have had a better vocalist. In Anoop, we would have had a better personality. And in Tatiana, we would have had a better crazy. C"mon now. This is just ludicrous.

After seeing Tatiana"s fluttering heart nearly send her fainting to the floor, I think we can all agree she"s a precious gift from the reality gods that needs to be savored, nourished, and encouraged. Why would we ever send her away so soon? Did you not see her emotional hysterics in the background? She is the unqualified star of this early season! Don"t vanquish her! I"m holding out for the Wild Card round, but honestly, I"m just not sure that"ll be good enough. Who knows what talent the next two weeks will bring. Only three wild cards can go on to the big twelve, and I fear the odds are stacked against Tatiana (not to mention Ricky and Anoop). Oooooh, I just hate when a nonentity like Michael Sarver excels. Simon said people should vote for him because he seemed like a nice guy who needed a break. Guess what -Â they all need a break. Damn you people for being so pliable!

Read the rest of this entry »

Peek at Arlenis Sosa ad for Lancome

What can I say, except that she looks gorgeous and I can"t wait to see the rest of the campaign. Anyone ever use Lancome products? I seem to remember trying one of their Color ID foundations a few years back but not being impressed enough to buy it.

Source: Dominican Fashion Models

Read the rest of this entry »

Bullshit Detector

The Local Government Association in the UK has compiled a list of bullshit terms that should not be used by councils. If you pay council tax, then you might be interested in how much bullshit you"re getting for your money. Well now"s your chance to find out.

There was only 1 bullshit term found on The Presurfer.

Enter the URL of a web page to check for bullshit.

Read the rest of this entry »

Picnic by Juicy Couture

The speaker dimensions are 12"H x 13"W x 6"D. There"s no word on the wattage, so the sound quality is anyone"s guess. The kit is available for $248. Just like the tagline says it"s "everything you need to take your beau or bestie out for a picnic."

Via UberGizmo

Read the rest of this entry »

Staying safe in snow

The inviting expanse of shimmering snow contrasts with the non-malignant blue sky above. The ski instructor briefly goes over the planned run, his first charge glides off into the distance and sets off a slab avalanche. The group all look on helplessly as their friend is buried under a wall of snow. Bernhard Budaker of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA knows this kind of scenario is all too common. But scientists at the Institute recently developed a new avalanche airbag system for ABS Peter Aschauer GmbH, in which an electronic unit ensures a ski instructor or friend of any similarly hapless individual can remotely trigger the airbag stowed in their backpack. The product went on sale in December 2009. Avalanche airbags have been in use for over a quarter of a century. A simple tug on the activation handle will inflate two airbags stowed in a backpack. The massive extra volume they create gives the body additional buoyancy the skier is no longer buried under the snow.

To date, however, the problem has always been that skiers have had to activate the airbag inflation system themselves. If skiers fail to notice in time that they've set off an avalanche, the airbag won't help them, says Budaker. But now the IPA group manager and his team have replaced ABS's manual activation unit with an electronic system, and fitted a new trigger: We've redesigned the activation handle to incorporate many electronic components, so airbag inflation can be initiated by other members of a skiing party as well. It will be perfectly easy to retrofit all the old-style backpacks with the new system. When the traditional activation handle is pulled, it creates a pressure wave in the tube, which punctures a gas cartridge and causes the airbags to inflate. In the new system, a pyrotechnic element is used to ignite the gas cartridge. As Budaker explains, the electronic solution offers the advantage of allowing all the airbags carried by a particular skiing party to be networked: We transmit on 868 and 915 Megahertz. The optical application programming interface permits specific groups to be defined. Group members simply need to touch all their handles together for them to become a unit. One option is for the ski instructor to be designated the master, his charges the slaves in this case, only the master can trigger the others' airbags. Alternatively, all members of the group can be designated masters and help each other in an emergency. The activation signal currently has a range of between 350 and 500 meters, but this distance can be extended, given that every group member effectively acts as a relay station as each trigger handle passes on the signal.........

Read the rest of this entry »

In search of speed

You couldn't have asked for a better day for a competition. It's minus five degrees, the sun's shining and there's not a breath of wind. The snow's perfect and the biathlete's in top form. He's one of the best he can win the race. Often there's only a few thousandths of a second between the victor and the vanquished, so the gliding ability of his skis is very important. And this depends on several factors, not least whether the wax mixture he's applied suits the particular type of snow.

Anyone looking for optimal ski performance must first understand the laws of friction. That is why wax and ski coating manufacturers are counting on the expertise of scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Mechanics of Materials IWM in Freiburg. The researchers have been studying the gliding ability of skis and know how to make ski athletes go like the wind. Prof. Dr. Matthias Scherge, Head of the new Microtrobilogy Center in Karlsruhe, says: The snow, the ski coating and the wax that is applied all unite to form a single entity. We can't alter the snow, but we can adapt both the wax and the coating to suit particular snow conditions. The scientists use a special technique to analyze the friction and gliding effects; they simulate the contact between a single snow crystal and the coating with the aid of a test rig, and then measure the coefficient of friction in relation to temperature. It's the first 10 to 15 nanometers of the coating surface that.........

Read the rest of this entry »

Inmates comfortable with diversity

'Ethnicity, Identity and Social Relations in Prison', carried out by Dr. Coretta Philips of the London School of Economics, explored how prisoners' ethnic identities helped them cope with prison life, and whether such identities informed a social pecking order and the formation of gangs. More specifically, it explored the influence of prison practices on prisoner and group identities.

In January 2009 British broadsheets voiced fears of a flourishing gang culture in UK top-security prisons following an inspection report on Long Lartin jail in Worcestershire. By contrast, the LSE research - comprising ethnographic studies conducted in Kent over eight months each at a young offenders' institution and an adult male prison - observed that, superficially at least, there was an acceptance of diversity amongst prisoners, with some welcoming it.

There were no gangs in either institution, and no religious or ethnic pecking order. However, prisoners tended towards same-ethnicity friendships, and formed groups providing physical protection, for sharing, and for access to items such as mobile phones and drugs. Muslim groups encompassing a range of ethnicities were both envied by non-Muslims for their potential for seeking concessions on religious grounds, and disparaged for their solidarity.........

Read the rest of this entry »

Judges' rulings are being swayed by campaign contributions

Labor law expert Michael LeRoy says he found evidence that judges' rulings are being swayed by campaign contributions from businesses, based on a new study of more than 200 state court cases. | Photo by L. Brian Stauffer

Photo by
L. Brian Stauffer

A pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling could aggravate the influence of corporate campaign spending that already has skewed justice in some of the nation's courts, a University of Illinois labor law expert warns.

Michael LeRoy says he found evidence that judges' rulings are being swayed by campaign contributions from businesses, based on a newly released study of more than 200 state court cases. The study will appear in the Iowa Law Review.

He predicts justice would tip even more out of balance if the Supreme Court strikes down limits on election spending in a high-stakes challenge to the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reforms Act of 2002, usually known as the McCain-Feingold bill.

The high court's ruling, expected as early as this week, could give corporations, unions and activist groups virtual free rein to run election-time ads for and against candidates, legal analysts say, and lay the groundwork for direct donations to political campaigns.

"It would open up the spigot for judicial contributions and greatly aggravate the problem, further politicizing and polarizing some of these state courts," said LeRoy, a professor of labor and of law.

Debate over the looming court ruling in the case - Citizens United v. the Federal Election Commission - has centered largely on how the flood of money would affect presidential and congressional elections. LeRoy says the impact on judicial campaigns is just as worrisome.........

Read the rest of this entry »

Lifestyle Traits and Foreclosure Rates

A homeowner's station in life and personal spending beliefs and habits are important indicators of the borrower's potential for home-mortgage default, say scientists in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Business.

"Our research has shown that a borrower's personal traits and behaviors have considerable influence on their willingness and ability to repay a mortgage loan and avoid foreclosure," says Stephanie Rauterkus, Ph.D., UAB assistant professor of finance.

"Traditionally, the industry has focused on default pressures like income, credit scores or loan-to-home-value ratios, but our research has shown that borrowers who may look identical by these traditional measures could have very different default probabilities based on their behavioral characteristics," she says.

The study, Behavioral Determinants of Mortgage Default, was authored by Rauterkus, her husband Andreas Rauterkus, Ph.D., UAB assistant professor of finance, and Grant Thrall, Ph.D., professor of geography at the University of Florida.

The scientists considered a sample of 7,000 mortgages from public records in Jefferson County, Ala. Borrowers were classified into one of 12 so called LifeMode groups, which were based on classifications established by the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI).........

Read the rest of this entry »

Satisfied and Well-informed Consumers

Expert consumers like to be surprised by unusual product presentation, while novices crave familiarity, so claims a new Pitt/USC study titled "Smart Subcategories: How Assortment Formats Influence Consumer Learning and Satisfaction," to be reported in the recent issue of "Journal of Consumer Research".

"How can retailers help consumers become more informed about the products they use while also making them happy?" write authors Cait Poynor, Pitt assistant professor of business administration in the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, and Stacy Wood, University of South Carolina professor of marketing. The answer seems to be in organizing products tailored to customers' knowledge levels. Their research indicates that simply organizing a store's existing stock in different ways can improve consumers' learning and their degree of satisfaction.

What works for one consumer may not work for another, however. The authors observed that highly knowledgeable consumers liked being surprised by product formats; conversely, novice consumers had an easier time when familiar with product groupings.

The data was collected from 123 undergraduate students who completed a two-part study as part of their course work. Both parts were carried out online where the presentation of information could be manipulated. The benefit of an online environment is the infinite number of ways Web sites can be organized, says Poynor.........

Read the rest of this entry »

Egg Shape Mobile Living Space

This unit, the blob VB3, is mainly made by polyester, and holds all necessary items one could possibly need as bathroom, kitchen, lighting, sleeping space and several niches for storage.

Moreover, the nose can be opened automatically and functions as a porch. While being closed, it blends into a complete smooth blob.

Read the rest of this entry »

New technology slow to hit U.S. shores

I an article from Variety below because some of you are interested in newer technologies.

A cell phone with an HD screen that tricks your brain into thinking it's watching a 48-inch letterbox plasma TV. Cell phones with rollout screens. A broadcast network devoted entirely to mobile programming.

These technologies and others have already hit the streets, or will soon, in Europe and Asia. But in America, they may as well be science fiction.... The U.S. continues to lag in implementing new cellular and digital technologies. And while there are signs that gap may be closing, it's done little to shed the impression that this is a nation of Luddites.

The reasons for this technological jet lag are both cultural and practical.

For one, emerging markets that have no ingrained infrastructure in place (and fewer compatibility issues between companies) ....

There is one glaring technological bright spot for the U.S.: hi-def. Voom HD Networks general manager Greg Moyer observes that U.S. prominence in hi-def is a direct result of national policy.

I include a picture of this gizmo that looks interesting. It belongs to Dutch company Polymer Vision who unveiled the Readius in 2005, but cell phones with rollout screens have eluded the U.S. market to date.

Read the rest of this entry »

Transparent toaster

I know there are fancy toasters out there, but essentially most toasters work in the same way, whether you paid $10 for your little machine or $300. You set the timer, put the slice of bread in, and it pops out when done. If it''s not quite toasty enough, you put it back in. If it''s burned and inedible, you throw it out and start over with a new piece of bread.

But here''s a concept product that not only takes the guess work out of toasting, but also turns something common into a bit of visual interest for your kitchen. The Transparent Toaster toasts your bread or pastry (using "heating glass technology," whatever that is) in plain view so you can watch it to be sure it comes out just right

Via Ananova (but no information about the designer or prospects for making this into a commercial product). This tiip comes from Emily.

Read the rest of this entry »

Skewered Pumpkins

We encounter valves every day, whether in the water faucet, the carburetor in our car, or our bicycle tire tube. Valves are also present in the world of nanotechnology. A team of scientists headed by J. Fraser Stoddart and Jeffrey I. Zink at the University of California, Los Angeles, has now developed a new nanovalve. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, the researchers reveal what is special about it: In contrast to previous versions, which only function in organic solvents, this valve operates in an aqueous environment and under physiological conditions-prerequisites for any application as a gate for nanoscopic drug-transport agents, which need to set their cargo free at the right place and time.

In order for pharmaceuticals to affect only the target diseased organ, suitable nanopackaging is mandatory to bring the drug to the target area and release it only there. One example of a good nanoscopic packaging agent is a tiny sphere of porous silica. Its pores can be filled with the drug and closed with tiny controllable valves.

The researchers attached stem-shaped molecules onto the surface of the porous spheres and filled the pores with guest molecules. At neutral to acidic pH values, they stacked cucurbituril molecules onto these "stems". Cucurbituril is a fat, ring-shaped molecule reminiscent of a pumpkin that has both ends hollowed out. The resulting supramolecular structure, which resembles a skewered pumpkin and is known to chemists as a pseudorotaxane, blocks the pores, so that the guest molecules cannot exit. The nanovalve is closed.........

Read the rest of this entry »

Origami Space Flight

Japanese scientists and origami masters hope to launch a paper airplane from space and learn from its trip back to Earth. It''s no joke. A prototype passed a durability test in a wind tunnel this month, Japan''s space agency adopted it Wednesday for feasibility studies, and a well-known astronaut is interested in participating.

In the picture above, a 2.8 inches long and 2 inches wide Space Shuttle-shaped paper plane is seen in a wind tunnel before a durability test at a Tokyo University laboratory.

Read the rest of this entry »