T-Mobile has announced limited edition Sidekicks designed by fashion designers Diane von Furstenberg and Lifted Research Group.
While there doesn’t appear to be any new features in these two editions, if you want something even Paris probably won’t have, then preorder yours now from the T-Mobile site.
I was heading to the msdn blogs aggregate page to peek at what the Microsoftie bloggers were up to today but decided to go through the main MSDN page first, when lo and behold, I learn that a new and improved ‘XML Notepad’ has been released!
Here is the MSDN tech article on XML Notepad, why it hasn’t been updated since 1998 and details on the new and improved version, it’s a good read.
You can download the tool here.
(thumbnail is clickable)
You may have heard on Wednesday that a single-engine plane crashed into a New York Upper East Side apartment building.
Before the sattelite van could arrive at the scene, a Fox News camerman delivered some of the first live video to viewers from the crash site using a Palm Treo 680 that could stream video. The streaming video software Fox uses is called CometVision by Comet Video Technologies. Apparently Fox News is outfitting all their affiliates with 2 or 3 of these things for just such breaking news incidents.
In 1966 a US Bomber plane collided in mid-air over Spain and crashed with several nuclear bombs on board. Looks like we missed something in the ensuing cleanup job.
Follow the interesting tale of a U.S. library researcher for the Oxford English Dictionary play detective decades ago in tracking down the antedate and etymology for the word ‘Nachos’.
As the largest city influenced by Tex-Mex trends, San Antonio might possibly yield a clue to nacho…
…how could anyone who has looked at and eaten nachos see any relationship between one of these and the adjective flat-nosed?…
[found via geekpress]
The US Army has filed a patent for a thermal site that mounts to a rifle. Big deal you say? Well this one doesn’t require the soldier to peek through the scope potentially exposing his head to enemy fire.
The patent proposes that a remote visual display, attached to the helmet via a cable, which in turn attaches to the night scope. As the drawing below illustrates, the user does not need to expose him/herself in order to sight the target.
[Found via NewScientistTech]
Positivesharing.com has a great sampling of 10 really cool workplaces that are creative and innovative and bound to keep most any “worker bee” happy and working at their best. These work environments are well designed and the complete opposite of the trend towards cramming more people into smaller places.
Check it out, the article has tons of pics including the ‘conference bike‘ which has to be seen to be believed.
LinuxDevices.com has all 3 presentations from mobile Linux experts recently presenting on the subject: “State of Linux on Mobile Devices“. The presentations were held at the SDForum meeting recently in Palo Alto, they give an overview of where Linux is today compared to Windows Mobile and Symbian.
The presenters were from Trolltech, OSDL and Access/PalmSource.
Phillips’ Lighting division has a new wake-up lamp, which emits light that gradually increases to the intensity you have selected, simulating the rising sun in your bedroom, gently preparing your body to wake up.
According to Phillips,
“the light falls on your eyes and sends your brain a message to reduce the production of melatonin, the sleep-inducing hormone. Over 30 minutes, the natural light gradually increases to reach the optimal intensity to wake you up at the set time, in a pleasant manner that leaves you feeling energized and ready to wake up. The light intensity can also be adjusted to your own personal preference.”
Check out this video of a bunch of geeks trying to prank their coworker who’s off getting married. Good stuff.
Note: If you’re a developer and don’t already follow Josh Ledgard’s blog, you should save his rss feed, he gives a great insider’s view to the Developer Division at Microsoft and the developer community efforts he’s involved in. I found this via Sara Ford’s blog, another one worth saving!
Two scientists, George Smoot and John Mather, have been selected to receive the 2006 Nobel for Physics for their detection and analysis of evidence that gives us a ‘shapshot’ of the universe approx 380,000 years after the big bang. The big bang occurred over 13 Billion years ago.
They leveraged NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer satellite to detect cosmic microwave background that is widely believed to be a remnant of the Big Bang.
This slick little number is a concept phone from BenQ called ‘Black Box‘ that’s basically one big touchscreen. This little number would have no push buttons, not sure how I would react to this as I like a little tactile feedback.
Again, this is just a concept phone so you probably won’t be seeing one for several years at the earliest (if ever).
C|Net has an article describing the new dual screen laptops we’re all about to know and love running Vista.
Wired has a funny and only vaguely helpful article on how to disarm an atomic bomb. At a high level the steps include:
And if you’re interested, we have ‘How to Make an Atomic Bomb” from The Journal of Irreproducible Results. You know it’s gonna be fun when Step 1 starts with
“First, obtain about 50 pounds (110 kg) of weapons grade Plutonium at your local supplier”
PCMag has their list of the worst of the worst tech products of this last quarter. While you’re at it, here’s the worst of Q1 and Q2 as well. Enjoy.
Wired has a neat article (‘Map Quest‘) on the processes used by companies to put together the digital maps used by in-car navigation devices, GPS’ and computers.
From the article: “It’s geeky data miners vs. old-school drivers in the pitched battle to provide digital driving directions to the likes of Google and Garmin. May the best map win.”
Traffic is the bane of all commuters. This article on OmniNerd by Brandon U. Hansen analyzes a year of data to determine if minor tweaks to departure times can significantly impact commute length – or if it is all out of the driver’s control. For a full year he kept track of the departure and arrival times both to and from work & home, the results are very interesting.
Here’s an article/review of an x86 simulator running MS-DOS that was ported to a Palm PDA. It has 80 col x 25 rows, can run many DOS apps like Word 5, QBasic, etc…Long live DOS!
Good stuff.
Microsoft’s Usability team is looking for smartphone or cell phone enthusiasts in the Seattle area to evaluate devices for them. Get the details on Andrew Nickels’ MSDN blog. Participating in usability tests is pretty cool because you get early access to some of the latest and greatest hardware and software sometimes a year or more before the public sees it. Plus you go home with a free piece of SW or HW as a gratuity.
Rumor has it that only 10,000 customers signed up for the ESPN Mobile service, obviously not enough to support the service. Well, today ESPN calls it quits and announced it’s getting out of the phone business at the end of the year.