What People Want:

A look back at 2005 wouldn't be complete without some lists. Ok i know its a little early to call the year and i will be blogging extensively from home during my work break, but here are some of the most popular searches this year on Google. Some are quite interesting looks into pop culture and people's behavior.

Google.com - Top Gainers of 2005
1. Myspace
2. Ares
3. Baidu
4. wikipedia
5. orkut
6. iTunes
7. Sky News
8. World of Warcraft
9. Green Day
10. Leonardo da Vinci

The Force vs. Darkside










Good to know the Force is still winning(the search war).

Google News - Top Searches in 2005
1. Janet Jackson
2. Hurricane Katrina
3. tsunami
4. xbox 360
5. Brad Pitt
6. Michael Jackson
7. American Idol
8. Britney Spears
9. Angelina Jolie
10. Harry Potter
*Nice to see that despite all the happenings of 2005, Janet's wardrobe malfunction was still the more popular than Katrina or the 360.

Shredder










Snowboarding, a newer phenomenon than the other two, shows a distinctly seasonal pattern – after all, it’s most effective when there’s snow. But regardless of geography or season, each adrenaline pumper has its own partisans and plenty of search interest. Surfing is still the best and we know it.

Natural Disasters


Year End Blow-out

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The City that never sleeps takes a hike

A modern strike allows for some modern solutions. When talks began to sour, Craigslist filled with hundreds of posters looking for rideshares to and from work on Tuesday. City websites offered New York's netizens .pdf files of traffic routes and restrictions. And untold thousands became telecommuters overnight. But for those who needed to show up to work, the remedies were decidedly old-fashioned: walk, bike, or, if they had enough people to fill a car, sit in miles of gridlock. I give it to New Yorkers for some ingenious solutions. What i would really like to know is if this will change behavior. London has started controlling traffic by excising a tax on cars not carpooling and entering the city. Simliar studies have produced astounding results. NY is a chaotic system at best, but the transit strike demonstrates the role that public transporation plays in daily lives. Where is our solution Bruce Mau?
Carpool is here

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Static to Life

Displax developed by Edigma, combines rear projection holographic screens with finger tracking to bring interactive storefront displays to retailers and various commercial applications. Displays are about to be taken to a whole new level with interactvity. I can't help but remember the Back To The Future (part 2) where Marty sees a preview for Jaws, and Jaws comes down and tries to eat him in a holographic manner. Very cool. Words cant do this justice. Check out their site to see it in action. I feel that Star Trek is upon us.
Window shopper

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Be Jaws

Jacques Cousteau's grandson Fabien co-designed a shark-shaped submarine to study Great Whites. Covered in a skin-like material, the sub is propelled by a silent motorized tail fin. Cousteau calls the sub Troy, in reference to the mythical Trojan horse statue, in which Greek soldiers were spirited into the fortress kingdom of Troy. The idea for the sub, though, came from a slightly more prosaic source. Troy was inspired by Tintin, a Belgian comic book character. On the cover of the book Le Trésor de Rackham le Rouge (published in English as Red Rackham's Treasure), Tintin and his dog are pictured in a metal, shark-shaped submarine. I love Tintin and have so many books. Interesting to know Fabien reads tintin to. Incredible where inspiration can come from.
See the Shark Sub Swim Swiftly

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The E-Life

Remember, before e-tickets, when checking in for a flight required waiting in a giant queue? Well, it looks like e-ticket style check-ins may be coming to hotels. The Hyatt Regency Denver at Colorado Convention Center will allow guests to swipe their credit cards at kiosks, press a few buttons, and retrieve their receipt and room key. The whole process should take less than 2 minutes. You can also order room service through your 32-inch flat screen TV. Or listen to 500 songs on the provided iPod. So basically you can avoid human interaction for your entire trip. The hotel will also have a 24-hour Starbucks and work station with a Kinko's and FedEx shipping inside. If that's not enough, the hotel has a computerized valet service where a guest can request and pay for the car online. Byebye people hello, easy street....Right? What happens if you get a smoking room, or its trashed...hmm might have to work out the kinks here
Im esleep

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Lojack Got Jacked Up

Auto-txt allows police to track the vehicle and use remote wireless technology to disable the vehicle or to keep it from restarting once the engine is turned off. While most car-tracking systems are activated by the driver’s key or key ring, Auto-txt is unique because it both requires keys and a cell phone to identify the owner. Because it requires two different identifiers, Auto-txt could also save money on insurance premiums for drivers. RDM received ₤4.75 million (about $8.3 million) in venture funding to develop and roll out Auto-txt. Catapult Venture Managers invested in the first round as part of its Advantage Enterprise and Innovation Fund. The system is the first to receive a Category 5 accreditation from the Thatcham motor insurance industry research center. The accreditation is a new insurance industry standard supported by the police. For now, Auto-txt is only available in the U.K. and is limited to cell phones with Bluetooth.
have you seen my bicycle?

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Flash Jacket

Pinky Tuscadero wore pink, Leather Tuscadero wore Leather. Where does that leave the wearer of this jacket? StrideLite have shed new light on the bike riders safety jacket by inventing the illuminated safety jacket . The jacket is made up of 24 micro thin Electroluminescent lamps that are as flexible as they are bright. The lights are good for 300 hours before you need to change the batteries ( 2 AAA ) and are incased in a totally waterproof shell. The jacket itself is made from a totally breathable technically advanced fabric and can be fit for your particular needs ( ie walking, riding running ). The jacket can live longer than Joan Collins' mother with it's 20,000 hour total life span ( 6 hrs p/d -365 dys- 9 years ). Who knows? In nine years the new model may have wings .
stridelite

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Musical Signatures

Ever wonder if you took your whole itunes libary and turned it into a signature? Me neither. But someone did. iTunes Signature Maker (iTSM) analyzes your music collection and creates a short audio signature to represent who you are and what you listen to. After it checks your system configuration and asks you a few simple questions, iTSM will spend a few minutes analyzing your collection and generating the audio signature. SM selects a small number of your "favorite" tracks based on some simple selection criteria, such as the number of times you have played them or the rating you have assigned them. Then it analyzes the audio content of these files, combining a small bit of each of them to create the signature. Oh and my signature is waaaay cooler than that. Just ask meghan.
Herbie Hancock

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addiction: Samorost

Samorost 2 is a free, Flash-based Myst-style puzzle-game with gorgeous, lush Terry Gilliam cut and paste-style graphics. Watching this is almost as much fun as playing it. Looks really freaking cool. Though im still sorta trying to figure out what im doing. To me this seems like a throwback to the Maniac Mansion and the text based games of yeasteryear. LOVED THEM. I tend to think its a missing piece of the videogame world. Too much emphasis on graphics and whatnot. Great stories still translate. These things remind me of Lemmings too. This is truly a labor of love. Check it out.
Samorost

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Space Spiders

Robotic "spiders" could help build large-scale structures in space. They would inch their way across large nets of fabric in space performing small tasks or lining up to create an antenna or some other structure. The concept, known as a Furoshiki satellite, could revolutionise satellite-based applications by providing cost effective large antennas in space that can be launched on small rockets. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency is planning to test a Furoshiki spacecraft in January 2006. Once in space, the mother satellite will deploy three 'daughters'. These will pull out a net into a triangle, leaving the mother satellite at the centre. Two palm-sized robots will then 'crawl' along the net into prearranged positions. This is the first small step towards satellites that collect solar energy using large arrays of solar panels and then beam the energy down to Earth. Such satellites could revolutionise the Earth’s energy supply systems by providing large amounts of clean solar energy. "A solar power satellite would need very large structures for its solar panels and antenna. Small experiments like this can help us mature the technology needed to build them," says Leopold Summerer from ESA's Advanced Concepts Team.
flyin spiders

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Good Morning Sunshine

One thing that sometimes wakes you up at night and prevents you from sleeping is the mosquito or blowfly when flying around your room. You can't and don't want to fall asleep again until you've caught it. These produces adrenalin and requires movements. The alarm clock blowfly works like a "blowfly" that at the desire time it escapes from a cage in your room. It starts moving and producing sound around you - to turn it off you should catch it and put it back in the cage. Hmm this might get me out of bed. Hiding the clock under my bed doesn't work anymore, since i can practically touch all the walls in my room.
buzzzzzzz

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The Madness

CBS is offering March Madness Online for free. HALLELUJAH!!!! So many years of being forced to watch crappy Southwest Fla versus Iona games. NCAA March Madness on Demand, will be a streaming webcast. CBS had been offering the games online as part of a subscription, but this year the NCAA Tournament will be available for free at NCAAsports.com. he webcasts will be free through the regional semifinals, and there will be web blackouts for games aired in local television markets. Press conferences and highlights are also part of the package. CBS doesnt think this will take away from television ratings, or erode subscribers to the Direct TV package because viewers tend to watch something online if they are already in front of a computer - but they watch television if they are home. This applies not only to office workers, but college students as well. It is less a money-earner than a technology and marketing test, an opportunity to see if free content can attract enough viewers to pull in advertising revenue.
Pregame

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Mind the Gap

Ok im starting to get disturbed. Europe gets all the freakin sweet phones. Now they get HBO on demand from 3G. Um wait isnt that show from the USA? Vodaphone is announcing a global Mobile TV service, which will offer series like Sex and the City, Six Feet Under or Curb Your Enthusiasm on its Vodafone Live! service. Bastards. And to rub it in, they’ll also get Eurosport, Twentieth Century Fox Television, The UEFA Champions League, Discovery, MTV, Chilli TV and Fashion TV in countries like New Zealand or UK. All this will work on any 3G-enabled phone in eight of Vodafone’s operating countries: Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain and the UK; three associate networks—Belgium, France and Switzerland; and one partner network, Austria.

On another note BskyB digital satellite customers are starting to download hundreds of films as well as highlights from major sporting events onto their PCs—all for no extra cost. Stunning, really. Called skybybroadband, the service promises a good mix of films, including Hollywood blockbusters and classic movie titles, as long as they’re available on its Sky Movies channels. All you need is a PC running Windows XP and a broadband connection.

Wow at what point is this really going to start hurting America? Our loss of PhD's and scientists is disturbing enough but where is the tipping point where our technological lateness starts to hurt us? I realize a country the size of Britain is much more adapt to create networks like this. All we get is Snake II or Madden, while Europe has on demand for their phone and is watching Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Broadband goes Airborne
Curb Your Fish & Chips Breath

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The next firefighter

The i-garment project aims to develop smart garments for for the Portuguese Civil Protection. The suits will be equipped with sensors to monitor position, vital signals (temperature and heart beat) of the firefighters. The information will be sent via a wireless link to Civil Protection Officers in the HQ, processed and returned to the field officers equipped with PDAs and/or TabletPCs. Tightly integrated with the fire-fighting garment, sensors, telecommunication, localisation, alert and processing hardware collect the status and position of the fire-fighter and transmit it wirelessly and in real time to a data collecting computer installed in local Operational Field Vehicles (OFV). The system will allow the data to be transmitted from the local OFV to the main servers via satellite transmission, making the data available from virtually anywhere there might be a fire situation, without the need for further communication infrastructure. Why haven't we seen something like this sooner is my only question...
Science Prjoect

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Get stuff for getting a new phone

RipMobile, is a mobile device recycling programs that fund charities via the recycling process, converting old cell phones into financial support for groups like CARE who then use the funds to help victims of the Tsunami crises in East Asia. It says much of the funds are donated to charity, but boy is this a smart plan or what. Kids get mp3 certificates, circuit city stuff, or swag from karmaloop just for donating an old phone. Hell it doesnt even have to be yours. Fantastic idea that capitalizes on the high turnover rate of cell phones among teens. Its also nice to see another corporation which embraces recycling. Hey its not selling out, its looking out for the environment and making a buck.
Rest In Earpiece

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Up Close and Personal

How would you like to have your very own concert from one of your favorite rock bands? Better Than Ezra is offering a weekend of music/ the full BTE experience with a stay at the hotel Monteleone in New Orleans. Its a fascinating concept in which you pay for hotel and both shows. Obviously you must be a die-hard fan to want this, but BTE is offering much beyond the typical musical artist-fan relationship. The hotel is across the street from the venue and BTE claims the hotel knows them. BTE has always done a great job aligning themselves with the city of New Orleans and being more than just a band. They even offer a show for students only. I remember seeing Outkast at UNC and watching so many non-students come in. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but it was for the students. It loses its certain cache when others crash the party. It posed the thought in my head, now that we are in the MP3 age, do bands have to do more to rise above the clutter. Are their any bands out their who provide this type of intimate/rewarding experience for their fans?
Ezraites

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Skype takes over the world

Could this be the information rush 2.0? Its beginning to feel like it these days, with talks of Google shares topping $400 a pop. PSFK is reporting that The NY Times is reporting that Skype has announced that it will introduce video technology into its software to allow Skype internet telephony users to make video calls. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal predicts Skype is about to go mainstream. Skype already got bought by ebay, but i feel that everyday brings us closer to the video phone jetson world. Either way hot stock tip of the day, buy Skype.
WSJ(sub needed)
NYTIMES

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How much for the model in the window?

Is this a trend? As i reported a couple months back about Calvin Klein using models in times square to promote its newest pair of slacks or scent with weightless model, now a store in Maine is doing something similar. A lingerie store called Spellbound in Maine is grabbing attention with live models in the window. "It's like a New York thing. It's urban. It's edgy," said Stacy Gervais, owner of Stacy's Hallmark Store and a founder of a downtown merchants group. The move is not without controversy. One local business owner called the live model display morally reprehensible, claiming it's tainting the wholesome business atmosphere on Water Street. I myself find displays fascinating and this one does seem to make quite a lot of sense. The only question is on decency standards. I did not expect to find something like this in Maine. Kudos to the owner for taking a new approach. Time will tell if the town creates a backlash.

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someone hit the airbrakes please

Well im back in Chapel Hill for the holidays. All of a sudden my hectic life comes back down to earth. Ahhh it feels good to be home. Happy Holidays everyone. Don't eat too much turkey, you will pass out.

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the next revolution?

The MIT Media Lab has launched a new research initiative to develop a $100 laptop—a technology that could revolutionize how we educate the world's children. To achieve this goal, a new, non-profit association, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), has been created. The initiative was first announced by Nicholas Negroponte, Lab chairman and co-founder, at the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland in January 2005.

Encased in rubber and sporting a 500MHz processor, mesh networking capabilities, and four USB ports, the incredible hype behind the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project only seems to be building

In one Cambodian village where we have been working, there is no electricity, thus the laptop is, among other things, the brightest light source in the home.

Imagine the possibilities if everyone has access to the internet or a computer in their hands?
Start me up

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Lookout

Oh the joys of being the first to know. Dear friends big things are in the works at MFP, my agency. I probably shouldn't put the word out but F all that. We recently created some Sapporo Nike kicks. Jor-1 was the fantastic artist who took an empty canvas and turned it into a masterpiece. We are actively looking for more artists to create their rendition of the Sapporo Can on a sneaker canvas. For more info, email me. Stay tuned for more info as it should be poppin on a website near you in the future. For more details on what im doing with Sapporo visit Designthenight.com after December 1st,
the mothership

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If the Sun Shines in the Desert, Does Anyone See It?

Two Southern California utility companies are planning to develop a pair of sun-powered power plants that they claim will dwarf existing solar facilities and could rival fossil-fuel-driven power plants. Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric are working with Stirling Energy Systems, a Phoenix startup that has paired a large and efficient solar dish with a 200-year-old Stirling engine design. Though Stirling engines have been around for almost two centuries, there have been few efforts in the past to harness the sun to run them, said Stirling Energy Systems CEO Bruce Osborn. Osborn said the Stirling dishes are 30 percent efficient -- 30 percent of the sun's energy is converted into electricity -- which is two to three times as efficient as conventional photovoltaic cells. Someday this could be cheaper than fossil fuels. Good to know someone is using some conventional wisdom.
Burn Baby Burn

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A Cure?

The man who may hold the key to a cure for Aids was urged by doctors last night to come forward for the sake of millions of virus carriers worldwide. The case of Andrew Stimpson, 25, who was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 2002 but found to be clear of the virus in 2003, has stunned the medical world. If doctors can establish why this happened, without treatment, it could benefit the 34.9 million virus carriers worldwide. Mr Stimpson subsequently tried to sue the hospital, believing his initial positive test was inaccurate. But he was told there was no case to answer because both tests were correct. The Trust spokeswoman insisted there was no chance a mistake had crept into the testing system. Mr Stimpson told the Mail on Sunday: "My doctor said 'you've cured yourself, you're fantastic'." "I can't help wondering if I hold the cure for Aids. There are 34.9 million people with HIV and if I have something to contribute, then I am willing and ready to help." The Scotsman, 25, who moved from the Ayrshire village of Skelmorlie, near Largs, to London four years ago, did not take any medication for HIV. The case was important because "inside his immune system is perhaps a key that could allow us to develop some kind of vaccine". The news will bring hope to millions dying of Aids who could benefit if medical scientists discover how Mr Stimpson's medical status changed. Could this be? It would be simply amazing. Supposedly stories come from Africa about vaccines and trials producing these miracle cases. Only time will tell
Miracle?

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Be a TV Star

A sure sign that a trend is real is when someone goes out and produces an "everything you need in a box" solution. M-Audio is doing just that by launching a product called the Podcast Factory, which is simply everything you will ever need to record and create a podcast; a quality microphone, a pre-amp and recording software.
Combine simple affordable enabling technologies like Podcast Factory with the distribution power of a site like iTunes and you might just have an amateur broadcasting revolution on your hands.(thanks influx) Incredidbly simple, content is truly accessible these days. Anyone can reach anywhere via the internet. I have thought about doing this, making Lifefilter a weekly podcast. It could be my 15 minutes to fame.
Hi Mom!

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march of the penguins

The breakup of giant icebergs may have forced minor evolutionary changes in penguins over the past 6,000 years, a new study suggests. The Antarctic iceberg chunks, which break off the continent now and then, are thought to have blocked the swim paths of Adelie penguins returning home to their colonies. Some of the penguins were forced to become immigrants in other colonies, where they established new homes and interbred with the locals. As a result, genetic changes that might otherwise have remained isolated became widespread among the different colonies. The result is what scientist call microevolution. I call it freaking cool. Maybe thats cause im a scientist's kid. Maybe this will show people that global warming is real. Probably not those cats in Washington. :(
chilly willy went elsewhere

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Open Source Tivo

Sometimes ideas are just so simple and so obvious, you have to say why didn't i think of that. Along comes Tape it off the Internet. Tioti, which stands for Tape It Off The Internet, is an idea that was posted up on the web as a bit of a joke - a electronic TV guide for the world - with links to Bit Torrent files and also social applications for P2P discussion and sharing. But the response from the web community was so large, it forced the team behind it to actually go ahead and make it. It contains a global TV guide, Torrent tracking, your favourites and recommendations plus an innovative social layer to hang it off. You want it, we want it, let's build it. WOW. So now you don't even need a television to watch television. You could basically live in the woods, bohemian style, go to your local library, download your Southpark episode, and be blissfully happy. It also demonstrates the power of the internet and community, as the team just carried through its idea due to the clamoring of webizens everywhere. Isn't technologoy grand?
A-Team ReRuns Galore

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Awwwwww how cute

Lifefilter is dedicated to finding you the information in your life that is need to know. Along comes another Lifefilter classic via the Boingers. My pet zombie has "life-like" and realistic zombie features normally seen on the living dead and flash mobs. The site has other costumes and monsters all for sale. Need realistic body parts without the real blood? This is where law and order comes for its corpses, heads, and ankles etc. Check it out. Scare your mom or your neighbor. Everyone will get a good laugh at this hilarious family-friendly item. Bring it on trips to grandma's house. Bring it to the mall. Your zombie can go with you anywhere.

Honey I lost my Ear

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Coming to backyard near you

Royal Caribbean’s has a monster ship forthcoming, the 158,000-ton, 3,600-passenger Freedom of the Seas, which will bellyflop into the ocean in May. Royal Caribbean has cultivated a reputation for sporty cruising for some time, but the Freedom of the Seas raises the stakes with a top-deck attraction called the FlowRider—a 32-by-40-foot pool propped up at a 45-degree angle with a three-inch-thick sheet of water flowing up it at a rate of 30,000 gallons per minute, creating an artificial wave for surfers. Royal Caribbean likes the FlowRider so much that it’s built this Web site around it. It can’t be long before a Royal Caribbean ship has a Ferris wheel. Ok but the real rage is with me and my fellow surfers. The Flowrider is sweet but ouch here goes our culture. We are a fierce tribe to say the least, and this is basically the suburbization of our sport, culture and pride. Though if i was on this ship, I would be rockin this 24/7. Its interesting to see a cruise ship use an attraction like this to generate interest in cruising...Only one person can ride it at a time.....me, id be worrying about doing an air off the ship. i just reallly want this at my house. now thats perfectly acceptable.
surfing the titanic

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I swear this happened to me once

This is a new ad from sony for bravia. Really cool spot. Done without CGI, just down the street from my old apartment in san francisco. I walked down this hill everyday to go to class or work at kbp.

lookout

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Dr. Roboto

Small robots designed by University of Nebraska researchers may allow doctors on Earth to do surgery on patients in space. The tiny, wheeled robots, which are as wide as a lipstick case, can be slipped into small incisions and computer-controlled by surgeons. Some robots are equipped with cameras and lights and can send back views of affected areas to surgeons. Others have surgical tools attached that can maneuver inside the body. Because several robots can be inserted through one incision, they could reduce the amount and size of cuts needed for surgery. The robots may be also helpful on battlefields as they could enable surgeons in other places to work on injured soldiers on the front line. A robot capable of doing biopsies is in the works and another is being designed that can be inserted into a person's stomach via the esophagus. They look a little large to me to be sticking into one's body. Maybe if it were a couple centimeters big, but this might as well be a highlighter. Maybe you don't feel pain in space.....
Aibo becomes a surgeon

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Good Idea

When Apple set out to change the landscape of music, did they envision that their groundbreaking tools would be used for other purposes? It's interesting that these consumer tools and devices are now giving Apple great additional exposure in the education, medicine and entertainment markets. Sometimes it's important to discover how certain groups of consumers are adapting your products. This learning could well help to open up new market opportunities. Its even more interesting how a great idea, transcends all and people begin to adapt it to their needs in their life. Apple being ever so clever, created something with legs that can be applied in many areas, and its design allow it to happen. Doctors carrying medical images on the ipod, peter jackson carrying king kong dailies on the pod, and stanford using the pod to distribute lectures. Really makes the device synonymous with our lives. Ok enough praising the ipod i have to listen to my itunes.
Check out my xrays
konga
higher education

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the maglev couch

his work of polished aluminum, strong magnets, and tasteful mahogany floats on the crest of a magnetic wave, floating with ambient air currents but never losing altitude. Star Trek, anyone? The magnetic levitation system, invented by sculptor and installation artist Tom Shannon, utilizes permanent magnets that never lose their strength, helping the piece hover indefinitely until it is physically moved. The sculpture is available in a 16-inch limited edition of 100 ($18,000) or a 6-foot limited edition of 8 ($90,000). If that is not the coolest way to spend nearly $100k, then I don’t know what it is. Super sick, super floaty. No hiding anything under the couch anymore.
hey no legs

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These walls be a wigglin

San Francisco artist and designer Elizabeth Hickock has created an hommage to her city unlike any you've probably ever seen before. It's also a testament to her skills in the kitchen. The prints have a peaceful, earie glow that pulls you in. The short film shows San Francisco in an earthquake, where fortunately the buildings only wobble. Pretty cool, I cant imagine how long this took to create. I can see my ex-house errr bomb shelter from here up by Coit Tower.

San Fran from a pan

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Another Cool Ad

This Guiness ad rules. Must be good planning behind it. Check it out.
Survival of the fittest

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Putting Heaven and Hell in their place

A collection of public domain early-20th Century charts by Clarence Larkin describing aspects of the Bible, including little arrows showing the direction of flow between the various heavens/hells and &c. For some reason i think all these hurricanes and suicide bombings, have zapped my interest in daily events. Come on people, make me curious. Its a slow day and this was one of a few things i thought was actually worth mentioning. Maybe im just in a halloween mood. Good to know if i ever get lost in the underworld, maps are available to ensure i dont wander down the wrong labrinyth and get torched by the cauldrons.
Map to the Underworld

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Resurrection?

Redundant churches in UK towns are increasingly becoming unserious places. The most common new uses for an old church are as blocks of apartments, community centres, recording studios and libraries though some have found a more exotic destiny. St Benedict's church in Manchester has become the Manchester Climbing Centre and a vertical wall with moulded footholds now occupies its tall nave (see photo gallery). Churches have been turned into pubs too: Wetherspoon's, a pub chain, has recently taken over an 18th-century Baptist church in Folkestone, keeping organ pipes and stained glass in place. In Cheltenham, people can go and drink in the Pulpit, another ex-church. And if the project is granted planning permission, a church in Westminster in London will soon become a health spa, with a nail bar in the crypt and a sauna in the chancel.

I find it extremely interesting that religion is in such decline people feel a need to use these spaces. America has experienced similar trends but not on such an evident scale. In Europe space is more premium, but a church to a pub? Wow, ok you brits get your drink on if you must. Though they might have finally found a way for me to get to church for once.
Repent and Rebuild

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Evolution

Its pretty amazing to actually be able to tell as species evolve. Two instances captured recently are out to show how gorilla's are adapting to today's world. An infant gorilla in a Congo sanctuary is smashing palm nuts between two rocks to extract oil, surprising and intriguing scientists who say they have much to learn about what gorillas can do -- and about what that says about evolution. Scientists said that the finding indicates that complex tool use may not be a trait developed only by humans and chimpanzees, and could have its origins earlier in the evolutionary chain, among ancestors common to both humans and our closest relatives the great apes. They believed Itebero, named for a place near where she was found, started cracking nuts spontaneously and had not been influenced by the time she has spent among humans. Earlier this year, researchers reported observing gorillas in the wild in the neighboring Republic of Congo's rain forests using simple tools, according to a team led by Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo. In an e-mail message Monday from the Republic of Congo's Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, Breuer said that in 10 years of observation, his team had seen only two instances of tool use among gorillas. In one a stick was used to test the depth of a pond and in another a small tree trunk was used for support and as a bridge. Its pretty cool to watch what is second nature to us, and comprehend how amazing it is for animals to display this behavior.
stick in the mud
crackin nuts

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FINALLY

Here comes the solution to all those long keg lines. This will revolutionize keggers and hs parties across the globe. With three spigots and a foot-operated pump, buzz loss is now a thing of the past. Your parties in the past may have dragged on for a tedious hour, frustration building with each passing second. But now you should be able to drain the keg and cover the kitchen floor with a frothy layer of delicious vomit within 12 minutes. UGGGH i know that one too well.

sorry for the delay on the post people but work has been slipping me up. MAJORLY
2 years too late

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just another ipod

Here we go again. Just another day at the Apple, just another announcement. INTRODUCING...............(drumroll)....................................
VIDEO IPOD

The new iPod is has 16x9 screen, 320x340 pixels and 260,000 colors and does realtime decoding of MPEG4 and H.264 at 30fps. It has video out. The 30GB for $299 and 60GB for $399 will be out next week. The 60GB model is thinner than the current 20GB. The 30GB holds 75 hours of video. They come in white and black. They go on sale late next week—the new tagline is “watch your music.” The new ad has Eminem in silhouette campaign. Ok so the 60 gig version is slimmer than my current 3rd generation (thanks boris) 20 gig model. You can also buy tv shows and do your own video podcasts. Watch out for my show.
lets get it started
the big announcement

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the magic paintbrush

The I/O Brush houses a small CCD video camera in its tip with a ring of white LEDs around it. Force sensors are also embedded inside of the brush, measuring the pressure that is getting applied to the bristles. When the brush touches a surface, the lights around the camera briefly turn on to provide supplemental light for the camera. During that time, the system grabs the frames from the camera and stores them in the program. This thing is extremely rad. Comes from you guessed it.......MIT. I/O Brush is a new drawing tool to explore colors, textures, and movements found in everyday materials by "picking up" and drawing with them. Its the first of its kind to combine real environments directly into the digital alternative. WOW
liquid sunshine
more liquid sunshine

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silly retarded robot

This is awesome stuff from CNET>"Robonaut, which NASA hopes to place on a shuttle flight in about 18 months, is one of a series of robots the space agency is developing to assist humans in outer space.

Others include Tendril, a robotic cable a centimeter in diameter that can snake into tight spaces and take pictures, and Scout, a four-wheel planetary rover, about the size of a golf cart, that will ferry astronauts around or carry their oxygen and other gear on planetary hikes.

Then there's Spidernaut, a 600-pound mechanical arachnid that will crawl around on the outside of space craft to fix things. Although it weighs considerably more than a person, its eight-leg design distributes the weight in manner that makes the robot's footfalls less potentially damaging to the skin of a spacecraft than those of a two-legged human.

The humanoid Robonaut will function something like an astronaut's assistant, Ambrose said. It can open doors, use a drill, climb ladders and perform other manual tasks with its two arms and two hands. Its head comes with stereoscopic cameras and a light-emitting diode, or LED, for illuminating surfaces.

Robonaut conceivably will anchor itself with all of the appropriate equipment required to perform an outer-space operation. Humans, who are much faster and more dexterous than robots but can carry only a limited amount of oxygen, will presumably pop outside to perform specific tasks and leave Robonaut out there to clean up.

HAHA. this robot looks hilarious. what a pansy!
R2 is that you?

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Haight Skate: Snow style

CURSES! San Francisco gets all the cool stuff. I can complain since i used to live there. Stuff like Icer 2005 makes SF what it is. Anyone who has ever skiied(you ski if you are uncool and suck at life) or snowboarded (all you pimps out there), has dreamed of burning through a city. San Francisco would be at the top of anyone's list too. More than 200 tons of crushed ice were trucked in, and a kicker was built on the Fillmore Street hill. Then, under a perfect blue sky, 20 of the world's best skiers and snowboarders did their thing. We used to watch people bomb down the hills on skates and its where i got started skateboarding for real. Only Californians would be crazy enough to do this and actually do it.
Hella cool

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NASACAR

Peter Diamandis, founder of the aerospace Ansari X Prize, plans to turn what sounds like science fiction into reality in about a year. At a ceremony Monday in New York, Diamandis unveiled the Rocket Racing League as its co-founder and chairman. "For me, it is a remembrance of sort of 'Star Wars' pod racing," said Diamandis, referring to the rocket race portrayed in 1999's "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace." Instead of a long time ago in another galaxy far, far away, these races aim to begin in October 2006 when Diamandis hopes to hold an exhibition event with four so-called X-Racer planes. A typical hourlong race imagines a spectacular X-Racer liftoff allowing fans to follow each rocket plane by tracking their 20-foot exhaust plumes and watching large-screen TVs. Streaming multi-angle video would be available from each aircraft, showing cockpit, "on-track" and "side-by-side" and wing-angle views. Fans also would be able to track races by using hand-held GPS devices connected to WiFi systems. The rocket planes will have a liquid oxygen/kerosene fuel mix, calculated to have a burn time of four minutes, requiring pilots to shut down their engines repeatedly and glide, then restart to pass opponents at up to 300 mph. The race course would be two miles long, a mile wide and about 5,000 feet high. So far 1 prototype has been built, conveniently called the ez-rocket. I know nascar is insanely addictive, but how can it be to watch a plane a couple thousand feet up. People love the destruction of NASCAR, destruction here means death. RedBull Air Race might have just been 1-upped.
GoGo GadgetRocketShipCarThing

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