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LordConti

Gadgets

PopSci.com Giveaway: Win Advanced Lithium Batteries from Energizer

By Posted on 1.21.2009 135 Comments
Leave a comment (any comment) for a chance to win a pack of Advanced Lithium batteries from Energizer. 20 lucky winners will be chosen randomly on January 31, 2009.

1.29.2009 at 06:20pm - Comment by LordConti

I've been thinking about it for a while now, and while that bunny does a fine job at drumming, I think what they really need is more cowbell. But I'll settle for some free batteries.
Gadgets

Double A-OK

By Tom Conlon Posted on 10.24.2008 16 Comments
I bet the ’80s was a good decade for Energizer, Duracell and their ilk. I mean, it was a good decade for sharkskin, too, but the ’80s had to be the absolute peak for these battery makers. Suddenly, it seemed like everything required portable juice: that new-fangled wireless TV remote, the Walkman, my futuristic calculator watch and, of course, all of those awesomely high-tech electronic toys like Simon (which actually had its launch party at Studio 54!).

11.5.2008 at 02:58am - Comment by LordConti

To make the following long story short, we could make the Grouse, find that it's annoying to have to replace the batteries all the time, build better and more specific batteries to mend the pain, and end up right back where we are today. Or we could take the next logical step that technology makes and create both/either better batteries and/or better built-in solar panels for such daily devices. I remember seeing a backpack that had a solar panel on it for exactly this purpose. Maybe the search for the affordable and trustworthy electric car will get us there. If this wet your palette, continue reading for the more detailed version. This top part was just a summary for your convenience :D There are some excellent solutions to the battery life woes posted here, so there's really just 2 cents I'd like to remind you all of in the battery area, and 04heinm has part of it. The reason half the reason for smaller, non-"standard" batteries was application size. The other half was longevity. (arguably it's also the price of the battery after technology breakthroughs and vendor bargaining). Imagine how many Grouses you would have to go through to power your laptop or even a PSP. Have you ever had to replace the stock battery that comes with your phone? The cost of spares for peace of mind can pile up quickly. Assuming the Grouse is as affordable as you envision it to be, there is really only one other issue you could run into: Waste. Heaping piles of spent Grouses (or batteries) filled with chemicals that ~~should~~need to be hauled off to a chemical decomposition plant for recycling and reusing. Even rechargeable ones will get there eventually. But then we've fallen into a loop, no? 1.)The battery life just isn't cutting it, so I'll have to buy more. 2.)Things are getting pricey, so it'd be nice to have a more efficient battery that I didn't have to charge so often or buy more of every three days. 3.)Lets build a better battery at the expense of it's affordability. But wait, no one's going to keep buying an expensive battery just because it lasts a little longer, so let's make it more specialized to fit the needs of this particular device. 4.)The Grouse woes about not having standardized batteries. Maybe the question should be changed to "Why don't we make the decent battery life we have now ten times better?" I think it would be a better idea to improve what we have now than take several steps backward. I'd like to see 14 to 20 hour laptop batteries that don't demand that I run my processor at half the normal speed(or less). I'd like to see phone batteries that last for several days while Not in sleep mode. I can only imagine that if these increases happened, our woes would decrease greatly. Hopefully the new age of electric car engineering will spur the technology and progress.
Science

In Defense of the LHC

By Posted on 3.18.2009 23 Comments
Today’s most ambitious scientific instruments are modern-day cathedrals in their size and complexity, if not in their purpose—these are, after all, structures built to shatter worldviews, not to reinforce them. And the grandest of all, pictured on these pages and fired into action today, will take us on a journey to one of the least-accessible places imaginable: the realm of quantum particles, less than a billionth the size of a single atom.

9.11.2008 at 01:10pm - Comment by LordConti

I thought it would be good to mention that while the amount of $6 Billion is being tossed around, the US has only contributed 1/12 of that amount, or $521 Million to be exact. I find it difficult to understand how anyone could criticize the efforts and capital that has been put into this machine. You cannot compare the cost of B2 bombers to the cost of the LHC. They will never equate. B2 bombers were and are created in highly classified and secured warehouses by the government with the purposes of espionage and destruction. The money used to assemble and arm a B2 is the same as money used to build a car. They are not used to find scientific information that could change how every person in the world has come to be. They are not used to gain a greater understanding of the Universe that we live in. They will not aid the future of all humanity. When you think about the capital, resources, efforts, years of scientific research and development, and entire lifetimes that come together to create the Large Hadron Collider, you should begin to see the importance of this machine. This isn't the collaboration of a select group of individuals with the goal of creating an virtually undetectable aircraft to infiltrate enemy territories. This is the collaboration of over eight thousand physicists from over eighty-five countries as well as hundreds of universities and laboratories. The analyzed data from this machine, once it is running full blast, will not be useful to only one country, but rather the entire world. Since as long ago as the birth of the Big Bang theory, humans have wondered how we came to be. If we can create something to help us find out more about our origins, as well as the environment we, everyone in the world, live in, I believe that $6 Billion of global economy is dirt cheap. It's easy for someone who has only known the investment of a few hundred or a few thousand dollars to look at a six billion dollar price tag and scoff, thinking that nothing could possibly be worth that much and that the capital could be used in more advantageous ways. I'd like to leave you with just one quote: "A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing." --Oscar Wilde
Gadgets

The Computer that Reads Hand Signals

By Posted on 6.17.2008 7 Comments
You don’t have to fumble with a remote control to pause a video on Toshiba’s Qosmio G55-Q802. Simply hold your palm up in the universal “stop” sign. The laptop reads this and other hand signals instantly using the Cell, the supercomputer chip best known for powering the PlayStation 3. An Intel CPU performs most of the tasks on the G55, but a special version of the Cell tackles complex video-manipulation jobs by breaking them into bite-size chunks and parceling them out to four processors on the chip.

6.19.2008 at 02:48am - Comment by LordConti

In a few more years, I see the computer system that's used in the movie Minority Report (I suppose you could also throw in the recent Iron Man, but Minority Report had a more filling version). I think this could be the next logical step in a home pc system. Use a bigger screen, add the best talk-and-type software around, and have a smaller screen that's built into your desk in front of you that you can still use your fingers with, and you'll have an amazingly interactive home system. I think the only step after that is virtual reality, which I really hope will be in my lifetime.
Gadgets

Unlocking Android

By Posted on 6.10.2008 4 Comments
When Google squelched rumors of the all-powerful “G-phone” last November, we admit we were a bit bummed. Instead of an inexpensive smartphone that would free us from our carrier overlords, Google had been working on software—an open-source, mobile operating system called Android. Great name, but will unlocking cellphone code really change things for consumers? Miner says that more than 750,000 developers have downloaded the tool required to write an Android-based program, four times as many as accessed the iPhone’s tightly regulated kit. That means Android users could have far more mobile applications to choose from. But we still don’t know how those apps will stack up next to Apple’s. Android-equipped phones—set to go on sale this summer—should be less expensive than the iPhone, since manufacturers won’t have to pay licensing fees for the software. But instead of getting free, ad-subsidized service, like Google’s e-mail, you’ll still shell out to carriers. Which makes us wonder: Is this really so new, or just another offering in the crowded mobile market? We spoke with Rich Miner, head of Google’s mobile-platform division, for some clarity.

6.15.2008 at 11:53pm - Comment by LordConti

I'm wonderfully happy with my HTC Wing that's currently running Open Touch Biggy v5.3 =D The web is littered with free applications that let you do pretty much anything with a mobile pc like the Wing. I'm afraid that our generation won't be able to fully appreciate what Android will enable us to do with our mobiles, if it's any different from what people are cooking right now, but I'm certainly open to being taught to understand it.
Gadgets

One Camera, 12,616 Lenses

By Posted on 3.21.2008 7 Comments
Last year, we reported on the Adobe light-field camera, a prototype device with 19 lenses which captures 19 versions of the same image at different focal lengths. The associated software then lets the user choose which parts of the resulting photograph should be in focus, which can produce a virtually 3D image. We also briefly mentioned a project at Stanford University which is experimenting with their own multi-lensed device.

3.22.2008 at 12:31am - Comment by LordConti

The uses of such a camera are certainly abundant. From three dimensional images of areas on other planets to ones of our own (GoogleEarth for example), to biological recreations in labs, to (and I think the most looked forward to) better three dimensional replication in gaming graphics. I watched a video regarding such a camera that was used in graphical software to generate a three dimensional area for a physics-based virtual car to run around on that was made from pieces of cardboard (or something of the like) on a tabletop. In the video, the woman interviewing the guy displaying it put her hand on the table, and within seconds, the computer had incorporated her hand into the virtual environment by use of the single camera. Really, the uses are infinite.