Latest Inventions

There is now a high-tech, low carbon, self-cleaning way to keep your windows sparkling!

Using some of the new and widely available global imaging software and a unique window-cleaning solution, a well established but expanding window-cleaning business in London can now offer you just that. 

Whether you run your own business in the city, or you are lucky enough to own a property there, then maybe this would be of interest to you.

It has been written that a well known automobile company is now saving around £3000 per annum because of this new technology!

So, Who Is Running This Outfit?
Well, they are a local firm called rather randomly: NCPM247.  They have been trading in London for nearly 25 years as window cleaners - but now they are after a change - a change with the times!

As a result of the many pressures on the planet - NCPM247 are trying to become the most environmentally friendly and technologically advanced window cleaning company in London.

Having become - as have we all - very aware of the limits on water use, spiralling fuel costs, continuing environmental issues, rising carbon emissions the constant congestion in London, they wanted to not be a part of it all!

To help overcome these obstacles - they have started to use modern IT technology to improve their existing company.  By taking advantage of satellite imaging software including Google Street View and MSN Birds Eye View, they can see you house of office without having to go there!

So instead of having to get a phone call, arrange a visit to their property taking both time out of their day and the customers time, driving around busy streets to find it then calculate the individual quote and type it up and post it back out: they can just search online for a close-up image of your property, count the windows and check their height and size etc - then offer an exact price over the phone!

No wasted time or journeys!

So, Why Use Them Other Than That?
This firm use a unique hydrophobic cleaning materials in their trade.  It is a rain-resistant solution that actually keeps your windows cleaner for longer. 

Their ’secret ingredient’ actually coats the glass in your windows with a protective (and eco friendly) layer which will actually repel rain water from the surface.  So, when it rains hard, the rain itself can’t stick to the windows and is forced away from the glass and downwards - carrying everything with it.  As a result the rain itself actually washes off any dust and dirt as it falls!

It creates ’self-cleaning’ glass. 

So IT technology and advances in Window Cleaning all rolled into 1! Check out their website for more information and to get a quote yourself!

It’s strange. Microsoft, with all it’s power, has been dragging along behind Google for some years now. It was really seen as the poor cousin in internet circles and most “serious” users opted to use Google for all their searches. From my experience the majority of users of Microsoft’s MSN.com or their rebranded Live.com search engine seem to have used it because it was easy - they either had MSN set as their home page or they used Hotmail regularly and so MSN was always to hand.

Personally, I’ve always used Google, primarily because of the quality of their results. A search on MSN or Live was a slow and inaccurate process that inevitably turned up all sorts of poor quality or irrelavent sites.

However Microsoft have recently rebranded their search engine *again* (how many times are they going to do it?!) in the form of Bing.com, which is being backed by a massive advertising campaign to promote the new site.

So, is it actually any good, or is it just MSN by another name?

I recently set out to test the search engine out for size, and I have to admit that Microsoft really have added some neat features.

But before I get to them, it’s worth mentioning that the search results that Bing spits out are far more accurate than before, and in my experience now rival Google’s for quality. So that’s a big move in the right direction.

But there are two other features which really jumped out at me when using Bing, which really add to the useability of the site.

Firstly, down the left hand side of the page, you will find a list of related searches, much like Google shows at the bottom of each page. Having them at the side, however, encourages more searching and, as with all long string keyword searches, will likely lead to more accurate search results.

Secondly, as you move your cursor over the search results, you are followed on the right hand side of the page by a small orange circle which shows a preview of the content on each page listed in the results.

This means you can see a snippet of the text *before* you click through, potentially meaning that you will not only find better sites far quicker than before, but also that junk sites will struggle to attract visitors based only on their search engine rankings.

So better search results, a preview feature and related searches all rolled into one. I personally am therefore quite impressed with Bing and while it will need to go further to beat Google, it is certainly a step in the right direction in my opinion.

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Here at Latest Inventions we are working actively to try and reduce our effect on the environment.

I have recently been reading about the carbon created by even a single query to the Google search engine and with fossil fuels running out but green technologies still really in their infancy I was interested to see if we could find a “green” web hosting company.

And let me tell you - they’re certainly thin on the ground! Lots of companies state that they are trying to be as green as possible by recycling paper and so on and also point out the benefits of running an online company as opposed to the vast majority of businesses with their fleets of vehicles, huge amounts of rubbish produced and so on.

But finding one that really is “green”, rather than just trying to be, was rather more of a challenge.

However I’m pleased to say that our search did eventually bear fruit, in the form of Think Host. Now the company has been around for some years - so the use of “latest” here is possibly not the most accurate - but very few people know about green web hosts and with the increasing pressure on the planet I think this is a topic that many of our readers will be interested in.

Think Host runs on 100% green energy from wind farms and solar energy and prides itself on being carbon neutral. They even have an active tree planting program in place to help capture more carbon from the atmosphere.

Fortunately, Think Host isn’t *just* about green issues. Certainly, that’s their main selling point but they also offer all the other web hosting elements you would expect from a reliable, bone fide web host. For example they offer support for unlimited domains, unlimited bandwidth and even unlimited MySQL databases. In essence, when you dig into the services they offer, and at what cost, they seem to rival the supremely popular Host Gator, but do so with green credentials.

So if you want to do your bit for the planet and are looking for web hosting, you could do a lot worse that finding out more about Think Host. To find out more, just click here now.

Hello again and welcome to the summer Latest Inventions Carnival.  I have split the articles into  3 groups for this one and they start with Gadgets!

Gadgets: 
Erika Collin kicks things off with 100 Awesome iTunes Feeds for Technology Junkies where you can find out a lot with very little effort.  Sarah Scrafford also saves you a load of time with another ‘100 tips’ in her 100 Apps to Turn Your iPhone into the Ultimate Personal Assistant.

Eric Van Haesendonck tries to make things easier as well with decisions on your next (or first) netbookHow to choose the best netbook computer?

Medical:
Dan offers up a debate on some new medical technology and patenting human body parts in Cancer Genes Patented - What this means for Innovation and Monopoly Power. Mike encourages further debate with a new technology instead with his article on the topic of Brain Stroke Clinical Trial Using Stem Cells

Nancy Miller follows on with a cheeky look at all the applications that can help you get fit! Here is her 50 Awesome iPhone Apps for Serious Athletes!

Eco Friendly:
Harold starts of the eco friendly posts with a way of working out your miles per gallon. We all have the tips for saving fuel and we need to - a car infront of me at the pumps put over twice the amount of fuel I need for a full tank! So he will certainly need the tips given here: What Factors Affect Your Car?s MPG Rating?

Brian young presents Blue-Ray Goes Green: Eco-Friendly Entertainment for the 21st Century. Bearing in mind how they are trying to sell themselves as better than other HD formats - they might just win with these green credentials!

Enjoy and don’t forget to add your feedback!

The Palm Pre has now launched - and has won several awards, but it has already been having some problems - Apple don’t like it! 

The concept itself is fine: a new smart phone with multi-touchscreen, full keyboard, camera, media player and GPS as you would expect these days.  But it runs on Linux-based Palm webOS.

Not many people have worked with Linux - and this software has been designed from scratch just for this - so it’s like nothing you have seen before.  Some people say it is easier to use than the iPhone which can’t be bad except if you are Apple of course!

The Phone Itself:
Smaller than the iPhone but with a great 3.1 inch screen it’s size is similar to a basic phone which wins it the thumbs up - the iPhone is a lot larger but of course we just love the iconic look!

The Palm Pre has it’s neat little slide-away full keyboard (rather than on on the touch-screen) which although compact is very easy to use.

The touchscreen is also adapted to be used with fingers rather than the stylus so is much more receptive to contact than it’s competitors.

It has all the standard features you would expect including landscape-to-portrait flipping, sensors to turn of the touchscreen when near your face and a 3mp camera (with LED flash!)

It has several applications in the pipelines, but more will come no doubt - and it needs them to compete with the iPhones massive amount of around 50,000!!!

Connectivity?
With high speed EV-DO Rev. A depending on location, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR it’s all in the bag really!

GPS navigation was an obvious addition here, as was the microUSB connector for data-transfer ( 8.0 gb of internal flash storage) and for charging - plus the 3.5mm headphone jack for stereo sound of course!

Also Out New:
The Nokia N97 is also out there to compete with the Palm Pre and the ‘new’ Apple iPhone 3G S!

The best features of the Nokia N97 are the 5mp camera and a 400 minute talk time - and is great for gaming!

The new iPhone 3G S is just as good as the 3G was, but has 720 minutes talk time (!) access to thousands of apps and improved voice control for number dialling and iTune selection.

The camera - although only 3 mega pixels gives you the benefit of touching the screen on the item you want to focus on in the picture so can give you some great shots - which of course can be uploaded straight to the Internet along with your videos.

What’s your choice gonna be?