Latest Inventions

posted by admin on Sep 27

We are on the verge of SmartGarments being the norm!

Apple and Nike have been cooperating on some technology that will combine their sales power with the latest technology. They are hoping to make iPods that will only work if you are wearing certain Nike clothes. After Digital Right Management went free-for-all with 7Digital, the leading companies need the ball back in their court.

This might seem like a weird venture with the intention of just selling more clothes to people, but thinking about the possibilities it offers, it’s not that bad an idea.

What are the Benefits:
Well, the basic theory for this technology at the moment is for a companion component of Apple’s iPod to be inserted into a piece of Nike footwear and possibly clothes.

The software in this component would enable the ‘wearer’ to monitor their athletic performance, such as tracking their heart rate or counting the distance travelled in a set time. Great for athletes who are serious about their performance and to improve their achievements.

There is also talk for the software to be able to act almost like a GPS cross SatNav, allowing the runner/walker/rower to be alerted as to the best route to an endpoint or specific location such as a restaurant or scenic route.

There is even talk of this component being able to warn the wearer of damage to the sports shoes or other equipment which could affect performance or safety.

Great idea in my book - especially if you are serious about your outdoor pursuits.

What are the arguments against:
Well, the main concern is the exclusivity of the whole deal - basically you can’t get the software to work unless you have purchased certain items of clothing. You are almost being forced to buy certain products that you may not otherwise have purchased.

In theory wouldn’t need to buy these exact clothes and an iPod if you were going to use a standard mp3 player of your choice with separate pedometer and heart rate monitor and when you also carried around a GPS phone or SatNav gadget and did it all yourself.

I’m afraid that this attitude is a bit narrow minded in my eyes, as we are always made to buy the exact equipment that inventors invent otherwise they wouldn’t make any money from their efforts and wouldn’t bother inventing a whole host of other great stuff.

Can you imagine a world where Ford made parts that fitted a Volkwagen, Nokia made phone components that fitted onto a Siemens handset or Boeing traded mechanical parts with Airbus? It just wouldn’t happen - so why can’t Apple and Nike make clothes that only work with their personal parts?

Why should we be able to buy cheap superstore running shoes to use with the special iPod when they haven’t contributed at all to the technological advances that made it possible?

Anyway, the chirping alarm would keep going off from the moment you put them on, to tell you that they were no good for running and the soles were too thin!

Why use cutting edge technology in cheap equipment? Would you fly for 10 hours in a ‘plane if the spare parts were all made by your local dollar store?

posted by admin on Sep 21

If you’re anything like me you spend a surprising amount of money each month on magazines. Each one doesn’t seem that bad but when you add them up it can be significant. Then there are the ones that you’d like to browse but don’t care quite enough about to want to actually buy. And what about the one you’d like to buy, but can never find for sale?

What to do?

Well thanks to the power of the Internet there is a new solution. Mygazines allows anyone to sign up for a free account and after doing so view any of the 1,184 different magazine titles they currently make available. That’s a lot of free reading material waiting for you!

The selection is a good one and includes everything from the very well-known titles like GQ through to somewhat random additions like the Ikea catalog!

The actual reading experience is quite nice and clear as you can flip through the pages of magazines in quite a natural way and they are surprisingly easy to read online. I really like what this site has to offer and think it would be well worth taking a look at.

posted by admin on Sep 18

Welcome to a great piece of ’smart furniture’ from Microsoft.

Rather than looking for miniaturisation and portability like so many other software companies for their latest technology, Microsoft have gone for smart and stylish.

The Surface is their attempt at home or office furnishings that have a secret purpose. Basically this 2ft high ‘coffee table’ houses a pc underneath a 30 inch touch-sensitive waterproof acrylic screen: no keyboard, no mouse!

It has a very clear color display, internal speakers and uses Wifi to access the web so it should cover most necessities for both business and personal uses.

Where can I get one?
Well, unless you have around $15,000 (£8,400) you won’t. They are currently only found in one or two hotels in Seattle, allowing staff and guests to scan the local area for bars and restaurants, etc.

You can flip the screen to a satellite image of the world thanks to Microsoft’s Virtual Earth globe, and check out your next destination for pleasure or business.

Microsoft are hoping to pitch it at families, as a way to share family photos and videos without everyone having to gather around the normal pc screens - but not for another 3 years, apparently!

Is 3 years too long in this fast moving world??

posted by admin on Sep 13

Powered by a Hydrogen fuel cell - meet the new Ford Edge.

There is another car on the road that runs off of the same element that keeps the sun shining. So far though, it has only been let out for testing, but the insight is something to really consider.

Without the cylinders and pumps of standard fuel cars, this one is silent. And without the burning of fossil fuels either: this one leaves only water behind - pure enough to drink if you wanted to try it!

Is is truly an Eco Vehicle?
No, not yet. Like all electric and hybrid cars, it is still reliant on fossil fuels and therefore still emits huge amounts of carbon waste at somewhere along the production line. But it opens up hope for the future.

Although it is currently as heavy as some of the larger cars already on the road and still pollutes the atmosphere like all other road users, Ford are looking to the next decade to really make the savings. Apparently, they say, there will be a chain of nuclear power stations creating pollution-free hydrogen that they can use to power their Edge.

10 years is a long time away, but then, it will take that long to build up all the ‘hydrogen service stations’ along interstates and in superstore car parks. You’ll need them, as with a driving range of only 100 miles (225 with over night charging with a lithium-ion battery) you won’t be driving to your destination, you will be driving to the next top-up point!

It seems that some states in the US are already considering this as a viable method, and the state of California has started creating a ‘hydrogen highway’ between it’s 2 main towns to get things started.  But we are still quite some way from this becoming ‘everyday’.

The Future:
Well, thanks to the record-breaking Ford Fusion Hydrogen 999 - which last year (2007) broke the land speed record for a fuel-celled car - they are not letting time or the shortage of fuel get in their way.  Other manufacturers are also in the race to designed the first alternate fuel vehicle for the masses, like BMW.

However, Ford have already started making further improvements and obviously the alternative fuel car that we see in 10 years time on the roads will probably be nothing like the one we see today.   It wasn’t long ago that the first fuel cell ‘car’ was pulling a trailer of hydrogen to gets it’s energy!!!!

Ideas change, technologies change, consumer demands change - but I’m sure that fossils fuels will run out before long, leaving us little choice about hydrogen (and nuclear) as the source of our energy.

Source: The Sunday Times
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posted by admin on Sep 9

CERN are about to launch the biggest invention in physics!

Underground in Europe tomorrow morning, the most powerful atom-smasher ever built will come online.  Scientists worldwide have eagerly awaited this moment for over 20 years.

In the flashes from the collisions, they expect to reproduce conditions that existed during the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang at the dawn of creation.

What happened after the Big Bang?
The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, in Geneva, Switzerland, should let scientists get a closer look at the ‘make-up’ of matter.  Hopefully filling in gaps in our existing knowledge - or even coming up at odds to current theory and changing years of belief.

The 17-mile underground tunnel will first be rigorously tested in the first few weeks to test the strength of the world’s largest superconducting magnets as protons are fired around the track.

If all goes to plan, within a month proton beams will be fired off in opposite directions to induce great collisions that should offer insights into particle theory. 

The project has attracted researchers of 80 nationalities, some 1,200 of them from the US, which contributed £295 million of the project’s price tag of nearly £2.3 billion.

There are many other HC across the world, but none so powerful as this.  The CERN collider is designed to push the proton beam close to the speed of light, whizzing 11,000 times a second around the tunnel 150 to 500 feet.

Is it Safe? 
Scientists insist the most powerful particle accelerator ever built is “absolutely safe” although concerns have been voiced.  Some sceptics even fear it could create micro “black holes” and endanger the entire planet as the energies created will be up to seven times greater than any achieved before.

According to many sources, Professor Otto Rossler, a German chemist from a group of scientists mounting a last-minute court challenge to the project, has expressed worries about the creation of black holes.

He, (along with others) believe that microscopic black holes could be generated within the machine curing collisions. But according to CERN’s predictions, they will blink in and out of existence before anything ’scary’ happens.

Apparently, everything they are attempting has happened in nature before, and protons regularly collide in the earth’s upper atmosphere without creating black holes.

The experiments could help scientists find answers to some of the biggest questions in physics, such as why the universe looks the way it does, and how to explain mass, gravity and mysterious “dark matter”.

I look forward to the results - visit the official Latest News Updates

Taken from MSN and LHC UK