Stuff We Didn’t Post Today (and Why) [Remainders]

Job Postings Reveal That Microsoft’s Not Stopping At Windows 7…Carpool LED Signs Pretend That We All Get Along…Biodegradable Plastics To Be Made Out Of Green Gunk…I Don’t Have Enough Fingers And Toes For Ideum’s New Multitouch Table

We really didn’t need postings on Microsoft’s Careers page to tell us that a successor to Windows 7 is in the works. The only information in those job ads is that there could be some focus on Internet Information Services (IIS) and Windows Live Mail integration. Other than that Microsoft just plain appears to be setting everything up for testing future development builds. Please page me when there’s a leaked version of the builds, until then these are just job postings. [Ars Technica]

Like most concepts designs, this Carpool LED sign is great in theory. You’re supposed to stick it on the top of a car (or even a cab) to show that you’re willing to carpool and how many seats remain open. That’s fantastic except it doesn’t take into account that some of us don’t want to pick up creepy, smelly strangers in the same fashion we would hitchhikers. The Halloween movies I’ve watched today even further prove this as a bad idea. [Yanko Design via Uber Gizmo]

A company called Cereplast decided that making plastic junk out of tapioca, corn, wheat and potatoes isn’t gross enough. So now they’re making flimsy cutlery out of that green gunk that builds on on water. Frankly, I don’t care how much petroleum is saved in comparison to traditional plastic, I just plain don’t want to shove something made of algae into my mouth. [Pop Sci]

Ideum has made yet another ultra-wide touchscreen surface and this one’s designed to be capable of recognizing up to 50 different simultaneous touch points. I guess it could be fun if I had a few extra fingers or if a bunch of people crowded around and used all their toes. Geez. Can we just plain skip overdoing it with the touch points and work on getting one of these into my office? [Slashgear]

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You’ve Reached a River In Your “Opera” Luxury Trailer [Design]

River Depth: 1.36 meters. Water Temperature: Warm. 1) Attempt to ford the river. 2) Call your private helicopter to airlift wagon. 3) Caulk wagon and float it across. What is your choice?

Considering this thing will contain “every conceivable luxury,” fording the river seems a little dangerous. I wouldn’t want to ruin those gorgeous hardwood floors, the motorized beds, or all the wine I’d have stored in this thing’s wine cabinet. Yeah, I’d probably float it.

And c’mon Axel Enthoven. You say you took your design cues from the Sydney Opera House, but we all know you’re just trying to live your grade school dream: taking a covered wagon across the Oregon Trail. In style. [Axel Enthoven via Dezeen, Likecool via Dvice]

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Asus Continues USB 3.0 Onslaught With a Cheap PCI-E Card [USB]

Man, Asus is really going nuts with USB 3.0 gear this week. First a 3.0 compatible motherboard, now this SuperSpeed ready PCI-E card that won’t even break the bank at $30.

Unfortunately, the guys at Maximum PC didn’t have any USB 3.0 devices to run the card through it’s paces. All we know is that Windows 7 boots fine while once it’s installed, and it gets similar USB 2.0 transfer rates to other controllers out there.

That said, we all know that USB 3.0 is going to be blazing. As long as the card performs anywhere near as fast as we expect from USB 3.0, the fact that it’ll be out “soon” and won’t cost much is good enough for me. [Maximum PC via CrunchGear]

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NVIDIA ION LE hack adds DirectX 10 support, raises interesting questions

Filed under: Laptops

NVIDIA ION LE hack adds DirectX 10 support, raises interesting questions originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Twelve Beautiful Jack-o’-Lanterns [Shooting Challenge]

Jack-o’-lanterns are my favorite things in Halloween. OK, Jack-o’-lanterns and mahoosive amounts of Jack Daniels. That’s why I am happy that Mark asked you for photos of the spooky heads for this week’s Shooting Challenge. Like before, you didn’t disappoint.

The winner picture above is Pumpkin Carving Night. Jeremy Champion did a great job in the composition and creating the atmosphere, shooting with a Nikon D90 with Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 D, 1.3 sec, ISO 200.

Check out the gallery for the second and third places, and the rest of the entries. All of them were great, so thank you very much for sending them.

Have a happy and safe Halloween tomorrow. I’m off to start with the other Jack.

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Why confine your nerdy sloth to your living room, where large robots mime fake guitar and serve you sloppy mixed drinks? Take that zest for the sedentary life with you on the road by having one of your robot ninjas steal this iPhone Rock Band robot from its ingenious creator, Joe Bowers. The Arduino-based device uses ambient light sensors to detect the falling notes and then taps out the music with some conductive foam attached to some squeaky fake fingers. Joe did a fairly detailed write-up, and even uploaded his code, so there’s presumably nothing stopping you from actually doing something with your life and building one of these with all that free time you’ve saved up by hacking your way through all the console-based guitar games. Video is after the break.

[Via Daily Mobile]

Continue reading Laziness on the move: robot plays Rock Band on the iPhone

Filed under: Cellphones, Robots

Laziness on the move: robot plays Rock Band on the iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Via [Engadget]

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Stuff We Didn’t Post Today (and Why) [Remainders]

Job Postings Reveal That Microsoft’s Not Stopping At Windows 7…Carpool LED Signs Pretend That We All Get Along…Biodegradable Plastics To Be Made Out Of Green Gunk…I Don’t Have Enough Fingers And Toes For Ideum’s New Multitouch Table

We really didn’t need postings on Microsoft’s Careers page to tell us that a successor to Windows 7 is in the works. The only information in those job ads is that there could be some focus on Internet Information Services (IIS) and Windows Live Mail integration. Other than that Microsoft just plain appears to be setting everything up for testing future development builds. Please page me when there’s a leaked version of the builds, until then these are just job postings. [Ars Technica]

Like most concepts designs, this Carpool LED sign is great in theory. You’re supposed to stick it on the top of a car (or even a cab) to show that you’re willing to carpool and how many seats remain open. That’s fantastic except it doesn’t take into account that some of us don’t want to pick up creepy, smelly strangers in the same fashion we would hitchhikers. The Halloween movies I’ve watched today even further prove this as a bad idea. [Yanko Design via Uber Gizmo]

A company called Cereplast decided that making plastic junk out of tapioca, corn, wheat and potatoes isn’t gross enough. So now they’re making flimsy cutlery out of that green gunk that builds on on water. Frankly, I don’t care how much petroleum is saved in comparison to traditional plastic, I just plain don’t want to shove something made of algae into my mouth. [Pop Sci]

Ideum has made yet another ultra-wide touchscreen surface and this one’s designed to be capable of recognizing up to 50 different simultaneous touch points. I guess it could be fun if I had a few extra fingers or if a bunch of people crowded around and used all their toes. Geez. Can we just plain skip overdoing it with the touch points and work on getting one of these into my office? [Slashgear]

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NVIDIA ION LE hack adds DirectX 10 support, raises interesting questions

Filed under: Laptops

NVIDIA ION LE hack adds DirectX 10 support, raises interesting questions originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Why confine your nerdy sloth to your living room, where large robots mime fake guitar and serve you sloppy mixed drinks? Take that zest for the sedentary life with you on the road by having one of your robot ninjas steal this iPhone Rock Band robot from its ingenious creator, Joe Bowers. The Arduino-based device uses ambient light sensors to detect the falling notes and then taps out the music with some conductive foam attached to some squeaky fake fingers. Joe did a fairly detailed write-up, and even uploaded his code, so there’s presumably nothing stopping you from actually doing something with your life and building one of these with all that free time you’ve saved up by hacking your way through all the console-based guitar games. Video is after the break.

[Via Daily Mobile]

Continue reading Laziness on the move: robot plays Rock Band on the iPhone

Filed under: Cellphones, Robots

Laziness on the move: robot plays Rock Band on the iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 31 Oct 2009 19:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Via [Engadget]

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An Astronaut Explains How We’ll Fall In Love With Space Again [Space]

Our friend and astronaut blogger Leroy Chiao sat on the human spaceflight advisory committee which released its report last week. Since news stories about it were hazy at best, we asked him to explain what it really said:

It is not surprising, but it is dispiriting, to realize how little the general public knows (or cares?) about space exploration. We seem to take for granted, that America is the leader in human spaceflight. Will it always be so?

Remember high school history? Remember Portugal? They dominated the seas way back when, and thus, dominated the known world. Then what happened? Did they get lazy? Rest on their laurels? Sure, they still are the only ones who make port wine (at least any that’s worth anything), but WTF, over? How about Rome? Ok, maybe they just got too decadent. I never did see the X-rated movie Caligula, but it probably wasn’t too far off the mark. They got too full of themselves, and that was that.

So, what’s it going to take to get America enthralled again about space exploration? This was one of the questions we considered, on the Review of US Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, also known as the Augustine Committee, after our chairman, respected aerospace veteran, Norm Augustine. What do we have to do? Do we have to go chase imaginary aliens to get your attention?

The media generally missed the mark on understanding our report. How is this possible? Maybe I’m too close to it. I suppose I shouldn’t over-think this. I should give ‘em what they want. Alright then, here are the report highlights, from my perspective:

• The space program needs more money. NASA has been trying to do too much with too little for too long. Let’s either spend more money, or scale back our expectations.

• The Space Shuttle has been a magnificent, beautiful flying machine, but it is more fragile than we thought, and it is too expensive to operate. There is a case to be made to keep flying the Shuttle for a few more years, but only if we are going to base the next heavy launch vehicle on its technology.

• The International Space Station has been a great success, in that an international framework for cooperation has evolved. This is the future, not only in space exploration. In addition, there have been relevant, significant scientific results from research conducted onboard. The US should use this framework, to move exploration forward beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

• The Constellation Program was a reasonable path, five years ago, when the Vision for Space Exploration was first formulated. Since then, budget shortfalls have caused significant delays. Moreover, the goals evolved into a focus on getting astronauts back to the Moon, to the development of the Ares family of rockets and the Orion spacecraft. The public generally is bored with going back to the Moon, since we already did this forty years ago.

• Commercial crew access to LEO should be considered. Traditional aerospace companies can do this, and who knows? Maybe the startups can too, more efficiently. At any rate, the technology has existed for almost fifty years, it’s time to give it a try.

• Heavy Lift Vehicle: Let’s choose one, then, do it. Be it Ares-V, Ares-V Lite, Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle, or Shuttle Derived. Pick one.

Clear as mud? For a more detailed (yet, still very high-level) explanation, check out my blog.

Leroy Chiao, Ph.D. served as a NASA astronaut from 1990-2005. During his 15-year career, he flew four missions into space, three times on Space Shuttles and once as the copilot of a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station. On that flight, he served as the commander of Expedition 10, a six and a half month mission. Dr. Chiao has performed six spacewalks, in both US and Russian spacesuits, and has logged nearly 230 days in space.

Dr. Chiao is Gizmodo’s official astronaut (and “astroblogger“). On occasion, he still ponders strategies to hunt for imaginary aliens.

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