40" HDTV Recommendation

At the risk of sounding like Dealnews, I am going to tell you about a deal I found.

If you are looking for a 40 inch HDTV, here is one for you to check out. It retails for $1699.99, but at the moment Amazon.com has it listed for 29% off.

Sony keeps the consumer hopping by having five 40 inch HDTV's in their product lineup. This one is in the middle of the pack, can display 1080p and has a great contrast ratio. The next model up has 3 HDMI inputs, a better contrast ratio, and isn't on sale. I am seriously thinking about this one.

Sony KDL-40V3000

Hydrogen powered toy car, just add water

As a micro environment, Corgi has created a neat little demonstration of a hydrogen powered car. This isn't the first hydrogen powered RC car, but it is getting attention at the Nuremburg Toy Fair this week.

The system uses a solar panel that charges the radio-control unit and provides the electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen in a fueling station. The hydrogen fuel cell is recharged using the hydrogen released from the water. This would make a great science class demonstration.

Corgi Hydrogen car via Pocket-lint.co.uk

Another Hydrogen toy car
Horizonfuelcell.com

Super Bowl Winner pick

A simulation of this Sunday's championship game run in "Madden" by publisher Electronic Arts Inc predicts the Patriots will win the Super Bowl this year. EA said "Madden" has picked the Super Bowl winner for five years running.

For what its worth, I think the Patriots will win as well.

"Madden" game picks Patriots to win Super Bowl - Yahoo! News

Which HDTV should I buy?

Here's a question I have been asked before. "Which 40 inch HDTV should I buy? It's a great question and the answer really depends on too many things to just give one answer.

I have found a website that will help you narrow the list. It's fun to play with the advisor settings to see what products they recommend. Be sure to answer-- usage, price and size.

Where to buy the product is another issue, although the website does offer some online suppliers. I would probably narrow the search to a few models, then go to my favorite store(s) and look at the products, then decide where to purchase one.

PC World HD TV Advisor

LEGO

I have read that today is the 50th anniversary of the day the patent was approved for the LEGO brick. Lego is celebrating their anniversary and they have over 100 new items. Their website is fun and they have some hard to find items.

Lego turns 50

Here is a time lapse video of a man assembling the "Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon" Lego kit. It has 5195 pieces. He captured one frame out of every 150, so it took him 150 times longer to build the kit than to watch the video. It probably took him 7.5 hours to build it. I think it would be fun to put that one together.

Ultimate Collector's Millennium Falcon construction from Boing Boing

Virgin Galactic

Richard Branson is a taking a risk and in a capitalistic society, risk is rewarded. The first people to ride with Virgin Galactic will pay $200,000 per ticket. That is a lot of money to pay for a short ride into space, but it is the cost for being one of the first space tourists. Its six passengers will experience five minutes of weightlessness. They will also have a great view of the earth. I think that even if they doubled the price, people would still pay it.

I will only say this, they should donate to Feed My Starving Children to soothe their consciences.

Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic

Bionic Eye

University of Washington engineers have for the first time used manufacturing techniques at microscopic scales to combine a flexible, biologically safe contact lens with an imprinted electronic circuit and lights. Interesting combination of biology and electronic application.

The researchers are developing techniques that would find a useful purpose and they are trying the lenses on rabbits at the moment. Cost will be an issue at the beginning but as the technology matures, this could be used as a visual aid to help vision-impaired people I think its a good idea, I hope they are successful in going from the lab to the streets.

Contact lenses with circuits

Batteries get a boost

It seems like everything we have runs on batteries. On Wednesday, Stanford researchers announced they have made a significant breakthrough that could increase the battery life of rechargeable batteries by ten times.

Current lithium batteries are often made with graphite-based anodes, which expand and shrink through use, "wearing" them out by fractures that form. The discovery is to use silicon nanowire anodes which can hold more lithium ions (more power) and do not fracture during the charge/discharge cycle.

People are discussing their favorite use for the new battery, longer battery life for their notebook computer or their music player. But what we are missing is the biggest effect will be on the things that don't currently exist because batteries are too large, heavy or don't last long enough. Think about an extremely small battery powering a remote sensing device used by doctors inside the body. Or a battery that would last ten years in wireless CO detector. It will be interesting to see where this battery technology ends up.

Stanford University researchers' discovery from C-Net news

Gesture to get your point across

First, we thought people using wireless headsets were talking to themselves, now high tech devices are getting gesture reading abilities. Give them a wand and they will be looking like Harry Potter. What will they think of next?

Nokia patents gesture user interface (from Gizmodo)

According to patents, Nokia has developed a user-interface that goes beyond multitouch, and into the realm of tracking hand motions in three-dimensional
space. The gestures look complicated, and I'm worried it might take longer to learn than Palm's Graffiti writing, but I'm willing to start with the one-finger commands (select, rotate, delete) before moving on to the two-fingered stuff (zoom, resize, etc.).

Nokia Patent (Gizmodo)

Tech devices respond to gestures (from Yahoo news)

Several new gadgets make it possible for users to control them just by using hand gestures. Similar to the popular bowling video game for Nintendo's Wii console, two new cell phones sold in Japan offer a bowling game that responds to users swinging their phones by detecting the movement through a camera and springs. One new PC tracks different finger signs, so a user can thumb left to scroll left. One prototype TV lets users gesture, plus snap or clap, to change the channel or adjust the volume.

From Yahoo News

Krampf's Science

Here is a science teacher's website that shows many interesting things. A man that has a one million volt Tesla coil has to be a little crazy. Check out his videos, I like: 3. Heating a Balloon and 5. Crushed Can.

His most recent video, 42. Ice and Soda is nice, explaining the famous mentos and diet coke phenomenon.

Krampf's Science Videos

Sony HDD Video camera HDR-S12

Sony HDD (hard disk drive) Video camcorder

Last CES article. I selected this item today because it is a new video camera and it is at the high end of the consumer price range. The point is, when you are going to buy a camcorder, you should know the upper limit of current technology.

It's not realistic for me to recommend this $1400 camcorder, but perhaps a smaller sibling would be interesting. Probably in about nine or ten months you should be able to find an HDR-UX10 High-Definition DVD Handycam Camcorder for less than $500 or a DCR-SR65 40GB Hard Drive Handycam Camcorder for $250.

Sony HDR-S12 on Gizmodo
Sony's 2008 camcorder lineup

What's after 1080p?

From CES..
82-inch Sony prototype display 2160p (or 4x)

I have wondered and people have asked me, "OK, what comes after HDTV 1080p?" This question is about screen resolution, currently the best resolution for HDTV is 1080 lines on the screen updated progressively. I found that Sony and others are showing screens with 2160 lines.

2160p is also called "Quad HDTV" since it displays four times the number of pixels of 1080p. Quad Full High Definition (QFHD) is the next step in high-resolution display technology.

To avoid the technical stuff, its better than HDTV, like HDTV is better than standard TV (which has 480 lines). It may take ten years before its affordable, but it sounds cool.

Sony shows 2160p prototype

Motorola’s Mobile TV DH01

More from CES - Motorola’s Mobile TV

This is a new type of product. This device is a personal media player that extends the TV experience to anytime and anywhere for live TV, on-demand clips and programs saved on an SD memory card. It is a progression of the current technology available on PC's.

This is a 4.3" screen TV picking up a digital video broadcast just for handheld devices. This is like carrying a TV and a DVD/VCR with you.

Motorola’s Mobile TV

Micro Nuclear power

Toshiba Builds Micro Nuclear Reactor

At first I thought it wasn't true, but I think it could be some kind of test marketing program. The market for this product has to be small. I don't think they would let me put a nuclear reactor in my backyard. To the city council: "It's OK, its fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat." Just think of the paperwork if it did.

What's the opposite of going green, is it brown? I think Toshiba found brown. Also, think about the possibilities if this gets in the wrong hands...

Toshiba should stick to laptops, TV's and medical imaging.

Toshiba's nuclear reactor

Mac Pro with eight processor cores

Another annoucement from the CES Show...

Not a starter PC, this high end mac is twice as fast as the previous Mac Pro. When you put it in your cart, it initally costs $2799.00. You can add 32GB of memory and a terabyte hard drive into each of the 4 drive bays. It's pretty impressive, but I'm probably not going to get one.

Apple Mac Pro Site
Macworld's Mac Pro article

OK - something not so techy

Apparently batter will stick to almost anything. Here is an artist who makes 'fritters' out of non-edible things. I did see something techy in there, none of it made me hungry...

FRITTURE 2007