source –flickr.com
Month: March 2010
CSS in a normal browser and IE6
Posted by ts On 05.03.2010
Google killed Bambi
Posted by ts On 05.03.2010
source – thenextweb.com by Boris
via reddit.com
Want to see more Google Streetview fun? Check out our collection of ”The Best Google Street View Fails, Wins, And WTF’s“.
Keep Car Windows From Fogging with a Potato
Posted by ts On 05.03.2010
source – lifehacker.com by – Jason Fitzpatrick
If you’d like a clever and cheap way to keep windows, goggles, and other glass and plastic surfaces from fogging up, you can use a potato to keep the vision-blocking condensation at bay.
Photo by jimmihomeschoolmom.
We’re almost out of the so-cold-your-breath-fogs-the-windshield weather in most of the US but this trick works for everything from windshields to swim goggles. Over at the how-to site wikiHow they’ve shared a guide to using a cut potato to keep your windows fog-free.
1. Cut a raw potato in half. Be sure to use a clean potato, so wash it first if it is coated in soil. This is a good opportunity to use up an old potato that has started to sprout and is past its best.
2. Rub the cut part of one half potato on the window. This will clean it and leave a layer that will prevent fog from forming on the window.
3. Use the other half if needed. You can also cut off dirtied slices and keep using the existing half if wished.
4. Leave to dry without touching.
We thought it sounded too cheap and easy to actually work so we grabbed a potato and went and rubbed a raw slice on the shower door, window, and mirror in the bathroom. After a few minutes of steamy hot water the surfaces did in fact remain fog free. How well it lasts over time and how it compares to a $7 bottle of anti-fog spray from your local sporting goods store is open for debate.
Hydrofloors Pools with Movable Floors
Posted by ts On 04.03.2010
source – craziestgadgets.com by – Jeff
Hydrofloors are only like the coolest thing ever invented. They are specially designed pools with movable floors. When you’re using your pool it’s just like a normal pool. But when you are done swimming or aquacising, you press a button and the pool’s floor slowly raises up while the water slips underneath the floor. Pimpin! Eventually the pool’s floor reaches the top and you are left with a large flat area you can use for recreation, dining, parties or any other dry land event you want.
Another press of the button and the floor sinks back down slowly to reveal your already water-filled pool. You can also stop the floor at any point which means you can make the pool as shallow or deep as you want. Having a kid’s party? Just set it for shallow kiddie pool depth. Be sure to throw a few extra chlorine tablets in the pool cleaning mechanism though, you know how kids are.
Panasonic ToughBook C1 Convertible Tablet PC preview and hands on
Posted by ts On 04.03.2010
source –alltouchtablet.com author: G
With tradition in building rugged PCs (they claim to make them since 1993), Panasonic introduces the newest member of the ToughBook family, the Panasonic ToughBook C1 Convertible Tablet PC. And it isn’t just the newest ToughBook, it is also named the world’s lightest 12.1-inch convertible tablet PC.
The new C1 Convertible Tablet PC from Panasonic seams to address especially to medical field, but not only. When projected it, Panasonic considered the case in which you have to carry your tablet PC all day long, so he made it really lightweight – 3.2 lbs (with one battery)/ 3.7 lbs (with two batteries). An other aspect considered by Panasonic was the solidity, therefor the C1 is rugged enough as if you accidentally drop it or spill something on it will not be damaged. Having a magnesium alloy case, a spill resistant keyboard, it was designed to resist at 30” operating drop (to base only), 26 sides 12” drop (non-operating), 225 lb pressurized vibration and 6 ounces spills.
Even if it is a Tablet PC, please don’t think it performs like the other convertible tablets. It was designed to perform as a desktop computer. Its Intel Core i5-520 processor (2.54 GHz), 250 GB shock-mounted flex-connect hard drive with quick-realeas and the 2GB RAM (DDR3-800) with possibility to expand to 6GB, make the Panasonic ToughBook C1 a tablet for business, not for home use.
In addition to these the C1 also offers a battery life that allows you to use it for a long period of time (5 hours with one battery and all work day long if you use two batteries) and you can hot-swap either of the battery while the tablet is running. Talking about the connectivity we found that the standard model comes with Wireless (b/g/n) technology and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and optional it can be equipped with Gobi 2000 mobile broadband from Qualcommwhich allows you to connect to any of the major network carriers and provides GPS location services.
Panasonic ToughBook C1 is not just a high performance, lightweight convertible Tablet. Being designed for business fields like sales, FMCG or medicine it was mandatory for it to be very easy to carry, that’s why it has an ergonomic strap and dome hand support on the button and because it is expected to be used also in direct sunlight, Panasonic fitted the C1 Tablet with an anti-glare treated display. For those strict business environments there are security feature like a fingerprint reader and SmartCard reader.
read on entire post with video and more pictures at alltouchtablet.com
WordPress Makes A Big PuSH To Speed Up 10.5 Million Blogs
Posted by ts On 04.03.2010
source –techcrunch.com by Erick Schonfeld
All 10.5 million blogs on WordPress.com, including TechCrunch, just got more realtime. Any blog hosted on WordPress is now PuSH-enabled, meaning that new posts get pushed out to feed readers such as Google Reader the second they are published. There were WordPress plug-ins that did this before, but now WordPress is doing it automatically for all hosted blogs.
PuSH stands for Pubsubhubbub, a realtime protocol designed to speed up RSSwhich launched at our first Realtime CrunchUp last year. Instead of waiting for your RSS reader to ping the servers for each blog and news site you subscribe to, which can cause a noticeable delay before it actually shows up in your feed reader, it will now be pushed out immediately.
The PuSH protocol does away with the constant polling required by RSS. Another way to speed up RSS is through a different protocol called RSSCloud, which WordPress also supports. There are subtle differences between RSSCloud and PuSH, the most significant being that RSSCloud just notifies your feed reader there is something new, while PuSH actually sends the content with the notification via so-called fat pings.
Google Reader also supports PuSH, so if you use Google Reader, all WordPress blogs will be updated much faster than before. Not that you’d necessarily notice unless you just came from a blog’s site or saw a link on Twitter, Facebook, Buzz or some other stream first. Let us know in comments if you notice any difference to how fast TechCrunch posts appear in Google Reader.
Acer Aspire 1820PT convertible hands-on, priced for 599 euros
Posted by ts On 03.03.2010
source – engadget.com By Ross Miller
Craftily unhidden at the tail end of its press conference, Acer’s long-awaited Aspire 1820PT convertible laptop has finally passed into our hands for ever the briefest of moments. Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Strong hinge, accelerometer for tablet mode, capacitive multitouch, and the ability to use stylus for input (protected in a slot just below and to the right of the screen when not in use). Beyond that, seems like the typical underpowered laptop you know and love — well, maybe not love, but you get the idea. Under the hood there’s an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 8GB RAM, and 320GB HDD, all priced at 599 euro, which we’d venture a guess to mean it’ll be about $599 when it comes to the US (actual release date MIA). Gallery below, and brief video demonstration after the break.
more images at engadget.com
Innovative Architecture: Barn Turned Into A Work Studio
Posted by ts On 03.03.2010
source – freshome.com Author: Lavinia
Do you enjoy unusual transformations? Nicolas Tye Architects came up with one that teaches us something about innovative architecture. Long Barn Studio is the name of the building below and it was raised on the ruins of an old barn measuring a total surface of 2,200 square feet. The place has an interesting architecture and it manages to blend in its environment. You would probably expect an office building to have a certain height and a futuristic look, but the architects over at Nicolas Tye thought of messing with this pattern. However, if the exterior is somewhat peaceful and not very flashy, all the high-tech and modern stuff is located inside, in the actual work studio. And what a great place take inspiration from!-via Arch Daily
Hanvon TouchPad BC10C and BA10E hands-on
Posted by ts On 03.03.2010
source – engadget.com By Ross Miller
Remind us to send a thank-you note to Hanvon for taking a break from cranking out e-readers to work on some of the best tablets we’ve seen at CeBIT yet — much more advanced that what was shown by the company back in September. While the TouchPad BC10C and BA10E didn’t have any special software running on top of Windows 7 Home Premium, both of their 10.1-inch, capacitive multitouch displays were extremely responsive. The BA10E was the more aesthetically-pleasing of the duo, with a smooth grey bezel and a thin, lightweight body that was cool to the touch. If you hadn’t guessed already, that beauty comes at a cost to processing speed, with just a 1.6GHz Intel Atom Z530 processor inside. (Although the official specs list Windows XP and stylus input, as you can see in the video it was clearly using Windows 7 and multitouch — the Atom CPU might also be an error, but the rep on hand couldn’t say.) The BC10C, while bulkier, boasts an Intel Celeron chip — a little more power, but we can’t help but wonder how battery life would suffer. Hanvon told us these babies would run for about 500 euros, with release date currently unknown. You know the drill: gallery below, and video after the break.
read on entire article with more photos form the hands-on and video at engadget.com
ASUS DR-900 e-reader hands-on
Posted by ts On 03.03.2010
source – engadget.com By Joanna Stern
After weeks of hearing about the DR-900 (or DR-950) e-reader, you had to know that we’d sprint (okay, walk at a brisk pace) over to ASUS’ booth to finally handle the touchscreen device in person. The 9-inch ebook reader was quite light in hand, and though we didn’t have Amazon’s Kindle DX with us, it appeared very comparable in size. As far as the reading experience goes, the preloaded text-based PDFs looked crisp on the 1024 x 768 display and as per usual the e-ink display took about a second or two to refresh. Unfortunately, here’s where we tell you that the former touch experience was less than stellar — we had to press quite hard to select the homescreen icons and light finger taps didn’t register when we tried to type “engadget” into the address bar. We got the hang of having to press firmly, but we’re happy there are the up and down arrows on the right edge for alternate navigation. Perhaps it will all be fixed up once it heads into production, though we don’t have details on when that will be. What we do know is that there’s a just lovely hands-on video for you after the break.
read on entire article with tons of pictures at engadget.com