Using Fax Machines to Route-Around Internet Censorship in Libya

"French Data Network is offering free dial-up Internet for Libyans. But, if the Internet is offline, how are Libyans supposed to learn how to connect to the Internet? It turns out landlines are still up, so one group is using faxes to pipe information into the country."

http://www.readwriteweb.com/cloud/2011/02/using-fax-machines-to-route-ar.php

Standardize This! 10 Technology Messes That Need Fixing

"Why should every mobile device in your house have a different charger? Why can’t a cell phone from one network work on every other system? These ten solutions would stop the madness."

http://www.pcworld.com/article/189257/standardize_this_10_technology_messes_that_need_fixing.html

Nikola Tesla's patents for aircraft, ships, railways, autos, and more

"When people hear the name Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), they think of Tesla cars, Tesla coils, or electricity (assuming they have heard of him at all). Most of Tesla's inventions and patents (of which there are hundreds) are related to electricity, but several of his creations are not. In this gallery, we look at 30 of Tesla's patents. "

http://www.techrepublic.com/photos/nikola-teslas-patents-for-aircraft-ships-railways-autos-and-more/458881


http://www.teslauniverse.com/

Printer produces personalised 3D chocolate

"Chocolate lovers may soon be able to print their own 3D creations thanks to work by UK scientists.

A 3D printer that uses chocolate has been developed by University of Exeter researchers - and it prints layers of chocolate instead of ink or plastic."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14030720

Eurocopter debuts X3 rotorcraft

"The new Eurocopter prototype combines the versatility of a helicopter, by way of vertical take-off and landing, with the higher speed of a plane."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13776355

Giving up my iPod for a Walkman

"Throughout my week using the Walkman, I came to realise that I have very little knowledge of technology from the past. I made a number of naive mistakes, but I also learned a lot about the grandfather of the MP3 Player."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8117619.stm


http://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/09/06/29/1642249/13-year-old-Trades-iPod-For-a-Walkman-For-a-Week?from=rss


http://technologizer.com/2009/06/29/walkman-vs-ipod-touch/

My Four-Legs Walking-Machine

http://www.armure.ch/WALKING.htm

Nuclear decommission green light

"The 100 year programme of decommissioning the site will then get underway."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7992143.stm

"2116-2125 - Final site clearance"

(I'll be 166 years old then)

Life before email: A look back at the 'vacuum post'

"Long before the delivery of the first email in 1971, while most of the world was happy to wait around for snail mail, the Germans were busy blasting letters to each other at high speeds.

The tubular post, or pneumatic telegraph, was a Victorian invention that conveyed letters rapidly over short distances. It was once popular in shops — it survived in some London stores late into the 20th century — for conveying bills, memos and money from floor to floor quickly and securely.

But Germany took this technology a stage further by linking networks across the country so post could be sent speedily backwards and forwards. At first coaches and then trains made up gaps in the network."

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39563443-1,00.htm

Free Solar-Powered WiFi Coming to a Town Near You

"Tired of trying to find a decent café with free WiFi, or waiting in front of the library until it opens so you can hop online and check email? Meraki, a company big on getting Internet access to everyone, is working to make finding a free connection while out and about a whole lot easier for you. Starting December 4th, they’ll be shipping solar-powered WiFi units, so you can have WiFi wherever, whenever. "

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/11/free-solar-power-wifi.php

World’s Earliest SatNav

"Satellite navigation (SatNav) is a lot older than previously thought. In fact, it’s even decades older than man-made satellites themselves. This fantastic contraption, called the ‘Routefinder’, showed 1920s drivers in the UK the roads they were travelling down, gave them the mileage covered and told them to stop when they came at journey’s end."

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2008/09/28/314-watch-the-road-worlds-earliest-satnav/

Trying Out the Dyson Airblade

"James Dyson "is a man who likes to make things work better." He is sort of the Steve Jobs of industrial design, looking at problems and coming up with elegant and effective solutions. The airblade is like that; it uses 80% less energy than a conventional electric hand dryer and wipes the water off your hands in twelve seconds, using air travelling at 400mph."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/09/iidex-dyson-hand-dryer.php

An Illustrated Guide to Every Stupid Cable You Need

"We put up with too many cables. There are at least four different kinds of USB plugs, two kinds of FireWire and like a million different ways to connect something to TV or monitor. Modern gadget life can be kind of retarded in this way. Why not one kind of cable, or just a couple? I don't know. But until everyone gets on the same appendage-to-hole scheme, in the meantime, you can use this: an illustrated guide to pretty much every kind of cable you will see in current gadgets and what it's used for (unless, you know, Sony springs a new one on us overnight, which is honestly possible)."

http://gizmodo.com/5030810/giz-explains-an-illustrated-guide-to-every-stupid-cable-you-need

Support grows for universal power adapter

"A technology that could help the environment by eliminating the need to ship a power adapter with every electronics device got a vote of confidence Friday from consumer electronics maker Westinghouse Digital Electronics."

http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/06/16/Support_grows_for_universal_power_adapter_1.html

Cisco Unveils Hologram Communication

http://www.gadgettastic.com/2008/06/01/cisco-unveils-hologram-communication/

Geneva drive

"The Geneva drive or Maltese cross is a mechanism that translates a continuous rotation into an intermittent rotary motion. It is an intermittent gear where the drive wheel has a pin that reaches into a slot of the driven wheel and thereby advances it by one step. The drive wheel also has a raised circular blocking disc that locks the driven wheel in position between steps."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_drive

We CAN be serious: Cardiff University disputes Hawk-eye's Wimbledon line call

"New research from Cardiff School of Social Sciences draws on the claims made by Hawk-Eye Innovations’ on its website about the disputed line call. The machine reported that the ball nicked the baseline by 1mm. However, Hawk-Eye Innovations also report that the average error of the machine is 3.6mm. If the Cardiff analysis is correct, the errors can be even larger than 3.6mm on some occasions. The International Tennis Federation, which tests the machines for use, would accept that Hawk-Eye had passed its test if it called the ball in by 1mm while the true position was out by 5mm."



http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/socsi/newsandevents/news/hawkeye.html

Solar without the Panels

"Investors and utilities intent on building solar power plants are increasingly turning to solar thermal power, a comparatively low-tech alternative to photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight directly into electricity. This month, in the latest in a string of recent deals, Spanish solar-plant developer Abengoa Solar and Phoenix-based utility Arizona Public Service announced a 280-megawatt solar thermal project in Arizona. By contrast, the world's largest installations of photovoltaics generate only 20 megawatts of power."

http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?ch=specialsections&sc=solar&id=20356&a=

MIT Open Courseware

"OCW opens up knowledge across the world and allows universities to benchmark teaching."

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

Transatlantic Submarine Cables Reaching Land - Taryn Simon

"These submarine telecommunication cables extend more than 8,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean before reaching this endpoint in Avon, New Jersey. They transmit as many as 60 million simultaneous conversations. "There's a humor because the cables are so important, yet they look so unguarded and unimportant," Simon said."

http://www.wired.com/culture/art/multimedia/2008/01/gallery_simon?slide=10&slideView=1