Set to be released on the 2nd of May, Iron Man is Marvel’s first self-financed film. The movie stars Robert Downey Junior who plays Tony Stark, a billionaire who gets captured by Afghan terrorists and decides to get out of this tricky situation by building himself a super-armor suit.
Is anyone here looking forward to this movie? I know I am!
[Via Techeblog]
By Rob Dunn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]
Undoubtedly, you’re probably aware on some level that the United States government mandated that all broadcasted television signals be transmitted in digital format on and after February 19, 2009.
In the good ol’ days, televisions, VCR’s, and other similar appliances were manufactured with a NTSC (National Television System Committee) tuner built-in, which receives analog television signals. But next year, the NTSC standard is being replaced by ATSC (Advanced Television System Committee), making digital television, or ‘DTV‘ the standard transmission method for over-the-air television signals.
A number of people have asked if they will need to buy a new television in preparation for the change. The answer is pretty simple, but explaining that answer sometimes is not.
So, to all those folks who stop me in the hallway to ask about “this digital thing related to TVs,” I thought I would put together a synopsis of what is planned for February 2009, and what you can do to be prepared.
In the following video, you’ll see a structure composed of two spiral towers sitting in a plate full of ferrofluid, a viscous liquid that is highly saturated with iron particles. As soon as the music starts, a magnetic field is created, which makes the fluid dance up the structure in a bizarre and hypnotic way. Enjoy the show!
By Mark O’Neill
Now here’s an intriguing little program for all you Gmail aficionados out there. You can now send remote commands to your PC by emailing your Gmail account. Available commands include shutting down the PC, running a program and opening a webpage in your browser.
Entitled Gmail Remote Control (GRC), it is a small executable program which sits on your computer scanning your Gmail account, waiting for you to command it to do something. For this to work properly, you need to have the following :
If you are a mistrusting person by nature and would prefer not to reveal the password to your main Gmail account then just set up a new Gmail account solely for the purpose of using this program.
OK so when you have Gmail Remote Control open (nothing needs to be installed), enter the log-in details for the Gmail account and log in. You should now see a clock running. That tells you that the program is working normally. You should also insert this program to run in your daily startup process. It would be pretty bad if you were away from home, needed to use this program and realised that the GRC program wasn’t running! However, you need to log in with your Gmail password everytime you start up GRC.
This didn’t occur to me personally but the developer’s website says that in some cases, the GRC program doesn’t work properly first time around and to make it work, you need to install an OCX file. Just see the webpage for more details on that if this affects you.
So you have GRC running. You’re now out and about doing your thing and you realise you forgot to shut down your computer at home. Doh! Assuming GRC is running on the target computer and you have internet access on another computer, here’s how to use Gmail to send a remote command to shut down that computer at home.
Send a blank email to the Gmail account registered with GRC. In the subject title, enter the word shutdown then send it :
Since GRC is constantly scanning your Gmail account, it will act as soon as the email hits your inbox. It will then proceed to shut down the computer it is sitting on. But here’s the thing – after waiting some time, go back into your Gmail account and delete the email. Otherwise, when you go home and switch the computer back on again, GRC will kick in, check the Gmail account, find the shutdown email still sitting there and will proceed to shut the computer down again! So to break that vicious cycle, delete the email before you get back.
But it’s not only shutdown that GRC is good for. You can also tell it to run a program. Just send that email to your Gmail account again, this time entering the path to the program between <open>tags. This command will tell GRC to open up my AVG Anti-Virus on the target computer :
Once again, GRC will see that email and carry out the command you have given it.
The third command is to open a webpage in your default browser. Say you’re at a buddy’s house and he tells you about a great new website you should check out. You don’t want to forget about it so maybe it would be good to have that page open and waiting for you when you get back home?
Fire up the email and send the following to your Gmail account :
When GRC gets the command, it will open the desired URL for you.
GRC is quite a useful program if you use Gmail a lot and you want to be able to manipulate a computer remotely. There’s also lots of possibilities for its usage. Parents could use it to shut down a computer from another room if their child is not doing their homework but playing games instead. You can also use it to open programs that you might be using as a covert security camera. IT departments could use it to shut down a particular computer at the other end of the building or in a completely different location altogether.
Can you think of any uses of your own? Let’s hear them.
Thanks to the augmented reality project currently in development at BMW, fixing your luxury car may soon become as easy as assembling an IKEA desk. Don’t believe me? Then check this out:
By Mark O’Neill
During one of my many stumbling expeditions, I came across a cool Firefox extension which allows you to resize most text boxes on a webpage. This is useful if you’re in the habit of commenting on a lot of blogs and the blog owner gives you an area the size of a postage stamp upon which to write your comment – present blog excluded of course!
But it isn’t just blogs that this extension would be useful for. Many online registration forms are tiny and you can use this resizing tool to expand the size of the boxes on them.
You can also use the tool to expand the size of the WordPress blog box when writing a new post (or on any blogging platform for that matter). There’s lots of possibilities out there.
So next time you want to comment on GAS, use the resizing tool to expand that box!
Fully electric transportation is still years off for the modern consumer. Sure, anyone can snag a Segway for about four thousand dollars on eBay, but as far as full sized cars go; don’t bet on it. The closest thing to an electric car right now is the Tesla roadster and that bad-boy will run you about $100,000 when it hits the market in a few months.
The next obvious alternative would be to buy a Hybrid, unless you’re geeky enough to try and build an electric vehicle yourself. Canadians Darin Cosgrove and Ivan Limburg decided to do just that with as little money as possible, the two created their Frankenstein of a vehicle out of a Geo modified with some gadgets from an electric forklift and golf cart. And get this, the whole project clocked in at $672 after the guys sold off spare parts such as the Geo’s engine and fuel tank.
Their EV is said to go up to 40 MPH with a range of around 15 miles, perfect for a suburban commute. The duo claims that both speed and distance could have been increased had they used newer batteries. As per their latest update, it seems that the “ForkenSwift” has been deemed street legal after inspection.
ForkenSwift [EcoModder]
By Erica Davidson
Guest Blogger
Most professionals wouldn’t describe a desk job as backbreaking. But for many working men and women, hidden dangers often accompany an outwardly posh nine to five.
Whether it’s typing up a report, surfing the Internet or building servers, you may be putting in long hours in front of your monitor. And although hard work may appear to be the key to career success, it may also be the cause of serious injury, called repetitive stress injury
The cause? Doing the same motion, sitting a certain way or even jamming the phone between shoulder and ear time and time again. These repetitive movements—seemingly innocent on their own—pull the tendons and muscles around your joints. Since you’re doing it constantly, your body doesn’t have time to heal. It becomes irritated, produces fluid, and ultimately—you feel pain.
I’m not sure if I’m the only one bothered about this, but have you seen the publicity that has recently started to air on Digg.com? Acne treatment creams, Anti-Age products, Dating services, and other assorted, spam-like ads.
This really leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth. Usually, only sub-par, crappy sites that resort to popups display such commercials, so why would Digg management accept these on their site? Are they assuming (Or the company that serves ads for them) that digg users are lonely, pimple-faced idiots? It seems that about 25% of their ad inventory is filled with those, which in my opinion, is already too much. I know that corporations have to make money in order to prosper, but this is going too far.
Anyone cares to share their thoughts on this?
By Mark O’Neill
I am constantly amazed at how much smaller the world is becoming, due to groundbreaking applications such as Google Earth. The Google Earth blog has reported that the Portugese town of Marvão can now be seen in 3D in Google Earth. This is in addition to being able to see the 3D version of the Irish town of Westport.
Here is the file you need to load in GE to see it for yourself. But here is a screenshot. Truly remarkable and breathtaking. It’s almost like being there in person.
Applications such as Google Earth bring the concept of “virtual reality” one step closer. How much longer before entire cities are created in 3D images? How long will it be before you can take entire “Total Recall” vacations to 3D versions of locations? Can’t afford to go to the real Paris or London? How about a trip to their virtual counterparts instead?
On a more sinister note, how long will it be before we enter a Matrix situation where you can’t tell the difference between reality and virtual reality?