Non-Tech City

New Link Image to New Site

2005-03-31T21:40:00.000+01:00

Shiny New Website!

2005-03-18T20:07:00.000Z

We have received such a lot of interest in the past two months that we have decided to move to a flashy new host. So, thank you to all you readers, thank you to positive fusion for helping me out even though I was a pain in the arse about the word press install, and check out the new site. This site will stay here as a pointer, and as a curiosity to future generations after I become a world famous tech writer.

New Site
New RSS Feed

Eye Controlled Camera

2005-03-17T00:15:00.000Z

This is a cool demo of eye tracking software, cameras follow the pupils. Apparently this could be used in market research, big brother will be following you around the supermarket, checking out what catches your eye.
Link

Weird Case Mod No. 2

2005-03-17T00:03:00.000Z

Link

Confused Flash Drive

2005-03-16T23:26:00.000Z

This is an odd product, i'm not really sure what it's trying to be. It's a normal flash drive with a built in mic, when it's plugged into a computer an icon appears which allows you to place VOIP calls. Now, give this thing wifi and make it a cell phone in wifi hotspots and I get it. But if you're at your PC, you can just use that to make VOIP calls, I don't see why you need to speak into your flash drive. Maybe i'm just upset that it doesn't work on Macs yet.
Link

Longhorn to Have No Passwords

2005-03-16T21:56:00.000Z

The new windows, Longhorn, is apparently knocking passwords on the head in favour of two factor authentication. Will this solve all our security problems, and make windows the most un-break-in-able OS? Not according to Bruce Schneier: "It solves the security problems we had ten years ago, not the security problems we have today". Oh well, I have a Mac.

Electric Cars Scrapped

2005-03-16T21:20:00.000Z

78 clean, efficient electric cars have been scrapped by GM. The EV-1's were being scrapped as the product line was no longer profitable. They could not be sold on due to the cars 2000 unique parts making them impossible to service by anyone other than GM. This would cause liability issues should anything go wrong. I think it's a travesty that these machines are being destroyed, and there were many protesters trying to stop the lorries. Surely you could just sign a form that would resign any possibility of legal comeback should the car die. They would still sell, and there would be 78 less petrol cars on the road. GM has donated some to universities and museums, places where they won't be used. The technology developed in the EV-1 has been used in hybrid cars, which are becoming more popular and can still be bought. So that's good news.
Link

DIY - Pimp my Shuffle

2005-03-16T21:16:00.000Z

This is an awesome hack, I would love one of these. You could even make it with a smaller set of earphones if you took the shuffle's inards out.
Link

DIY - Teleprompter

2005-03-16T21:07:00.000Z

Videoblogging is starting to take off, maybe you need this for that. Maybe your dumping your online girlfriend and you've written a little speech for your next video chat. Whatever the reason you need a homemade teleprompter, this is the site for you.

Weird Case Mod No. 1

2005-03-16T15:59:00.000Z

Link

Scariest Robot in the World

2005-03-16T13:46:00.000Z

The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center has developed this, the ROBART 3. Which, I have to say is quite intimidating, it carries a gun that is capable of firing tranquilizer darts. Equipped with a host of sensors to track down baddies and shoot them in the arse with a dart this thing is bound to become popular as a security guard replacement eventually.
Link

Downhill Battle

2005-03-16T13:23:00.000Z

I just received a CD from the good folks over at downhill battle, now, just to cover myself here - I do not think you should steal music, it is wrong, and very very naughty.
Now, this awesome CD is being sent out to radio stations all over the world and contains several jingles explaining the state of the music industry today and how current copyright law is strangling creativity. Licensed to Ill by the Beastie Boys was almost entirely composed of samples, that album could not be made today, and it's an awesome album. That sucks. If you also think that that sucks, head over to their site and check it out. You could download one of their posters, print it out, stick it up. If you are a DJ then you could play it on the radio, like I will be on Livewire.

Thanks to Readers and Call for Help

2005-03-16T11:10:00.000Z

Thanks everyone, we've had over 12,000 unique hits now, and many more in total. Hopefully that means we have some readers. Due to this success I have been thinking of setting up a blog away from Blogger. What I need is advice, are any of you particularly happy with your hosting/blogging tool/domain seller? Leave a comment and let me know.
Also, we're looking for contributors, not necessarily on a permanent basis, but if you have just bought a new gadget then write a small review and send it in. You'll be labeled as the author and we can put a link to your site if you have one. You can get in touch by email (matt.sparkes(at)gmail.com), or on the forum.
Thanks again for reading everyone.

iPod Super

2005-03-16T00:09:00.000Z

A man dropped his iPod and broke the hard disk. He then dissasembled the connector and soldered it to a standard size hard disk (iPods use 2.5 inch hard disks), and now he's experimenting with making a 300GB iPod Super. This thing would be big, but not too big to lug around, and that is a hell of a lot of storage. I'm not too sure how you would make an enclosure for the new pod though.
Link

How to Wipe Your Hard Disk

2005-03-16T00:03:00.000Z

Have old computers around, want to throw them away, sell them, or give them to me? (I need a firewall machine) Well i'm sure you've read about the horrible things that can happen when hard disks fall into the wrong hands. The good folks at Engadget have written a how-to on erasing your hard disk good and proper like.
Link

Commonwealth Baton

2005-03-15T23:39:00.000Z

The commonwealth games baton got started on it's long journey by the Queen last night, it will be run in relay until the start of the games in 2006. The twist is that it contains a GPS system and two cameras and you can track it's progress online.
Link

GMail Going Public

2005-03-15T23:15:00.000Z

It looks like GMail is going public, not that it's been hard to get an invite recently. Apparently every few google hits is offering an invite, at least on the American site. If anybody does still want an invite, then let me know in a comment, but it looks like this is it.
Link

Lego Mindstorms

2005-03-15T23:07:00.000Z

There is an exact copy of this in one of the labs at uni, so i've seen it in action. I always assumed it was someones dissertation, but this guy obviously did it first, maybe someone passed it off as their own work, anyway. This is a brilliant example of using lego midstorms to solve a comlex problem, i've used it a bit and it's pretty powerful. The RCX is the CPU etc and runs Not Quite C (NQC), which is almost C, allowing some real programming.
Link

Energy Producing Bag

2005-03-15T19:25:00.000Z

Isn't this cool? Walk to work, and charge your iPod as you go, or your phone. Or, if you're chilling out somewhere you could power some external speakers and plug them into your MP3 player. I think this is something I could use, if anyone wants to send me a review model before summer...?
Link

AK47 MP3

2005-03-15T19:12:00.000Z

Isn't it funny sometimes, when you see things that you were thinking of just a moment before? I was sitting there, thinking, 'what can I do with this old machine gun, and wouldn't it be nice to upgrade from my iPod?'. Then, all of a sudden I see this site and it all becomes clear. Seriously though, what sort of demographic can they aim this at? (no pun intended) Who in their right mind would want one of these? I would list the specs, but they're on the site, and none of you are thinking of buying one, are you? I hope this is a prank, here's a quote from one of the guys at the company:
"Hopefully, from now on many Militants and Terrorists will use their AK47s to listen to music and audio books…They need to chill out and take it easy."

Moon Sites Re-Visited Soon?

2005-03-15T19:09:00.000Z

If we take pictures of landing sites, then it will kill a major online industry: crackpot conspiracy theorists. It will be far more challenging to believe that no-one landed on the moon with that sort of proof. They would really have to bring their A game.
Link

Wooden Laptop

2005-03-15T19:07:00.000Z

It's a laptop, a wooden laptop. This must have taken so much work, it's a shame to see technology grow old and obselete already, but when this much work goes into it, it's going to be heartbreaking to get a new laptop. Personally I wouldn't like this, but it is interesting. Talking of old technology, I just bought a TV today, it's an old Sanyo, made in the UK where you have to turn a key to tune it in. I love the contrast of that on my desk with my iBook.
Link

Talking To/At Aliens

2005-03-15T19:06:00.000Z

A new service has been launched where you can call a premium rate number, and leave a message that will be broadcast into outer space. Recently, the Craigslist bigwig won an ebay auction to broadcast some material into space, but he paid $1225. With this new service you need only pay $3.99 per minute. Still, surely this is unnecasary, as all broadcasts will reach an indefinite distance, albeit at a reduced signal strength dependant upon distance. If an alien technology really wants to listen to my mobile phone calls, they'll have to filter out the fuzz, turn up the volume and decrypt it. But you get my drift, if you do have a legitimate reason for trying to get in touch with little green men, then just DIY.
Link

Worried About RFID?

2005-03-15T18:53:00.000Z

Worried about the privacy implications of RFID? I can see some scenarios where I would like to wipe the tags, perhaps marketing companies could drive around making logs of addresses and what products are in those houses. It looks like there will be a solution in time for the widespread adoption of the tags, a couple of companies are working on RFID wipers. Here and Here.
More on RFID Here.

Google Fired Him, Plaxo Hired Him

2005-03-13T22:50:00.000Z

This is the blog that got that guy fired by Google. It's quite a good read on it's own, despite the interesting background, detailing what he's been up to since the incident; being inundated with job offers and how he chose to work at Plaxo. Plaxo is one of those online contact books that I think can really work, but i've tried some terrible ones. The problem is that my contact book is mostly composed of non-geeks who have a very low tolerance for this sort of thing. They've signed up for a bad service before, it's not fair to ask them to try another. Anyway, this sort of thing doesn't work unless people keep them updated, something that non-geeks probably won't do. If it was tied in with IM then maybe it could work, as non-geeks would have to load the client up reguarly and would keep it updated. Still, I hope that this service takes off, because it seems to currently be the field leader in good design and features. Personally I give it 6 months before this sort of thing gets added to MSN and all the other services go under.
Add me at Plaxo, matt(dot)sparkes(at)gmail(dot)com.

Linux Goes Apple

2005-03-13T08:25:00.000Z

Via Pixelsurgeon: It appears Linux originator Linus Torvald has succumbed finally to Mac Envy. I see his argument, but if someone offered me a free Mac, I doubt I'd go to the trouble of putting Linux on it.

And a news search on Linux unearths this other titbit, courtesy of Slashdot; IBM have a nifty piece of software in the works that will boot a no-doubt cut-down version of the OS from a USB storage device, allowing you to perform "rescue and recovery" functions. Clever stuff, but sounds a bit limited in application..

Thinking back to the old Acorn days, wouldn't it be great to have the OS hardwired again? No bulkware OS clogging up your drives and generally making everything difficult? Almost makes me want to crack the old beast out and play Zarch. Ah, it all comes full circle... Zarch (also known as Virus on the Amiga) is apparently packaged with Suse distros.

New Bastard Operator From Hell

2005-03-13T02:36:00.000Z

Courtesy of the good folks over at the register, comes another BOFH story:
Episode 9 - So I'm having a quiet lager at a downtown pub whilst waiting for a presentation on wireless networking to start when I notice a brace of Windows geeks all jabbering away to each other. (You know the sort of thing - "I ported Server 2003 to my cellphone in Java in two days - want to browse my file share?" war stories, etc.)
Link

Identity Theft?

2005-03-13T02:08:00.000Z

There is an advertising campaign at the moment, warning all of us in the UK about the dangers of identity theft. They're very over the top, including one where the 'criminal' runs off to L.A. and fills a bath with champagne, all on 'your' card. The criminal is played by a popular impressionist which is quite clever. I heard a rumour today that he himself was the victim of identity theft, poor guy I thought, but what a great story. Too good to be true, meaning it's not true. The tabloids here have been making a habit recently out of performing weird acts in order to create a story. We've had journalists go undercover and gain access to the queens bedroom, etc etc. Now we have this, from the Mirror, where they dug through his rubbish for items that may be used in identity theft. They did actually find a valid debit card and his actors union details, so they do have a point. The story though is fabricated and over the top, but not as over the top as the actual campaign. It states that 1 in 4 people have been a victim of this crime or know someone who has been. Initially, like me you freak out a bit, until you realise that 'knowing' someone who has been is so loose a term. The actual figures could be anywhere from 1 in 4 to one in thousands of actual people who have been victims.
Link

Typos Cause Mayhem

2005-03-13T01:57:00.000Z

A document mentioning nuclear tests carried out in Sedan, Nevada, was mis-typed and instead said that the tests where carried out in the Sudan. Sudanese officials understandably got worried, but it's resolved now.
Link
Link 2

Another typo gave the wrong phone number to lorry drivers wanting to renew their licence, instead including the number for a physcic hotline.
Link

Most of my posts include typos, but if you're writing down a phone number, or location of a nuclear test site, then just give it a quick check over, yeah?

Mac Mini in VW

2005-03-13T00:58:00.000Z

This guy works miracles, look how clean this install of a Mac mini is. Nicer than the previously posted Mac Mini in Lexus I think. Still, this sort of thing is getting far more popular, you can buy BMWs and other cars with a factory made iPod connector in the glove box, so how long will it be before this sort of thing can be done officially? Longer than it takes for me to install one I hope, i'd like to get a few months of smugness in before just anyone can have one. Check out the rest of the site too, there's some impressive stuff.
Link

Who Wears Bluetooth Devices?

2005-03-13T00:43:00.000Z

Well, taxi drivers. And cows. That's it. I am NOT making a connection there, just in case I have any taxi driving readers; you all do good work.

Awful Laptop

2005-03-13T00:33:00.000Z

When the old school iBook came out, the one with the carrying handle, I drooled over it. My brother drooled over it, we both wanted one. But, Macs sucked back then, and I think we both knew that we would look like fools. As much as we would both like to live in silicon valley, mincing about with a tech fashion accesory, we couldn't. It just doesn't cut it in Norwich. Still, I do now own a rather more subtle/gorgeous/useful iBook of the new school Apple design. How long that stays cool before it becomes as old as the previous: 'but it's translucent, and comes in five colours!' I don't know. Right, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah, this laptop is hideous.
Link

What Do Geeks Keep in Their Bags?

2005-03-13T00:27:00.000Z

I like this, quite voyueristic, but also a mine of tips. Some of these geeks have labelled everyhing and given me some ideas on what to take/replace/keep in my bag. I'll do one of these when I get the chance to take out all the embaressing stuff, put in the cool stuff that I don't normally carry etc.
Link

Thrust SSC Usurped?

2005-03-13T00:09:00.000Z

Remember Thrust SSC? I was privileged enough to catch a glimpse of the machine and it's driver after it's record breaking run and it was far bigger than it looked zipping along in the desert faster than the speed of sound. Well, some Americans think that they can do better. This is crazy, it's a pointless, stupid, dangerous attempt involving the need for brilliant small budget (relatively) engineering. That means that Britain should keep the record. It's what we do. Need to compute lots of data? Let's make the first computer. Need to fly quicker than the Germans? Let's make the first jet plane. Etc, etc. Come on Britain, i've got a Ford Mondeo, let's start with that?
P.S. I don't mean it. Good luck, I love this sort of record attempt.

Comment Craziness

2005-03-12T17:04:00.000Z

Ok, so i've been away from a PC for a couple of days, and now i'm back. Checked my e-mail and what do I see? A barrage of mostly idiotic and occasionaly bigoted comments. I have had to warn people from a certain site before, that racist, sexist or homophobic comments will not be tolerated here. We just don't like them, and frankly, being a technology news site, we never thought we'd have to deal with them. Commenting has now been limited to registered users. So if you want to leave those kinds of comments, you'll have to be brave enough to do it under a real name. By the way, all the comments were left on this post, just in case you wondered who was responsible.
Here's an example of one of the comments:
"N00B LUE OWNS YOU DONT MESS WITH US YOU WILL BE TAKING THE BIGGEST RISK OF YOUR LIFE IF YOU MESS WITH THE BEST YOU WILL DIE LIKE THE REST *prepare the box cannons*".
I have read up more on LUElinks, it seems that they use a free box delivery service to send lots of empty boxes to their 'enemies'. So, is that a death threat from LUElinks? If so, it seems they need little or no provocation, merely mentioning them is enough to warrant one. Or is it a threat that I will be sent empty boxes? If so, bring it on, I have to move house soon, they'll come in handy.

Far Too Busy

2005-03-10T21:48:00.000Z

I. Am. Uber. Busy. Here's some links to tide you over:
Naughty
Useful
Apparently not evil.
Xbox Next?
Anyway, i'm off on a train, hopefully coming back more sane and happy, with some spare time.

Want to Try Linux?

2005-03-09T02:10:00.000Z

Want to, but too scared/lazy? Then live CDs are perfect for you. You just put them in and reboot and, voila, a perfect install. Try it out, see if you like it, but pop the CD out and reboot and you're back to normal because it never installed to the hard disk. Lots of distributions do them, but I just heard of a clever one from Puppy Linux that uses a multisession CDR to allow you to actually save data about the session when you shut down (shame about the god-awful logo though). This is weird, because it;s kind of like a mobile computer, with your own session of linux on it. I'm sure this has some cool uses, but it's too late at night to think of them.
Link

Interesting UNIX Command

2005-03-09T02:02:00.000Z

Do you run UNIX? If so run this command: cal 9 1752
If your ussing a Mac, you can run that in terminal. This is the output:

Sparky> cal 9 1752
September 1752
S M Tu W Th F S
1 2 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30

See, the missing days? Honourable mention to the first person to explain that in a comment.

Mobile Phone vs PDA

2005-03-09T01:22:00.000Z

Can you compare them? Well, increasingly so. A PDA with WiFi and tools like skype VOIP, MSN messenger or even goodd old email could conceivably replace a Mobile, for me at least. People say that PDA sales are going down and that smart phones are taking over. And it is true, but I have to question how long that will hold out for. I do want to stay in contact, but I spend 95% of my time at home, or uni. Now, both these places have wifi, so give me and my friends a slick PDA with wifi built in...
I could use skype, or msn messenger, or even email. But it gets me away from using a mobile phone, no monthly payments, no small choice come upgrade time, buy the one you want and keep it. That's the way I would prefer to see it go, there are cool tools now, and with more WiFi i'd rather a PDA than a phone. If PDA's got better looking, smaller and had WiFi, and more places had WiFi then I think it would all shift again. Mobiles are ok, but they are showing their age, and 3G just isn't doing it for me.

Apple Handheld

2005-03-09T00:46:00.000Z

There's a crazy amount of people who still own, use and find new uses for old newtons. Well, hopefully this will stop them, there are rumours that Apple are bringing out a new handheld. I'd like to add that I used the word rumour, and that I am not starting the rumour - so no lawsuits please. It's allegedly being shown around Apple HQ at the moment, so it will probably get released at the next reasonably high profile Apple event. This thing is supposed to be running a cut down version of Mac OS X and has a keyboard. There's no pictures yet, hence the Newton pic.
Link

CPU, then GPU, now PPU

2005-03-09T00:39:00.000Z

My computer has a CPU, mind you these days so does my toaster, my watch, and my stereo, and all but basic computers come with a graphics processing unit. But now, there is a new weapon in the never ending fight to stuff more polygons on your screen, heaven forbid that games stop the massive increase in visual complexity or everyone might notice that they're all the same and have rubbish gameplay these days. Now the CPU can concentrate on adding numbers up, the GPU can concentrate on rendering splashes of blood as you run over innocent pedestrians and the PPU can concentrate on making things bounce, fall, or whatever.
Link

Applicants Turned Down For Peeking

2005-03-08T21:24:00.000Z

119 applicants for Harvard Business School are to be turned down after following advice posted on a forum on how to snoop at decisions early. The school were using an online 3rd party system that was apparently vulnerable to a simple attack, the applicants that used this attack are all being turned down automatically by the school who claim that it was unethical. I have experience with these online systems and they are very slow to process applications, indeed Harvard had posted decisions a month before they were to be released. A friend recently applied for a postgrad course and waited weeks past the date she was told that she would be informed of a decision via a new website, she phoned eventually and was told instantly that she was accepted. The website didn't show this for over a week more. So, the fact that they were stressing out, waiting on such an important, life changing decision, the fact that these sites are sometimes behind, and the fact that they weren't doing anything harmful or malicious should cause this thing to blow over (in a common-sense led world).
Link

Mesh Networking

2005-03-08T16:22:00.000Z

Remember what I said about distributed networking? How everyone coulf have free, fast 'internet' connections wherever they went, but that it would be done by a company rather then open source, and cost a fortune? Prove me wrong Intel, and make this a really cool, benevolent technology.
Link

Human Area Networking

2005-03-08T01:09:00.000Z

Old idea, new company. This is a plan to enable users to network PDAs/LANs together all by conducting traffic through the skin at 10MBps. Tingly. An interesting example is syncing your email whilst touching doorhandles connected to a network, or exchanging business cards by shaking hands with another user.
Link

Stop Hiding Behind That Firewall

2005-03-08T00:10:00.000Z

Firewalls are good at keeping people out, but they also protect your anonymity, you all look like the same person on the inside of it. With Network Address Translation everyone inside the firewall has the same IP, and therefore are indistinguishable from each other. Well, not anymore. One clever researcher has discovered a way of spotting individual machines that is so simple that once you've heard it, you can't believe it hasn't been done before. Of course, this would be of benefit to law enforcement agencies for tracking criminals who hide behind the now defunct security measures. Basically, each packet sent out contains timestamp information, and this differs slightly from machine to machine. This is due to varying lag on each computer, making some clocks noticably behind or ahead of others. By tracking these you can tell from what computer a packet came. One way around this that I see is the use of software that automatically synchronises the clock times of each computer, or that varies each slightly at random points to cause confusion. Although the second plan would screw up all sorts of things.
Link

Masters Degrees Useless?

2005-03-07T23:45:00.000Z

Well, this guy thinks so, and so does everyone I talk to. I'm taking mine right now, and a lot of people are telling me it's pointless. Oh well, anyone want to give me a job? BSc and MSc (soon) in Computing Science, and I make a good cup of tea too...

Things That Annoyed Me Today...

2005-03-07T23:15:00.000Z

Starting with google scholar, must they only provide me with links to PDF's that I have to pay for? I am not going to pay for 30-40 papers to read to do a bit of coursework. Thank god for citeseer.
Secondly, my iBook screen is still off centre and Apple show no signs of wanting to reply to my letter, see saga 1 and saga 2. This was made all the worse today when I read this fascinating blog about a Mac Genius. How can a company who have it so right like Apple get customer service so wrong?
Also, eBay, who charged me £210 for an auction that they cancelled, have now charged me a further £183 after promising to refund the first charge. Wrong ammount, and wrong payment direction, but nice try!
Well, that's it, but on the flip side, I bought 12 Isaac Asimov books for £2. Bargain. Sometimes I think I hate technology, but at least when you buy a book, it can't go wrong/charge you £100's.

Scary Farm Tech

2005-03-05T16:03:00.000Z

These machines are SO weird, but also pretty amazing. If I had to get 20,000,000,000 chickens into cages in a hurry, i'd be buying one of these.
Likewise on my farm, if I had to shred a boat, computer or barrel full of set cement I would buy one of these.

Dud Nokia

2005-03-05T15:58:00.000Z

On that note, this was found in Iraq a while back. Thank god for poor soldering skills, that's all I can say.
Link

WWW.BecomeATerrorist.Com

2005-03-05T11:33:00.000Z

Ok so the internet is a wonderful thing that allows you to do practically anything with almost anyone in the world. And yesterday it became highlighted as a means of recruiting terrorists for the Al-Qaeda network. See here for more details.

G5 LED Mod

2005-03-04T23:53:00.000Z

This is a tasteful mod, unlike the PC's you see with 18 LED fans and a rotating neon skull superglued to the top. Using an alarm clock, hacking the screen up and soldering LED's in, and pushing them through the air holes in the grille of a G5 he has created a clock in the front. The text is in Swedish, but it's pretty easy to follow what he did.
Link

What is Art/Graffiti?

2005-03-04T02:49:00.000Z

It was 2:30AM and a vicious debate was raging, hypothetical arguments were bandied about and dismissed faster than I could follow in my slightly inebriated state. Was graffiti art?
All over my home city there are examples of stencil graffiti, some are inspired pieces of social commentary that are also a feast for the eye, others meaningless dross. Do these pieces constitute art, or does art have to be bought, appreciated and hung in a gallery? The idea was put forward that it is simply vandalism, an act not unknown to students. But, meaningfully and thoughtfully placed, surely it can overcome this label? Some graffiti artists are known and recognized in the art world, Banksy for one even has his own website.
Here is his guide to cutting stencils, do so at your own risk, but do send me a picture.
Also, I invite the participants of said argument to comment away with their opinions, you know who you are...

Random End of the Day Links

2005-03-02T23:33:00.000Z

New Playstation 3 sneak pics.

An example of just how much you can hack up a Blogger account to your own spec, very impressive.

An 'actual conversation with Apple', that is quite clearly fake, worth a slight giggle though. But i'm sure I read that you can't engrave certain words on iPods, i'm sure these ones where included on that list.

These metallic spheres are very odd, I'd want to see some more reputable writing on it before I say/decide anything.

Half man, half sheep. Shan, or Meep?

Mac Mini in a Lexus

2005-03-02T19:37:00.000Z

When it first came out everyone started thinking of odd uses for it, my favourite at the time was in car entertainment. As it was noted the mini had the same dimensions as a standard car stereo. Well, this guy has instead put it in the glove box, but it's essentially the same thing. With a touchscreen LCD in the dash, this thing has all sorts of uses. GPS directions (if he gets an adapter), audio, video, anything. It's really well fitted too, looks like this is a man who loves his car. But, a Lexus? No, make it a mini, or lotus and i'd be loving it.
Link

P.S. Thanks yewknee.com for this little write up, you get a link in my blog-roll for being so damn nice!
"How are there so many great blogs out there? Where are people culling all this information from? I was shown Non-Tech City last night and it's great. It's reminscent of Engadget in that it's kind of a tech blog but it's got more a personal flavor to it... and random items like this which are too unbelievable to be true."

Using G-Mail as Online Storage

2005-03-02T17:19:00.000Z

G-Mail invites are available on Non-Tech City's new shiny site here.

Sir Bill Gates?

2005-03-02T17:14:00.000Z

Bill Gates is going to receive a knighthood, what can you say to that really? She seems to be running out of people to give them to to be honest, I hope to get at least an OBE soon. No offence to the guy, he's done well, I just don't think he should get a knighthood.
Link

What is luelinks?

2005-03-02T14:29:00.000Z

Visit Non-Tech City at it's flashy new home!

I have been getting a lot of hits from a mysterious site called luelinks recently, and along with that came a flood of comments on posts. Unfortunately some of these were completely unnacceptable and had to be removed. I'm not saying that all users of the site behave in the same way, but this small minority will give it a bad name. A site like this, mysterious and closed to the public must be carefull, as people will be suspicous anyway.
I started to do some research into what this site is, and although they're secretive there is information out there.
At what pulse, a webiste that counts keystrokes, there seems to be a record of them. If that is to be believed then luelinks was formed by riverdude on Oct. 9, 2004 and has 466 members.
At this site there seems to be a complicated process to get a luelinks account, you need to be reffered to join. According to this site you need to have a gamefaqs account, with a link to that from a luelinks post, perhaps linking to a post is the reffereal. This site http://chris.insder.com/ says that at some point luelinks was hacked.
This site has this to say:
"LUElinks (http://www.luelinks.net/) - A private site with boards created by LlamaGuy, only for members of LUE. The interface is similar to that of GameFAQs, but several features are added, most notably the abilities to vote on links and receive tokens for adding good links. There is a running joke among LUELinkers that whenever someone asks for the URL for the board, they all claim that the site does not exist."

Well, not a lot of info, but basically I think it's a link swapping/forum community. Forgive the awful writing style/spelling, but I'm a bit tender this morning after the traditional culture festival that takes place here once a month...

RFID Dart Gun

2005-03-01T13:58:00.000Z

Well, a little while ago I mentioned RFID footballs and now here is another RFID gadget; way to physically shoot information using darts. The idea is that there is a central filestore, and you want to send someone a file. The tip of a dart is encoded with a link to that file by waving it near a read/write device. The dart is then fired at your recipient with a snazzy toy gun and they swipe it near their device to bring up the file. Now this is pretty cool, and once they'd spent months making it i'm sure it provided them with literally minutes of fun, but there are pretty cool potential applications for this. Even though I am a little scared of RFID causing a weird Orwellian nightmare where every object in the world is precisely tracked by some malevolent crazy chap, I do like this idea.

Link

TriPod Speakers

2005-03-01T11:07:00.000Z

These look pretty cool, but the iPods upside down. Does no-one else see that as a problem? Anyway, very nice deisgn, and it looks like it folds up, which makes this thing the ultimate 'day in the park' accessory.
Link

Intelligent Football

2005-03-01T01:03:00.000Z

Hmm, football and takeaway. I just got back from a football match, this one to be exact. Now, i'm not a massive football fan but Norwich is my home city and i'd like to be patriotic whenever possible.
Tonight I saw many small injustices, decisions made the wrong way, small offenses going unnoticed etc, which everybody seemed to accept as just part of the game.
While I am a big privacy advocate, and dislike most technology like RFID, CCTV, etc, as they are often used for privacy infringing reasons, I would love to see lots of Big brother technology on the sports field to clear up these small issues.
Why hasn't this been done already? I asked people at the match and the most common reason that they gave was that it simply wasn't necessary - the swings and roundabouts argument. One game, team A will get positively biased results but team B may do next time. Fair enough, but why not get it right, first time?
Well, I did some googling, and found out that it is starting to creep in, albeit at a lower level of football and on a trial basis, in the form of this football which tells a receiver if it passes the goal line. This could be easily expanded to other rules.
There you have it, sports novice raises tech question, google answers question. I hope you're all happy with that.

P.S. Sport's novice thinks that Norwich City F.C. deserve to stay in the Premiership.

Imagine a Use For Old Computers

2005-02-28T17:00:00.000Z

Imagine a use for old computers, the ones that people throw out or leave in cupboards gathering dust. One that was free for everyone involved, took very little effort to implement, involved no running or maintenance costs. One that also provided on a massive scale, free, unregulated connectivity for all. Take an open source distribution of linux and cut it back to the bare-bones, giving it simple networking tools, allowing it to act as a wireless router. Remove all unnecessary cards and devices so that it's power consumption was reduced to a minimum and add solar power or some other free energy source.
Then take this box, and find a blind spot in the network and drop it there, leave it to connect to others, providing a grid of interconnectivity. Soon this would cover vast spaces. ISP's wouldn't like it, because you would be passing on a paid connection, so go around them. Write a new open source protocol: internet v2.0 - open source. Would this be breaking any laws? Would it be morally or ethically wrong in any way? The only legal problem I can see is that in these security conscious times unattended boxes all over the place could be a nuisance.
These machines could also have excess computing power, it doesn't take much to be a router. Maybe they could be under-clocked to save more power, but when the sun is out and there's no need to, they could donate their spare cycles to Seti@home or another of those types of program, again, becoming useful rather than becoming trash. Let's give ourselves a slightly larger budget and things get even more interesting, for example if we install a bluetooth adapter (they're all over eBay for a couple of pounds). Then imagine a kind of peer to peer music streaming, you wear a bluetooth ear-piece, and the PC streams your favourite songs to it, switching automatically to the nearest node, looking up your playlist from your website, or a centralised website where you enter your favourite songs. The songs could reside on your PC, or each node could hold a few, becoming a distributed library.
This is what distributed computing could be, but it won't. It will be RFID chips monitoring sales patterns and shoplifting, and it will be expensive pay-per-use wifi connectivity owned by ISP's and telephone companies.

If you have another use for old computers/hardware then please post it on our new forum, i'm going to try and compile enough ideas to write an essay on it.

Firefox News

2005-02-28T15:08:00.000Z

Apparently, Firefox's growth is starting to slow, but definately not stop. The good news is that MSIE use has dropped below 90%. Link

At Spread Firefox the figures show that nearly 27 Million downloads have taken place, it is not clear how many regular users they have though.

So, if you haven't got it yet, then I suggest you try it, here, and their Mail program Thunderbird too.

Bill Cosby Wants to Sell You a PC

2005-02-28T14:54:00.000Z

Call me cynical, but I don't think that Bill Cosby really knows all that much about computers. Oddly, he did appear in two computer ads, grinning away as he praised their virtues. There's 186 old computer adverts courtesy of 1000bit after this link, some of them are pretty interesting.

Linky Linky

Interactive Walls

2005-02-28T13:41:00.000Z

This looks very interesting, this project is trying to make interactive panels out of any flat surface around the house. The example use they give is making light switches that you can move around the walls without having to change the wiring. I want a keyboard made into the top of my desk, so I can use it to write on top of without having to move the keyboard.
Linky Linky

MP3 Alarm Clock

2005-02-28T13:33:00.000Z

Why haven't I seen one of these before? I sometimes use my PC to wake me up with an MP3, but that means I have to leave my HiFi/PC on all night. This is great, and it looks fantastic too. It has 256MB of flash memory, but claims to hold 8 hours of music, that must be at a pretty low bit rate.

New Forum

2005-02-28T13:17:00.000Z

I have set up a forum, just a free host one. If it gets used I will incorporate a proper forum into the proper site that will come out... eventually. I plan to get a domain and set this up properly as a tech news/forum/review extravaganza.

Matt

Forum

New X-Box 360 Pictures?

2005-02-27T23:28:00.000Z

Is this the new X-Box? No. Probably not, it looks like it would cost a fortune to make, and will date very quickly. Look at the internals, it looks like a 1980's television! It's also copyrighted by Rune Larsen, at a place called cgnetworks.com which is a graphics design site. This is obviously a fake, but nice job Rune.
Linky Linky

iBook Repair Saga No. 2

2005-02-27T23:20:00.000Z

The saga continues... I've written this letter which I intended to E-Mail, but it seems that NO-ONE at Apple has an E-Mail address that's accessible to the public. If anybody knows of one then please let me know, whatever that person does, I just need an Apple employee to read this, any employee.

***************

Dear Sir/Madam,

I had always been a PC user, until very recently when I purchased an iBook, partially motivated by the iPod I bought a while ago that i have been extremely happy with.
I bought the iBook around a month ago at the online education store, and received it soon after, I was very pleased with my purchase apart from one small issue.
When I first started using the iBook I noticed that the screen was ever so slightly off centre (it is able to rotate slightly so that it is sometimes correctly aligned and sometimes around 1-2mm off centre.
I did not think too much about it although I was slightly disappointed about the build quality, I thought that this was the reason that it was so much cheaper than the presumably better built powerbooks.
That was until I saw two other iBooks that friends purchased (partly due to my thorough recommendation) that did not suffer the problem at all, this is what encouraged me to call technical support.
I called Apple who told me that this kind of thing was all handled my local dealers now, and that i should call a company in another town in my county.
When I called this firm they said that they didn't know if it was covered by Apple warranty, but that they could open a file and check. however, if it was not I would be charged £40 inspection fee, I would also have incurred the cost of either driving it to the dealer (over an hour each way) or posting it twice.
The iBook is very new and in warranty, I would like to know why I am not able to have the machine looked at without the risk of having to pay £40, which I cannot afford. I have been using the iBook for several weeks now and have grown used to the issue as it does not affect the actual use of it in anyway, therefore I am no longer seeking an inspection or repair.
The inconvenience of it being away would far outweigh the problem itself.
I am however, informing you that this does not go very far to reinforce the reputation that Apple has as a friendly and efficient company, and as a recent switcher has made me realise that the level of service available is no higher than I used to receive with PC vendors (that level of service being one of my motivations to switch to Apple).
I merely encourage you to resolve this poor technical support before it creates reverse switchers, something that I do not wish to see, as Apple seems to be a far more creative and intelligent company that most others.

Yours Sincerely,
Matthew Sparkes

Microscopic Mr. T

2005-02-27T11:11:00.000Z

This microscopic Mr. T image was found on a Dallas Semiconductor single-chip T1 transceiver integrated circuit, other images like this can be found at Molecular Expressions.

We have moved to shiny new premises, check out the new Non-Tech City!

Holistic Computer Medicine

2005-02-27T00:11:00.000Z

The Holistic Computer Medicine site has some interesting ideas on increasing uptime. Have you ever considered using crystals to ward off bad-vibes? How about distilling viruses down to one bit to use as a harmless cure for existing virii? (That's one hell of a compression rate, aas long as it's 2 way) Well, if you've tried everything else and you're still having problems then this may be worth a go, it can't do any harm, right?

Hackers May Target Pacemakers - Why?

2005-02-25T15:59:00.000Z

Why, why, why, would hackers target pacemakers? What could there possibly be gained from doing that? The article mentions it briefly but then goes on to talk about the technology itself, the article is nothing to do with hackers really. The hacker angle was thrown in on purpose to allow the headline I would imagine.
Linky Linky

iPod Recording - For Free

2005-02-25T15:33:00.000Z

Apparently, all iPods have the capability of recording, but so that they're not used to record copyrighted material this is disabled. It may also be so that 3rd parties can flog recording devices for the iPod. There is a way around it, but don't get too excited - you have to install linux on your iPod to do it.
Linky Linky

Shuffle Art

2005-02-25T15:30:00.000Z

Here's a collection of iPod Shuffle art, this is becoming a bit of a phenomenon, I wonder why no one has embraced customising other pods? Their cost and screen covering blank space are an issue but there's plenty more standard iPods than shuffles right now. Go, now, customise your iPod. And leave a pic in a comment.

Personal Mobile Phone Jammer

2005-02-25T15:20:00.000Z

There's a masters thesis based upon a Personal Mobile phone jammer, this is such a great idea, but if people start making these themselves then there could be serious problems in getting a signal in built up areas. That reminds me, I have to write my masters thesis soon...

CPU Hotplate

2005-02-25T15:15:00.000Z

I really want one of these now, on my desk keeping my coffee warm. Would have been far cooler if you could see the CPUs in the finished product though...

Carbon Nanotubes at Dawn...

2005-02-24T18:03:00.000Z

OK, so it appears that stuff in the world of carbon nanotubes is hotting up, with vicious infighting and bitching going on. Have a gander at this article to see just how bad things are getting...

Happy 50th Birthday Steve Jobs!

2005-02-23T19:29:00.000Z

Happy Birthday Steve (for tomorrow), and many happy returns. I hope you have a great day and all that, but if you get round to it could you sort my iBook out please? Anyway, email me if you can get around to it because it would be a big help.

Matt

Tracking Real Objects From Cyberspace

2005-02-23T19:19:00.000Z

I find this idea strange, there's no reason why I should as it's a perfectly good use of the internet. But it's what it allows us to do an know that I find odd, tracking packages at the UPS website, tracking books at bookcrossing and now I have seen this website that allows you to track dollar bills around the country. What a bizarre piece of information to be able to access; where has this note been before?

Flickr-Whack

2005-02-22T23:43:00.000Z

I uploaded this photo to my Flickr account today with some weird tags, because it was a weird photo. As i did so I wondered to myself, 'I wonder how many people have ever uploaded a photo and felt it fitting to label it "buggly"?'
So, I typed in flickr.com/photos/tags/buggly to see, and lo and behold there was only one.
This reminded me of Google-whacking; had I just stumbled upon the (very unoriginal) idea of Flickr-whacks? Does anybody have anymore?
I'd like this post to be a shining beacon to people like me, who in the course of a normal day waste vaste ammounts of time doing things like typing random words into Flickr.
Comment away with your Flickr-Whacks, Flickrwhacks, FlickrWhacking, whatever.

iBook Repair Saga No. 1

2005-02-22T14:26:00.000Z

Damn, I was so excited about getting my iBook. Now the novelty has worn off, quick.
When I first got it I noticed that the screen was ever so slightly off centre, which meant that the catch didn't work quite as it should. Sometimes you have to press the screen down 2 or 3 times to get it to stick. It also looks a bit weird, even though it's only 1 or 2mm out.
I sort of decided that I could put up with it, and imagined that it was probably something you got if you chose to buy an iBoook rather than a more expensive powerbook. But since then I have looked at my brother's and my flatmate's iBooks, and this problem isn't evident on either of them. So, I called Apple and they said that they don't really deal with repairs anymore and told me to take it to the nearest Apple dealer. This turned out to be a 3rd party dealer which is in another county, so I called them. They said that Apple probably wouldn't cover this and would class it as damage. To find out if I could get it repaired I would have to take it all the way over there, and then if Apple decided not to pay out then I would have to pay a £40 engineer charge. Being a student I can't afford this, I can't afford an iBook, but I bought one because i'd heard great things about them. I will keep trying, but for now, I reccomend shopping elsewhere, which is a shame because not long ago I was saying this.

Bloggers of the World Unite!

2005-02-21T12:43:00.000Z

Tommorow, on the 22nd, bloggers around the world are being asked to raise awareness of these men. Follow the link and read their stories, and then put a banner on your site. No-one should be imprisoned for something they've said, especially on the Internet.
Linky Linky

Man Pleads Not Guilty to Hacking Tsunami Appeal

2005-02-21T12:40:00.000Z

Still a lot of talk about the guy in London who used a non-standard browser to submit a donation to the tsunami appeal. It flagged some intrusion detector and now he's being charged. I don't know if he's innocent or if he was trying to hack it (sounds like the second to me), but if he is innocent then someone is going to have to say a BIG sorry. Not only was he trying to donate to charity at the time, but now all the public think he's an evil haxor.
Linky Linky

Paris Hilton Blonde, Hacked.

2005-02-21T12:30:00.000Z

Paris is once again in the spotlight, this time for having her phone hacked into. The Hacker managed to steal photos, address books and notes, all of which are now on the internet. More than a little bit annoyed that she's getting all this attention for nothing and there aren't more column inches about the great HST, RIP.
Linky Linky
Linky Linky

iPod Rumours

2005-02-18T20:40:00.000Z

Apple needn't advertise anymore, a frenzy of rumour spreading stirs up whenever a new product is coming. There's a rumour spreading frenzy whipping up at the moment about the possibility of a 5Gb mini (so what?!) and iPods in mini colours (ooooh).

100 Greatest Gadgets of all Time

2005-02-18T20:34:00.000Z

Mobile PC has an article listing the greatest 100 gadgets of all time (in their opinion, certainly not mine). Still, there's a few things in there that I remember.
Linky Linky

Hangover Science

2005-02-18T18:25:00.000Z

I like to know how things work. This morning I woke up with a terrible hangover, so I did some research. Hangovers are a combination of symptoms:

Dehydration: alcohol is a diuretic, meaning it makes you urinate. Therefore you get dehydrated, which causes headaches and fatigue.

Tiredness: alcohol stops the body making a substance called glutamine. When you stop drinking and go to bed (or fall asleep on the cooker) your body suddenly rushes to make lots of glutamine. These increased levels stimulate the brain meaning that you never really achieve deep sleep. This also causes fatigue in the morning.

Nausea: this is caused by an increased ammount of hydrochloric acid in the stomach as alcohol stimulates it's production. The body senses that levels are too high and evacuates the stomach, often into a taxi or pub toilet.

Now that we know what causes them we can put together a post-booze strategy. First, lots of water before bed and in the morning to combat the dehydration. Second, some burnt toast as the carbon acts as a filter in your stomach. This won't cure it completely but should help considerably, isn't science wonderful?

In the beginning ...

2005-02-18T12:35:00.000Z

Ok, so here's the deal: I got challenged in my Film Noir class of all places over when the first computer was built. I said Colossus was the first computer built, because we used it to break cyphers around WW2. Guess what? The internet agrees with me and I thought I'd share it and educate you all:

The word [computer] was originally used to describe a person who performed arithmetic calculations and this usage is still valid (although it is becoming quite rare in the United States). The OED2 lists the year 1897 as the first year the word was used to refer to a mechanical calculating device. By 1946 several qualifiers were introduced by the OED2 to differentiate between the different types of machine. These qualifiers included analogue, digital and electronic. However, from the context of the citation, it is obvious these terms were in use prior to 1946. .

In the history of cryptography, the Colossus was the first programmable (to a limited extent) digital electronic computer. In World War II, Colossus was used for breaking the German Lorenz SZ 40/42 machine, codenamed "Tunny" by the British. Colossus was designed by Tommy Flowers at the British Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill.
Colossus was preceded by several computers, many first in some category. Zuse's Z3 was the world's first functional fully program-controlled computer, and was based on electromechanical relays, as were the (less advanced) Bell Labs machines of the late 1930s (George Stibitz, et al). Assorted analog computers were semiprogrammable, some of these much predated the 1930s (eg, Vannevar Bush). Babbage's Analytical engine antedated all these (in the mid-1800s), and was both digital and programmable, but was only partially constructed and never functioned at the time (a replica of his Difference engine No. 2, built in 1991 does work, however). Colossus was the first combining all of digital, (partially) programmable, and electronic.
And here's another link to play with: http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/lorenz/colossus.htm

Firefox Reaches 25 Million Downloads

2005-02-17T15:38:00.000Z

Space News

2005-02-17T15:26:00.000Z

Russia have lost a spy satellite somewhere, it is designed to fire canisters of film back freom space and eventually come back to enable re-use of certain components. But they can't find it.

America prepares training program for space war.

Regulations starting to appear for space tourism, I guess this means that it's being taken seriously.

Ten by Ten

2005-02-17T13:06:00.000Z

Ten by Ten is a fabulous website that trawls through various news sites to determine the 100 most important words of the hour. It then collates these into a 10 by 10 square with approprioate pictures. Not only is this a clever experiment and an interesting way to represent information it's all open to development. Each hours results are archived and publicly accessible, so people can create their own interesting projects with the data. The image above is from http://www.tenbyten.org/Data/Now/now.jpg, meaning that it will be updated with the last hours results.

Using GMail as Journal/Organiser

2005-02-17T00:30:00.000Z

There's a brilliant article at White's of Henry Lane about using a GMail account as a kind of personal organiser by using tags and labels. What a powerful solution, using a simple tool, i'm gonna try it out as soon as I get a chance (must stop procrastinating).
If anyone wants to try this I have 50 invites left, leave your name and email in a comment and i'll send you one.

Infinite Binary Table Paradox

2005-02-16T18:50:00.000Z

Listen to this...
Take a table, with an infinite ammount of rows. Each row is a string of binary digits (0's and 1's). Now, each row is infinitely long, and there are an infinite ammount of rows, this is ok because there are an infinite ammount of possible combinations if we have an infinite length for each row.
But, now we create a new row, call it n, made up of the first number from row 1, the second from row 2, etc. but inverted. So, row 1 starts with a 0, so we place 1 in position 1 of row n. This means that n cannot be in the infinite ammount of rows, because each place in n is copied from another row, but inverted so it cannot match any one row. Therefore we have an infinite ammount of rows, containing all possible combinations, but it cannot contain row n. Weird.

1:010101010
2:001010110
3:110101010
4:101010111
5:101011111
n:11110...........

Tech News Roundup

2005-02-16T18:16:00.000Z

The Kyoto protocol comes into effect!

The SHA-1 hashing algorithm used to verify file integrity has been broken. Eek.

There was a proposed eBay strike planned to go ahead from this friday, but it doesn't look like it's going to go ahead. The anger erupted after eBay hiked it's fees, it's since backed down a bit and lowered some of them.

A new broadband co-operative has been formed, with 17 small ISP's signing up, allowing them to bulk buy hardware and lower costs, which is good news for us I think.

Apple gets all angry, sueing three journalists for refusing to release papers that could identify the source of a leak. Chill out Apple, it's all good publicity.

Haptic Feedback at Home

2005-02-16T16:02:00.000Z

I've played with haptic feedback devices and used them at uni, I tried out a surgery simulation and it was absolutely amazing. The amount of feel you get is truly wonderful, with feedback resistance in 6 fields of motion. It really gave you a good sense of touch. But that cost over £10,000, i'd like to see how good these cheap versions for home use are.

Firefox Past 24 Million Downloads!

2005-02-15T14:55:00.000Z

Linux Powered Kitten Feeder

2005-02-15T13:53:00.000Z

This couple seemed to be worried that their cats were not being fed treats whilst they were at work, so they did the logical thing - created a linux box with a web-enabled microcontroller connected to a mechanical feeding device. The description of how to make one of these yourself is very thorough, but I don't think i'll be trying it anytime soon. If you want to feed the lovely little kittens then head here.

control = Feeder()
control.feed()
print "Thanks for feeding the kittens!"

DIY Night Vision

2005-02-15T13:41:00.000Z

This guy has made a night vision viewer out of stuff he found in bins, it looks like it really went well. One question sprang to mind when I read this: what the hell is he going to use it for?

Overclocking Gone Mad

2005-02-15T13:13:00.000Z

Overclocking a processor to over 7GHz so that it doesn't run properly, getting a BIOS screenshot and then having to put it back in order to boot windows to post the pic. Odd, but I do find it cool.

Art and Technology?

2005-02-14T23:25:00.000Z

The pairing of technology with art has become cemented; all music now comes in digital format, virtually all has been recorded, in or edited in, digital. It's now the case that many instruments are in a very real way, computers. This is all well and good but computers here are essentially enabling art rather than helping to create it. I witnessed the exception to this rule last night, in a reggie watts concert. His use of a sampler and beatboxing is a prime example of technology becoming a part of the art, not only enabling the artist, but inspiring him with capabilities that weren't dreamed of a few years ago. Check him out.

Yellowstone Supervolcano

2005-02-14T20:03:00.000Z

OK, so everyone must have heard of the geyser at Yellowstone park being heated by geothermal energy? Well, how about the theory that its heated by a supervolcano that's 40,000 years overdue for an Earth shattering explosion? Read here to find out more...