Technolotics #25 – The White Episode

Technolotics - An antique show about technology

[audio https://garethstack.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/25_technolotics.mp3]

Listen: Episode 25
Watch: Youtube
Feed: RSS

Notes

PS3 Sexclusive

According to kikizo.com, last month sony shipped the final PS3 dev kits to developers
Still no signs of final hardware – the cases you’ve seen are just mockups
“I think to fit everything that Sony wants in there AND leave space for a 2.5 inch hard drive,” explains one senior developer working on a final kit, who will be our guide for much of this report, “the machine would have to grow. The models they’re showing off are way too small for what they want.”
Graphics card – RSX chip – next gen Nvidia chipset Gefore6800 * 2
Many games are being developed in only 720p NOT full HD 1080p – the PS3 then upscales to 1080i
Games played by kikizo have – full dynamic real world lighting, depth of field, sub surface scattering, high res textures, materials physics, complex fire etc
More onscreen action simultaneously than XBOX 360
Hardware = barely superiour to XBOX360 – will depend of developer skill & libraries
Graphics do not live up to killzone trailer – almost reach MGS4 standard
Launch – later summer in Japan, Autumn in US, Next spring in Europe!
Links:

Kikizo

Farewell AA Battery.

Traditional batteries haven’t progressed far beyond the basic design developed by Alessandro Volta in the 19th century.
MIT’s Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems (LEES)are using nanotube structures to improve on an energy storage device called an ultracapacitor.
Capacitors store energy as an electrical field, making them more efficient than standard batteries, which get their energy from chemical reactions.
Ultracapacitors have advantages over batteries: a 10-year-plus lifetime, indifference to temperature change, high immunity to shock and vibration and high charging and discharging efficiency.
Ultracapacitors have an energy storage capacity around 25 times less than a similarly sized lithium-ion battery.
LEES ultracapacitor has the capacity to overcome this energy limitation by using vertically aligned, single-wall carbon nanotubes.
Here’s the science bit.

Storage capacity in an ultracapacitor is proportional to the surface area of the electrodes.
However, the pores in the carbon are irregular in size and shape, which reduces efficiency.
The vertically aligned nanotubes in the LEES ultracapacitor have a regular shape, and a size that is only several atomic diameters in width.
The result is a significantly more effective surface area, which equates to significantly increased storage capacity.

NEC, Hitachi, Toshiba – AA and notebook battery size [1]

Currently fears about the safety of the methonol fuel used in fuel cells is preventing their widespread adoption
Rearchers in Stanford University are working on hydrogen fuel cells batteries which use tiny channels to deliver fuel to the cells heart – defeating the difficulty of the too quick / inefficent burn up of fuel [2]
Practical difficulties with fuel cells involve the physical process of refueling
but this isn’t quite as much of a problem as with electric cars
you’re not going to get stranded if your laptop dies
and additionally distribution isn’t as much of a headache – however, they also mean you can no longer charge your battery from the mains
Researchers hope to eventually increase laptop life to 20 hours or more

Links:

Science Daily

Google News

Google Desktop 3.0

This update allows users to search multiple computers and share content with other Desktop users as well as

new features such as drag and drop sidebar panels.

It may soon be part of every computer you buy from Dell.
TEFF urges consumers not to use the “Search Across Computers” feature.

It will store copies of the user’s Word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets and other text-based documents on Google’s own servers.
It will make their personal data more vulnerable to subpoenas from the government and possibly private litigants, while providing a convenient one-stop-shop for hackers who’ve obtained a user’s Google password.
The government could then demand these personal files with only a subpoena rather than the search warrant it would need to seize the same things from your home or business.
Other litigants could do the same, seeking the data from Google rather than you.
The Electronic Communication Privacy Act of 1986, or ECPA, gives only limited privacy protection to emails and other files that are stored with online service providers—much less privacy than the legal protections for the same information when it’s on your computer at home.
Google claims so far not to have restricted access to the data to just a few employees but in future it may be used for marketing purposes. It’s current privacy policy doesn’t rule it out.
Cindy Cohn, EFF’s Legal Director calls on Google to “demand that Congress update the privacy laws to better reflect life in the wired world.”

Links:

Download it here, if you’re feeling stupid.
Dell in search tests with Google.
EFF Post:Google Copies Your Hard Drive – Government Smiles in Anticipation

Gmail Chat

Gmail and Google Talk are integrated.
Gmail users can exchange text messages with others without having to log onto a separate chat program.
The program will also allow users to store instant-message conversations.
Google still faces an uphill battle to beat AOL and MSN in the IM game. AOL has 57million subscibers and 27 million on MSN. Google has declined to say how many people use Google Talk.
If you don’t have it it may be because you’re language setting in Google is not set to English-US.
Internationalization on the code is poorly done, changing the language changes the entire application!
Not common code! Greatly slowing down the rollout of new features to users in non-US countries.
Links:

New Google Service to Blend the Gmail and Chat Features
Gmail Features Not For The British!
Chat + Email = Crazy Delicious

Short Stories

Anonymous P2P

Mute is a service for protecting your privacy while using peer to peer services

It does this in two ways

Encrypting all data sent to and from your P2P client – to safe guard against packet sniffing
Creating a virtual I.P address – ‘ant-routing’ – to safeguard your identity – with load balancing to ensure efficient data transfer

Other Alternatives…

The I2P bittorrent proxy, with with the Azureus Bittorrent client (recommended), or custom I2P-BT torrent software – allows you to use Bittorrent anonymously
Wastes – private encrypted chat & filesharing networks – allow groups of trusted friends to privately communicate – examples include WinW & Bad Blue

Links:

How Mute Works
Download Mute for Mac
Download Mute for Windows
Interview with Mute Developer Jason Rohrer
Excellent article from Clay Shirky about Anonymous IM & P2P
How to use Azureus with I2P
Custom I2P Bittorrent Client
WinW – An encrypted private networking client
Another encrypted private networking client
More information on Anonymous P2P

A real video ipod?

Apple have patented some two handed UI
Could this pave the way for a keyboard less laptop? Check out this video of whats possible [3]
Tech Manifesto have a tonne of info [4]

Media Pimp

Gareth

Colour Blender – The Web Masters Dream

Generates a palate of complimentry colours for any colour you pick
Complete with photoshop colour table & illustrator colours to download

Clay Shirky’s Writings about the Internet

Intelligent, well informed, critical thinking about anonymity, artifical intelligence, and other aspects of computing and the web

My Space Profile Hack

Stop your myspace looking poo

Francis

MacGyver Returns!
Brokeback to the Future What if you crossed Brokeback Mountain with Back to the Future?
The Quiet American Recordings of very everyday stuff made during the travels of one man. Some really interesting stuff here.