Heathrow Taxi Pods are go…

Weren’t these the predicted future for the year 2000 back in the day? Very cool to see them running.

Nikon camera with built in projector…

This looks wicked!

Us mountain biking in Rotorua

World’s First Cycle Computer with Digital Rear-view!

http://www.cerevellum.com/

Willow Garage Robots

These guys are doing some pretty cool stuff with robots including this video which shows a PR2 going around an office opening doors and plugging itself into power outlets.

Tricycle to map tourist hotspots for Google Street View

Google Street View is heading off-road, with plans to use special tricycles to map Britain's countryside and urban footpaths.

http://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/tricycle-to-map-tourist-hotspots-for-google-street-view-21662

Bike Porter Integrated Handlebar Basket

As weird sounding as it is these integrated handlebars \ bike baskets from Good Morning Technology seem like not a bad idea for city style bikes… although they look better mounted on the bike.

Sparse entries…

Haven’t come across much of interest of late and then suddenly there’s this…

…the MyPressi Espresso Machine powered by a gas cartridge. Cool!!!

Gmail brings “Insert Picture”

It’s taken them a fair while but at long last you don’t have to use messy workarounds to put a picture in a new email.

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/new-in-labs-inserting-images.html

Bumptop – 3D Desktop organisation

The traditional computing desktop is broken, according to Bump Technologies. Interfaces that force users to drag equally sized icons around a flat canvas and tediously organize them into deliberately named folders haven't improved much across platforms in the past 30 years, which is why the company created BumpTop. Combining the free-form organizational features offered by your real-world desk with the aging desktop paradigm, BumpTop brings an entirely new meaning to "drag and drop”

Scarpar off-road powerboard

Watch the video for an explanation! Apparently it has an 80cc engine stashed somewhere but http://www.scarpar.com/ doesn’t give away too many specs…

Chechen soldiers' Flinstonian phone charger

Brilliant use of technology and woodworking skills. Now they just need to put a Pelton Wheel on it and drop it beside a stream.

Twittervision

Cool mash-up… http://twittervision.com/ and quite fascinating to watch.

But then as per Jon Stewart I’m not sure I still get it…

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Twitter Frenzy
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Precision Agriculture

Cultivating and harvesting tomatoes with robotics. The video is fantastic; esp. them watering the plants but it may have some way to go before picking becomes reality.

The next boat perhaps?

An electric hybrid wakeboard boat.

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2009/03/epic-wakeboats.html

Vineyard Fresh

Only an infrequent problem around our house but VineyardFresh promises to preserve open bottles of wine by stopping the process of oxidation. According to the Web site, you simply spray two quick bursts of a mixture of argon with a small percentage of nitrogen, and then "a combination of chemistry and physics" takes over and creates a protective barrier between remaining wine and the air left in the bottle, preventing oxidation.

And this is why you’re fat!

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/

“We’re All Gonna Die – 100m of Existence”

A photography project over 20 days which is a 100m long by 78cm high.

Tour of California tracker

Brilliant use of flash to display video and statistics for the Tour of California. And the best thing? It’s the first time I’ve been able to get live streaming video from the US working in New Zealand.

Being able to click between camera views is very interactive; not to mention cool.

http://tracker.amgentourofcalifornia.com/

Twitter

After much pondering on the usefulness of Twitter I found that it’s rather handy for following the Tour Of California; esp. while at work.

http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23atoc

Water-powered Jetlev

Hulu

Great sounding service but dammit! it’s US only unless you load VPN software or access a SOCKS proxy to get your PC looking like it’s located in the US.

MusicIP

Instead of endlessly scrolling through your library, trying to find something to listen to, simply pick a song to create a playlist in seconds. Our recommendations go beyond genre and editorial review, to offer you the best songs of your music collection at just the right moment.

MusicIP is software that analyses your music and creates automatic playlists and integrates with music players such as iTunes, WinAmp & Windows Media Player.

Google Latitude

Google tries location based social networking with it’s new app Google Latitude. While I’m not sure I want to know where all my friends are at any one time it does use some quite cool technology on both SmartPhones and your notebook (via wireless location) to work out where you are.

And in the “they would be” vein…

But privacy campaigners said they were appalled by the idea…

FGS – It’s opt in!!

Kiwi blokes logging on to PMS

Brilliant!

Kiwi blokes who fear their partner's hormonal hissy-fits are keeping tabs on their "time of the month" with online reminders.

http://pmsbuddy.com/

More Info Leads to Less Knowledge

Interesting theory on knowledge - http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-02/st_thompson and then the wingnuts in the comments section prove it…

Gigapan

Gigapan hosts huge panorama pictures with fast zoom capabilities. Very cool web app. The panorama of the Obama Inauguration is stunning due to the amount of information in it.

Google Chrome

Only in America? Nope, Hastings, NZ…

Two prisoners who fled a courthouse handcuffed together foiled their own getaway when they ran around opposite sides of a light pole, slammed into each other and fell to the ground.

CTV Video of it – brilliant!

The Black Seeds - Make A Move

Brilliant song from a great New Zealand band. Needs to be played loud!

Kogswell Porteur

This is my Kogswell Porteur 650b project bike which is now rideable but not complete.

- Wheels are Paul Components Hubs laced with DT Swiss Competition spokes to Velocity Synergy 650b hubs. The spokes alternate black and silver (for a laugh). Shod with Panaracer Col De Vie tyres.
- Nitto Montmartre bar from Velo Orange complete with cork grips and City Bike brake levers.
- Paul Components "Touring" Cantilever Brakes
- Brooks England B17 Special Copper Saddle
- Cane Creek Headset (threw out one that came with the frame!)

The Truvativ cranks are just thrown on from my singlespeed mountain bike so I could ride it - they are 180mm and catch on the ground if I turn sharply while pedaling.

The gearing is a very low 32 x 19 - which is great for around Auckland where I live. I can easily pedal up hills, cruise the flat, and coast down. It's not designed to be fast but I have been surprised about how light it is.

I’ve been riding it to work every day and am really enjoying it.

To do: Replace the cranks and fit the chaincase. Fit the mudguards. Get a porteur rack built for it and fit.

Doing silly stuff

It was originally intended on being a relative easy 50km mountain bike ride which we figured we’d cut out in around 4 hours. What it turned into was a 8 hour epic with the last 10km’s taking us around 3.5 hours alone. The track we’d selected to get to the Kaiaua Coast was not easily walkable never mind rideable.

  2000m of climbing over 53km’s.

http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7517724

I feel like an old man today.

NZ Music on-demand

Radio New Zealand has a fantastic stream of Neil Finn & Friends recorded at the Roundhouse Studio.

They also have downloads of a heap of other muso’s here.

Powermat Wirelessly Powered Kitchen of the Future

This is incredible…

GoCycle

Well it ain’t pretty but then it’s a commuter bike; the GoCycle has some pretty clever features and in particular the Pitstop side mounted wheels that have a click-fit mechanism to hold them in place.  It also has an electric assist motor, which, if it got more folks riding to work on bicycle, would be a good thing.

Bird, Rides, Bikes….

Got woken at 2am with the cat doing cartwheels around the bedroom. Didn’t work out until I went to get dressed for work that she’d managed to catch a bird and deliver it to the room. She’s well proud of it.

Went out for a ride in the Waitaks this morning; uploaded to MotionBased and Garmin Connect. I’m unsure which of these two services to continue using. They both have their merits and pitfalls with Garmin Connect going very Web 2.0.

The new Santa Cruz Blur XC has been released in carbon. It’s their first foray into carbon frames and the report says that they were worried about it’s strength so they doubled the tests that they would normally run on an alu frame and it’s stronger than "just about every frame we make."

I quite like what Santa Cruz are doing with their bikes especially around the serviceability of the pivots with grease points and bushings. It will make them last a whole heap longer than running the standard sealed bearings and the ones they do use have a lifetime warranty.

Everyone has a song inside… (apparently)

Microsoft Songsmith looks pretty cool but I’m trying to work out if it’s a gimmick or would be cool to play with it but I haven’t got the time at the moment to download and play with it.

I know if I had a Mac I’d spend hours playing with GarageBand. I once had some free software called Voyetra that came with a sound card; it was so good that Turtle Beach bought the company and now charge for a mangled version of it that is nowhere near as good as it was 8 years ago.

Windows Live Writer

I’ve discovered Windows Live Writer which makes it easy to create blog posts off-line and then publish them when I want. There may be other tools but this certainly seemed easy. http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/

Google Reader for Beginners.

First up is Google Reader for Beginners. Handy video's for learning what Google Reader is all about and how to use it.

http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2009/01/google-reader-for-beginners.html

Blog title...

I've created this to encompass stuff I come across so that I can come back and reference it or so that others can discover stuff within my "1 mile radius".

So named after this idea - http://isocrates.us/bike/the-1-mile-solution/

Cheers.