Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010
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Could cosmic rays be responsible for Toyota ’s recent woes? It sounds like the stuff of sci-fi, but it may well be all too real . Italics mean business. So the story is that cosmic rays have been known to interfere with other electronics and forms of transportation here on Earth, including computer systems and aircraft, so the theory is that, well, maybe these same rays are screwing with Toyota’s vehicles? Toyota loads its cars with electronics (far more so than other manufacturers, which would explain these rays have only affected Toyota), but the company has, so far, insisted that its problems are mechanical in nature—sticky pedals and the like. What could these mysterious cosmic rays cause? Software crashes, mainly, which is a problem if your car has more in common with an Intel Core i7 than a Chevy Nomad . (Special thanks to Matt for supplying me with the name of a classic American car.) Toyota, of course, has rubbished these claims, saying that its electronics are engineered for “absolute reliability.” And who knows, maybe it’s right? After all, wasn’t one of those high-profile Prius crashes said to be the likely result of driver error , and not any sort of engineering flaw? Incidentally, cosmic rays are the reason why CrunchGear is down as often as it is. I, for one, would like to see what actual engineers think of Toyota’s problems. So, any engineers in the house? Any idea what’s going on, or what avenues should be explored?
Posted by 010081
Tech
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
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Here’s a story I simply do not understand. Yes, we all know that Google has pulled out of mainland China , choosing to redirect all Chinese traffic through its uncensored Hong Kong hub. What I don’t understand is, what gives Google the right to flout a country’s laws, no matter how “bad” they may seem? China doesn’t want its citizens to read up on Tienanmen Square—and? I really don’t think it’s the place outsiders to tell China how to run itself. You wouldn’t want Big China Corporation to build a factory in the middle of Texas, then demand that the state of Texas bend to its whims, would you? First, the facts. Facts are helpful sometimes. China and Google have been feuding out in the open , WrestleMania-style, over China’s demand that Google censor its search results. Google, which ostensibly does no evil, protested, saying that it’s committed to the free flow of information (provided it can tack on a few ads alongside said information). So, China says this: “Fine. Take a hike, Google.” Then Google says, “OK…” but then it reroutes all China traffic through its Hong Kong site, which isn’t subject to the same censorship regime. So, to recap: China has a problem with Google’s way of doing business, tells Google to knock it off, Google refuses, then skirts around the law for its own benefit. How can people support Google? I frequently see things like, “Well, what about those Chinese hackers?!” So one thing justifies the other, you’re saying? Even if that turns out being true, that Chinese hackers under the watchful eye of Beijing, attacked Google, does that give Google the right to ignore Chinese law? If you egg my car—punk kids!—does that mean I can walk into your house, steal your TV, then say, “What? This makes us even.” Yeah, no. If Google has a problem with Chinese hackers , then it should deal with that issue, and not use it as an excuse to do whatever it wants “just because.” I’m not defending Chinese law, but I fully recognize that it’s none of my business. If that’s how the Chinese government wants to run its affairs, so be it. It’s fairly silly to project one’s own cultural animus onto other peoples. If Google wants to do business in China, it has to play by China’s rules. What’s so controversial about that? Google shouldn’t get a free pass simply because it’s Google.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Friday, March 19th, 2010
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Uh oh. Looks like someone at the Telegraph got loose and ran around their house with an infrared camera. If you want to see more unidentifiable photos like the one above, then just walk right this way.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
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Sony’s first attempts at a netbook were disastrously bad, but Sony has seemingly gotten its act together. The Sony VAIO M N450 is a true netbook . Too bad it’s now 2010 and no one cares about netbooks anymore. We knew this model was coming and the release confirms everything leaked a few weeks back: Atom N450, 250GB hard drive, 1GB of memory, and an Intel GMA 3150 GPU. Standard stuff, eh? The release didn’t mention a price, however, where the leak indicated that the model will sell for £299 in Euroland. That translates to $450 USD, but that’s not neccessarly the price. Once we hear the official price, along with the March release date, we’ll let you know. Promise. Light, convenient, ‘anytime’ computing made easy: Fully-featured VAIO M Series mini notebook 16 March 2010 · Mini notebook for your casual computing needs · Intel® Atom™ Processor N450 · Widescreen 25.5cm (10.1”) LED backlit display · 250GB HDD · Available in black or white Light, easy to carry and simple to use, the new VAIO M Series mini notebook from Sony is a great value way to experience the world of VAIO. Available in black or white colour finishes, this fully-featured mini notebook is an ideal go-anywhere companion for web browsing, chatting with friends online or checking emails over a coffee. VAIO M Series offers everything you need for day-to-day computing. With a 6-cell battery that fits nicely within the chassis and weighing just 1.4kg, it’s an ideal travel partner – or a handy second PC to share around the house. The widescreen 25.5cm (10.1”) LED backlit display offers a crisp, clear view of web pages, photos and documents. There’s also a Motion Eye® camera embedded in the screen bezel for video chatting. There’s plenty of space in the 250GB hard drive to store your documents, digital photos and video clips. With Wi-Fi and Bluetooth on board plus three USB ports, there’s no shortage of connectivity options, whatever you’re doing. VAIO M Series comes supplied with Genuine Windows® 7 Starter Edition. A generous suite of installed software makes it easy to manage your digital media collection, copy files from another PC, keep your VAIO running smoothly and get technical help when you need it. The new VAIO M Series mini notebook computer is available from the end of March 2010.
Posted by 010081
Tech
Sunday, March 14th, 2010
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Up until a moment ago, this was going to be a standard “newsy” post: the FCC will announce its National Broadband Plan on Tuesday, here’s what it’s all about. Then I read the comments of a PC World article discussing that very same plan—many people are outraged that the government would muscle its way into the free market! If Americans wanted fast broadband then the market would provide it on its own terms. That, of course, is complete nonsense: plenty of Americans live in one-ISP towns, and if said ISP provides terrible service, well, though cookies, chico. This is America! Love it or leave it~! And really, the FCC isn’t doing anything particularly controversial, at least I don’t think it’s controversial. All it’s doing is saying, by 2020, we’d like to see 100 million homes (out of an estimated 130 million homes come 2020) have access to broadband with speeds of up to 100 mbps. Some people already have access to that type of Internet connection, myself included . Other ISPs, including universally loathed Comcast , plans to roll out 100 mbps service in the coming months. So it’s not like the FCC is making some sort of unreasonable demand: the market has already decided that it’s worth its while to deploy 100 mbps service all over the country. A cynic might say that the FCC knows this, that 100 mbps service is closer than you might otherwise think, and is merely latching itself onto the ISPs so that it can be all, “See, FCC = leadership.” But don’t be cynical, don’t hold grudges: while you’re holding a grudge, the other guy is dancing. I don’t know, I suppose it makes sense to get into this a bit more when the FCC actually makes the Plan public on Tuesday. But for now, all I have to say is: chill out. Not everything the government announces is tantamount to quartering British soldiers in your house without permission. I suppose I’m talking to people right now who actually believe, and understand, that a wired country is truly in the best interests of everyone.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
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Using a foam packing peanut to hold a nail or screw in place is brilliant. I like to think of myself as a pretty mild-tempered person but any time anybody’s asked my wife about the most angry she’s ever seen me, she always tells the story of when we first moved into our apartment here in Boston and I went around the house hanging our window blinds. Shoulda used peanuts. The universe was angry that day, my friends. Forces everywhere were conspiring against me. Every single screw that needed to be driven into a window frame wobbled violently and then fell to the ground. Over and over and over again. I finally succumbed to using a power drill to bore starter holes where each of the screws would eventually go but, of course, I hadn’t properly charged the battery and couldn’t remember where I kept my drill bits. Basically, a project that should have taken an hour ended up consuming me with rage for the better part of what felt like eternity. Anyhoo, I should have used foam peanuts. That’s the takeaway. Hold the screw in place, get it started far enough into the wall that it’s stable, and tear the foam away. Simple. 10 Uses for Foam Packing Peanuts [This Old House via Lifehacker ]
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
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Mark Cuban and Bud Mayo have been pushing the current generation of 3D long before the current generation of 3D had even been pitched as the next big thing to consumers by TV manufacturers. Cuban and Mayo (sounds like a delicious sandwich) aren’t trying to get you to watch 3D television in your home, though. They actually want you to leave the house. And you’ll be able to do just that if you live near one of the Cinedigm-fitted 3D theaters that’ll be showing the semi-finals and championship game for the NCAA Final Four college basketball tournament in early April. What’s it like to watch a basketball game in 3D? Ask Mark Cuban. In an interview we did with him at CES in 2009 he said, “We did a live Mavs game this past March in 3D and I can just tell you, it’s crazy. It is crazy. It’s the LSD of 2009!” Granted, he’s probably a teensy, weensy bit biased. And there’s no guarantee that it’ll also be the LSD of 2010 but if you’re into the tournament and 3D, you won’t want to miss it. No word on which theaters will be participating (Cinedigm has locations all over the US) or how much tickets will cost, but you can sign up for more info on Cinedigm’s site. LIVE 3D – FINAL FOUR TOURNAMENT [Cinedigm.com via CEPro.com ]
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Saturday, March 6th, 2010
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Located at the MIT-owned One Broadway Street building in Kendall Square, Cambridge Innovation Center (CIC) houses more than 175 companies in over 100,000 square feet of office space and prices everything per person, so smaller companies can add more space as they grow. There are no long-term leases, either–it’s all month to month. I had a chance to take a tour with Cambridge Innovation Center CEO Tim Rowe. The CIC website says that pricing varies and “a good rule of thumb is that the price range is between $790 and $1000 per month per person.” I soon found out that there are more affordable options available, and that there are plenty of nice extras included in the price. There’s a Google-like abundance of free food, coffee, and tea, and CIC even retains one of Google’s massage therapists (massages aren’t free, but CIC doesn’t mark up the prices ). Internet access is also free, backed by an “enterprise-class Wi-Fi solution” (dual-band, 802.11n) from Ruckus Wireless . “The kitchens are for everybody,” said Rowe. “Everything’s included, it’s free. There’s Dove bars in the freezer, the produce is all organic, there’s sparkling water, espresso, whatever. You’re gonna work, you should be comfortable, you should be happy. You should just chill and enjoy yourself. The hope is that if you’re enjoying yourself you’ll be more productive.” True to the startup spirit, there are showering rooms. So bike to work, shower, pull an all-nighter, shower, and repeat. There’s also a nursing room for mothers with newborns. “We have people on eight floors and we just had a groundbreaking the other day with the governor and the president of MIT for another 57,000 square feet of space, so there’s going to be a lot more startups here,” said Rowe. “We’ve got shower rooms, a massage therapy room, we’re putting in a ping pong room in the new space. Basically just like you would have in your own office, except you don’t actually need the ping pong room all the time if you’re one startup and you don’t really want to pay for that space, so if you could share that cost with a lot of other people that’s better. That’s the model here.” “We have spaces for little companies. These are basically one-person companies,” said Rowe, motioning to a bank of smaller offices. “So you get one desk, locked file cabinet, and a phone. This is a lot cheaper, like $500 a month, and when you get bigger you might move into a bigger office at around $750 per desk per month.” I asked Rowe if they take anyone or if there’s some sort of vetting process. He replied, “We take essentially anyone. If there was an integrity issue or something like that, then that would be a problem but we don’t have a ‘we have to like your startup’ kind of thing.” “We also have this little section called Flex Space,” Rowe continued, “It’s $375 a month and you have a phone here and a mailing address here, but you can only work here one day a week. So it’s for someone who might be in a lab at MIT and they’re starting a business while they’re at the university. You can’t legally have your company in a lab at MIT. It has to have its own outside address, and if you’re not careful with that then MIT can assert that it owns everything that your company has. You definitely want to have someplace where you can say, ‘Oh, I actually have an office here. That’s where I made that.” So that’s what the Flex Space is for.” Some tiny company called Linden Lab has a huge office here. They’re working on something called Second Life. I don’t think it’ll take off, but that’s just me. Ha! Rowe explained, “One of the things they do in this office is, literally, the weather—the rippling of the waves, the clouds in the sky, stuff like that. It’s very high tech. And they’re usually having a ball in there.” Other current and former companies include Ambient Devices, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, New Atlantic Ventures, Carbonite, Conduit Labs, Hubspot, GreatPoint Energy, and plenty more. CIC-affiliated companies have raised over a billion dollars in the past ten years. Plenty of venture capital companies rent office space in the CIC, so startups are always in pretty close proximity to the types of people they’re trying to woo. “We have venture funds here,” said Rowe. “This is the conference room for New Atlantic Ventures—full disclosure, I have a part time venture partner with this fund. You can check them out on The Funded , it’s the number one ranked venture fund in the country.” “How much funding has gone into the companies here?” I asked. “We’ve tracked about $1.1 billion worth of venture funds going into the companies here so far,” replied Rowe. “And how much of that funding comes from venture funds working in this building?” I asked. “It’s surprisingly small,” answered Rowe. “I would say, like, five percent of that. The venture funds that are based here invest everywhere, not just here. And lots of venture funds elsewhere invest here. That’s the way we like it. If you’re a startup, you want to go to anybody for funding. And if you’re a VC, you’re going to invest in whatever the things are that you particularly like, not just things that happen to be down the hall.” “There are multiple competing VCs here. In fact, we have office hours here for various VC funds. Over the next 12 weeks we’re going to have 12 different funds—one each week—doing their office hours here. So it’s what you’d expect. It’s a very open platform. Anybody can talk to anybody. We’re opening the office hours to the public during the window of time when those are happening, which is Thursdays 2PM to 5PM. We’re not making it really public, we’re not advertising it or anything, but we’re tweeting it so people who are in the venture community and want to run into other entrepreneurs know that this is where it’s happening.” For those who aren’t quite to the we-need-an-office stage yet but are tired of working from home and coffee shops, CIC just opened the Cambridge Coworking Center . For $250 per month, you have access to just about everything the CIC has to offer except a private desk, landline, and physical mailbox. Said Rowe, “This is C3, the Cambridge Coworking Center. It’s part of us. It’s a different model. As you can see here, you have your little cubby. It’s $250 a month, so it’s half the price of what you saw upstairs. It’s kind of like a library/reading room feel. There’s no phone on the desks, so you’re going to use your cell phone which most of us do anyway. There’s no mailing address. It’s not about pretending to be here when you’re not, this is actually ‘I want to go somewhere to work,’ and by stripping some of those pieces out it makes it cheaper for us, and we’re able to offer it for a price that’s unbelievably low compared to what people would normally expect.” “I would say that the reason people come here is mostly for community,” continued Rowe. “If you’re working out of your house, it’s an isolating experience. Starbucks is an interesting alternative, but it’s a different group of people every time—what they call a third place. It’s not home, it’s not work, it’s a place which is intentionally to be around random people. But the second place—the work place—what it’s distinguished by is a consistent group of other people. So you get there in the morning you’re like, ‘Hey, how are you doing? How are the kids? I heard you went skiing last weekend,’ that kind of stuff. You don’t get that at Starbucks because it’s not a consistent group of people. “And it’s very loud,” I said. “It’s loud and you feel like you’re taking up a table and you’re not really supposed to be working there all the time. You’re supposed to be working here and it comes with the free coffee. If you do the math on what it costs you to work consistently out of cafes over the course of a month, it’s probably about the same cost as it is here.” Cambridge Innovation Center [cictr.com]
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Friday, March 5th, 2010
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I need to move to Europe for several reasons, but the one that’s relevant right now ? 3D broadcasts of top-tier football (“soccer”) leagues. Sky Deutschland has announced that it will broadcast the March 14 match between Bayer Leverkusen and Hamburg (that’s the second place team versus the fourth place team). Lucky devils. To view the broadcast in 3D glory—I use the term “glory” lightly since 3D TV is still sorta “meh,” based on what I saw at CES in January—you’ll obviosuly need a 3D-capable TV, and those things cost an arm and a leg. Sky is also putting together some sort of invite-only viewing party in Munich. In attendence will be Franz Beckenbauer , a former German soccer player. He was so good he was nicknamed Der Kaiser. Don’t forget that ESPN will also broadcast at least one World Cup game in 3D this year. Since I’m not made of money, there’s zero chance I’ll be able to view it, but if any of you are investment bankers I will more than happily invite myself to your house to watch the game in 3D.
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
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Samsung might be joining Panasonic in offering portable Blu-ray players if a Ben Lyon twoot is to be believed. Let me quote, “I just partnered w/ Samsung & they asked me 2 host an event in NYC tonight for their new line of portable Blue-Ray players that are amazing!” Interested? We are. Samsung does have an event on the books tonight. It’s the Samsung 2010 Mobile PC Open House, which at least seems partly the proper venue to announce portable Blu-ray players. They are sort of like little PCs in design, but a home entertainment event seems a bit more appropriate for a Blu-ray product. But lowly Ben Lyon wouldn’t make something like this up. He doesn’t even know the proper spelling of Blu-ray. The event is a few hours away so we don’t long to wait until we get a good look at these portable devices. That is, of course, if Ben Lyon isn’t making the whole thing up, which would actually be fairly humorous.