GRK BLOG/ZINE

A spinning, cylindrical-shaped structure with the ability to hold 10,000 residents was named the winner of an annual NASA competition which was the brainwork of a Toronto high school student. Eric Yam, a 12th grade student in Toronto’s Northern Secondary School took the grand prize making him the first Canadian to win such an award. The space colony Asten, named after the Egyptian god of balance is 1.6 kilometer-high structure made up of a series of habitation rings stuck in the shape of a cylinder. The entire structure rotates on its axis, simulating Earth-like gravity for its inhabitants. Yam’s plan calls for 15 years of planning followed by 12 years of construction and another three years to make the settlement habitable. His estimated cost to build the station is $563 billion US.

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It’s still a little ways from an actual release, but it looks like the folks at Ennova Direct just couldn’t help themselves from announcing that they’ve received a patent for a newfangled biometric USB flash drive that packs a built-in OLED screen.

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Wow, a crazy laptop, the new Thinkpad W700 with an 10.6″ diagonal second display screen!

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Today the Motorola Hint QA30 is official announced. It is the Motorola’s new Motorola QWERTY slider
design cellphone, it features includes 2.5″ 320 x 240 screen, stereo Bluetooth 2.0, microSD support up to 8GB. Its slider design reveals a full QWERTY keypad when open, Cool! Motorola Hint QA30 will be available in Q4 2008. It will support CDMA calling and EVDO data. [ link ]

“A DSMC is a camera that shoots stills and motion. Configure that camera any way you want. Select a brain. Configure your body.” Red may have just changed the digital imaging game with the new Scarlet and EPIC cameras, which include options for full-frame 35mm size sensors. The Scarlet is available in 4.9MP, 13.8MP and 24MP. The EPIC is available in 13.8MP, 24MP, 65MP and 261MP. Here’s the big one though - they are available in Nikon and Canon mounts. And even you can select the other add-on includes a 1080p monitoring, flash storage, frames, mounts and more. [ link ]

You may have see many rumors of the USB 3.0 pictures before, today the USB 3.0 Specification is officially announced. It is rate of 4.8 Gbit/s (600 MB/s), it’ll dump a 25GB HD file in about 70 seconds. The bad news, you old USB cables won’t deliver SuperSpeeds, you have to buy the new USB 3.0 gear because the cables have extra pins. It seems different from USB 2.0 at the below pic. You may can see the gadgets with USB 3.0 sometime in 2010…[ link ]

Part racer, part streetbike, all Ducati.

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If you’re looking for the ultimate in cellular luxury, check out the new Motorola Aura ($2,000). Built more like a fine automobile than a swivel phone, the Aura features a 16-million color circular display, a Grade 1 62-carat sapphire crystal lens, a stainless steel housing that takes nearly two weeks to sculpt, etch and polish, a custom-engineered rotating mechanism with 130 precision ball bearings, CrystalTalk technology for terrific voice clarity, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP, Quad-band GSM, and more.

If you want to type in anywhere? The Pomera Digital Memo DM10(JPY 27,300; $270) is a portable typing device, which packed a full sized folding keyboard. I like its folding keyboard, portable, long battery life design, perfect for the writer or them whose just want to wirte something. As you see it features 2-second startup, 20-hour battery life, microSD expansion, and 4-inch VGA display. And it just 1.18″ thick. You can also conncet it to your computer via USB or its SD card. It will be available in Japan on November 10th.

If by chance you have not yet moved on to an Apple iPhone 3G or a Blackberry Bold, then Motorola is still out there, happy to pickup your business. Its newest offering, the Moto Q 11 ($TBA) features quad-band GPRS/EDGE, meaning it’ll be relegated to either AT&T or T-Mobile. It does, however, house WiFi, an ARM 7 LTE processor and GPS. Not a bad option for anyone who isn’t into Apples and those of you who aren’t feeling Bold.

Tommer Leyvand and colleagues have created a “beautification engine,” a software program that uses a mathematical formula to alter a person’s face into what theoretically is the more “beautiful” version, while retaining “unmistakable similarity” to the original:

Studies have shown that there is surprising agreement about what makes a face attractive. Symmetry is at the core, along with youthfulness; clarity or smoothness of skin; and vivid color, say, in the eyes and hair. There is little dissent among people of different cultures, ethnicities, races, ages and gender.

Yet, like the many other attempts to use objective principles or even mathematical formulas to define beauty, this software program raises what psychologists, philosophers and feminists say are complex, even disturbing, questions about the perception of beauty and a beauty ideal.

To what extent is beauty quantifiable? Does a supposedly scientific definition merely reflect the ideal of the moment, built from the images of pop culture and the news media?

Link

Create barcode art. Winner of the 2008 output award Grand Prix, barcode plantage takes your barcode and turns it into a plant-like artwork suitable for framing. I suspect that if you are one of the few people that still possess a working cuecat, you can just scan it right in! For those that don’t, typing in the barcode number
works just as well. Have fun.

barcode-plantage

Now you can use your iPhone monitor your heart rate. This iPhone Heart Monitor app by John Ballinger. It uses the inbuilt microphone on your iPhone 3G or headphone microphone to listen to and detect your heart beats. You can use the iPhone 3G directly over your heart or directly on the pulse in your neck or wrist, the app will be able to detect the stats(Check out see the video). Available on iTunes for $5. [ link ]
Please Note: works best with iPhone 3G, works well with iPhone 1G/2G but you must use the headphone cable microphone, the inbuilt microphone does not detect heart beats.

With a touch screen interface, 8GB of internal storage, and a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (€279, ~$386; Q4 2008) has a lot of the same features as the iPhone — but one big one Apple’s handset is missing. The 5800 is among Nokia’s first handsets to support Comes With Music, a service that will provide one full year of all-you-can-eat downloads from the Nokia Music Store. Other features include a 3.2 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens, video recording, Flash support, built-in stereo speakers, and more.

i5hot glove is a pure cashmere glove made for using touch and press buttons portables like iphone, PDAs, cameras, and to be always IN TOUCH with a secure grip with your handled objects.
In fact there’s no better grip than your skin’s grip. When friction counts, you’ll be able to put out your index and thumb fingers and click, or tap, or scrab… ehm..

Brady Clark and Mykle Hansen created a vest that lets bicycle riders show off how fast they’re pedaling:

How does the vest work?
In a nutshell, it uses a sensor on your wheel to send a signal to a microcontroller that then turns the numbers on and off on the vest.

Why did you invent this?
Have you ever outpaced cars and been honked at? Had a car almost wipe you out while making a turn? The Speed Vest was invented because we were curious to know if putting more information in front of drivers might change their awareness of bicyclists. That, and we suspect a lot of people don’t realize that an average person can bike 10-15 mph (15-25 km/h).

Link (with a video clip of the vest in action)

The new G-series Canon camera, the PowerShot G10 Camera($500; October 2008) including a long-anticipated 28 mm wide-angle lens with 5x optical zoom, 14.7 megapixels and 3.0-inch LCD screen. The more high pixel from 12.1MP to 14.7MP, and with the features, the DIGIC 4 image processor - Servo AF, which is a form of continuous focus tracking for moving subjects. By pressing the shutter button half-way, the camera can track subject movement up to the instant of exposure, resulting in sharper photographs. [ link ]

No more pulling dog-eared family photos from your wallet — now you can flip through up to 60 digital photos in a flash, thanks to the removable viewer tucked inside this soft leather bifold wallet. Snapshots look crisp and clear on its 1.44? LCD screen. Plug in the included USB cable to upload pictures from your PC or Mac.

Link

Bass hits the desktop in Altec Lansing’s new Expressionist Bass Speakers ($150; October 2008). These cone-shaped PC speakers pack a 4-inch long-throw subwoofer into the base of each, with 1.5-inch drivers handling the mids and highs, removing the need for large, typically floor-bound sub enclosures. Finally, a reason to upgrade our aging Creatures.

The LG N4B1 is the world’s first Network Attached Storage (NAS) with Blu-ray burner and support up to 4TB (4 HDD). It comes with three USB ports and one e-SATA and it measures at 190 x 289 x 280mm. This machine will automatically burn unused data on a Blu-ray disk or simply back up data on a regular basis.

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