Gadgets Blog

A fascinating report by the United Kingdom’s version of the Federal Communications Commission paints a vivid picture of a technology-driven world right out of a Vernor Vinge novel: Bluetooth implants in your body warning doctors of impending heart attacks; wireless sensors in cars slamming on the brakes before collisions; reminders from doctors to take medications based on wireless vital sign readings.

The Office of Communications, known as Ofcom, is the UK’s independent regulator of competition in its television, radio, telecom and wireless communications industries. Its new report, “Tomorrow’s Wireless World,” features technology innovations being tested in some British cities and it already has some privacy advocates shouting about a digital Big Brother. But the tone of the report is generally positive about the role technology could play in saving lives, trimming health care costs and making travel safer and greener.

The section regarding “in-body networks” - wireless sensors that allow doctors to monitor patients’ health from miles away - uses existing radio spectrum in the UK. And while some of the transportation applications conjure up images of Onstar on steroids and the traffic scenes from Steven Spielberg’s “Minority Report,” Ofcom says the technologies are already in development and could be ready for placement in cars by 2015.

All of these intelligent networks will require equally-intelligent management of spectrum, whether in the UK or in the US. It’s true that some of these developments have already been touched on in gee-whiz tech reporting by the mainstream media - if not in sci-fi novels by the likes of Vinge, Kim Stanley Robinson and Bruce Sterling - but it’s still exciting (at least for the geeks in all of us) to hear an official agency say the technology is closer than you think. So get ready for those implants; at least they’ll save you money on those Bluetooth headsets.

Read [Ofcom]

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I-Pmart has released a new watch phone codenamed the WP929. It is a touchscreen watch phone that runs on GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900Mhz and comes with 1.3 inch TFT260k 128 x 160px display, 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth and USB connectivity, microSD slot, integrated MP3/MP4 player, and support multi-language. Two batteries were included so as a Bluetooth headset and a wired one as well. The I-Pmart WP929 is available now for $186.30. More pictures after the break.
[ Source ]

Boy, isn’t it awesome? Dell is really getting better in design department with each passing model. The latest to join their stylish products are Inspiron 1435, 1535 and 1735 for fashion conscious prosumers. According to Engadget, they start at around 1-inch thick and taper up to 1.5 inches thick. All of them features Intel Core 2 Duo T5850 processor, Blu-ray drive, and 3G options in addition to usual configuration. As per Engadget’s sources, the 1435 isn’t due until October, but the 1735 is coming on June 9 and the 1535 on the 26th of this month.
[ Source ]

Klipsch is a name synonymous with great sounding audio, and the Palladium P-39F doesn’t only offer superb audio but it does so with a clear conscience. I say so because it comes clad in a “Linia” veneer, which is available in three different finishes and proves to be a very close match to rare zebrawood. After all, it was carefully hand-selected and made from real trees in government-sanctioned controlled harvests - sounds more like a jam advertisement, hand-picked berries and all that jazz. The only drawback is the price - you would have to be loaded in order to afford the £7,685 asking price.

It’s been close to a month since Psystar first started grabbing headlines with its Leopard emulating OpenMac. Today, however, I received a delightful little blast from the past in the form of Ticket ID: XMK-250907. Apparently, one of my many requests for comment from the company (submitted while I was writing about the legal rammifications of new Mac clones) was entered into Psystar’s ticket system.

Here’s the note:

Bryan Gardiner,

Your Ticket has been received and a member of our staff will review it and reply accordingly. Listed below are details of this Ticket. Please make sure the Ticket ID remains in the subject at all times.

Ticket ID: XMK-250907

Subject: Questions for Wired Article

Department: Support

Priority: Low

Status: Open

You can check the status of or reply to this Ticket online at: [link removed] Please do let us know if we can assist you any further,

PsyStar Corporation

And there you have it. Unfortunately, my request still seems to be low on Psystar’s priority list. We can only hope the company isn’t taking this long getting back to people who, you know, have paid for actual hardware. Speaking of paying for hardware, the Lab has officially placed its order for the $1,000 OpenPro, which we will be pitting against a Mac Pro. Don’t worry it won’t be this Mac Pro.

Stay tuned…

In a rather bizarre effort to protect sensitive company data, T-Mobile has announced that its Sarnia, Ontario call center employees will no longer be allowed to use pens, pencils, or note pads in the open. If they must used them, they are required to keep them in their locked desks between uses. Taking the new policy even further, they’ve also required that all photos and papers on cubicle walls be laminated so they can not be used to write on.

While it’s easy to understand a company wanting to protect its data, this new policy is just a bit ridiculous. If the company is that paranoid it’s a good thing the employees don’t have access to any kind of small, easily concealable electronic device that can easily accept data and transfer it quickly over the net or any way to discreetly copy data directly from their computers, Wouldn’t that be awful? I’m sure T-Mobile execs are sleeping well tonight with that knowledge.

Read [The Consumerist]

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Yesterday, Vodafone announced that it will be carrying the iPhone in Italy. The press release was short and to the point. Soon afterwards, Telecom Italia issued an even shorter press release announcing the exact same thing:

Telecom Italia announced today it has signed a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Italy later this year.

This means that Italy is the first country to have two telcos offering the iPhone, which looks like the beginning of the end for exclusivity deals, and further suggests that the iphone will be sold with a subsidy. Italy has two more operators, Wind and 3, and Wind at least thinks that it might also offer the iPhone. When contacted by Italian website Setteb, Wind said that “we are evaluating this market opportunity”.

Some numbers: Italy has the highest penetration of 3G in Europe, at 36.3% of users. The country is also decidedly anti-contract, with a staggering 90% of customers choosing pre-pay. This curious combination could point to an unlocked iPhone, but whether it will have its price jacked up to over $1000 like the phantom unlocked French iPhone we have no idea.

Press release [Telecom Italia. Thanks, Fabio!]

The iPhone Italian: Apple is happy. Wind and 3 reflect [Sette]

Italy, the only country with double-carrier for iPhone [Sette]

Pizza Photo [ZeroOne/Flickr]

NASA is looking to update its Ames Research Center’s supercomputer in Moffett Field, CA. The new plan will feature a petaflop machine by 2009, which is 1,000 trillion operations per second, and will be built in stages allowing for a maximum throughput of 10 petaflops by 2012. To put those numbers into perspective, the fastest supercomputer in the world right now is IBM’s Blue Gene/L capable of 478.2 Gigablops (0.4782 petaflops), or roughly half the speed of the planned 2009 system, and 1/20th the speed of the 2012 system. The new system will be built using chips from Intel and interconnects from SGI.

About a year ago I had the opportunity to visit the NCSA supercomputing center in Urbana, IL. I was able to go in and see their big machines, which at that time had two in the top ten. The machines there were fascinating, but it was really the behind-the-scenes look at everything that brought it all into focus. For example, in order to get a job up and running on the supercomputers requires a tremendous amount of work and team efforts. There are networking guys, people involved with disk I/O, base setup of the machine (such as which version of Linux or other OS to use), etc. There are also porting issues. Sometimes the project might be created using a particular version of software which needs to be ported to the kind used on the supercomputers.

The supercomputers at NCSA were public access, meaning anyone could use them. The computers at NASA’s Ames Research Center are private and are used for applications relating to the Air Force and NASA. NCSA’s computers were allocated well in advance of their actual use. A team must submit the paperwork for their job long before time is scheduled on the machine. This involves looking at least a year ahead to determine which jobs are the most desirable to compute. After all, there is only a finite amount of computing capacity. In an article I wrote at TG Daily I wondered how many worthwhile, even earth-shattering discoveries are waiting out there, currently unrealized due to the fact that there just isn’t enough computing capacity to go around.

With facilities like the 10 petaflop machine being available in 2012, it probably won’t be too many more years before the other jobs, the ones that are prohibitive today due to the demand for CPU time in a supercomputer, are actually realized.

Read more on Intel’s press release.

I must admit that most ipod speaker docks these days seem to be dry in terms of design - the Gear4 DUO takes a different route as the front speaker section can be unclipped from the main body of the DUO, functioning as a portable speaker setup thanks to the inclusion of a rechargeable battery. Of course, doing so would mean you lose the functionality of a 20W subwoofer which is housed within the main unit. There is no word from Gear4 on just how long the battery will last, but I don’t think it will be that weak. The DUO will come in black and silver finishing, hitting Europe this Friday for €200 while folks in the UK will have to fork out £150. A US release is in the works sometime later this year, and rest assured it won’t pass the $300 mark.