Money talks.... hackers should choose words carefully

It seems the New Jersey teen who cracked the iPhone has changed his mind about people profiting from his hack. In this Globe and Mail article that I linked to last week, George Holtz was quoted as saying "That's exactly, like, what I don't want,... I don't want people making money off this." however today on his blog he has announced "I traded it for a sweet Nissan 350Z and 3 8GB iPhones." Best of all he traded it to a Kentucky-based mobile phone repair company, that has apparently also offered him employment! You can't blame the kid for wanting to secure employment but perhaps he should have chosen his words more carefully.

Changes are coming but are we ready?

c|net's news.com is asking the question "Are drivers ready for high-tech onslaught?" It seems a lot of new technology is heading our way and many of us may not be ready to comprehend the systems that are intended to make life easier. "A lot of it is beneficial...But it can be confusing and in the automobile, that's a safety threat," Don Norman, professor at Northwestern University is quoted as saying. The article suggests that features such as self parking and auto breaking, to mention a couple, are making the leap from high end luxury cars to more modest rides as soon as next year. I don't know about you but I say "bring it on!", this stuff is cool...

The following quote is also interesting, "In a Telematics Research Group review of 2008 car models, 70 percent have voice-activated Bluetooth communication capability and 80 percent offer navigation systems as either options or standard equipment." Sounds like you might want to wait a few months if you are contemplating a car purchase.

e-bay a bargain for investors?

With all of the YouTube, Google, Yahoo!, and Facebook talk of late it appears as though the investing world has forgotten about e-bay. The Globe and Mail's Report on Business quotes Tim Boyd, an analyst with American Technology Research, as saying "Their stock is undervalued relative to all of the large-cap Internet peers," With a current price of around $34, nearly half of it's 2004 high of $60, and Boyd's target price of $42, it may be time to take a second look at e-bay?

Toyota and Sony team up to develop robot cars?

Toyota and Sony have announced that they are teaming up to produce an innovative, intelligent, single-seat vehicle. Sony is apparently selling some of its technology and loaning researchers to Toyota to assist in the project. Sounds a little like a one seat Smart Car, but I think the most interesting part of the deal is represented in this quote, from The Globe and Mail, "Toyota is introducing as a guide at its showroom at headquarters TPR-Robina, a womanlike robot-on-wheels it has developed. The robot can dodge obstacles, sign its name, carry on simple conversations in Japanese and deliver preprogrammed information in an electronic voice..."

Lunar eclipse tomorrow morning

Here's some big news for those of us who like to gaze skyward! A total lunar eclipse will be taking place tomorrow morning and will be viewable to those in North and South America, eastern Asia, Australia and New Zealand. It's the second such occurrence of the year, the first being 5 months ago and more prominent on the east coast of the continent. According to the CBC, "The partial eclipse will begin at 1:51 a.m. PT and end at 5:24 a.m. PT, with the total eclipse beginning at 2:52 a.m. and ending at 4:22 a.m. Skywatchers in the eastern time zone will only have a brief opportunity to see the total eclipse — which begins at 5:52 a.m. ET..."

Blogger celebrates 8th birthday with new video upload feature

Thursday marked the 8th birthday of Blogger, the platform that I am using here at Great Big Geek. To celebrate the event, or perhaps coincidentally, Blogger announced on Friday a new video upload feature that will allow bloggers to upload and store video podcasts or skateboarding dog videos. This is great news to me as I've been contemplating following the likes of Morgan Webb and Cali Lewis by publishing a brief video version of Great Big Geek. Don't' get too excited though, it will be a little while coming and I'm probably about as easy to look at as the Cranky Geeks (sorry guys but we can't compete on looks with the likes of Morgan or Cali, we'll just have to rely on content).

Germany's automated restaurant opens

Bagger's restaurant in Nuremberg, Germany may be the world's first fully automated restaurant. Patrons order their meals on touch screens, are updated as to when they might receive it, and when it is ready their plate glide along the rails to customers, propelled by gravity. According to Spiegel Online International "The setup is more reminiscent of a post office sorting room than a traditional restaurant". I'm not sure how the food is but the restaurant gets 5 stars for geekiness! Thanks to Engadget for this one.

Is auto racing a sport?

I had a discussion yesterday, amongst my family members, regarding the World Series of Video Games tour stop in Toronto and whether or not video gaming can be considered a sport, as many of the participants believe. A television report that we had watched showed gamers at their PCs receiving instruction from their "coaches". The discussion drew comparisons to NASCAR and Formula 1 racing, so I thought I'd do a little research and I think this video proves that indeed auto racing is a sport, and therefore video gaming which puts a human participant in control of a machine can also be considered sport. Enjoy!

NASCAR Coach Reveals Winning Strategy: 'Drive Fast'

Now that's high resolution!

Researchers at the University of California in San Diego have out done themselves, literally. They have broken their own record for the world's highest-resolution computer display, with a massive 220 million pixels! "HIPerSpace provides a unique environment for visual analytics and cyberinfrastructure research and we are now seeking funding to double the size of the system at UC San Diego alone to reach half a billion pixels with a one gigapixel distributed display in sight." OMG... imagine playing Gears of War on that! Here's the press release. Thanks to Morgan Webb at WebbAlert for this one.

What would you like to see in a new iPod?

Matt Rosoff over at c|net NewsBlog is not too impressed with the thought of a new generation of iPods said to be on it's way. Rumours have been rampant since the release of the iPhone and Matt is asking the questions "What would make you buy a new iPod?". His argument, there is not much you could do to the iPod to make most users want to shell out more money to upgrade to the next generation. I'm not so sure, I think we are all subject to a tiny bit of new product envy regardless of how trivial the updates may or may not be.