great big geek

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Queen of England a Wii Addict?

The People is reporting that Prince William's girlfriend, Kate Middleton, gave a Wii for Christmas and the device has caught the attention of Queen Elizabeth herself. The Queen apparently saw William playing and begged to join in, "She played a simple ten-pin bowling game and by all accounts was a natural." The 81 year old monarch is by all measures a geek, constantly upgrading her cell phones, having over 100,000 songs on her iPod, her own e-mail account, and recently acquiring a Blackberry. Maybe this is why she refuses to give up the crown... what's your high score Charles?

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Self Driving Cars In 10 Years - CES Attendees Hear

The CBC is reporting that GM CEO, Rick Wagoner, in the last keynote address at the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show made some big predictions for the not so distant future. "It is critical to our business destiny and our obligation to society to develop alternative means of propulsion to meet the world's demands for our products, which is growing at a very rapid pace." said Wagner. According to the report "GM's OnStar in-vehicle communications and monitoring system will soon introduce applications that can be activated over a cellphone. In the "very short term," subscribers to the service will be able to unlock or even start their vehicles remotely with their mobile device." In addition, Chris Urmson, Carnegie Mellon's man behind "Boss" the DARPA Urban Challenge winner said "we expect a fully autonomous, self-driving car to be on the road in the next decade."

I expect that this prediction is fairly safe. Ten years ago I read of a semi autonomous vehicle that drove across country and managed nearly, I believe, 90% of the driving. With the success of "Boss" and other contestants in the completely autonomous DARPA driving challenge, it stands to reason that another decade will mean enough advances to bring the technology to the masses... think I'll call Johnny Cab!

Virtual Reality curtesy of your Wii remote!

This YouTube video was sent to me by Chris, who will someday provide some guest posts... ;-)
This heads up display using a Wii remote really has to be seen to be appreciated. the video's creator, Johny Chung Lee, does a great job of demonstrating the project, doesn't hurt that Johny is associated with Carnegie Mellon University either.

Disney Trip Wrap-up coming

Busy this morning doing laundry and paying post Christmas bills. I have nearly 800 photos to go through and many thoughts about our trip that I want to process, thinking that I might use Utters and compile the thoughts as a podcast. Will definitely be using Flickr to post some of the best pictures. I'm aiming to have this done by Friday and until then will be posting in the traditional GBG fashion as time permits. A new post is coming as soon as I get organized... Terry.

CES 2008 Best of Show Contenders

CNET runs down their top 30 picks for the "Best of CES" award at the Computer Electronics Show (CES). Check out the Belkin FlyWire,Alienware curved display, and Bug Labs Platform!

Monday, January 7, 2008

Polaroid goes back to instant prints

Polaroid is planning to go back to printing pictures with the upcoming release of a portable printer for images captured on cell phones and digital cameras. According to CNN the printer connects to your camera via Bluetooth or USB, and requires less than a minute to produce a 2-inch-by-3-inch picture. I guess at $150 for the printer and about $0.40 per sheet there will be some appeal, but I think I'd prefer just to e-mail my photo's or post them to Flickr...

Finally WiFi!

Sitting in the Orlando International Airport waiting for a flight to Boston. This is the first WiFi hotspot I've had in a week and I'm anxious to get caught up on the blogging. Too many things to discuss, need to sort out my thoughts and put together some vacation posts. Until then, look who I ran into in Florida!