Tesla Will Build Electric Sedan

On Thursday Tesla Motors announced that it would build an electric sedan, the Model S, Southern California. The Model S has a base price of $49,900, after a federal tax credit of $7,500. According to CNN "... Tesla predicts it will manufacture 20,000 Model S vehicles a year. That would make it more of a mass-market vehicle than the Roadster; only 1,200 of which are produced yearly." The production line will not start until 2011 as Tesla struggles through the economic downturn but it's nice to know that the sedan is still in their plans.

Street View Team Hitting The Road In Canada

Over the next few weeks Google employees will be cruising the streets of 11 of Canada's largest cities, including Halifax, Montreal, Winnipeg and Calgary, capturing data for their popular Street View searches. This is not the first round of data capture in Canada, Street View teams had previously collected some Canadian street data, which it plans to make public soon. There's no word on when the data from this round will be publicly released however. Google makes it a practice to blank out faces and license plates, but you might want to be on your best behaviour for the next few weeks lest you be caught doing something you'd rather not have etched in time. "Many a Web page is now dedicated to finding gems such as accidentally documented street fights, crimes in progress and, of course, people walking in or out of adult stores."

Source: Globe and Mail

Blockbuster And TiVo Join Forces

The New York Times is reporting that Blockbuster and TiVo will announce today that they are teaming up "to deliver Blockbuster’s digital movie library over the Internet directly to the televisions of people with TiVo digital video recorders." The deal apparently involves no money but will see TiVo customers have access to Blockbuster's library and Blockbuster offering TiVo devices from it's retail stores. “We are excited to be teaming with TiVo, the company that created the DVR, to make Blockbuster’s entertainment content readily available to their millions of subscribers,” Jim Keyes, chief executive of Blockbuster, said in a statement. “Ultimately, our vision is to work with TiVo so that their subscribers can access movies not only through our On Demand service but also from our stores and through our by-mail service as well.”

Canadian Government To Auction Surplus And Seized Goods Online

The Public Works Department of the Canadian government is busy building an online auction site, similar to e-bay, that will offer every Canadian the chance to bid on surplus and seized goods such as vehicles, office furniture, boats, computers, tools and hundreds of other items.

“The addition of a real-time online bidding system would reach a broader range of buyers, open up the bidding process which could result in higher sale prices and returns for clients,” said the report.

“We found that a system where the bid amounts are visible and not sealed, and that enabled potential purchasers to bid as the amount changed during the bidding, could generate increased sale prices and more revenue.”

According to an internal study obtained by The Canadian Press, under the federal Access to Information Act.

Source: The Globe And Mail

Spanish Port To Get Robo-fish To Detect Pollution

The Spanish port of Gijon is about to get a school of robotic fish who's mandate will be to detect pollutants from ships and outflows of sewers and industries. The robots are designed to swim like fish because the motion uses less energy than propeller drives “The design of fish which nature has produced is a very energy-efficient one,” says Rory Doyle, a researcher working on the project. “The fish's efficiency is created by hundreds of millions of years' of evolution. Submarines come nowhere near it.” The 1.5 metre long robots will be manufactured by the University of Essex and are expected to be deployed within 18 months.

Source: Globe and Mail

Google Unwraps Chrome Experiments

Over the past few months Google has enlisted the help of a number of JavaScript gurus to demonstrate the power of Chromes V8 JavaScript engine. The result is Chrome Experiments a collection of fun and interesting projects that push the boundaries of the browser. Check out the video and the link above:

Source: Official Google Blog

iPhone OS 3.0 - With Cut and Paste

Much to the delight of all and surprise of few, Apple at it's OS 3.0 event has announced the inclusion of a cut and paste functionality that many had pondered the exclusion of since the first devices hit the street. According to the New York Times:

"Among the new tricks of the updated software are features that will allow developers to create multiplayer games that work over a phone-to-phone wireless connection, and ways for iPhone applications to push messages to users even when they are not running.

That last improvement could unleash a new wave of creativity on the iPhone. Companies like ESPN can send scores to sports fans, and instant messaging can now become far more practical on the device."

Students Returning To Computer Science

A couple of recent reports/surveys of American and Canadian Colleges and Universities have indicated that students are starting to get interested in computer science again after an 8 year slump in enrollment.

“We’re seeing amazing increases in enrollment,” Eric Roberts, a computer scientist at Stanford University is quoted in the New York Times as saying. “It’s not that people have forgotten about the offshoring of jobs, but our competition isn’t what it was. There are fewer places to go, and we don’t have Lehman Brothers, Bear Sterns and Citibank to compete with.”

While Peter Harsha, director of government affairs at the Computing Research Association says “The most compelling story for our community is that interest in computer science appears to have turned the corner,”

For some reason those banking jobs just don't seem all that appealing any more...

Talk About Second Generation Surface At South By South West

The BBC is reporting that developers are talking about a second generation Microsoft Surface which has been dubbed Second Light and builds upon the original by having a second projector inside the device that can project images onto a layer above the surface of the screen. This modification will allow Second Light to overlay secondary images above those on the screen. It is rumored that the second generation will interpret gestures and movements without having to touch the screen through the use of infrared sensors and that it will employ high definition cameras for better detail.

"Everything is moving to touch and multi-touch so you had better jump on that bandwagon," Erik Klimczak, creative director of Clarity Consulting who develops for the surface told the conference of web developers.

20 Years Since Web Invisioned By Berners-Lee

20 years ago today Tim Berners-Lee published his "Information Management: A proposal" and the rest is history. Here is an interesting snip from his modest conclusions:

"We should work toward a universal linked information system, in which generality and portability are more important than fancy graphics techniques and complex extra facilities."

"The aim would be to allow a place to be found for any information or reference which one felt was important, and a way of finding it afterwards. The result should be sufficiently attractive to use that it the information contained would grow past a critical threshold, so that the usefulness the scheme would in turn encourage its increased use."

I think he's more than achieved his goal!