news and stuff 5-9-06

FOR DONI:

To-do list web app round-up

Posted May 8th 2006 6:20PM by Jordan Running
Filed under: Productivity, Web services

TechCrunch's Frank Gruber has done a brief round-up of five of the most popular web-based to-do list solutions: Ta-da Lists, Remember the Milk, Bla-bla List, voo2do, Tudu List. You can find the full article right here, but if you don't mind having it spoiled for you, I'll just tell you that 37signals' early offering Ta-da Lists comes out on top for its "clean and simple interface and good-enough feature set," but Gruber also praises Bla-bla List, voo2do, and Remember the Milk.

http://snipurl.com/q8aq

FOR SHAUN:

Bluetooth Headset Roundup - May 2006

Monday, 08 May 2006 By: Joe Selim I’m a cell phone junkie. The average tenure of a cell phone in my pocket is somewhere between 6–8 weeks. It could be that I just love gadgets and get distracted quickly or I may just have really low self esteem and am trying to compensate for it with the latest and greatest phone. Regardless, we all know how important consistency is in a well balanced life. Perhaps a Bluetooth headset that stood by me through good phones and bad phones would give me the level of confidence to stop being such a phone junkie. Luckily, as a result of my sluggish nature, I was in possession of three cell phones when the Bluetooth headsets arrived at my door. The testers werea  Sony Ericsson W800i, Moto SLVR, and Moto PEBL. This triumvirate made up a fairly good panel, even if weighted towards the world of Motorola.

http://snipurl.com/q8as

OBEY YOUR ROBOTIC OVERLORDS:

Robotic tentacles get to grips with tricky objects Robotic "tentacles" that can grasp and grapple with a wide variety of objects have been developed by US researchers. Most robots rely on mechanical gripping jaws that have difficulty grabbing large or irregularly shaped objects. Replacing these with tentacle-like manipulators could make robots more nimble and flexible, say the scientists. The tentacle-like manipulators, known as "Octarms", resemble an octopus's limb or an elephant's trunk. They were developed through a project called OCTOR (sOft robotiC manipulaTORs), which involves several US universities and is funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). "An elephant's trunk can pick up a peanut or a tree trunk," says Ian Walker, a member of the project team from Clemson University in South Carolina. "This ability, inherent in the OCTOR robots, gives OCTOR arms a huge advantage over conventional industrial robots." Just like a real tentacle, an Octarm simply wraps itself around an object in order to manoeuvre it. This allows it to grasp objects of various sizes and shapes and could let robots deal with unpredictable real-world situations, the researchers say.

http://snipurl.com/q7lu

TAKING THE DOORMAN FOR HIRE CONCEPT ONE STEP FURTHER:

The ingenious Keyholding Company

(link to this article)

May 9, 2006 Time is a commodity where supply is limited to a democratic 24 hours per person per day, regardless of income, so it makes sense that with working hours increasing, highly-paid people will be seeking to optimize their time usage. One recent report cites British consumers losing 60 million working days a year waiting for delivery drivers and workmen. UK-based Keyholding Company believes this market for time will become increasingly valuable in the future and is offering a range of services so people no longer need to use up valuable free time to take care of emergency or mundane tasks at home. The company has a database of fully-vetted tradespeople and keeps a set of your keys. This means that as well as sourcing a reliable trade's person, they can wait for them to arrive and ensure the works are completed satisfactorily. They can also deliver goods into your home and leave the property secure.

http://snipurl.com/q8ax

Freezing water at room temperature This is pretty weird. It turns out that water can freeze at room temperature in response to atomic-scale friction. Joost Frenken and others at Leiden University used an instrument called a friction force microscope to create nano-friction by dragging a tungsten wire over a graphite surface. They wanted to test the theory that water vapour in the air might condense and become ice. And it did.

http://snipurl.com/q8az

Livingbox Competition Results We have been reviewing the entries and winners of the livingbox competition, and have decided to quit this gig and go into the gasket and caulk business. So many little pieces! We liked the clever pop-out system in Alessandro Baldo's prize winning abitare Mokka (shown above) but suspect the spaces inside will be dark and dreary- all the windows are on the pivoting sections. We found Renee Lorenz 's tie for first place to be derivative, but don't get paid enough to find all of the TreeHugger precedents for slice 'n dice prefabs. Third place winner Kim Minsung's scheme is so Moshe Safdie 40 years ago. But there were lots of interesting entries- bring your caulking gun.

http://snipurl.com/q8b0

Power Of The Sun — The Genesis of Solar Technology They seem to be all the rage recently. Nobel Laureates, that is. Here is yet another film made, not about Nobel Prize winners, but by two of them. Alan Heeger and Walter Kohn team up with ex-Monty Python star, John Cleese to explain how solar energy could save humankind from its energy woes. Alan and Walter provide the technical rigour, while John brings his own inimitable style to the narration. Between them they go back 100 years, to when Albert Einstein began playing around with photons, and then up to 1950, as the first solar panel was created. And onwards to forecast where the technology might take us into the future. For a measly $10 USD the two movie DVD can be obtained from the online bookstore of the University of California, Santa Barbara. One is designed for school students, and a longer version, all on the same DVD, for a broader, more general audience. Cheap enough to spread the word, so more can see the light. ::Power Of The Sun.

http://snipurl.com/q8b2

WEBSITE OF AN MIT GRAD WHO MADE A CELL BLOCKER AS HER THESIS:

http://www.ladyada.net/

AND WHERE SHE CURRENTLY WORKS:

http://www.eyebeam.org/