This is a Brookstone Rover. It's a RC tank that's controlled through an iOS app using a Wi-Fi link. On the front of the tank is a camera, and the image is relayed back to the screen of the iOS device, thereby allowing NLOS remote control and target acquisition.
The most immediate application I can think of is utilizing it as a mobile weapon platform, with the primary mission being to haraSSS (the extra S is for extra harassment) innocent office workers by unleashing at them a barrage of Nerf N-Strike darts.
I like your new car. I do. However, I think you should know that a lowly Bimmer 325i can and will blow the doors off any Luxgen. So, your ad agency is seriously overcooking things. Please tone it down, before the folks at Bayerische Motoren Werke collectively laugh their asses off.
That said, I do find the car appealing. I've always wanted a Feeling 101, but I don't think there is a single one left that is still running. This new car, in a way, is the spiritual successor of the original Feeling. That, I must say, is totally rad.
And that is why I am imploring you to offer honeycomb style rear lights as an option. A descendant of the Feeling without honeycomb rear lights is like a Rolls without The Spirit of Ecstasy on its hood. It's just wrong.
Please take time out of your busy schedule to correct this travesty. Thank you.
Just got my paws on this awesome TouchPad for 99 clams. Yes, 99 clams. That ain’t a typo.
First of all, I want to give a word of thanks to Mr. Apotheker. Yes, his decision to clean out these babies at fire sale prices has cost him his job. But let's look on the bright side. He’s walking away with a multi-million dollar golden parachute, so I consider this entire affair a win-win situation. I guess the only people who got a raw deal in this whole thing are HP shareholders. But that’s okay. By now, they have gotten used to getting shafted by HP’s board and management.
So, some thoughts on this product, and how it compares to its arch-nemesis, the iPad2.
For starters, multi-tasking is MUCH better than iPad2. This is not surprising, considering that the OS is designed for this sort of thing, and the hardware packs twice as much DRAM. The UI can only be described as top notch, easily allowing the user to open/shut down apps and cycling through them.
That said, superior multi-tasking isn’t enough to offset a long list of deficiencies. So, let’s start bitchin’
1.The hardware just isn’t as sexy as an iPad2
i.The body is thicker and heavier than iPad2
ii.The back is made of plastic, and it feels cheap. The iPad2’s brushed aluminum back, by contrast, feels downright luxurious.
iii.The exterior buttons and switches require a bit of effort to press, which adds to the cheap-feel quotient.
iv.What else can I say? It just doesn’t look as good.
2.The browser isn’t as good as Mobile Safari
i.For some odd reason, it feels decidedly un-smooth. Not jerky per se, but when you are scrolling up and down a webpage, you just don’t get the kind of fluidity you get with Mobile Safari. It feels kinda like a 300MHz Celeron running IE6 with the “smooth scrolling” option enabled. Passable, but far from great.
ii.Text isn’t correctly rendered. When viewing websites in portrait orientation, almost all text look ugly.
iii.Some websites load VERY slowly.
iv.Embedded videos run weird, and they look ugly, too.
3.Kindle (admittedly in beta) isn’t as smooth as the iOS version. The page turning animation is atrocious. There are also some annoying UI bugs.
4.There is no Chinese language support, meaning the user cannot input Chinese characters. As a matter of fact, only five languages are currently supported.
5.It takes a little while to change from one orientation to another, i.e. portrait to landscape, and vice versa.
6.The bundled apps are not as good as their iOS counterparts in general, i.e. the image viewer is slow and buggy. Same goes for the PDF reader.
None of these shortcomings are deal-breakers, mind you. If you give Jon Rubinstein enough time, there is no reason why the experience cannot be improved to match or surpass the iPad2. However, HP has committed the sin of releasing a product before it is ready for prime time. Given the stiff competition, it’s no wonder the Touchpad got killed in the market.
What a shame. If I ever become the Lord of the Universe, it is my intention to sign the following into law: if you are late to the party, your product has to be BETTER AND/OR CHEAPER than the incumbent. Failure to comply shall be punishable by massive financial hemorrhage and loss of prestige. Yeah, I’ll bet Apotheker is now thinking to himself, “Man, if Tom was LOTU when the project got kicked off, we would not be in this mess.”
But in the grand scheme of things, I can overlook a lot of negative things for 99 bucks. If the product is cheap enough, see, I am willing to forgive a lot of stuff. Going forward, there is a rumor circulating that Amazon will take WebOS off HP’s hand. If so, then one day, in the not-too-distant future, the TouchPad will rise from the netherworld of dead tech and be resurrected as the Amazon Kindle Inferno.
For years, I used an Acer n30 PocketPC as my satnav system. Let's just say, mixing the most crash-prone OS with a mission critical application such as navigation is a BAAAAAAD idea. Restarting a dead computer system on the desktop is one thing, try to do the same while dodging traffic on the mean streets of Taipei is a totally different ball game. Were it not for divine intervention, I would have bought the farm years ago.
So, last year, I ditched the Acer and bought a Garmin 1350. It is a wonderful product, and I thought I would never need to spend another dime on a car gadget ever again. Then I saw this video
To be sure, I drive like a pussy. That's how I am able to rack up 50,000 accident-free klicks in the past 6 years. But in the back of my mind, I've always dreaded the possibility of encountering a moped rider with a death wish. So, I hit PCHome and did some shopping.
There is no shortage of dash cameras on the market; however, one must choose wisely. Horror stories abound of how some cheap dash cameras causing havoc with satnav operation. Apparently, a good number of HW engineers from China have never heard of FCC Part 15. Working with non-functioning satnav system while driving isn't an experience I care to repeat, so I those cheap ones were blacklisted from the very beginning. That leaves the Mercedes-Benz of dash cameras, the Volsonic GV6330, on the table. But here's the problem, I will have to mount that thing next to the Garmin, and in doing so, making my windshield more cluttered than the helm of the Starship Enterprise. This is not a prospect that I relish.
The solution to this conundrum is an integrated box, a gizmo that combines a satnav and a dash camera. There is only one device in existence that fits the bill, the Garmin 2565RT. So I bought one.
For starters, the 2565RT is a better satnav than the 1350. It offers the following advantages over the old model
1. Larger screen, 5” vs. 4.3”
2. Snappier response, probably due to a faster CPU
3. Voice command. Real handy when you need to work the device while driving
4. TMC support, which displays the traffic condition of the surrounding area
5. Hand-free celluar operation through Bluetooth connection
So yeah, it’s a darn good satnav, just like all other Garmins. No big surprise there. But the dash camera is a mixed bag. Let me explain.
The dash camera is a separate unit called GDR10. It attaches to the same mount as the 2565RT, but the two devices work independently of each other. They are connected together via USB, and the configuration of the camera is done through the screen of the satnav.
So, not exactly a "integrated solution" I was looking for. But in the grand scheme of things, if this design is truly bullet-proof, then it really doesn’t matter that we are dealing with two separate systems rather than one integrated package. I will know whether or not this is a robust design in 2 months time. Just you wait.
When it comes to video recording, the GDR10 supports 3 modes - 720P@24f, VGA@30f, and QVGA@30f. There is no easy way to say this, so I’ll be blunt. 720P mode is complete bogus; the result looks TERRIBLE. I was aghast at the ugliness of the videos. All details are washed out, so you can’t really see any anything anywhere. Oh, and the rolling shutter, all I can say is, I was speechless at the sight. It's like someone placed a piece of Jello right in front of the lens.
Toning down the quality to VGA (640x480) yields MUCH BETTER results, which leads me to believe that the sensor’s native resolution is VGA. I am guessing 720p was accomplished through some form of upscaling. Regardless, the conclusion is inescapable, 720p mode offers zero advantage over VGA mode in clarity and acuity; all you get with 720p is a larger video file.
However, one must bear in mind that when something is much better than crappy, it is still far from great. So, the video quality at VGA mode can only described as mediocre. It is reasonably clear and quite smooth, but you are not going to be able to make out the plate of a car 30 meters away from you.
Too bad. But then it brings us back to the weird two-piece design. I am guessing that the GDR10 is an ODM job, and Garmin is merely testing the water with this product. If the market response is favorable, then it is not inconceivable that they will introduce the GDR20, which will solve most of GDR10’s shortcomings.
Bottom line, if crystal clear video is what you are after, don’t even bother to look at the 2565RT. On the other hand, if you want a great satnav and can live with mediocre video, I guess this Garmin ain’t such a bad option. The six million dollar question is, will this package work flawlessly like all other Garmins? If so, then I guess I can be more or less happy with it. But gosh, I look forward to do day when I would dismantle the GDR10 and replace it with a GDR20.
Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Microsoft is now begging women to get a Windows PC instead of a tablet/phone/Mac. Be forewarned, the following videos are kinda pathetic. This ain't what I'd call a pretty sight.
Look, I have nothing against Microsoft. I've been a loyal customer for more than 20 years. By my count, I have no less than 3 legit Windows licenses in the house. What I resent is the fact that Windows is a flaky product and requires constant fixing and updating. I guess the ability to fix a computer is a source professional pride when I was young. In my old age, however, Windows is giving me ulcers.
Case to the point, when my new Windows 7 PC arrived nearly 2 years ago, my scanner instantly quit working. It was purchased back in '02, and there wasn't a new driver available. My printer from '04 worked, but the stock driver from the OS package was weird. Today, it prints, but not all functions are supported.
And don't even get me started on the graphic card. I struggled, oh, how I struggled to slay that beast. On the same note, I will not mention the BIOS updates and driver upgrades. Those memories are too painful, so I will bury them in some dark recess of my psyche.
So, after putting in countless hours fighting this machine, it is now fully domesticated and works PERFECTLY. But therein lies the problem - it should work perfectly right out of the box. This failure to work right out of a box highlights what's wrong with the PC industry as a whole. Nobody gives a rat's ass whether or not the system works. And now that I've put in the time and the energy to finish off the engineering job, tell me, Mr. Ballmer, what is my incentive to buy a new PC? So I can do this all over again? I'll hang on to this machine 'till the end of days, thank you very much.
Which brings us back to the ads. Let's be honest, the stereotypical female computer shoppers are no engineers. Is it any wonder that they are fleeing to Apple? And so, Microsoft now begs. How nice. You know what I'd rather see? Ballmer comes out on TV and GUARANTEES that every PC will work right out of the box. No blue screen. No driver incompatibility. No crapware. No nothing. Just pure computing bliss.
The Asus EEE Pad Transformer. Very desirable product. Very poor advertising. The marketing guy who gave the final green light to this campaign has dishonored himself, and possibly his father.
So.... the Lambo Countach is like a "beautiful virgin"...... One simply has to smile upon hearing such an analogy. Those darn Italians do have a way with words. :~D
Next up, Jeremy Clarkson, who compares the car to an elephant.
