Archive for the ‘desert’ Category
Friday, September 3rd, 2010
Last weekend Jeremy Hart — Wired.com contributor and a global traveller with 120 countries under his belt — left Los Angeles for a 60 day, 21 country, 15,000 mile drive around the world — in a Ford Fiesta . Jeremy will be filing occasional updates here and on our sister blog Autopia. Here, he’ll be reporting on how well his various gadgets work in some of earth’s most amazing locations. – If you were the fisherman hanging over the edge of Santa Monica pier, the hobo foraging through a garbage bin or the glamour model squeezing into a dress (as shiny and pink as one of our two Ford Fiestas) for a dawn photo shoot last weekend, then you would have witnessed this international escapade leaving the eastern edge of the Pacific. For us, it was the start of the Fiesta World Tour 2010. In gadget terms the Fiesta is an iPod more than iPad. It’s funky, basic and functional. And it comes in a range of bright colours. It has built-in iPod connectivity, USB and aux jacks, and Sirius radio. All in all, it’s a good platform to bolt, strap, and load more gadgets onto — and that’s exactly what we’ll be doing. Here’s a look at a few of the gizmos we’re taking on the start of the trip. (We’ve got plans to test more — many more — so this is just a beginning.) Pocket video camera. I have a TV cameraman (using Sony’s EX1 HD broadcast camera) and a photographer (Canon 5D) with me, so the need for extra filmmaking and photography kit is not crucial. But I now refuse to go anywhere without a Flip Ultra HD. Broadcast-quality and idiot-proof, it fits both my criteria. I have two of them on the trip – just in case. I will be video blogging with them for easy editing and instant uploading. Take a peek at the one I did at a gun club in Scottsdale, Arizona . We use Motorola walkie-talkies for car-to-car communications on the road. Apple iPad. Against my better judgement, I have decided to get an iPad for the trip. It’s the Wi-Fi-only, 64 GB version. Roaming with 3G is so expensive, so I opted against that model. And I say that against my better judgement because I have, and am currently writing on, my MacBook Pro. I’ll be interested to see how the iPad fits into our trip — and maybe even improves it — or if I wind up shipping it back to London for my kids to enjoy. GPS tracker. I have a Spot Tracker so you can follow our travels. It allows you to see exactly where we are (and please, come and see us if you are pretty, have freshly baked goods, or want to give us gadgets you’d like us to take round the world). I’ll have it set up for the next entry here, and I’ll give you the link to follow us then. The Virgin MiFi (in the foreground) is the key to making a trip like this work. Wi-Fi for all my friends! Portable hotspot. But my favourite piece of kit, as I write this from the middle of Arizona, is Virgin Mobile’s MiFi. Just 100 bucks for the unit and around 60 bucks for 6GB of upload/download data. It is the godsend of the trip so far. It works off Sprint’s network, turning the cell network into a mobile hub through which 5 users can surf. A colleague in our second Fiesta surfed from the adjoining lane on I-40 at one point. I was on the edge of the Grand Canyon yesterday, uploading video and copy faster than I had in my hotel room the night before. Talking of hotel rooms, we stayed at the fantastic Westin Kierland Resort and Spa in Scottsdale. But, as with many 5 star places, the internet service is 5 star prices. Not with my little Virgin buddy it wasn’t. And being an Englishman in your wonderful country, it means I can use my iPhone 4 as it should be used, without having to pay huge roaming charges ($3,000 a month last year when traveling in Canada, US and Australia). Virgin might be a British company, but I am not going to apologize for my nationalize when I pledge my undying love to Sir Richard Branson and his MiFi. I’m motivated purely by the bandwidth, I assure you. I just fear it won’t be there when I need it in the remote Arabian desert next month or the Malaysian jungle a few weeks later. Right — I gotta go now. I’ll have more gadgets to report on next week.
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Travelling Around the World in a Gadget-Filled Ford Fiesta
Tags: auto-, band, Content, desert, eller, film, flip, jack, nec, print, shipping, Siri, top, world
Posted in 100, 120, 16, 18, 20, 21, 3G, 4, 5d, 60, 63, 64, 8, 87, 89, AR, AVI, Casio, Content, DED, EA, Edge, Fiesta, Gun, HD, IM, IR, Kin, Mac, MacBook Pro, OS, One, Que, RC, RF, RIP, Rand, Red, SD, Siri, Spot Tracker, Transportation, Tron, UI, Uncategorized, W, Wi-Fi, Wired, a, ad, ads, age, amazing, aming, amp, ana, angel, apple, art, asti, ati, auto, back, bag, band, bandwidth, belt, bin, blog, blogging, blogs, book, bright, british, by, c, cam, camera, canada, canon, cap, car, case, cat, cell, ces, charge, cia, colour, colours, communications, company, con, connect, connectivity, contributor, country, cp, data, day, dc, desert, dg, dj, download, dre, dress, drive, ds, e61, eFuse, east, eco, edit, editing, eller, end, era, ex, expensive, f, fan, fast, favourite, film, fish, flip, for, ford, form, friend, friends, ft, full, fun, gadget, gadgets, gb, gizmos, glamour, global, go, goods, got, gps, gt, hard, hat, hi, hotel, hotspot, htc, hug, ic, ice, ign, image, images, improve, in, instant, interes, international, internet, ipad, iphone, iphone 4, ipod, is, it, jack, joy, ken, key, kid, kids, kit, l, land, las, lay, led, link, lit, london, low, m, ma, macbook, mala, man, may, me, men, mid, mifi, mobil, mobile, mod, model, more, moto, motorola, nation, national, nc, nec, nes, network, nex, night, no, none, not, ny, o, of, ons, pad, part, peek, pen, pens, phone, photo, photograph, photographer, photography, ping, pink, place, plan, player, pocket, polo, portable, pr, pretty, price, print, pro, proof, pur, pure, q, quality, r, rad, radio, ram, remote, rice, rig, road, rom, room, sa, scott, second, service, shiny, shipping, shoot, sis, son, sony, sp, sprint, star, strap, surf, table, talk, tan, test, that, the, this, ti, to, top, tour, tp, tracker, travel, traveling, trip, try, tv, two, uni, up, update, usb, user, version, video, virgin, was, week, west, wind, wire, wired.com, with, work, world, writing, www, yo, you, your | No Comments »
Saturday, August 14th, 2010
1. Desert Aerospace to sell sailplane fitted with retractable jet engine By BornRich ; Wired 2. Boost Mobile Motorola Bali Clamshell Phone By iTechNews ;
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The Cool Gadgets – Top 9 Nominations [ 140810 ] | The Cool Gadgets …
Tags: Aero, aerospace, desert, desert-aerospace, mobile, motorola-bali, new, One, pace, Red, sell-sailplane, table, technews, wire, Wired
Posted in Aero, IR, OS, One, Red, Uncategorized, W, Wired, a, by, c, desert, engine, f, ic, in, it, itec, m, mobile, moto, motorola, new, o, pace, phone, plan, r, sa, sp, space, table, tech, technews, to, wire, with | No Comments »
Saturday, August 7th, 2010
August is traditionally a desert of new game releases. A month where it feels as if the game industry has gone into hibernation. But beyond the retail shelves, this summer has broken the mould with a trio of great console games to download. We’ve already covered the spooky platformer Limbo , but there’s also DeathSpank and Hydro Thunder Hurricane (more on that another time). DeathSpank is a rare thing: a comedy role-playing game. Think Diablo crossed with the children’s cartoon Roger Ramjet and you’re almost there. The action is fast-paced hack ‘n’ slash monster-slaying and treasure-collecting – simple, joyous mindless fun where you take on swarms of beasties single-handedly. The scenario and setting, meanwhile, is all chaotic cartoon humour – puns a plenty with a healthy layer of slapstick amusement (that Ron Gilbert , the designer of The Secret of Monkey Island , directed the game should tell you all you need to know in the jokes department). Indeed the game’s pompous hero DeathSpank could well be a reincarnation of the hubristic Roger Ramjet. While the game does rely a little too much on fetch quests, its combo of instant thrills and deft comic dialogue makes DeathSpank a welcome respite from the po-faced serious that pervades so many games. DeathSpank is available on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
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First Impressions: DeathSpank
Tags: aming, arc, broken, con, industry, ken, lit, man, much-on-fetch, pace, ram, roger-ramjet, XBox 360
Posted in -1, 20, 2009, 28, 360, 60, 73, 8, APS, AR, Comedy, Content, DED, EA, Gaming, Hurricane, IM, IR, OS, One, Que, RC, Red, SIM, Think, Uncategorized, W, Wikipedia, XBox 360, a, action, ad, ads, aming, amp, arc, arm, art, asti, ati, blog, blogs, box, broken, bug, c, car, cartoon, children, collecting, combo, con, console, cover, death, def, desert, design, dg, download, dre, ds, east, ex, f, face, fast, file, first, for, form, ft, fun, gadget, gadgets, game, games, gb, go, hack, hand, hat, health, healthy, hero, hi, humour, ic, ign, in, industry, instant, iphone, ipod, is, island, it, joke, joy, ken, key, land, lap, las, lay, lit, m, ma, make, man, me, men, monkey, monster, nation, nc, new, nex, no, not, ny, o, of, ons, other, pace, part, phone, playstation, pos, pr, q, r, rad, ram, retail, roger, rom, secret, sf, shelves, simple, sp, station, stick, stuff-, summer, swarms, tan, target, tat, the, thin, this, ti, tie, tim, time, to, top, touch, tp, try, tv, up, video, war, warm, with, www, xbox, yo, you | No Comments »
Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Google’s Nexus One phone is going where few smartphones have gone before. A group strapped the Nexus One to the back of a rocket and launched it from the Nevada desert into the atmosphere to test the device’s performance up in the air. The Mavericks Civilian Space Foundation , a group of rocket enthusiasts, used an Intimidator-5 rocket to send the device 28,000 feet into the atmosphere. “The purpose of flying the Nexus One is to find a low-cost satellite solution,” says Thomas Atchison, chairman of the Mavericks Foundation. “The radio, processing power, sensors and cameras in smartphones potentially have the same capability as those in satellites.” The idea is to drive down satellite cost by using off-the-shelf products and components, says Atchison. “Today’s satellites are the size of Greyhound buses,” he says. “But I believe they are going to get smaller and more frequently deployed. This is a first-step effort.” The Nexus One piggybacked on a rocket that’s being used as part of a project called Clotho that’s trying to find out how far off the earth’s surface life exists. The test flight with the Nexus One was to see how the device behaves under a high-G environment, says Atchison. “If you put a Nexus One in orbit, how will it perform?” he says. “How does the device handle the thermal temperature and vibrations. We wanted to see the results.” The resulting video from the Nexus One is below. As expected, the video is a lot of shaking, blue sky and blobs of light, but it is still fun to watch. An earlier test brought Nexus One back with a shattered screen but the device did well on its second flight. James Dougherty, one of the participants in the project, shows the payload with a biosampling module and the Google phone. See Also: Extreme Hobbyists Put Satellites Into Orbit With $8000 Kits … The $150 Edge-of-Space Camera: MIT Students Beat NASA On Beer … DIY Freaks Flock to ‘Hacker Spaces’ Worldwide Water-Cooled Supercomputer Doubles as Dorm Space Heater Photo: The shattered Nexus One post launch ( jurvetson/Flickr ) [via Make and Droid Ninja ]
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Nexus One Phone Rides a Rocket Up 28,000 Feet
Tags: cool, device, end, fort, kit, NASA, OLED, One, service
Posted in -1, 16, 20, 2009, 21, 28, 4, 50, 60, 73, 7D, 8, A4, AR, Cameras, Content, EA, Edge, HP, Hacks, Mods and DIY, IM, IR, ISO, Kin, MIT, Modu, NASA, Nexus, OLED, OS, One, Que, RC, RF, Red, Shows, Tron, Tubesat, UI, Uncategorized, W, Wired, a, ad, ads, age, air, amateur, amp, android, api, arc, arduino, art, ati, atmosphere, back, beer, blog, blogs, blue, button, by, c, call, cam, camera, cap, ces, compact, components, computer, con, cool, cost, day, desert, device, dg, diy, drive, droid, ds, end, environment, era, erick, ex, extreme, f, face, feet, first, flickr, flight, flo, fly, flying, for, form, fort, full, fun, gadget, gadgets, go, google, hack, hacker, hackers, hair, hand, handle, hat, hi, high, hose, ic, ice, ign, image, images, in, ios, iron, is, it, james, kit, las, launch, led, life, light, lit, low, low-cost, m, ma, make, mall, man, me, men, mid, mod, money, nc, nes, nevada, nex, nexus-one-, no, none, o, of, ons, orbit, pace, part, performance, person, personal, phone, phones, photo, photos, php, pos, power, pr, pro, product, project, pur, purpose, q, r, rad, radio, rick, roc, rocket, rom, sa, same, sampling, satellite, screen, second, sensor, sensors, service, show, sky, sm, smartphone, smartphones, son, source, sp, space, still, strap, student, students, surf, surface, test, the, thermal, this, ti, tim, to, tp, try, tweet, up, us-, video, watch, water, wide, wire, wired.com, with, world, www, yo, you | No Comments »
Sunday, July 25th, 2010
Raytheon unveils Scorpion helmet technology . FARNBOROUGH, England — As the desert landscape unfolds ahead, the jet fighter pilot glances to his right. Spotting an enemy target, a sensor attached to his helmet relays the information …
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» Raytheon presents new technology at Farnborough Airshow after …
Tags: desert, england, his-right-, landscape, lay, met, old, relays-the, scorpion, technology, the-jet
Posted in AR, EA, IR, RC, Uncategorized, a, ad, ati, c, cap, ces, desert, ds, england, eon, f, for, form, head, helmet, hi, in, information, is, land, landscape, lay, m, ma, me, met, nc, no, o, old, pilot, r, ray, rig, sensor, sp, target, tech, technology, the, ti, to | No Comments »
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
FARNBOROUGH, England (AP) — As the desert landscape unfolds ahead, the jet fighter pilot glances to his right. Spotting an enemy target, a sensor attached to.
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Raytheon unveils Scorpion helmet technology | The Daily Caller …
Tags: a-sensor-attached, cap, ces, desert, england, land, landscape-unfolds, old, pilot, rig, the-desert
Posted in AR, EA, IR, RC, Uncategorized, a, ad, c, cap, ces, desert, ds, england, f, head, hi, in, is, land, landscape, m, nc, o, old, pilot, r, rig, sensor, sp, target, the, ti, to | No Comments »
Monday, July 19th, 2010
nandahome posted a photo: Cover from Focus Magazine. They asked us a cool question, how would we get off a desert island. Our CTO, Daniel, had the answer. Nanda Home are the creators of Clocky, the alarm clock that rolls away so you never over sleep. Learn more at www.nandahome.com .
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BBC Focus Magazine Cover | Clocky in a Coconut
Tags: a-cool-question, alarmclockonwheels, answer, coconut, Content, focusmagazine, hat, island, lee, people, photo, Que
Posted in 007, 14, 20, 4, 8, AR, CF, Content, EA, IM, OS, Que, RC, Uncategorized, W, a, ad, ads, alarm, alarmclockonwheels, alarmclocks, arm, ati, bbc, bbcfocus, c, clock, clocky, clockyinacoconut, con, cool, cover, cto, daniel, desert, dg, ds, ever, f, flickr, focus, focusmagazine, gadget, gadgets, gaurinanda, hat, home, ic, in, is, island, it, land, learn, lee, low, m, ma, magazine, me, nandahome, neve, no, nsw, o, of, people, photo, photos, pos, q, r, rollingalarmclock, rom, sleep, tat, the, ti, to, tp, up, www, yo, you | No Comments »
Monday, July 12th, 2010
Line up 24 cars in a desert, wind 1,000 feet of welding cable through them and throw one-hit-wonder Gary Numan into the mix and the result is a cool, fun video that turns all the cars into one big musical instrument. Syyn Labs , a Los Angeles-based arts and technology collective, worked with Zoo films to create the video as a commercial for DieHard, a maker of car batteries. Over three days in the desert, a team of six engineers worked on 24 cars and removed the batteries from each. Instead, they connected them all together to a central computer and a keyboard. The horns inside the cars were removed and instead an MP3 player was connected to the each car’s speaker. The entire set-up was hooked to one DieHard battery. As Numan hit each key on his keyboard, the software turned on the lights and sound for the corresponding car. It activated the speaker in that car so the MP3 player would blare out the right note for just a few seconds, says Brent Bushnell, who works at the Labs. “Everything in the car, the keyboard and the computer was powered using a single DieHard battery,” says Eric Gradman, one of the engineers who worked on the project. “Overall, we consumed just about 31.3 amphours.” The Labs’ previous project was a Rube Goldberg machine whose action perfectly meshes with a song from pop band OK Go. And if you are wondering what song the cars are blaring, it is Numan’s 1979 hit ‘Cars.’ Video: Syyn Labs
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24 Cars Turn Into a Giant Musical Instrument in the Desert
Posted in 16, 20, 21, 4, 50, 7D, 8, AR, Activa, Content, EA, Gary, Goldberg, IM, IR, Mac, Miscellaneous, Music, Numan, OK Go, OS, One, RC, Red, Rube, Rube Goldberg, Syyn, Team, Uncategorized, W, Wired, a, action, ad, ads, age, amp, angel, api, art, band, batteries, battery, button, c, cable, car, cars, central, cia, compact, computer, con, connect, cool, day, days, desert, dg, ds, engine, engineer, engineers, era, ever, every, f, feet, film, films, for, ft, fun, gadget, gadgets, go, hard, hat, hi, horns, hose, ic, ice, image, in, inside, instrument, is, it, key, keyboard, labs, lay, light, lights, line, m, ma, machine, make, maker, man, me, men, mp3, musica, nec, no, not, note, o, of, old, ons, player, pop, power, pr, pro, project, q, r, rad, rig, ring, rom, sa, second, service, shoot, side, six, software, son, sound, source, sp, tech, technology, the, thin, ti, to, tweet, up, video, war, wind, wire, wired.com, with, work, www, yo, you | No Comments »
