While everything is getting bigger and bulkier, the OLED or “Organic LED” television by Sony is getting smaller. First debuted at CES 2008 - the screens are only the width of 3 credit cards and boast a “million” to one contrast ratio. There seems to be many prototypes about, from small 2″ screens up to 32″. They are 40% more energy efficient and reportedly easier to recycle. This may be the future of flat screen TV’s as we know it!
Engadget Sony OLED Video Review
It looks like that Sony OLED TV is the only one available currently - but you can purchase it (below). We’ll be on the lookout for the future Sony versions (and sizes) as they come out!
Sony XEL-1 11″ OLED Flat Panel TV
** As Seen in the New York Times ** Organic-LED Widescreen / 3mm-thinness (at thinnest point) / Up to 1 Million:1 Contrast Ratio / Rapid Response Time / New Technology
This articles talks about Samsung and their new SATA II SSD’s, or Solid State Drives. The SSD is basically just a huge flash drive. A flash drive has no moving parts, so these new solid state drive’s can potentially replace traditional spinning disk hard drives. What’s special about this announcement is that these are SATA II drive connections, and can get up to 100MB’s read/write, about 33% faster than the first gen SSD’s, which were about 64MB’s read/write, which was already much faster than the 22-48MB’s read/write available in traditional HDD’s.
While the article states that the new drives are targeted at the server market, I still wonder if this would even be possible since large data transfers with solid state drive’s are very poor. Want to learn more? Read about it in my…
Motorsport news reports about an amphibian vehicle called “Aquada” that took over $100 million to develop. They’ve partnered with Lockheed Martin to create some military versions, and then intend to market to other areas (regular consumers?). What makes this different than the novelty cars from decades ago that could be driven right in the lake - this thing is actually a “high speed” amphibious vehicle. It’s like a car / speedboat. Look at the video!
One of the headlines that caught my eye today was Russian V!agra and Pen!s enlargement Spammer Murdered. Wow! I just had to read that. The article is written by Alex Loonov (who lives in Russia), and he saw this on television. A man by the name of Alexey Tolstokozhev, who is a notorious C!alis, V!agra, and Pen!s enlargement spammer was killed, apparently shot several times in the body and once in the head. The news report said that the head shot is indicative that it was russian hit men who did the job (basically he was assassinated). This one guy was responsible for over 30% of the V!agra and related spam and made over $2M last year. He used a “botnet” or a bunch of hi-jacked computers he rented to send the emails out. Looks like another Russian spammer, Vardan Kushnir, was assassinated in 2005. I guess that’s justice for ya, European style. Meanwhile, here in the states we struggle and labor for years and years to gather enough evidence to TRY and put a spammer in jail.
PC World has an article by Phil Shapiro entitled “Linux not ready for desktops, really?” that I really enjoyed reading. Based on the title I was expecting yet another Linux bashing article telling all the reasons why the Linux desktop was not ready for primetime. Instead, I was surprised to read that Phil works at a library where they have 28 Linux desktops that people use daily. They are using the distro Userful, and I think the most telling part is when he talks about the users themselves not even know they’re using Linux. Many believe they’re on Windows. They don’t know any different. Kids are drawing on pictures with Open Office, people are checking email and watching youtube videos, people visit Facebook, and IM other people - they are completely oblivious to what they are using, all they know is that it works (and that’s all they care about). So much for their being too much of a “learning curve”, visitors are using GIMP, Open Office, and Firefox with absolutely no issues at all. I wish more organizations would try this. I’ve had many Linux workstations in my house, and when people were using them (using Linux for the first time), the same thing happenned. They didn’t know they weren’t using Windows, it “just worked”. Another win for open source - just give it a chance (it’s not just for geeks)!
One of the blogs I love the most that I’ve read for a long time is Cool Tools. When I read this post today about this cool trike scooter today I just had to post about it. After reading the post, it seems it’s powered by perpetual motion. You seem to sway back and forth to the left and right to get it to go, and by doing so you are going to get the ultimate no to low impact aerobic workout. The author claims that it will work work out 20-30 muscles in your neck right down to your feet! I have seriously considered over the years getting some inline skates because it seemed like it would be a cool way to workout and lose weight. But after viewing this thing I don’t know……it might be way cooler, way easier to use, and a way better workout for sure. Supposedly you can burn up to 350 calories per half hour of use, and that’s just too damn good to pass up! What’s your first impression? Comment now below…
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ7 is the best digital camera I have ever owned. It has the highest optical zoom of any camera in it’s class. It has the longest battery life I’ve ever seen for a digital camrera. It has a professional Leica camera lens, and because of that takes some of the most vibrant and sharpest pictures you have ever seen. I have recorded higher quality video with this camera than several digital camcorders I’ve had. But the best feature I think - is the ability to take “bursts” of pictures, one right after the other.
I had high expectations for the FZ7 digital camera before I even ordered it. It all started last year when my wife wanted to get a new digital camera. She started looking around at online shopping sites at various ones. Not being a technical person, she was interested in cameras that were known brands, that others recommended, or that “looked bigger” like professional 35mm traditional film cameras. I told her that the two things I wanted most in a digital camera were the highest optical zoom necessary, and the ability to take pictures one right after another.
So the search began. I read many reviews and perused many electronic sites. I checked out ePinions of course, and read reviews on Amazon. I remembered Panasonic had “burst technology” in their digital cameras, so I checked out what they had to offer. The Lumix FZ7 seemed to be a good mid-priced camera. At the time I first started looking the retail price on the DMC-FZ7 was about $400.00. I believe now that you can get it for way under $300.00. I compared it to mid-priced cameras in that range from Canon, Olympus, Nikon, and Fuji. Not a single one had more than a 6x optical zoom (and many had only 3x zoom). None seemed to have the ability to take a burst of pictures. I have not been displeased a single bit with any of the features of this camera. I have been able to take over 200 pictures (with flash) and still have battery life left. I have recorded over an hour of video with this camera, and still had battery life left. Now that we have two 2GB SD memory cards for this camera - we use it ALL the time!
September 18, 2008 
Posted in electronics, tech news 
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