Category: Miscellaneous

And you thought some of the personals and other postings on Craigslist were weird and out-o’-sight before, now they’ve literally been “spaced out.” The Deep Space Communications Network has beamed the first Web content into space and it “just happened to be” Craigslist. So, in the far future, aliens may be reading housing offers for “spacious room above my garage!” and personals like: “Discreet master looking for equally discreet slaves. No smokers or drama queens, please.”

[Via Designtechnica]

In what’s being portrayed as an anti-spam measure, Microsoft has decided to eliminate Hotmail access from its standalone email products. Not for all Hotmail users, just the ones with free accounts. IMHO, dedicated email clients are the only thing that makes the service truly convenient in the first place.

We’ll admit we sorta stole this idea from Engadget — we’re going to give away a couple free invites to GMail… but we’re going to have a little contest first.

You have from now (right now! go!) until COB Friday to submit a review of any piece of technology purchased (stolen, borrowed, or just run through its paces extensively in the store) within the last month. Something you think would be of interest to our community of BS-hatin’ readers. The top two entries (the Grand Prize For Technology Review Writing Winner and the Loser Who Came Closest To Winning) will be published next week and given invites to GMail directly from me. Non-winning submissions may be published at the discretion of the editorial staff. Read more for all the legal yada yada.

I don’t know why this caught my eye — or why I thought it would appeal to anyone, but this incredibly orange car just drove by and it looked so unusual I had to know more.

The Scion Xb Release Series 1.0 is very orange. It has a vibrant “hot lava” paint job, orange interior accents, orange LED lighting, and orange engine accents as well. It also comes with some extras like a spoiler (orange) and a 6-CD (possibly with MP3 playback) changer with color-changing display (orange is one of the colors, I’m sure). There are only 2100 being made, and each comes with a numbered badge. Price is an extra $1000 above standard Xb prices, which start around $14k.

While I’m undecided about the aesthetics about the Scions, I have to admit this one tugs at me a bit. Maybe it’s the fact that orange is the color of my alma mater, maybe it’s the fancy tech inside, or maybe it’s just that it looks like someone took a cardboard box to MTV’s Pimp My Ride and came out the other side with a really cool, very orange, cardboard box. Whatever it is, for today, I want one more than a Mini MC40, though not quite as much as I want a Mini-mech.

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And just look at the punctuation and grammar on that badboy. That’s SO not us!

All the press on the Playstation Portable these last couple days has focused primarily on hardware, and while no doubt the specs of the game machine are great with its ability to play Playstation 2 quality games and movies and whatnot, I wonder if there’s something bigger in the announcement: the rise of the UMD.

The UMD, or Universal Media Disk, is what PSP games will be stored on, and Sony’s already looking to get movies and music on them too, for playback on the PSP. But the name itself suggests that there may be even bigger plans for this little disk. If Sony can put its weight behind media distribution on this format of disk it could be the beginning of a new media format for all sorts of portable media playback devices. Holding 1.8 gigs of music or movies, which is 2.5 times a CD and almost twice the capacity of the biggest Minidisc, UMD could easily take over the Minidisc, Microdrive and flash MP3 market, and make a big splash in the new area of portable video playback devices.

Of course, this could all be undercut by Sony’s new adherance to proprietary formats and DRM. The Minidisc never really took off in the US because it couldn’t compete with the speed and convenience of MP3 players that don’t require complicated translation of one format to another. Sony’s decision to limit playback on MD players to only ATRAC3+ encoded tunes instantly relegated the MD player to Betamax status: better technology doomed to the trash heap.

There’s a lot of promise in Sony’s new UMD. To capitalize on it Sony will have to license it broadly and minimize restrictions on playback formats, allowing for manufacturers to use them for MPEGs or MP3s as they like. If Sony decides to do that (which is unlikely) they will surely have a steady revenue from devices and media licenses that will exceed any brief profits they may derive from limiting the disk to playback of proprietary formats only.

Designs On The White House is a design contest hoping to inspire a little creativity in designs for Kerry t-shirts. Using Cafe Press, the winning entries in such categories as best pro-Kerry, best issue (foreign and domestic), best anti-Bush, best retro, and most stylish (to be shown on QE) will be made available for sale to the public with all proceeds going to the Kerry campaign. You get nothing, except whuffie of course.

Of course, you don’t need the approval of the “judges” to make your own Kerry t-shirts at Cafe Press. So even if you’re entry isn’t considered a winning one, you can always just make your own, put it up and buy it for yourself. Please just stay away from comparing Bush to Hitler. Please.

via BoingBoing

There’s a lot of attention being paid to the youth market for cars these days. Companies are coming up with a lot more strange designs centered around the “lifestyle” and tastes of younger people, as evidenced by Honda’s Element and the Toyota Scion. But the innovation isn’t just coming from the Pacific side — Diamler Chrysler, which for many years has developed small, youth-oriented cars for the European market, has decided to release some of those little Smart Cars here in the US.

While the models for the US won’t be as small as the originals (some of which apparently were designed in conjunction with Swatch…no kidding) they will be some pretty unique cars. The first to come over will be the ForMore, which is a small sport ute. Other cars should follow though, and there are some pretty interesting looking ones, including a coupe (pictured, top) with a customizable two-tone color scheme that will probably make it over, and a strange variation of the ultra-tiny ForTwo two seater that looks like it could be popular in southern climes (pictured, bottom).

It should be noted that the two-seat versions of the Smart cars (like the one above, called the Crossblade) are now approved for import to the US and Canada. Two US companies will carry Smarts even before the ForMore makes its official debut.

Correction: originally I said the ForFour, a four-dour sedan, would be the first model to come over. Apparently it was too ugly for the American market and they decided to launch with the ForMore instead, which can be seen in an artists rendering by clicking “Read more..” The Smart brand will be sold through US Mercedes dealerships.

In case you missed any of the testimony at the 9/11 hearings, the recordings are available for free from Audible. Multiple hours are available from each of the major players. Clark has edged out the lead in the reviews with a 4.4 rating, beating Rumsfeld’s 4.3 by a hair.

Video recordings of the hearings can also be found at C-Span, though they are available only in the Really Annoying and Relatively Mediocre formats.

Vespa has announced the latest in their line up — the GranTurismo. It’s the “most powerful Vespa ever made” which is a bit like saying WinXP is the most stable version of Windows ever made, since the GranTurismo only has a meager 21 hp. But at 200 cc’s it’s got four times the displacement of the more familiar Vespa ET2, and it’ll do more than 60 mph, rolling on comfortable 12″ aluminum wheels. Plus it’s got room for storage of two helmets under the seat — making it the perfect machine for darting off to the market. The same engine is available in the lower-end Piaggio BV200. Price for the Vespa is $4900, and just $4300 for the Piaggio. Unknown if it is available in the popular-but-decidedly-ugly mint-green color.