While Dennis Tito may be able to buy his way into space for a cool $20 mil, what about the rest of us? It may be awhile before a burger-flipper from Des Moines gets to have a space vacation, but with the announcement of SpaceShipOne at least he’s a little closer. SpaceShipOne, designed by Voyager designer Burt Rutan’s company Scaled, looks to be a likely candidate for first 3-person private spaceship to make a suborbital run. That would make eligible for the X-Prize of $10 million. SpaceShipOne is a two stage spacecraft; the first stage (called White Knight, pictured left at top) uses traditional jet power and aerodynamic lift to get up to altitude, then releasing SpaceShipOne (pictured left hung below WhiteKnight), which then kicks in the rubber-nitrous hybrid rocket to thrust to 62 miles above the Earth. Once in space, SpaceShipOne then rotates its wings outwards in “whirley-gig” mode and returns to Earth. White Knight has been tested, but Rutan’s mum about when the first actual space flight will be. No word on price per flight either, but it’s sure to cost more than $5.25 per pound.
Mini-Tank IR Wars
Konami has some cool new toys for those who may be looking for new uses for their Warhammer terrains. The Battle DigiQ tanks are similar to other mini-RC vehicles, but have the extra feature of adding weapons and multiple gameplay options. There are four varieties of tanks (Tiger I, Panther, Sherman and T34) each with its own strengths and weaknesses. The tanks battle via infrared “cannons” and can battle in three different modes; race, beginner and expert battle mode. In race mode, hits to the opponent slow the tank down, allowing other tanks to overtake it. In beginner battle mode, the tanks get unlimited ammo and short reload times, and 5 hits will score a win. Expert mode is where it gets really cool; each tank has different reload times, ammo capacity and armor. Up to four can play at a time as a free-for-all or two-on-two. Cost is about $50 per. Read a great review at DansData.com for all the good pics and specs and where to buy.
HipTop Killer?
As Danger gets a color version of the HipTop ready, another company has a competing GSM/GPRS cell phone hybrid device waiting in the wings; the Neode N1. The N1 is an impressive device on paper, running Windows CE .NET on an ARM720T processor at up to 110 MHz , with a 2.2″ color TFT touch screen, integrated 640×480 digital camera, MP3 playback and SD card memory expansion, plus hi-speed IR I/O for data transfer and using it as a universal remote control. It also has USB-host capability, which means you can plug a keyboard and mouse into it, and possibly hook it up to other USB devices such as a printer or external hard drive. All this packed into a 3.5″ x 2″ x 0.8″ device (about the same length and width as a credit card) weighing just 3.5 oz. Price is yet unknown, but release in Europe is expected in March. Full specs at Neode (pdf file).
How to lose customers and alienate fans
Of special interest to our Cyborg in chief, Gareth, Games Workshop has announced that it will cease doing business with game shops that offer internet sales. Ostensibly, they’re offended by the use of pictures of their products, labelling them IP violations, to sell their products.
Of course, everybody suspects that they’re more offended by mail order retailers undercutting sales in their own stores.
Playstation 2.1
If you’re thinking of finally updating your Sega Genesis to a Playstation 2 like 50 million other gamers in the world have, you might want to wait just a bit. Sony’s updating the hardware to make it just a wee-bit better. The new Playstation will feature pretty much the same specs except that it will be a progressive-scan DVD player, will work better with DVD-RW and other burned media, and will have a built-in IR for the remote (a $20 option on PS2.0). In the process, the new playstation loses its Firewire port, which is no big deal because nobody figured out anything to use it for anyway. Granted these are all minor improvements, but at least it makes it easier to justify buying a $200 game and progressive DVD player over spending $150 on something that’s only a progressive DVD player
First War Collectible From “Operation Iraqi Freedom”
Last week, the US Department of Defense distributed thousands of decks of cards to US troops that have pictures and names of the top 55 most-wanted members of the Iraqi government. In doing so, naturally created a very hot collectible. A check on eBay turned up everything from “electronic copies” in PDF format (which, BTW you could just as easily get from the DoD website) to uncut sheets of supposedly original cards and decks in original packaging. Prices for these items have gone up to $400 or more, and will likely go much higher for actual mint copies. No doubt this is just the boost the economy needs — it’s better than printing money!
Smart Dust Radios?
If you don’t have Lab Notes, the newsletter from the UC Berkeley College of Engineering, on your radar, what the heck is wrong with you?! You *want* to subscribe to this thing. Not only is it chock full of bleeding-edge sci-tech “amp” but it’s also free, and it’s written by Street Tech founding pal David Pescovitz. What’s not to like?
The latest issue covers smart dust radios (cool!), quantum computing, greener chip fabs, and sensor networks from the Silk Road to the Dead Sea.
New Palm OS Phones From GroupSense
PalmInfocenter has new details and pics about two upcoming Palm OS phones from a Chinese company called GroupSense (?). One is a candy-bar style phone (we need a new term for that, btw, suggestions please under comments) which is pictured to the left. They run Palm OS 4.1 on a 33MHz chip, with 16 megs of RAM and no expansion slot. The phones operate on 900/1800 GSM. What’s remarkable is that the phone is so very small — with a screen of just 2.2″, its resolution is reported to be 160 x 240 with a virtual Graffitti area. The other phone from the same mfr is a flip phone with much the same specs. Go to PalmInfocenter.com for more specs and pics.
Island of Overlooked Software Continued
Well, maybe it’s not that overlooked, but what better software for inclusion on that list than TurboNote. sponsored by South Pacific Island Services? TurboNote is a very simple and basic program for creating virtual sticky-notes on your Desktop. You can create them easily, change the color, add and remove text as needed, save and delete, and have them remain “always on top”. There is even an option for sending them and receiving them over the ‘net, but I haven’t played with that much. While an increased functionality version called TurboNote+ is $25, the basic version is free. It’s much better than physical sticky-notes stuck to the sides of your monitor, especially since each note can be set to sound a user-selected alarm. Though a few added features like standard Windows min/max/close/menu buttons and the ability to file within folders would be appreciated, it’s a very handy piece of software that won’t leave you with a desk full of crumpled yellow scraps.
One Step Closer to Jurassic Park
The Washington Post is reporting that a cloned Javan banteng, an endangered variety of cattle, has been born to a beef cow in Iowa, with the proud father (?) being a single skin cell from a deceased banteng.