Our favorite kingpin BitTorrent tracker and hero, The Pirate Bay, is in the process of creating a new P2P protocol. But why? Brokep, a Pirate Bay top dog, was quoted saying, “I don’t think Bittorrent as a protocol will survive much longer.” Brokep also stated, “The biggest problem is that [the BT protocol is] owned by the Bittorrent company, which develops new versions of it. So we don’t have any input as users to say what we want in the protocol. And Bittorrent is funded by companies which we don’t necessarily like as well.” Good points indeed. The new protocol may be finished and released sometime next year. Via Tech.Blorge
The U.K. army begain testing technology that can make a tank nearly invisible. In trials last week, the army was able to make a tank completely disapear.
This invisible technology works by projecting images of the surrounding landscape onto the surface of the tank (or any object to be hidden). This gives the effect of looking through the object as the landscape that would normally be obscured by the tank is now visible. The weakest point of this intricate and delicate system of cameras and projectors is that it would have to be able to handle intense conditions.
The invisible tank is expected to be battle ready by 2012. I think we will see invisibility technology in use with other military machinery by that time as well.
Now this is an interesting (and somewhat funny) application that could be put to great use - Snapmania’s Tourist Remover. Using multiple photos of the same scene, Tourist Remover attempts to blend these together and remove unwanted interference from your captured moment in time. The online app is free, with up to 100 MB of online storage. Paid storage upgrades are available too. Hand-held shots will work ok, but shots taken wiht a tripod are better. Also, too many people in a photo are harder to get rid of. Via Photojojo
It’s always fun to reminisce about some of the technology that got us to where we are today. The “state of the art” computers we used as kids that had less computing power than today’s toaster ovens. Compared with current computers it’s a wonder that anything was ever accomplished, but the jobs still always seemed to get done. Of course it turns out that some of that old tech junk you have sitting in your attic or basement may be worth a couple bucks. There is a whole industry springing up around vintage tech and computers. Check out the collectible PCs slideshow and be prepared for that undeniable reality that, yes, you’re getting old.
Ferrari and Segway (yes, they do still exist - albeit only slightly more than unicorns and leprechauns) have teamed up to to create a limited edition Ferrari Segway personal transporter that is guaranteed to go from 0 to dumb in 3.5 seconds. This misguided marriage comes about because Ferrari has been using Segways in their factories for some time and Ferrari can’t resist renting out their brand to any company with a product and a wallet. If you’ve got the money to waste and need to fill up an empty space in your basement you can purchase one of these Segways, complete with the signature Ferrari red paint job. If they choose to put a Ferrari engine on one of these, maybe then I’ll take one for a spin.
IBM announced today that they are developing a chipset that can beam high definition video from PC to TV through an ultra fast wireless signal. This technology will allow full length HD video or TV to be streamed within seconds between devices, without the use of wires or network cables.
The chip uses millimeter wave radio technology (mmWave) to transmit large amounts of data over the highest frequencies on the radio spectrum. The high radio frequencies can handle data up to 100 times the rate of current Wi-Fi transfers. Full length high definition movies, video, or TV could be transferred and ready for viewing within seconds compared with upwards of 10 minutes over a regular Wi-Fi connection.
Any stationary or handheld electronic device could ultimately contain one of these chips, which means that someday you could download movies to your video iPod or other handheld device as quickly as walking by your computer or a kiosk.
Well, you still can’t play Halo 3 on it, but a UMass professor has a more practical use in mind for his PS3. Dr. Gaurav Khanna, an assistant professor at UMass, created an 8 node cluster using PS3s to run models to see if gravitational waves, which have been postulated for nearly 100 years but never observed, are strong enough that we could actually observe them one day.
In the past, Dr. Khanna had rented time on various supercomputing sites across the US, typically using a couple hundred processors and costing as much as $5,000 of his grant money.
Khanna’s cluster has been up and running for a little over a month. He says that the cluster is roughly equal to about 200 of the supercomputing nodes he used to rely on. Read more at Wired…
PS3 clusters have been created by other researchers as well. One of the pioneers is a North Carolina State University Professor, Dr.Frank Mueller, who created an 8 node PS3 cluster back in March of this year for a total cost of about $5,000.
Interested in the idea, but not sure about where to begin? Terra Soft Solutions is offering turnkey PS3 clusters. An 8 node cluster will set you back about $21,500 and a 32 node cluster $52,250. Besides the obvious cost of the consoles, for that price you also get a dual-proc Power Mac G5, a 48 port switch, Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed (developed and maintained by Terra Soft for the Power architecture family of CPUs), 7 cat 6 cables, mouse, keyboard, 19″ display, and 20 hours or technical support.
The Infiniti EX35, slated for a December 2007 launch in the North American market, will utilize the Around View Monitor (AVM) system. The AVM system offers the driver a bird’s eye view of the vehicle and its surroundings. The system displays a bird’s eye image of the vehicle by processing four images shot with ultra wide angle, high-res cameras mounted in the front grille, rearview mirrors, and in the rear end. Auxiliary sonar devices in the corners of the vehicle will supplement the function of the cameras by providing audible distance feedback.
This is pretty sweet, but chances are that my wife still won’t be able to park it.
Our favorite kingpin BitTorrent tracker and hero, The Pirate Bay, is in the process of creating a new P2P protocol. But why? Brokep, a Pirate Bay top dog, was quoted saying, “I don’t think Bittorrent as a protocol will survive much longer.” Brokep also stated, “The biggest problem is that [the BT protocol is] owned by the Bittorrent company, which develops new versions of it. So we don’t have any input as users to say what we want in the protocol. And Bittorrent is funded by companies which we don’t necessarily like as well.” Good points indeed. The new protocol may be finished and released sometime next year. Via Tech.Blorge
