If you are looking for an alternative to the usual search engines, check out search engine Quintura. Quintura is a visual search engine that helps you refine your searches with related search queries appearing in a tag cloud of sorts. For example you can do a query on “technology” and next to the search results there is a visual representation of related expressions that help you find what you’re looking for. The “technology” search suggests technology services, review, computers, and other related terms. The key feature isn’t the search suggestions or search results (which uses a Yahoo feed), but rather the visual navigation through your searches. In that respect I can see Quintura being useful. Test it out for yourselves and see what you think.
Today MySQL, the world’s most popular open-source database, has agreed to be acquired by Sun Microsystems for around $1 billion. This is big news for the Swedish MySQL that started in 1995, and is a rocker for the open-source world.MySQL is a staple element in many of today’s most popular websites like Facebook, Google, Nokia, Baidu and China Mobile; and popular blogging platforms like Wordpress. Sun press release
As is to be expected, there certainly are a lot of excellent tech gadgets coming out of CES. I’ve rounded up some of the better ones. If you have any personal favorites, point me to them.
By the way, if you haven’t had a chance to check out the video Bill Gates showed during his keynote speech at CES about what his last day at Microsoft might be like, check out this hilarious video: Bill’s Last Day at Microsoft.
Some more interesting tech gadgets found at CES:
- A mobile video telephone service that allows deaf people to connect with a translator 24 hours a day around the world. The translator can hear the conversation and sign back to the deaf person over the video screen. It’s like having your own personal translator in your pocket. It was created by deaf people, for deaf people. What a great idea.
- Panasonic now has the world’s largest plasma TV. At an astounding 150 inches, it is 42 inches larger than the previous world record holder, Sharp’s 108 inch LCD TV.
- Just like supermodels, LCD and Plasma TVs are getting skinny to the point where it feels like they might break if you touch them. Pioneer unveiled the thinnest TV ever with a 50 inch screen model that is just 9 millimeters thick thin. Just to give you an idea of how unreal this seems, that is skinnier than an iPod. The dirty little secret is that all the electronics are bundled together in a tiny nub on the back of the television. Obviously that part is not included in the measurements, but it still looks slick.
The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) began today. CES is an electronics trade show held every January in Vegas that showcases many of the high tech gadgets set to release in the coming year. The show runs from today through Thursday and you can expect to see many of the gadgets to show up in various news sources. All the major technology companies bring their latest and greatest products to show off to the media.
Bill Gates got CES off to a start with his 12th and final keynote speech. His speech centered on his view of the future of technology. He believes devices with screens, such as mobile phones and televisions, will be much more connected with eachother to create a very seamless media experience. He also showed off Microsoft’s voice activated Synch system for cars, which allows the driver to select music or make calls hands free.
Some of the new items showcased so far:
Check out Dell’s 22 inch crystal LCD monitor, news courtesy of Engadget. It looks absolutely sexy, but comes with a price tag of $1200.
Photo: Engadget
Learn to play guitar and create music on your PC with Guitar Wizard. Similar to the Guitar Hero video game, but uses a real guitar so you can learn something useful while you play.
Read more coverage of Guitar Wizard.
Ever had the need to take pictures underwater? Liquid Image Co.’s scuba googles see what you see and allow you to quickly take pictures and video underwater.
Netflix recently announced a partnership with LG Electronics to build a set-top box for streaming movie rentals directly to a user’s television. The set-top box would work similar to a cable box and Netflix customers could order movies on demand right to their television. Although offering online movie rentals is nothing new, they have not been very popular with the mainstream consumer and the market is just beginning to take shape.
This news comes shortly after BusinessWeek suggested that Apple is set to offer movie rental downloads through their iTunes service. Apple will make Fox movies available for download with limited-time viewing restrictions. These movies can be watched on computers, iPods, iPhones, and other similar video ready gadgets. This could potentially be a huge market for Apple.
Other companies have tried the online movie rental download business without much success. Walmart and HP discountinued their services due to lack of demand. Many cable companies have offered on demand movies for some time, with varying levels of success. Amazon and Tivo offer another similar service. I think Netflix could be successful in this area because they already have a very large consumer base currently using their movie mail order service. Earlier this year they started allowing customers to stream movies to their computers, which has been very popular with the younger audience. While a younger audience is already used to watching movies on laptops and computers, the older audience might prefer a set-top box that allows them to view movies on their TV.
The new Netflix service is expected to be ready by fall of 2008.
There is always something interesting going on at Ministry of Tech. As 2007 comes to a close, let’s go back and take a look at some of the popular posts over the last year.
Silicon Valley-based Nanosolar’s Powersheet was named innovation of the year by Popular Science. The Powersheet is a solar cell made with printing-press style machines that set down a layer of nanoparticle ink onto metal sheets as thin as aluminum foil.
On December 10th at the IEEE International Electron Devices Meeting in Washington, D.C., University of Tokyo researchers presented a large-area smart sheet that could provide wireless power to devices placed on it.
Gibson Guitar continues their reign as the leader in guitar and music technology when they announced their newest guitar, a self tuning and adjusting guitar, aptly named the Robot Guitar.
Nissan has developed a new paint coating that it calls “paramagnetic”, which can change colors instantly. This technology applies an electric current to an iron oxide polymer layer of paint that changes color based on the level of the current and number of iron oxide particles.
Glow-in-the-dark transgenic pets are the latest exploit from genetic scientists.
South Korean scientists at Gyeongsang National University have created glow-in-the-dark cats. By introducing green fluorescent protein genes into the cloning process, scientists were able to breed white Turkish Angora cats that glow in the dark and are visibly red when viewed under ultraviolet light. Green flourescent protiens are originally isolated and extracted from jellyfish and are what cause jellyfish to glow. You’re cat will never be able to sneak up on you in the night again.
Credit: Gyeongsang National University
The 2 cats, cloned from an altered skin cell of their mother, are nearly a year old. Funded by the Korean government, this research is more than just trying to create colorful creatures. It may provide insight into genetic diseases of both animals and humans. One notable product of animal gentics research is hypoallergenic kittens and dogs.
You may have caught our previous post earlier this year on upcoming video games for 2008. Now that 2008 is almost upon us let’s take a look at some new additions to the list.
Ghostbusters - Fall 2008
Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters! It’s about time the Ghostbusters franchise released a video game to quell our appetite for chasing ghosts. Ray, Venkman, Spengler, Winston, and Slimer are all back for your enjoyment. Each Ghostbuster in the game will be voiced by the original actors. How sweet is that? For those of you that have been waiting years for Ghostbusters III the movie, here is some more great news (as if you can handle any more). Dan Aykroyd has confirmed that the video game is essentially the same plot as was originally created for the movie. The Ghostbusters video game trailer looks very appealing. This video game would have been great back in the height of the Ghostbusters franchise, but with the better technology and graphics today, it looks to be even more fantastic. Now remember, whatever you do, don’t cross the streams!
Available For: XBox 360, PS3, PS2, Wii, PC
Publisher: Sierra
The buzz and previews around Assassin’s Creed looks like this could be the video game of 2008. An original and sexy plot line, fantastic graphics, and violence that will make any teenager smile definitely make this a game to check out. The premise of the game is that you (the main character) come from a lineage of assassins back in the period of the Third Crusade. You must assassinate the figures propagating the Crusades and destroy their conspiracy plans. The game environment and characters are supposedly historically accurate and based on real locations and people. How many times have you wished you were back in the Crusades and had a chance to fight the crushing religous tyranny? Every day.
Nearly 1,000 industrial and service robots are being showcased at Japan’s International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo. The robots range from simple pet like robots that react to your movements, to extremely sophisticated pain feeling robots that allow you to practice dental or medical procedures. Need a ping-pong partner? How about a baby robot that teaches you how to breast feed? There are robots for practically any occasion or application. In the video below you’ll see a very life-like “dental patient” humanoid, which actually took me a few seconds to realize it was not real. It feels pain and reacts accordingly. With a $600k+ price tag, you’ll probably feel the pain too.
According to a warning from cryptographer Adi Shamir, the man behind the “S” in the widely used RSA encyrption algorithm, increasingly sophisticated computer chips could possibly lead to undetected bugs in calculations. This increases the risk that these bugs could be used to crack public key encryption algorithms. Not just PCs could be affected but cellphones and any other device with a computer chip could as well. The real danger is that once a vulnerability is found millions of PCs could be attacked simultaneously. This is not a new phenomenon, as other calculation bugs have been discovered, such as, Pentium’s FDIV division bug and a recent multiplication error in Microsoft Excel.
Today MySQL, the world’s most popular open-source database, has agreed to be acquired by Sun Microsystems for around $1 billion. This is big news for the Swedish MySQL that started in 1995, and is a rocker for the open-source world.MySQL is a staple element in many of today’s most popular websites like Facebook, Google, Nokia, Baidu and China Mobile; and popular blogging platforms like Wordpress. 
