P-Per Design Concept is Sweet, Shames My iPhone

We recently informed you of the oh-so-awesome E-Paper Slap Bracelet, but now we also feel obligated to show you the P-Per. Don’t get me wrong, I like my iPhone, plenty, but the P-Per video (below) offers promises of pure awesome. This is a concept mobile device by the people over at Chocolate Design Agency. It employs the same multi-function E-Paper technology used in their bracelet; what’s more, it is also eco-friendly. Its design is efficient - it uses their energy-saving e-paper (which won them the red dot design award), only four layers of sustainable materials, and an Organic Radical battery. So, if you’re green, then you should probably see a doctor, but if you love the environment and mobile devices, then this cell phone looks to be your next communication device of choice.

Thanks, Karole, for the tip.

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HDD Stage Rack grows an eSATA port

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/222924627/

Filed under: Storage

You already loved it in its USB 2.0 incarnation. Now check the HDD Stage Rack with an additional eSATA interface. Who couldn't use an extra 315MB/s transfer rate for their 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch disks? Yours now for $57.15 before those excessive shipping costs are factored in.

[Thanks, Tyson W.]

 

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Toshiba and Panasonic double OLED lifespan -- exceeds LCDs

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/222896428/

Filed under: Displays

While we love the low power consumption and ultra-high contrast achieved by OLEDs, there's one thing we hate: OLED's short lifespan. Toshiba and Panasonic are looking to change the game by announcing a new technology today that doubles the life of OLED displays. We're talking a bump from the stated 30,000-hour lifespan of Sony's XEL-1 TV to somewhere beyond that of your typical 50,000-hour LCD panel. Tosh and Panny's trick is to use a new metal membrane inside a prototype 20.8-inch panel to move light more efficiently. Let's see if this new development brings forth Toshiba's timeline for an OLED TV any. Please Toshiba, with sugar?

[Via techradar]

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Make a Mobile Friendly Version of your Blog with Google Reader

Source: http://www.labnol.org/internet/design/how-to-create-mobile-phone-optimized-blog/2132/

You blog design may be perfectly optimized for the desktop screen but there are lot of people out there who frequently check your website for new content using their mobile phones.

They are not interested in the sidebars, navigation areas and other design elements - all they want to see is a simple listing of your blog posts in reverse chronological order. If they like to read a post, they can click the title and a mobile friendly version of that page should open on the screen of their cell phone.

You may not be a geek or may have the time to create a mobile edition of your blog so here are two simple hacks to help you out - your blog content won’t just look extremely readable on a mobile phone screen, it will also load very fast.

1. Google Reader - The Ten Second Solution

Google Reader can generate an excellent mobile view of your RSS feed without any effort. Just append your feed address to the following URL and your mobile blog is ready.

http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/feed/[feed_address]

And here’s a live example - use your mobile phone to see the awesome page rendering

http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/feed/http://feeds.labnol.org/labnol

Call this link "Mobile Site" and place it somewhere at the top of your blog design so mobile phone users will notice it instantly and switch to the mobile view.

2. The next solution is to create a free account at mofuse.com and they’ll give a personal mobile website with a .mobi address - something like http://labnol.mofuse.mobi/.

If you have self-hosted blog like on WordPress or Blogger Custom domains, you can easily setup the mobile edition of your site on a subdomain (e.g. m.labnol.org) - it is short and your users can easily guess the URL since almost all popular sites now follow the m. convention.

WordPress users are lucky as there’s a plugin that will automatically detect if the client is a mobile phone browser and it then renders a mobile friendly version of the blog to the visitor.

Related: Create Printer Friendly Blog with PDF Support

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Make a Mobile Friendly Version of your Blog with Google Reader - Digital Inspiration

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Create MP3 Files From Text in Emails and Web Pages

Source: http://www.labnol.org/internet/tools/convert-email-text-to-mp3-files/2140/

Vozme is web based tool that turns any snippet of text into an MP3 audio file that you can either listen online or download to your local hard drive.

You just have to copy the text from a web page or an email and paste it inside the Vozme text box.

While there are tons of solutions that convert text to spoken words, what I liked about Vozme is the clutter free interface and the fact that it runs inside the browser without requiring any downloads.

Bloggers can easily integrate the Vozme feature in the site so visitors can either listen to your full blog posts or they can select a portion of text and have Vozme narrate it like a speech.

Vozme.com - Accepts Spanish, English and Italian languages. Thanks Jane.

Related: Listen to Email, Word Documents on iPod

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Create MP3 Files From Text in Emails and Web Pages - Digital Inspiration

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Africa: small-scale generator powered by sugar and yeast (video)

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/221909009/africa-smallscale-ge.html

Afrigadget recently blogged about an inexpensive power source for Africa created by Dr. Cedrick Ngalande in Malawi. Today, the blog points to videos of the invention in action:

The rotor moves slowly most of the times but does pick up at certain intervals. This process continues for many hours. Since the rotor is quite heavy (and hence more inertia) a small geared DC motor can be connected to the rotor to generate power for cell phones, $100 laptops, and other things in Africa. People can leave this thing to charge their phones/$100 laptops overnight.

Basically we have two chambers on either end of the rotating (pivoted) rod. The arrangement of the chambers is such that on either side of the rod, one chamber sits on top of the other (this is important). At the beginning of this operation, I fill the bottom chamber on each side with a yeast sugar solution. Each bottom chamber is always locked under pressure by special valves. Due to pressure the solution starts moving from a bottom chamber into its respective top chamber. Note that by moving upwards, the fluid's center of gravity shifts, resulting in a mass imbalance which causes the wobbling.

Link to post with video.

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Sleeveface pool on Flickr

Source: http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/222441038/sleeveface-pool-on-f.html

Sleeveface is my new favorite Flickr pool. There are more than 700 examples and they're a total laff riot. Seen here are contributions from John Rostron (left) and Godesinge (right). Link (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)

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AT&T hands out free hotspot access to broadband customers, ups its bandwidth

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/222466758/

Filed under: Wireless, Networking

AT&T, continuing to be the open, giving, and free-wheeling loony that it is, has decided to bestow cost-free access to its 10,000+ WiFi hotspots (for its broadband subscribers, that is). Effective immediately, if you're tossing money the company's way for any high-speed access, you can hop onto wireless networks in retail shops, restaurants, and airports free of charge... provided they're AT&T networks. We know its a lot to handle, but get this -- the telco has also upped the speeds of its U-verse service to a whopping 10 Mbps downstream / 1.5 Mbps upstream configuration, undoubtedly warming the hearts of AT&T subscribers hankering for a little more bandwidth to sustain their ever-increasing 'net needs. It's like the holidays all over again. Read - AT&T To Deliver Free Access To Nation's Largest Wi-Fi Network Read - AT&T Boosts Bandwidth Choices and Speed with 10 Mbps Offer for U-verse Customers

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AnyTV Streams Internet Video to Your Desktop [Featured Windows Download]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/221360527/anytv-streams-internet-video-to-your-desktop

Windows only: The free AnyTV streaming video player gives you access to dozens of internet media streams (television, radio, and other video) from one interface for easy viewing at your computer. AnyTV isn't quite as slick as our favorite Joost, but for TV junkies, it does offer an eclectic collection of streams from around the world. I had trouble getting some channels to play in AnyTV, but did wind up watching a bit of Eyewitness News while testing. After the jump, see a full screenshot of AnyTV in action.

AnyTV is a free download for Windows only.

AnyTV [via Download Squad]

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Turn Any Content into a Start Page Widget with Orchestr8 [Start Pages]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/221409930/turn-any-content-into-a-start-page-widget-with-orchestr8

Webapp Orchestr8 creates widgets for your iGoogle, Netvibes, and Pageflakes start page—or to embed on a web site—from any web page with a simple point-and-click. Similar to the new web clip feature in Leopard (which does the same thing but puts the widget in Dashboard), just point Orchestr8 to the page containing the content you want to clip, find the content you want, click it, and the select Grab it. It's not perfect, but it does offer a simple way to create widgets for your start page for content that doesn't offer an easy-to-snag RSS feed.

Orchestr8

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Share Your Keyboard and Mouse Across Computers with Input Director [Featured Windows Download]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/221875110/share-your-keyboard-and-mouse-across-computers-with-input-director

Windows only: Share a single keyboard, mouse, and clipboard between multiple Windows computers with freeware application Input Director. Similar to the cross-platform keyboard sharing app, Synergy, Input Manager offers an easier setup and a handful of really useful features—including the ability to copy and paste files and folders between systems (a feature that never seems to work correctly in Synergy). While Synergy is the best available solution for a multi-platform setup, if you're only running multiple Windows machines, Input Director looks like the best solution. If you happen to have an all-Mac setup, check out previously mentioned Teleport. Input Director is freeware, Windows only.

Input Director [via FreewareGenius]

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E-Paper Slap Bracelets: Like the 80's...Except Different [Concept]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/221971099/e+paper-slap-bracelets-like-the-80sexcept-different

If you had a slap bracelet back in the day (and I am ashamed to admit that I did), you will surely enjoy this concept device from the Chocolate Agency. Imagine a full-fledged multimedia device that can be slapped on and worn like a wristband. It would feature an e-paper surface and a battery that can be recharged using kinetic energy. Unfortunately, imagining it is all you can really do, because this sort of device is a massive pipe dream at the moment. But there is nothing wrong with thinking big. [Yanko Design]

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Fujifilm's FinePix F100fd, Z20fd, and new J-series of compact shooters

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/222239667/

Bringing up the tail to Fujifilm's pre-PMA announcements are four new compact cameras. The 12 megapixel F100fd ($380) features a 5x wide-angle optical zoom, mechanical and digital image stabilization, IrSimple, and a handy "dual shot mode" which takes a picture with and without a flash in rapid succession. It also brings a 2.7-inch LCD and likely useless (even for Fujifilm) ISO 12,800 setting. The "ultra-glam" 10 megapixel Z20fd ($200, pictured) targets the "movie-crazed Generation Z" with a "Dual Blog Mode" which automatically resizes stills or MPEG-4 movies for sharing. It also features the dual-shot mode found on the F100fd, intelligent flash, 16 pre-set scene modes, face detection, and a "stamp it" mode which replaces your friend's faces with "fun designs." Lastly we have the new J-series of 8.2 megapixel J10 ($150) and J50 ($150) compact shooters with 3x and 5x optical zooms, respectively. All available in March, all pictured in the gallery below.

Gallery: Fujifilm's FinePix F100fd, Z20fd, and new J-series of compact shooters

Read -- F100fd
Read -- Z20fd
Read -- J-series

 

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Philips READIUS Materializes With Fold-Away Screen [E-reader Phone]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/220878861/philips-readius-materializes-with-fold+away-screen

The Philips READIUS prototype that we showed you over a year ago, is finally materializing as an actual consumer product, not just as an e-reader but as a mobile phone. The READIUS has a slightly different design than the prototype, with a 5-inch flexible display that actually rolls up around the phone, allowing it to be stored when not in use. The phone is manufactured under Polymer Vision, which is partly owned by Philips. The Dutch company has yet to release complete specs for the phone, but the READIUS is advertised as having a large display and great battery life. With a mid-2008 release, we won't have to wait too long to test this e-reader, mobile phone mash-up. [Reuters]

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