Download you next iPod

The future is not that far away and soon, with the use of Fabbers, machines will be able to make...machines and all in the comfort of our own homes.

Fab@Home is a website dedicated to the making of and the using of fabbers - machines that can make almost anything, right on your desktop.

This kind of futuristic approach to making your own gadgets is getting closer everyday. Check out on the image on the right an image of the first prototype of fabber printer which is already able to produce some interesting 3D objects in plastic.

Soon enough we'll be able to download the specs of the next gen iPod and then let our Fab@Home printer take care of the rest :-)

Where's my 1TB of data? Oh, it's in this CD!!

That's right, 1 TB in one CD-like disc. A company in Israel says it's able to fit an incredible 1TB of data onto one "TeraDisc" which is the same size as CDs and DVDs. That's 20 times the capacity of a maxed-out dual-layer Blu-ray disc.

The incredible capacity achieved using this new technology is made possible by employing 200 5GB layers, each one only five microns apart.

Even though this company has already created prototypes to store up to 800GB of data and is now working on the prototype for the 1TB capacity disc, they think this is not enough and they are already thinking of building 5TB blue laser disks.

According to the company, this kind of technology should be ready for the public in 2-3 years. That's nice...I was thinking about doing a backup now...perhaps I'll wait a little bit longer :-)

Source: Tech.co.uk

Ever heard of "mechanical virus"?

Me neither. But they're out there...and they're dangerous.
This guy tells this story on how a simple faulty adapter can become a real virus...in this case, since it affects hardware, it's a "mechanical virus".

Mac users have to use a DVI to VGA adapter in order to connect to the normal VGA overhead projectors. Every so often, Mac users at this guy's workplace started noticing that they could no longer connect to the projectors at the meeting room. Well, they were able to physically connect but nothing happened after that. No image, no connection, nothing...

But the strangest thing was that not all Mac users were affected, and after some heavy "mechanical" debugging, this guy discovered the problem source at the DVI to VGA adapter. All Macs that used this adapter to connect to the projector were "infected".

But exactly what was the problem? Read his explanation:

"If you’ve never seen a DVI port before, it’s a long thin port with lots of pins arranged in a rectangular pattern. These pins on the cable plug into matching holes on the computer. The pins are relatively close together, so the holes are separated by thin walls of plastic with metal contacts. The problem I discovered was that one of the thin walls between the holes had broken and bent down, forming a ramp. When I plugged the DVI adapter into my computer, two of the pins went into the same hole, and the projector could no longer understand the output from my computer. However, it doesn’t end there. When I plugged the DVI adapter into the broken socket, the ramp formed by the broken wall bent the corresponding pin upwards, forming a wedge with the adjacent pin. Then, when any other Mac user plugged the same adapter into their own computer, the pin wedge would press down on that same socket wall, breaking it and bending it down in the same fashion."

He ends the story with an interesting note on how these "mechanical virus" can be perceived as any other normal computer virus and how people act accordingly:

"Once the virus was discovered, people began to take measures to protect themselves. I just started checking every DVI adapter that I used on my computer (being careful). Others got their own DVI adapters and started using them exclusively (using protection)."

Be afraid, be very afraid :-)

Want to send big files but your e-mail keeps saying NO?

Here are 5 (free) alternatives to send big files without having to use your short-limit e-mail:

• YouSendIt - until 100 MB (until 2GB with a paying account)
  
• DropSend - until 1GB
  
• SendSpace - until 300 MB
  
• MegaUpload - until 500 MB
  
• MailBigFile - until 100 MB (until 1GB with a paying account)
  

There are more alternatives available here.

Very annoying guy

This guy's attitude is just annoying. How can a guy, that is himself using the internet to promote his book, say that the internet is destroying our culture?



At least Colbert handled him quite well :-)

Source: The Daily Background

The new MP3/CD player

This device looks kinda nice, right? But is it just one more MP3 player? Doesn't the world have too many of those already?

Well, not like this...

This device, which is still in a concept phase, promises to be a "all-in-one", allowing you to play all kinds of digital music and still be able to play the "old" CDs (if you consider 25 years to be old).

But I bet now you're thinking: "how the hell am I going to put a CD on that?". Well, check it out:


Nice!

Source: RegHardware

Free first-person shooter games

Continuing the FREE wave, here's a list of free first-person shooter games.

450+ freeware utilities

Want freeware utilities? Check out this website here.

Context-aware Image Resizing: the future of image displaying

Check out this amazing video about context-aware image resizing research that will probably revolutionize the way images are displayed in most devices, especially small devices, such as cellphones:



Source: Hackszine.com

Apparently it's Windows fault!

Last August, 16th, Skype users must have noticed that they couldn't connect to the network and perform phone calls. For two days the network was completely unstable and people were starting to think that there was some kind of attack to the Skype infrastructure.

Well, yesterday Skype Inc.'s boss has issued a statement where he "blames" the Windows Update Service for this catastrophic failure. How? Easy: apparently it was in this same day that Windows Update "suggested" the update of some Windows patches. When millions of Windows users performed the necessary updates and restarted their computers (as most of them have the option of starting Skype along with Windows), the Skype network was flooded with millions and millions of log-in requests, thus causing a chain reaction that resulted on the total breakdown of the Skype network.

Although I'm not a big fan of Windows and the fact that I don't particularly like the updating process of Windows, I have to admit that this "blaming" process from Skype towards Microsoft is quite far-fetched. First, because most people don't perform the updates as soon as they are available and second, because not everyone restarts the computer right after the updates. You'd need a huge coincidence for all Windows users to actually perform these two steps at the same time.

Skype has to learn the lesson and improve its infrastructure instead of blaming others for their mistakes.

Source: Skype

Back from vacation

And the tech news didn't stop:

• The Skype outage
• Plug-in computer concept
  
• A Hacker's dream machine
• A search engine that "listens" to music
• The kevlar-based school uniform
• A glittering iPod shuffle
• Top 12 kinetic typography films
  

Power up your cellphone with your body heat

A team of German scientists has found a way of transforming body heat into electricity. This basically means that in the future you'll be able to power up your gadgets by just using them in your hands.

I know this thing about "drawing electricity from human body to power machines" resembles scenarios such as The Matrix, but you have to admit that this is a huge step ahead into the future of gadgets batteries.

At least we won't have to worry about the cellphone's battery running out exactly when you need to make that important call :-)

Source: Tech.co.uk

A four-wheel segway

I know there are some people that are quite naive when it comes to buy the newly-fashion gadgets, but to actually buy a 4-wheel segway?

I can already imagine this call between two friends:

- "Guess what! It wasn't cheap but I got one of those wheely thingys that we see everywhere..."

- "Oh, you mean a segway!"

- "Yeah, that! It's a real beauty"

- "And have you managed to keep it balanced? I heard it can be really difficult to get used to the balance motion on the two-wheel drive"

- "Two-wheel??"

Source: Engadget

The infamous Windows blue screen

Ok, I know the Windows Error Blue Screen can drive a person crazy, but to actually tatoo the entire message on your arm....???


Has anybody told this guy that tatoos are forever?

Source: Engadget