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Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Bagel to Go

Remember CDs? Finally, a use for those CD spindles

Who Said a Yacht has to Look Like a boat?

It's hot and summer and what better place to relax than on a yacht - especially one with a striking design. Here is some ‘inspiration' for what you might buy.

Oculus

The Olucus is a very futuristic looking yacht from Schöpfer Yachts. Its 250-foot, can accommodate 12 guests and can travel at speeds up to 25 knots. It got a double-height dining room, an elevator and a special area for ‘the owner' + a lot more.

Infinitas

If that design isn't striking enough, then can you always opt for the bigger and more spacious designed Infinitas. It's 300-foot with a massive recreational pool area in the middle of the ship. It accommodates 12 guests, and pretty much got everything else you might need.

Including a living room on the main deck, a dining room on the other side of the pool area. A sky bridge, kitchen, storage, helicopter platform and a third deck for the owner.

Price? No idea. So far it is only a concept.

(via Schöpfer Yachts - Image credits: Tangram 3DS)

Skier saved from death plunge by Blackberry

A skier who slipped into a crevasse in the Swiss Alps was saved from falling 700ft to his death by his Blackberry mobile phone.

BlackBerry Storm
Despite the accident, the skier's Blackberry still worked and he used it to call his wife during the 10 days he spent in hospital

David Fitzherbert's half-inch wide handset in his breast pocket caused him to get wedged in a crack of ice, stopping him from falling further.

Remarkably, the phone still worked after keeping him stuck for two hours until a mountain rescue team winched him to safety.

Mr Fitzherbert, 52, was skiing off-piste down a glacier in the Matterhorn and Monterosa peaks when he fell into the crevasse.

The married finance worker from Kensington, west London, told The Sun: "After 70 feet it narrowed and I became stuck like a cork in a bottle between the walls.

"Fortunately, the extra inches of the Blackberry were enough to block the fall."

Mr Fitzherbert broke his jaw, damaged his teeth, broke a bone in his chest and nearly had his nose ripped off in the fall.

However, his mountain guide made a distress call and rescue workers came to cut him out of the ice.

Mr Fitzherbert added: "I was stuck so fast that they had to get a drill and dig away at the ice around me.

"I was eventually winched out by a helicopter rescue team."

Suffering from severe hypothermia, he was airlifted to hospital in Bern, Switzerland, where surgeons reattached his nose.

Despite the accident, his Blackberry still worked and he used it to call his wife during the 10 days he spent in hospital.

He added: "It was still working well enough for me to tell her I was alive. I couldn't believe it."

Stan Lee’s Cameo in IRON MAN 2

by Matt Goldberg

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A Scooper has sent us info regarding what Stan Lee will be doing in Iron Man 2. Since some folks want to avoid all spoilers at all costs, we’ll let you know what it is after the jump.

For those that don’t follow Marvel movies religiously but have always wondered who that odd, grandfatherly-looking figure who randomly appears in almost all their movies, the answer is writer Stan Lee. Lee is credited with creating or co-creating some of Marvel’s most enduring characters including Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, The Avengers, X-Men, and some cult superhero known as, “Spider-Man”. Stan almost always gets a cameo in Marvel movies because he’s such a delightful and iconic character himself among comic geeks. In the first “Iron Man”, we saw Stan mistaken for Hugh Hefner. How will we see Mr. Lee this time around? Hit the jump to find out…

stan_lee__4_.jpgHere’s the info according to a scooper:

Hey guys,

Big fan of the site. Since I hadn’t read this news anywhere, I wanted to let you know Stan Lee filmed his cameo for Iron Man 2. I was told Stan filmed earlier this week and he was dressed as Larry King. The scene has Stan asking Tony Stark when he’s going to be on his show.

While we usually like to have a second source, we are very confident in the accuracy of this report. It’s not an earth-shattering revelation (unless Larry King is actually The Mandarin; then we’ve unintentionally ruined the film), but it’s still neat and it doesn’t look like Stan’s cameo will be too distracting.

“Iron Man 2″ hits theatres on May 7th, 2010.

Stan Lee as Baxter Building mailman Willie Lumpkin in “Fantastic Four”

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Real-time Control Of Wheelchair With Brain Waves

ScienceDaily (June 29, 2009) — Japan's BSI-TOYOTA Collaboration Center has successfully developed a system that controls a wheelchair using brain waves in as little as 125 milliseconds.



BTCC was established in 2007 by RIKEN, an independent Japanese research institution, as a collaborative project with Toyota Motor Corporation, Toyota Central R&D Labs, Inc., and Genesis Research Institute, Inc. Also collaborating in the research were Andrzej Cichocki, Unit Leader, and Kyuwan Choi, Research Scientist, of BTCC's Noninvasive BMI Unit.

Recently technological developments in the area of brain machine interface (BMI) have received much attention. Such systems allow elderly or handicapped people to interact with the world through signals from their brains, without having to give voice commands.

BTCC's new system fuses RIKEN's blind signal separation1 and space-time-frequency filtering2 technology to allow brain-wave analysis in as little as 125 ms, as compared to several seconds required by conventional methods. Brain-wave analysis results are displayed on a panel so quickly that drivers do not sense any delay. The system has the capacity to adjust itself to the characteristics of each individual driver, and thereby is able to improve the efficiency with which it senses the driver's commands. Thus the driver is able to get the system to learn his/her commands (forward/right/left) quickly and efficiently. The new system has succeeded in having drivers correctly give commands to their wheelchairs. An accuracy rate of 95% was achieved, one of the highest in the world.

Plans are underway to utilize this technology in a wide range of applications centered on medicine and nursing care management. R&D under consideration includes increasing the number of commands given and developing more efficient dry electrodes. So far the research has centered on brain waves related to imaginary hand and foot control. However, through further measurement and analysis it is anticipated that this system may be applied to other types of brain waves generated by various mental states and emotions.

Notes:

(1) Blind signal separation (BSS) is a technology that separates the noise components and useful signal components from brain signals that can be used to control the wheelchair. It utilizes only on-line-recorded EEG signals.

(2) Space-time-frequency filtering is a technology which extracts space and time patterns and frequency oscillation data from EEG electrodes to discriminate significant features and components which are able to reliably control the wheelchair.



Alice in Wonderland Fashion Battle: Tim Burton's New School vs. Cartoon Disney Old School


By Gendy Alimurung

Tim Burton's film adaptation of Alice In Wonderland isn't out until next year, but if the promo photos are any indication, it's going to be the most visually arresting, luxurious Alice yet. Here's a look at how new Alice stacks up against older Alices from a fashion perspective.

1. Alice

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The new Alice is played by 19 year old Mia Wasikowska. From the looks of her outfit--a slightly-longer than tea-length gown, white booties, fingerless gloves--in this photo, the film will be returning to Alice In Wonderland's Victorian roots. Her dress resembles cartoon Disney Alice's frock, but owes more in feel and attitude to Arthur Rackham's haunting, Earthy vision of Alice. Also, I just noticed this, but look how chubby cartoon Alice's calves are compared to her arms.

Also glad that Wasikowska-Alice isn't a super-blonde blonde.


2. The Mad Hatter

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Johnny Depp was all but born to play this role. Or rather, it's a role he's been playing for film after film after film now. Looks like he's a redhead in Tim Burton's flick. He's also way more psychedelic and frightening than either Sir John Tenniel's imagining of the Mad Hatter or Disney's portly, nebbishy Mad Hatter (who by comparison looks like he is on his way to a congressional hearing instead of a tea party). The pink sash around the hat and pink shirt peeping out from behind the wacky cravat are a nice touch. Why does pink on guys always connote crazy? I expect we'll be seeing a lot of this on Halloween and at cosplay conventions.

3. Tweedledee & Tweedledum

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Maybe it's the black and white prison stripe shirts, but Burton must have been channeling the Addams Family when he did his version of Dee and Dum. Matt Lucas plays both of them. They look menacing and slightly Mongoloid in this illustration--you wouldn't want to be running into this pair on the playground anytime soon. Disney's cartoon twins in their bright, primary color jumpers look like effete clowns by comparison. Tenniel's twins look like thugs.


4. The Red Queen

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Loving the heart-shaped geisha style lipstick on Helena Bonham Carter's pasty white face. The candy apple red hair--also a nice touch. The crisp white collar winging up from the bodice of her blue velvet gown is a nifty homage to cartoon Disney Red Queen. I like that she's not decked out in head-to-toe red and that her gown isn't a giant heart card. And that she's not mannish and butch like both cartoon Disney and Tenniel's Red Queen. Women in power--especially the violent, vicious ones--are sexy these days.


5. The White Queen

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There was no White Queen in Disney's animated version of Alice In Wonderland. The White Queen is a character who appeared in Lewis Carroll's sequel Though the Looking-Glass. Anne Hathaway plays her in Burton's film. She looks amazing and sort of like what every girl wishes she looked like at prom, or at her wedding. And wow, that blood red lipstick against all the white! Will her gown have those puffy white Michelin Man rings around the skirt? One can only hope.

6. Wonderland

The concept art for the world of Wonderland is just spectacular. It owes a lot to Mark Ryden. It's his jewel-toned, cool pastel, chiaroscuro color palette to a tee. Innocent with a hint of darkness, and a soupcon of psycho.

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Swedish city legalizes topless bathing….at public swimming pools

topless-sweden

Sweden’s third largest city has legalized topless bathing…at public swimming pools.

The City of Malmö decision after initially being asked to vote on a motion that would force women to cover up after a feminist group started appearing at pools topless. Instead they voted in an amended version that said that “everybody should wear bathing suits,” leaving the door open for topless bathing as long as the woman was wearing a bottom part of a bikini.

A council spokesman told The Local that “We don’t define what bathing suits men should wear so it doesn’t make much sense to do it for women. And besides, it’s not unusual for men to have large breasts that resemble women’s breasts.”

The leader of the feminist group behind the law said that “It’s a question of equality. I think it’s a problem that women are sexualized in this way. If women are forced to wear a top, shouldn’t men also have to?”

Germans Get Cheaper Cell Phone Service In Exchange for Ads

Stacey Higginbotham

AL_logo_205pxAlcatel-Lucent said today that it’s begun providing German carrier E-Plus with equipment that inserts advertisements onto mobile devices based on demographic information provided by a subsidiary of the carrier. Customers opt in to the service and in exchange get extra minutes or texts on their cell phone plans. Gettings, the E-Plus subsidiary collecting the information and delivering the ads, offers plans that send between 10-25 ads per week. When customers sign up for the program they are asked to indicate via a checklist topics that interest them so they are subsequently delivered relevant pitches.

Will this become a high-quality targeted advertising effort similar to the ads delivered by Google based on search, or will this sort of advertising instead remind users of the experience offered back in the late 90s when ISPs such as NetZero offered free dial-up in exchange for irritating pitches? If the experience is unobtrusive and the incentives are right, I can see plenty of younger subscribers signing up, and merely accepting ad-based mobile service as the way to do things, much like we do today for search. That could change the business model around low data-rate mobile services such as texting and voice calls, to one in which carriers offer them for free or at reduced rates to folks that accept ads.

As an opt-in program, presumably people will understand what exactly they are giving up, making this less underhanded than other planned mobile advertising schemes. However, it’s still an invasive form of advertising.