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Snap Power USB Charger

You know a product is a great idea when a couple of pictures describe the entire product. With that in mind, we’ve all seen wall outlet USB charges, but the Snap Power, in my opinion, will rule them all. The design is clever. Installation is ultra-easy. Accessibility supersedes all others. Take a second and just look at it: In my mind there are three things which make this a brilliant wall charger. If you don’t mind me walking you through the obvious, here we go. Or skip the highlights and jump right over to their website: The design is brilliant. The User keeps both outlets available for normal use while a sleek looking USB port is added underneath. At the time of this article there is one USB socket, but visiting their website you can see two sockets, one on either side. They are constantly improving. Installation is very easy. Simply unscrew your current face-plate and replace it with Continue Reading

(Infograph) History of Portable Storage Devices

The history of portable storage is an interesting one and starts earlier then you probably think.  Starting in 1928 the punch card is what started it all.  Like the punch music you probably remember on your grandmothers piano where the piano played automatically from the punch roll.

(Infograph) History of Portable Storage Devices

History of Portable Storage (Infograph) An infographic by the team at History of Portable Storage (Infograph)

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Eliminating Moore’s Law With Phosphorus Atom Transistor

Scientists are trying to break the boundaries of Moore’s law by taking a phosphorus atom and create a working transistor as the gate to control electrical flow. Moore’s law describes a long-term trend in the history of computer manufacturing whereby the number of transistors that can be placed in the same amount of space doubles approximately every two years. Michelle Simmons, director of ARC Center for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at the University of New South Wales, Australia, took an atom and etched it into a silicon bed with “gates” to control electrical flow and metallic contacts to apply voltage to start/stop current.  It’s the first such device to be precisely positioned using Continue Reading

Web Receipt Is Snap Shot of Web

Little Printer is a thermal printer which browses the web and prints up interesting snippets of information. I love my iPhone and use it for many things, keeping a calendar, phone book, email, text etc, but I still prefer a piece of paper to make my daily list of to-do’s.  Likewise, it’s best to read a story from a book or magazine.  Well, along those same lines of “analog” textual feeling is the Little Printer.  A printer designed to print up a receipt of information for a grab-n-go read. For all the douche-bags who are going to write about going green, or go paperless, or get with the times and read your phone – you know I’m right when I say – screw you!   Sometimes paper is better. Continue Reading

Jelly Batteries – A Better Solution

In a jelly battery the jelly would replace the liquid electrolytes currently used in most lithium batteries.  University of Leeds dreamed up a very unique solution to our never-ending-quest for more battery power. A new prototype of battery, the jelly battery, avoids what the pros call “thermal runaway.”  The thermal runaway is what causes batteries to over heat and [sometimes] catch on fire. The Leeds research team says their secret to success lies in the blending of a rubber like polymer with a conductive, liquid electrolyte into a thin, flexible file of gel.  That film sits between the battery electrodes.
“Safety is of paramount importance in lithium batteries. Conventional lithium batteries use electrolytes based on organic liquids; this is what you see burning in pictures of lithium batteries that catch fire. Replacing liquid electrolytes by a polymer or gel electrolyte should improve safety and lead to an all-solid-state cell,”
said Professor Peter Bruce from the University of St Andrews, who was not involved in the study. Continue Reading

Osama bin Laden Used USB Flash Drives To Stay Current

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last 7 days, we all know Osama bin Laden was killed on May 1, 2011 by US Special Forces. Reading through many articles that week, it’s interesting to learn the al Qaeda leader kept quite and under the radar for nearly 5 years by living in a solid wall compound and without direct cable access, TV access, internet access. The only direct access bin Laden had was a radio. That said, Osama bin Laden kept current with the outside world by use of flash drives. It was reported his trusted courier would shuffle USB flash drives between his compound and the outside world to communicate, send message and negotiate with the al Queda terrorist group. During the attack on Monday May 2nd the Special Forces recovered nearly 1000 thumb drives which contained all sorts of information about bin Laden and his relationship with al Qaeda organization. What is also interesting is the level of hypocrisy bin Laden had. Along with the report of flash drives – which you can only assume many of them where made by US companies – bin Laden also had Coca Cola brought to his compound as well. It seems extremely hypocritical for a terrorist who’s sworn his life to avenge all American’s, yet indulges in US products during his day-to-day existence. With the hundreds of USB flash drives now in the hands of the Special Forces we should learn a lot more about the habits, plans and leaders of the al Qaeda network. Glad bin Laden is gone from our world. Continue Reading

Off Topic: British Open 2011 Accommodations

British Open 2011 Accommodations

Off topic post about housing accommodations for the 2011 British Open. Are you an avid golfer – or a fan of watching golf on T.V.?  Have you ever been to London and wondering the streets jumping from pub to pub?  Well if either sound interesting and you have a bit of extra cash, then consider going to the British Open 2011 event.  A friend of a friend has a great flat not too far from the Open and it would be an opportune time to experience all this at a fantastic rate.  Read on for the British Open 2011 Accommodations. Danecourt House Location: Deal [map] Bedrooms: 2 (sleeps 4) Garden: Private Courtyard Minimum Let Time: One Week Daily Rent: £150 Distance from Open course: 5 Miles Initial non-refundable booking deposit of £500. Balance 2 months in advance complete payment on arrival. 7 days minimum rental period. Danecourt House is an exceptionally pleasant traditional cottage in central Deal. 500 meters from the sea front, close to Deal Castle and 3 minutes from the nearest pubs and restaurants. Recently decorated with traditional style kitchen and bathroom. Large open plan downstairs living area. 2 double bedrooms and courtyard garden with BBQ. This is a great property in a perfect location to enjoy the wonders of Deal and the Open. On street parking to the front of the property. This property is available throughout the period of the Open and for periods before and after the event. Contact Info: Name:Mr N Ranshaw Email: nicr@cd-writer.com Phone: 0208 293 0777 (office hours) More info and source: Blog CD-Writer. Continue Reading

Off Topic – Huge Sky Balloon To Lift 150 Ton Gear

So cruising the news today for USB updates, I stumbled upon this article about an Australian company dreaming up a giant sky balloon to carry stuff. When you need to get heavy gear into remote places a road can’t always get you there.  Sometimes the gear is so large, air lifting it in wont get you there either.  So what to do?  How about a ginormous sky balloon?

Sky balloon

To give you an idea of the type of problem this Australian company [Skylifter] is trying to solve; a helicopter is the only aircraft which can float in a product of great size or weight to a remote location – but it’s got limitations.  A helicopter can only carry about 50 tons of gear.  What if the stuff weighs more than 50 tons? The balloon is 150-meters wide and could carry up to 150 tons.  The balloon would have a flight range of 1240 miles and would act like a parachute on decent to make a gentle touchdown. A mini RC version of the balloon is now being tested and is 9 feet across. It can carry about 1 pound with a full-size prototype set to start building in the coming three years. Continue Reading

How To: Make Great Looking iPhone Wallpaper

So here is my tutorial on making a great looking iPhone wallpaper design. The concept is fairly easy, here is the high level over view:  We will set the proper size, create the pattern image, upload the image to a web space, download the image and set it as the wallpaper.  Sounds easy, right? Well it is. First, the correct size for the iPhone screen is 320×480 pixels.  So get into your favorite photo editing program and get a blank file with the size of 320×480 pixels for you iPhone wallpaper. Second, you’ll need to create an image.  Of course you can take a picture and set it that way, but I’m thinking more like a subtle pattern that isn’t obtrusive and is more complimentary to yourself while using the iPhone rather then having an ego trip by setting my kids best picture as my wallpaper. For me, Photochop is my weapon of choice and I created this nice little pattern image which we’ll use for the wallpaper.

iphone wallpapper

Note:  With the new iPhone 4.0+ firmware you have the ability to set the lock/unlock wallpaper and set a different picture as your background image for Home when using your iPhone.  I think the above pattern image is a very nice background image for the Home position. Third, after you’ve created your pattern image, you will save it as a Continue Reading

Off Topic: Rip2iPod Launches New CD Ripper Service

CD ripping is certainly nothing new, but if you’ve ever done it, the process is slow, boring and a massive suckage of time.  For that reason, I wanted to post about it a new service I found.  Rip2iPod is a CD ripping service which converts your CDs into MP3 files. The CD Ripping service is very straight forward.  Ship the discs.  They rip them.  They send them back on a DVD archive.

CD ripping service

At that point it’s your job to finish the task and drop those MP3s into your iTunes or media management software. After reading their FAQ about the CD ripper process I learned a couple things I didn’t know, for example; an average CD collection is 250 discs.  The CD ripping for that quantity would take about 20-25 hours of solid work. The CD ripping process includes meta data [tagging of songs] which include genre, album artwork when available, date, etc etc.  You also have the choice on bit rate compression…or simply put, the quality of CD ripping you’d like. The minimum order is quantity of 100.  To get more details on price, shipping instructions and options, visit their site. Continue Reading

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