Weekend Reading, 18-02-11

Stuff that I have found enjoyable/challenging/thought-provoking:

Is Mobile Affecting When We Read?

Based on 100 million articles saved by Read It Later users across all major web and mobile platforms.

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UK Debt Bombshell

Depressing but informative

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Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology

Long but interesting article about the film director and screenwriter's decision to leave Hollywood's favourite religion.

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If MSG is so bad for you, why doesn't everyone in Asia have a headache?

A great piece exposing the myths and explaining its history.
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Lendle

Lendle reports: [edited]

The easiest, fastest, fairest and best way to lend and borrow Kindle books.

- Once you sign up for Lendle, you’ll be asked to tell us what Kindle books you own.

- Now you’re ready to borrow books. You may search for the book you’re looking for, or use our Available Now and Recommendations pages to find great books. When you find a book you’re interested in, click the “Borrow” button to request it.

- If a fellow Lendler requests a book you own, you’ll get a notification asking if you want to lend it. When you lend a book, the borrower will have it for 14 days, and then it will be automatically returned to your Kindle.
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Free Font - Daniel

Available from Font Squirrel.
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emPower Spectacles

The New York Times reports: [edited]

Traditionally, people who hit their 40s often need extra optical help as farsightedness sets in. They may buy bifocals or no-line progressive lenses. But such glasses have a drawback: the lenses that magnify fine print also blur objects more than an arm’s length away when a wearer looks down, distorting the view when on a staircase, for example, or when swinging at a golf ball.

The new electronic spectacles, called emPower, are intended to handle that problem with an unusual insert in the bottom part of the lenses: liquid crystals, cousins to the familiar ones in television displays. The crystals change how the lenses refract or bend light, just as varying levels of thickness do in traditional glasses.

To call up reading power in the new glasses, users touch the side of the frame. Batteries in the frame send a current that changes the orientation of molecules in the crystals. Touch the side of the frame again, and the reading power disappears. Turn it off to hit a golf ball; turn it on to read the scorecard.

The glasses, made by PixelOptics in Roanoke, Va., will be on the market this spring — first in Virginia and North Carolina, and later in the year nationally, said Dr. Ronald Blum, an optometrist and the company’s president. The estimated price, $1,000 to $1,200, will include frames, lenses, coatings and charger.

Thanks to Keith for the link.
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Nissan ESFLOW

Mashable reports: [edited]

Propelled by a separate electric motor on each of its rear wheels, the Nissan ESFLOW is a two-seater that can zip from 0 to 60 MPH in less than 5 seconds. It debuts next month at the International Motorshow in Geneva.

It will use key components from the Nissan Leaf, such as its lithium-ion battery packs. This sportier Nissan will have a lighter and more expensive body made of aluminum and composite materials.

There’s more exotica, including brake and gas pedals that adjust electronically to fit each driver, fly-by-wire steering and video cameras and screens instead of rear-view mirrors.
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Sunday Soundtrack, 13-02-11

Sycamore - Bill Callahan
Changingman - Paul Weller
Heretics - Midlake
Trampoline - The Grates
The Only Love - The Silos
The Trouble With Poets - Peter Mulvey
You Were Always The One - the Cribs
Ain't No Pleasing You - Chas 'N' Dave
Billion Dollar Baby - Alice Cooper
Furnace Room Lullaby - Neko Case And Her Boyfriends
Alright - Baboon
Gone Daddy Gone - Violent Femmes
Sun Arise - Rolf Harris
In The City - The Jam
One of Us (single) - Joan Osborne
Flash - Queen
Sistersong - Rachael Sage
Mink Coats - Patty Larkin
Cold Missouri Waters - Cry Cry Cry (Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky, Richard Shindell
Blackbird - Rosalyn Sweat & The Paragons
Deep (Breathe Mix) - East 17
House Of The Rising Sun - The Animals
When We Was Fab - George Harrison
Herculean - The Good The Bad And The Queen
I Hate Everything - George Strait
Words With The Shaman Pt. 3 Awakening (Songs from the Tree Tops) - David Sylvian
Harrowdown Hill - Thom Yorke
Isis (live) - Bob Dylan
Cornflake Girl (live) - Tori Amos
Never For Nothing - Margaret Becker
When - Kathryn Williams
Snowden - Doves
I Can't Get Over You - Julie Roberts
Hard to Know - Mindy Smith
Let's Go Away For Awhile - The Beach Boys
Twin Cinemas - The New Pornographers
Purple House - Prince
Sympathy For The Devil (Neptune remix) - The Rolling Stones
Run Runaway - Slade
Duke Of Earl - Platters
Old Shep - Johnny Cash
If you think you know how to Love me - Smokie
Sister Madly - Crowded House
Lady Madonna (Love version) - The Beatles
All's Quiet On The Inner City Front - Bruce Cockburn
Distant Sun - Crowded House
Hold On - Good Charlotte
Ma Baker - Boney M
Science Of Silence - Richard Ashcroft
Why Do Lovers Break Each Others Hearts - Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans
Start Again - Catie Curtis
Sky Is Falling - Beth Hart
Lookin' Up - Shelby Lynne
I'd Rather Jack - The Reynolds Girls
I Gotta Get Drunk - The Little Willies
I Keep Forgettin' - Michael McDonald
Love And A Molotov Cocktail - The Flys
Don't Look Back in Anger - Oasis
Basket Case - The Moog Cookbook
New York - Stephen Fretwell
Oh By The Way - Minnie Riperton
I Lost You (But I Found Country Music) - Laura Cantrell & Gordon McIntire (Ballboy)
The One I'm Waiting For - Relient K
Song To Woody - Bob Dylan
Silver Platter Club - John Grant
Breakdown - Relient K
Sylvie - Sweet Honey In The Rock
Please Break My Heart - Caitlin Cary
I'm Gonna Dress In Black - Version 1 - Them
Tonite It Shows - Mercury Rev
River Knows Your Name - John Hiatt
Until The End Of The World - U2
I Just Drove By - Willie Nelson
I Walk Away - Crowded House
Kick The Stones - Chris Whitley
Sell Your Hair - Pernice Brothers
How High - Madonna
Dreaming Of Me - Depeche Mode
The Panic Is On - Roy Hamilton
How Many Worlds - Brian Eno
Cowboy Song - Live - Thin Lizzy
So Here We Are - Bloc Party

based on my iTunes *music* smart playlist

(click on image to see full-size version)


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Universal Flu Vaccine Draws Closer

guardian.co.uk reports: [edited]

Scientists at Oxford University have successfully tested a universal flu vaccine that could work against all known strains of the illness, taking a significant step in the fight against a disease that affects billions of people each year.

The treatment – using a new technique and tested for the first time on humans infected with flu – targets a different part of the flu virus to traditional vaccines, meaning it does not need expensive reformulation every year to match the most prevalent virus that is circulating the world.

Developed by a team led by Dr Sarah Gilbert at Oxford's Jenner Institute, the vaccine targets proteins inside the flu virus that are common across all strains, instead of those that sit on the virus's external coat, which are liable to mutate.

If used widely a universal flu vaccine could prevent pandemics, such as the swine flu outbreaks of recent years, and end the need for a seasonal flu jab.
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HP Veer

It has the frontal dimensions of a credit card (and the thickness of 20 credit cards), and weighs just over 100 grammes.

For the HP brochure page, click here.

'Planned availability this spring'.
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HP TouchPad

Its name sounds like a lazy committee's conflation of a couple of Apple products, it looks identical to an iPad and it's not available until 'late Summer'.

For HP's brochure site, click here.

For some intelligent first thoughts from John Gruber, click here.
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Nikon Coolpix 300

Digital Photography Review reports: [edited]

Nikon has released the Coolpix P300 compact with manual controls and an F1.8-4.9 lens. It incorporates a 1/2.3" 12MP back-illuminated CMOS sensor, 920K dot 3.0" LCD and features 1080p30 Full HD movies and P/A/S/M shooting modes.

The 'big' new feature introduced in the Coolpix P300 is 1080p, 'Full HD' video. Full HD is still relatively rare in compact cameras, and it is something that none of the P300's 'high-end' peers currently offer.

At the equivalent of 24mm, its lens is wider than either the Canon S95's or Olympus XZ-1's 28mm equivalent, but is slightly shorter than both at the tele end. It is worth noting that although it boasts a very fast maximum aperture of f/1.8, this gets a lot smaller as the lens is zoomed in. In fact, f/1.8 is only available with the lens set to its very widest focal length.

A fast lens usually means greater control over depth of field, but here too, all is not what it seems. Because, all other things being equal, a smaller sensor means less control over depth of field, the P300 doesn't match up to its high-end competitors despite seeming to offer a similar maximum aperture range.

Also, for good depth of field control the lens really needs to be fast at the telephoto end, and the P300's isn't. So don't expect to be able to get the same sort of blurred backgrounds with the P300 as you can with the Olympus XZ-1, for example.

The Coolpix P300 will be available next month at an estimated retail price of $329.95.
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Moel Wireless Micro Record Player

Retro Thing reports: [edited]

Made in Italy by a company named Mo-El in Milano, it plays 33 & 45rpm discs. It has no amplifier but instead includes an AM transmitter that works in the 250 to 300m range. You have to put a radio next to the record player in order to play the music.
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Tunisia

The Big Picture reports: [edited]

Beginning in December of last year, a series of ongoing protests in the streets of Tunisia escalated to the point where President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali - who had ruled the country for 23 years - at first declared he would not seek re-election, then fled the country on January 14th.

An interim government was assembled, but protesters remain in the streets, demanding removal of all traces of Ben Ali's old RCD party. Protesters' frustrations with high unemployment, inflation and corruption drove them to the streets after a pivotal event, when a young Tunisian vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire after police confiscated his produce cart. Bouazizi died of his injuries days later.

Collected here are images of the turmoil in Tunisia over the past couple of weeks. (40 photos total)
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DC-14 Nokia Bike Charger

First announced last June, the Nokia Bike Charger is now available to buy.

Nokia reports: [edited]

- At 12 km/h it charges as efficiently as a mains-powered charger.
- Easy to install.
- Dirt and weather resistant for reliable performance.
- Attaches your Nokia phone securely to your bike.
- Compatible with any Nokia phone with a 2mm charge socket.

Price: £25 + £4 delivery.
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Taylors Magnetic Knife Rack

Taylors Eye Witness reports: [edited]

Bamboo or Beech Magnetic Knife Racks - 45cm long. Comes with template and screws and sits flush again the wall.
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Droplr

Droplr reports: [edited]

Droplr makes sharing images on the web easy.

- Need to share a text note? Or how about a code snippet? We'll even syntax highlight it for you.

- Every account comes with 1GB of free storage. Plenty of room to host and share all your bits.

- Droplr has full keyboard shortcut support.

- Sharing screenshots made easy. Only upload the screenshots you want to share.

- Twitter integration.

Droplr is free to use (with ad supported content).

Thanks to Brecon for the link
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Lumix DMC-FX78

Digital Photography Review reports: [edited]

Panasonic has released the Lumix DMC-FX78 ultra-compact with an F2.5-5.9 5x zoom lens starting at 24mm. The 12.1MP camera features a 3.5" touch screen LCD with touch zoom, AF tracking, shutter and playback capabilities.

It also offers full 1080 HD recording in AVCHD format and a 3D Mode that produces a 3D photo in .MPO format by taking 20 consecutive photos and overlaying the two best into a 3D image.

100 x 55 x 21 mm, 142g (with battery and card). Available March 2011.
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Badass Lego Guns

You can purchase the book here, along with Weapons for Lego Lovers and Forbidden Lego: Build the Models Your Parents Warned You Against!
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Sony announces 'Next Generation Portable'

Register Hardware reports: [edited]

The successor to the PSP, or 'Next Generation Portable', has been revealed in Tokyo, and Sony claims it's as powerful as the PS3.

The NGP has a high-res OLED touchscreen as well as a touch-sensitive back panel. It features front- and rear-facing cameras, dual analog sticks and tilt-sensitive controls.

There is huge emphasis on network play and the device now packs a 3G connection, as well as WiFi. Every game will feature LiveArena, a communication system for chatting with other gamers through the Playstation Network.

It also features Near, a method for sharing game information between local users and offers an option for virtual link-up. The NGP has a proprietary Flash memory card system, which Sony claims will provide super high capacity game cards.


Third-party developers showed 'Yakuza 4' and 'Metal Gear Solid 4' on the system, while Activision announced a new 'Call of Duty'. The Playstation Suite platform, which will appear on mobiles as well as the NGP, is backwards compatible with PSP games and has support for PSone titles and Android-based games.
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Forget jetpacks, vacuum tubes are the future!

Wired reports: [edited]

Building a “traffic internet” of vacuum tubes that zip drivers to anywhere on earth in under an hour and circumnavigate the globe in two hours might sound like science fiction, but work on vehicles capable of tube-travel is already underway.

The vacuum tubes won’t be around during our lifetime, but cars built in this decade could lay the groundwork for a future transportation infrastructure.

With new cars must come new roadways. By 2050, Maskus thinks elevated tracks will separate high-speed Acabions from antiquated automobiles, just as horse-drawn carriages aren’t allowed on interstates. Elevated tracks over highways would be automated, much like high-speed rail but with individual cars. And when the elevated highways end, Acabion users can still drive on existing roads.

Next up is a network of intercontinental vacuum tubes — a “traffic internet” — that probably sounds as far-fetched today as an undersea telegraph cable did in the 1850s.

“Two tubes between New York and Paris, 1.5 meters in diameter each, maglev driven and fully automatic controlled, will move three times more people between America and Europe than all airplanes do today,” Maskus said.

If you’re itching for a taste of that future, we suggest you check out the current Acabion lineup. It consists of custom-made streamliners that Maskus is aiming at customers bored with their Veyrons. For starters, the Acabion GTBO borrows an engine from the Suzuki Hayabusa, has a top speed of 340 mph, can get 100 mpg at 100 mph and has a $2.5 million price tag.


Image courtesy of Acabion

RunKeeper Pro

RunKeeper reports: [edited]

RunKeeper makes tracking your workouts fun, social, and easy to understand so that you can improve the quality of your fitness. Join the RunKeeper community and have fun with the easiest way to track, measure, and improve your fitness!

The iPhone App is available free (usual price $9.99) until 31 January 2011. It's available on the Android platform as well.
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