Technology Madness

Video Tour of Google Earth 4.3 - Wow, Amazing piece of software

This is a video tour of new features introduced in Google Earth 4.3. They will make you say wow! especially the lighting effects and the panorama street views.

What is new in Google Earth 4.3:

Day/night lighting effects: You can turn on a real-time sunlight which shines on the new atmospheric lighting Google has added

Jump into Street View: You can zoom upto street view. This takes you inside the Google Earth Photo Viewer and lets you pan and zoom around on the inside of the Street View panorama you selected.

New and faster 3D models: Google has optimized the loading and performance of 3D buildings.

New navigation gadgets and controls.

Also check out gearthblog.com for a more detailed review of Google Earth 4.3. The download is available here.

End of one more boring task - inflate your car tire

Tiers commonly leak slowly and unnoticeably. It’s very boring to visit gas station, almost every month, to inflate your car tire. Its also time consuming if you want to find a gas station which offers free compressed air to their customer. It is important to have your car tier inflated up to tire manufacturer’s recommendations. It improves gas mileage and tire longevity. Poor tire pressure costs the US an extra $3.7 billion in fuel annually. (source here: http://www.selfinflatingtire.com/index.html)

Latest automobile technology has an answer for the problem. Technology called “SIT” Self-inflating Tires.  SIT is a newly developed, very simple, inexpensive and reliable system for Self-inflating Tires.  SIT consisting of just two components: a peristaltic pump and a stop-valve that stops over-inflation. However, it is not as simple as it sounds. Brilliant design  of CODA DEVELOPMENT, Czech Republic works behind this break-through innovation.  

How it works:
SIT is an integral tire component that uses atmospheric air to automatically inflate the tire. As a main source of energy it uses only wheel rotation, so there is no compressor or similar additional device needed. The inflation capability doesn’t depend on the speed of the vehicle. It can be inflated with any speed. However, it can not inflate when car is not in motion. Principally, a round tube embedded in the tire’s sidewall is squeezed together at the bottom as the tire rolls, forcing air into the tire. Once it’s inflated to the stop value stops pressure - which can be mechanical — shuts off. That’s it.

 

Currently SIT is not in commercially production but they demonstrated SIT technology at SAE World Congress in April 2008.

Via [Code developmant]

Extra reading:

• Run-flat tire on Wikipedia
• Pirelli SWS
• Tweel on Wikipedia
• Tire inflation systems
• Peristaltic pump on Wikipedia
• Goodyear. “Running a tire 20 percent under inflated - only 5 to 7 pounds per square inch (psi) - can increase fuel consumption by 10 percent.”

Technorati Tags: Inflation, Peristaltic, Peristaltic Pump, Self Inflating TIRE, SIT, Tire, Automotive, Road Safety  

Del.icio.us Tags: Inflation, Peristaltic, Peristaltic Pump, Self Inflating TIRE, SIT, Tire, Automotive, Road Safety

Update (Aug 5, 2008): With reference to Obama and Mccain’s latest tug of war about tire pressure issue, (and read this too!) Obama or Maccain should include automatic self inflating tire technology in their energy plan and should promise to offer tax credit for installing SIT (self inflating tire) in your car tire. What do you think about it?

Tags: automatic tire pressure, self inflating tire, SIT, tire pressure

Blogging Blackmail / Did you google it first?

Blogging Blackmail

Did you google it first?

 

 

Conference Bike turns corporate meetings into a funride

I have seen many companies trying may weird type of things for team building events, ranging from group cooking class to wine/beer testing events. Recently I was in one of the boring party at local brewery. I also notice that less people are attending such company wide meeting at some boring place. Employee with children will attend if picnic is set up at corn field or apple picking farm.

To add a twist in the long conference party ideas, Conference Bike is nice idea for arranging conference. Especially when team members like to sweat a bit. The Dutch Bicycle Company has created a Conference Bike, which promises to be the sure-fire ice-breaker in corporate and/or social environment. (and corporate bosses and executive look like children in a park) CoBi-7 retails for $12,750 in the States while the 5-seater model sells for $8,750. The 400lb bike measures 2.5m L x 1.8m W x 1.4m H and can run upto 1o mph speed.

In case you’re wondering how this bike would be useful in scenarios other than a corporate set up, let me tell you, the two models of the bike, CoBi-5 (good for 5 persons) and CoBi-7 (good for 7 persons) are already being used to employees on the Amazon.com campus in California, Google.com campus in Mountain View CA, as a tour bike in Berlin, and as a corporate team-building tool in London and other major cities.

You tube video about Conference Bike:

Google Employee Riding Conference bike:

Via [Conference Bike and Seven-Person Conference Bicycle and cobi and trend watch and beyondsatire.us]

Extra reading: A Tasty Team Building Exercise

Technorati Tags: Conference Bike, CoBi-5 and CoBi-7, Eric Staller, environmentally-friendly vehicles, Lifestyle

Del.icio.us Tags: Conference Bike, CoBi-5 and CoBi-7, Eric Staller, environmentally-friendly vehicles, Lifestyle

Similar reading:

• BBQ-Donut: Innovative eco-friendly leisure water craft
• Topless meetings for team focus?
• 9 tips for running more productive meetings
• Email and meetings
• More Meeting Effectiveness Ideas
• Ultimate Meeting/Convention Knowledge/Tactics

Tags: Conference Bike, corporate meeting

April Fool or Not April Fool

Here is the list of noticeable news that is floating around web on the first day of April (April Fools’ Day) I have put together a list in which some are April fool jokes and some are real (news.)
APRIL FOOL:

Google: Search tomorrow’s web, today! Enabling you to search content on the internet before it is created
Google: here

NOT APRIL FOOL:

Google: Google Finally Launches Offline Access for Docs. Google announced today that they would be adding the ability for users to work offline in their popular web office suite Google Docs.
Source: here

NOT APRIL FOOL:

Fish carving on face of earth on 1st of april.
Source: geo-trorrer

APRIL FOOL:

Google Earth: Area 51 on Google earth has some alien visitors. They Come in for a peace and for the BBQ
Source: jarnot

APRIL FOOL:
Google Gmail: Gmail Custom Time lets users send emails with a custom date in the past, putting it in the recipients’ inbox at the old date
Source: techcrunch and gmail

APRIL FOOL:

Google and Virgin: Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars. Source: google

APRIL FOOL:

Women’s attractiveness judged by software
Source: zdnet

APRIL FOOL:

A no chair flight: “Stand Up and Be Discounted, Virgin Blue airline”: “no chair fares” for half price as advertised in Australian newspapers
Source: reuters and virginblue

NOT APRIL FOOL:

The 3-D Web Goes Thin: Increasingly, it looks like Weight Watchers has gotten hold of the Semantic Web. Fat is out. Thin is in. And while no one’s counting points, it certainly looks like, thin clients will increasingly play a central roles in attracting organizations to the 3-D web
Source: zdnet

If you wish you can add more by commenting this post… Have a nice April fool day!