Oh! Gizmo

By Andrew Liszewski

Is anyone else starting to get the idea that the upcoming Olympic games in Beijing will be memorable, but not because of the sporting events themselves? According to the official website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the following items are prohibited at the Olympic Green venues.

In accordance with national law, like elsewhere in the country, guns, grenades, gun powder, explosives, and other dangerous articles in this category are forbidden. In addition, everyday objects that may potentially affect security, such as glass bottles, hot water thermoses, coolers, and other such items used to carry things cannot be brought into competition grounds. No banners or other material bearing slogans are permitted. With the exception of strollers and wheelchairs, no supportive equipment is allowed. Whistles, horns, radios, walkie-talkies, speakers, drums, sticks, or sharp objects that may be harmful are also not permitted. Sports equipment, suitcases, large bags, and professional camera equipment will not be allowed into the Olympic Green.

While most of the stuff is common sense, it seems that security will not be letting visitors bring in professional camera equipment unless they’re brandishing press credentials. As someone who exclusively switched to a DSLR a few years ago, I would hate to have to rely on a P&S camera, particularly if I paid to travel half way around the world to attend the Olympic games. People have been speculating that the ban is mostly to prevent photographers with large lenses from blocking the view of other spectators in the stands, so why not just ban large lenses? It’s not like they’re hard to spot at a security checkpoint. Unfortunately it’s not like this rule is going to change with a week left before the games, so if you’ll be attending, and have managed to score yourself tickets to an actual event, it looks like you’ll have no choice but to leave your gear in your hotel room.

[ Prohibited items in Olympic Green ] VIA [ Crave ]

By Evan Ackerman

I’m way paranoid about my data. I’m not even sure that “paranoid” is the appropriate word, I guess, since I’ve suffered several primary drive failures in my laptop over the years, as have an alarming number of friends… Virtually all of the heavy computer users I know have had similar experiences. If this has happened to you, you know how much it sucks, especially if you lose things that can’t be replaced, like pictures or email.

After nearly having my computer die (again) last month, I’m trying to figure out the best way to keep my data safe. I can think of two options: online backup services (like IDrive), or a desktop RAID system (like Drobo). If any of you have experience or opinions on the matter, let me know what you think, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

This is one of those days that I hoped would never come. At the age of 90, Arthur C. Clarke passed away in Sri Lanka after suffering a cardio-respiratory attack. While he’s best known for the film/novel 2001: A Space Odyssey, Clarke had written over a hundred books in his lifetime and is often credited with the idea of using artificial satellites for communications and other applications.

As a huge fan of Clarke’s work I’m sad that this day has finally come, but every time I introduce someone to his work I know his legacy will live on. I find it funny that if you were to go back and read a random OhGizmo! post from just a few years ago, the technology would seem pretty dated. But reading a tech-heavy Clarke book from 20 or 30 years ago doesn’t. He definitely had a gift for writing about technology, whether it be interstellar spacecraft or artificial intelligence, that emphasized the ’science’ aspect of science fiction.

[ BBC - Writer Arthur C Clarke dies at 90 ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I originally bought my Asus EEE PC a few weeks after it was released to serve as a mobile blogging system. My full size laptop is about 4 years old now and while it’s still a perfectly usable machine, I had forgotten how ridiculously heavy it was. The EEE on the other hand is not only light, but it fits inside my camera bag meaning I don’t need to travel with a separate case just for my computer.

Unfortunately my love affair with the EEE came crashing down while I was at the NAIAS. Well to be honest while the EEE itself was fantastic, my issues were really software related. First off, the default Xandros install was my first time really using Linux, and while the user-friendly front end was easy to use, installing non Asus-approved apps and other enhancements wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. (Though there are many fantastic tutorials online already.) And while the suite of included software works fantastic if you just need email, web or office-type programs, the one piece of software that was really missing for me was a good image editor.

So before I even bought the EEE I made sure I’d be able to install a program called GIMP, which is an open-source alternative to Photoshop. Unfortunately I’d only ever dabbled with GIMP in the past, and while I applaud the developers for creating a robust image editing application they basically give away, GIMP is no Photoshop. To be clear, rarely a day has gone by in the past 7 or 8 years where I’m not doing something in Photoshop, and while GIMP can mostly match PS when it comes to features, there were just too many little things I couldn’t do, or behaved differently that drove me crazy. I’m sure if I stuck with GIMP for a few months I would get used to its workflow, but since there’s also a handful of PS specific plugins I can’t live without, I’m just going to stick with Photoshop.

So when I got back from Detroit I was really tempted to sell my EEE, but instead I decided to replace the standard Xandros OS with Windows XP, and so far I’m extremely happy with the results. The install process was ridiculously easy, and Asus even provides a DVD with all the Windows drivers you’ll need. The biggest challenge of course is the tiny 4GB SSD hard drive, but so far I have XP with all its updates installed plus a host of other applications I rely on, with about 700MB still free. And on top of that a 4GB SD card serves as a secondary drive.

All in all I still recommend the EEE to people looking for an extremely portable laptop, and I even think the Xandros OS is a great alternative to Windows if you’re just surfing the web or answering email. But for my needs XP is just turning out to be a better solution.

[ Asus EEE PC ]

By Andrew Liszewski

When the Chevrolet Volt concept was revealed at last year’s NAIAS it not only made headlines in the major automotive publications and websites, but throughout the gadget and technology blogging community as well. Normally you have to stick a 32-inch LCD TV in the trunk of a car for it to be considered ‘gadget-fare’ but the Volt stood on its own as a great piece of technological innovation. And while there’s no doubt we’ll all be driving electric cars like the Volt some day, there are still some big hurdles to overcome before that’s a reality.

As much as I’d like to walk into a dealership right now and buy myself a Volt, it hasn’t officially been announced as a production vehicle just yet. While at the show I had an opportunity to speak to Tony Posawatz, the Volt’s Vehicle Line Director and Denise Gray who’s the Director of Hybrid Energy Storage Systems at GM. They both admitted that the biggest hurdle for the Volt to overcome was the current state of lithium ion batteries. A 20-hour battery life for an MP3 player might be totally acceptable, but if a larger version of that battery can only power a car for 3 miles, consumers just won’t buy it. And besides performance, there’s a long list of other issues that have to be dealt with on a battery designed to power something as large as a car. But GM has apparently been working hard with a handful of other companies to overcome these problems, and they’re confident they’ll be able to bring an affordable production version of the Volt to the masses in just a couple of years. (And by affordable I mean in comparison to expensive high-performance electric cars like the Tesla or Karma.)

But while the Volt and other hybrid vehicles will no doubt be a big step towards reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, there are still millions of vehicles on the road that exclusively rely on gasoline. It would be great if everyone was willing to just trade in their cars for a hybrid or electric model right now, but that’s simply not going to happen. So dealing with those legacy vehicles is probably the biggest obstacle when it comes to weaning the world off of gasoline.

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By David Ponce

Over the last five days, a small tempest has been brewing in some tech blogging circles. I’m going to talk about it here because I’m indirectly involved. And also because, frankly, I’m somewhat pissed.

It involves our advertising agency, Federated Media (who also represent sites like Digg, BoingBoing, Techcrunch, GigaOm and others) and an inflammatory article posted last Friday on tech gossip blog Valleywag. The controversy revolves around allegations of bribery and ethical misconduct. Two camps have formed over this issue and pointed arguments have been flung back and forth for the past five days, with Microsoft caught in the crossfire. Some could say that I’m inherently biased here, as Federated Media represent us. Maybe. But I’m entitled to an opinion too, and if you care to hear it, keep on reading.

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By Evan Ackerman

Yesterday I wrote about an Air Powered car, and based on the, uh, popularity of that post (which I will address in due course), here’s another type of vehicle that uses air to increase fuel efficiency. The new tech under the hood is called Fuel Vapor, and it’s able to increase the fuel efficiency of any gas engine by up to 20% while at the same time decreasing CO2 emissions by 30%, all without a catalytic converter. This is all apparently made possible by mixing air with fuel at a ratio of 20:1, as opposed to 14.7:1, which is standard for most cars.

Although the Fuel Vapor system can be installed on any gas engine, it’s flagship platform, the alé (that would be “allay,” not “ale”), is no slouch. The alé has a 180hp Honda engine and can accelerate from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds, with an electronically limited top speed of 140 mph. It corners at 1.7g on street tires, and at 92 mpg, can drive from Canada so San Francisco without refueling. Furthermore, it emits 75% less CO2 than your average hybrid. The initial run of these cars will be hand built and cost $75,000 (Canadian), with mass production predicted to bring the price down to less than half that in 5 years. A video, and more commentary, after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

By Andrew Liszewski

That’s right, it seems my XBox 360 has met with the same fate as many of its brothers and sisters have via the infamous red ring of death.

As the story goes, I had a rare bit of free time on my hands last night and felt that the old 360 had become a bit neglected since its newly adopted brother the Wii had been brought home. So I dusted off the controllers, fired it up and after a few minutes of poking around the dashboard the system froze on me. After a quick reboot and a few more minutes it happened again. Sadly by the 3rd reboot instead of seeing the green ring of LEDs come on they instead turned red. Now I’ll admit that I’ve occasionally seen the red LEDs come on over the past 6 months but the console always came back to life after that (I know the red lights indicate different problems depending on what quadrant doesn’t light up) so I wasn’t too worried about it. But this time it looks like it’s officially game over.

The best part of the story is that my 360 seems to have taken its final breaths about 20 or so days after the one-year warranty expired which means I’m going to have to pay up in order to get the unit fixed. Hooray! I should probably be angrier than I am but like I mentioned since the Wii arrived my 360 has gone largely ignored so getting it back in running order is not exactly a pressing issue for me. From what I can tell as long as I get it fixed in time for GTA4 I should be ok…

By David Ponce

Here’s hoping that we’ll be able to remove the word “experimental” one day. That of course depends entirely on you guys. “Open Mic Friday” is an invitation to get some sort of discussion going right here in the comments. The more feces are flung, the better, though we’d definately appreciate it more if instead of feces, you could fling love, passion and speculation for all things technological.

Of course, we realize that trees don’t grow without seeds, so let me fling you (see, we’re flinging too) a couple of topics that might arouse a conversation or two.

Or not.

- Is Digg’s Kevin Rose really worth $60 million?

- Women prefer Plasmas to diamonds! Has hell frozen over?

- Gizmodo calls: touchscreen video iPod due out in November. Any baseless opinions?

- Google screams Bloody Murder! at the “genericide” of its brand name. Shouldn’t it be happy its gotten so popular, Google is now a verb?