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Apple AirPort Express was updated to 802.11n so it’s faster and has a longer range. Boston Dynamics has a video of the BigDog robot and it’s the most lifelike robot movement we’ve seen. The full video is here.
Shuttle is famous for making small form factor barebones PCs. They have a new one, the KPC with Linux and components already installed. The Swiftpoint Slider is a mouse in a new form factor. It’s tiny and controlled by a thumb.
Bluelock is a Windows app that locks your PC when you walk away with a paired Bluetooth device in your pocket. Desktopple Pro from FoggyNoggin.com is a desktop hiding app.
Duke Beattie won the Big Trip logo contest. The story of why we picked his design is at BigTrip.TV.
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March 18th, 2008 at 1:02 am
The Big Dog is amazing. It’s so tough to strike a balance (literally!) between stability and adaptability to uneven terrain. It’s self-recovery, both when kicked and when it was on the ice is stunning. The least surprising part was seeing that DARPA’s involved. My first thought when I saw it was, “THAT is a military application robot.”
March 18th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Just purchased a Drobo here in Belgium and I LOVE it!! ;-))
Thanks for letting us know.
March 18th, 2008 at 6:41 am
*gasp* You didn’t talk about the interesting thing you had on your arm!
BigDog robot video was amazing! I can’t believe the response of it when kicked. It seems so real!
March 18th, 2008 at 7:06 am
What was that on you arm? Inquiring minds want to know!
Salling Clicker used to do the bluetooth walk away on the mac. It would also mute audio on your machine when the phone rang.
March 18th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Yeah, what was that thing? A borg implant??
March 18th, 2008 at 7:40 am
Had to watch it a second time as I found everything blurring whilst I watched and waited in utter fascination for that thing to drop off your arm. Is it the green answer to a bluetooth headset? Martin
March 18th, 2008 at 8:54 am
Haha! I’ll explain on Brief #330…
March 18th, 2008 at 9:19 am
“Cali of Nine”
March 18th, 2008 at 9:59 am
At first glance I thought you had been assimilated by the borg, before I realized that was a phone holder.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Completely agree with Martin. I thought for sure it was going to fall the whole time I was watching.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Cali: The N810 does not connect with the iPhone. What do you and Neil use to connect with it?
March 18th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
ROFL MAO for that iPhone holder. I can’t even finish watching the podcast, cause I am so freaked out.
March 18th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Cali, so why did you have that iPhone holder again? It was never really explained.
BigDog is gonna change the world. Thanks for uploading the full video to the Junk Trunk. It’s absolutely mesmerizing. Watching the video, I could imagine a surprising array of applications. I think we’ll be seeing more BigDog robolegs in more different devices in the future.
Not sure if that’s an exciting thing, or a scary thing.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Sorry if I’m wrong. But, I swear I had seen that BigDog video at least two years ago.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
It may not be the size you’re looking for, but these guys have fun RVs… and you could go nearly anywhere you’d want to. :)
http://earthroamer.com/
March 19th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
@ Cali, I was amazed by the BigDog as well. Very impressive technological intelligence for a robot! I definitely agree that its ability to maintain balance was awesome. Also I too was wondering about that iPhone type contraption snaking up your arm. Guess I’ll have to wait for the next Brief. :)
March 19th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Cali,
Two things – one, that thing on your arm makes you raise your left shoulder to hold it steady – looks like you’ll end up with a neck cramp after a while (look at the video). Two, I know you have your heart set on a NEW bus, but have you looked into consignment lots? There are a LOT of older models that people are looking to unload – here in Houston, they’re shoulder to shoulder…
March 19th, 2008 at 6:18 pm
Oh, one other thing – I know you’re not a Windows girl, but I’m surprised that you didn’t even mention that Vista SP1 has been released to the masses (yesterday). Ah, maybe too easy a target, covered by too many other outlets…
March 19th, 2008 at 10:29 pm
I thought that DARPA funded Big Dog was amazing and creepy and the same time. It’s scary just how advanced our grasp on robotics technology has become. AMAZING video!
You made me have to write about it on my own site as well as reading up on DARPA and Boston Dynamics!
March 20th, 2008 at 11:59 am
@bfos7215, yeah I remembered seeing a similar video a while ago, a quick search on youtube found this 2-year-old video from the same people: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpBG-nSRcrQ, the new video shows their updates and progress
March 20th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Cali,
I just wanted to drop a message to outline some difficulties in regards to engineering a device capable of combining two evdo network interfaces or a dsl interface and an evdo interface.
Some routers do support multiple interface options.
However…. The big issues for what I believe you would like to try and do, isn’t around designing a device capable of supporting the interfaces but rather (one) setting up routing between the broadband carrier or carriers to build bonded interface capable (merging services) of scaling throughput of N x 1 where N is the number of interfaces you are using, (two) the fact that the interfaces are actually different layer 2 protocols (refering to the OSI model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSI_model#Layer_2:_Data_Link_layer) and (three) because they are different “layer 2 OSI model” types, they’re networks are physically heterogenous.
IE. typically the DSL network is physically a different network than the EVDO network “single carrrier” schenario you might use encapsulation (GRE – General Routing Encapsulation) but you would need the carrier(s) to support such a design, you would otherwise be resolved to a Fault Taulerant scenario where if the DSL interface goes down the EVDO interface would become available.
In the case of an outage it would be useful, but truely gaining throughput for all sessions by bonding the network interfaces, would be difficult.
Many routers (I’ve used Cisco routers for 10 years) do support different physical interfaces today but the issue you will have when using multiple providers regardless of the interface type is with routing, that is if you want to scale (merging services) multiple interfaces to gain higher throughput for a single session.
My$.02
March 26th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Cali,
Check out this video of Big Dog… http://gizmodo.com/372272/video-of-bigdog-beta-quadruped-robot-is-so-stupid-its-hilarious?autoplay=true