Month: March 2008

New! Gmail Custom Time

Custom Time from GmailAh yes, it must be that time again…

Ever wish you could go back in time and send that crucial email that could have changed everything — if only it hadn’t slipped your mind? Gmail can now help you with those missed deadlines, missed birthdays and missed opportunities.
Pre-date your messages
You tell us what time you would have wanted your email sent, and we’ll take care of the rest. Need an email to arrive 6 hours ago? No problem.
Mark as read or unread
Take sending emails to the past one step further. We let you make emails look like they’ve been read all along.
Make them count
Use your custom time stamped messages wisely — each Gmail user gets ten per year.
Worry less
Forget your finance reports. Forget your anniversary. We’ll make it look like you remembered.

Gmail: Google’s approach to email

$25 Head-Mounted Display

This is a bit old news but if you act soon you can snatch one of these up before they are gone. This is a cool little hack to repurpose the head mounted display from a remote controlled car for better purposes. The procedure is simple, get a power supply (some batteries) pop the back off the display and move a shunt from one pad to another (switch form PAL to NTSC video standards) and you are set.
[via hackaday]
$25 Head-Mounted Display « Jake of All Trades

‘Scarab’ the Robot Goes to the Moon

More robots on the moon. Well, only if they get funding and the thing works. Lets hope it does.

The Field Robotics Center at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute has developed a prototype moon rover, “Scarab.” The robot has the ability to perform the challenging task of lunar prospecting.
The ultimate goal of lunar prospecting is to discover, extract, and utilize resources in the soil of other planets.

The Tartan Online : ‘Scarab’ the robot

BattleBots on ESPN in ’08?

Looks like the sound of gnashing gears and grinding steel may once again grace the television sets of America. Noted sports cable network ESPN has been talking to BattleBots about a possible hook up later this summer. I for one am looking forward to it, nothing quite like seeing two hundred plus pound remote controlled cars beating the crud out of each other. Ah, technology…

(page might be down, last I looked the server’s log files are filling up its hard drive!)
Welcome to BattleBots.com : News and Press

Solar-thermal plant In Arizona

I’ll be the first one to say it, someone is going to complain about the reflection of the collectors. I would assume that things like this are taken into account but you can never tell in this litigious world.

Abengoa Solar Inc., a Spanish technology company that has several smaller solar-thermal projects in Spain, North Africa and the United States, will build and run the Solana Generating Station. Solana will use 2,700 "troughs" of mirrors lined up across former alfalfa farmland, focusing sunlight on tubes in the middle of the troughs. The tubes will be filled with a petroleum-based chemical that will heat up to 735 degrees, and transfer their heat to water, making steam and spinning turbines in two 140-megawatt generators. The petroleum liquid is reused in the tubes, not burned. The plant also will use molten salt to store heat and continue generating electricity for as long as six hours after the sun sets. That’s key in Arizona, where residents use the most electricity between 5 and 6 p.m., when the sun is low in the sky and common solar panels struggle to generate electricity.

[via lonelocust]
$1 billion solar-thermal plant near Gila Bend to supply APS customers