Robocars actually exist

Add another thing to the list of stuff I didn’t know existed before doing this blog, Robotic Autonomous cars.  Last year DARPA had a race between autonomous cars called the “DARPA Urban Grand Challenge.”  This year, the cars will be participating in the Toyota Grand Prix in Long Beach, CA.  There will be three autonomous cars participating in the race:

Boss-The winner of the DARPA Urban Grand Challenge (Chevy Tahoe)

Junior-A Volkswagen Passat.

Ben-A Toyota Prius.

This race is purely about speed, and not like the DARPA race which included driving ability by the car.  I can see these cars eventually turning into a day to day mode of transportation, but it’ll be a long time before that happens.  And here I thought the idea of a car like K.I.T.T. from Knight Rider was an impossibility.

Anything for a good night’s rest

How hardcore are you?  Seriously.  I hope that one isn’t so paranoid to actually pick up a “Quantum Sleeper.”  I mean, I can see the real world applications of it.

-Protection for Bio-chemical warfare/terrorists

-Protection from natural disasters

-Protection from Kidnappers/Stalkers/Burglars

But I mean seriously, WHY?  I was hoping that people wouldn’t live in such fear that something like this would ever be created, but apparently I was wrong.  The quantum sleeper is more or less a safe with pillows and a mattress to sleep on, even comes complete with a locking chamber that keeps you inside.  Too bad for you if you’re paranoid AND claustrophobic.  At least it has hookups for a DVD-player/screen and my refrigerator.

Check it out here:  http://www.qsleeper.com/

WoW update

Not really a “tech” update I guess, but more of something I wonder.  World of Warcraft updated their game today and the thought crossed my mind of just how much work goes into something like that.  The game has over 9 million subscribers and has to have a gigantic database.  With our test coming up tomorrow and me looking over my notes, I wonder what type of database structure they have set up to handle all that.  I mean, the 9 million people are spread across multiple servers, but there must be millions of pieces of data that has to be stored and updated in real time.  I’m assuming it’s something like Oracle’s Cache-Fusion where the data isn’t written to the actual database as the game runs, but so much information is being written by each and every game client at once that it makes me wonder how they don’t cause lockouts on each other.

I wish I could find out more on it, unfortunately I don’t have access to anything that could tell me how things are run serverside.  And I’m pretty sure that any steps I take to find out would be considered industrial espionage so I think I’ll back off on that one.  But Bravo to Blizzard Inc. for developing the system that they have in place.  Now I need to fix my add-ons after I’m done studying.  >.>

Nice contacts

DARPA is working on contact lenses that are supposed to be out in 3-5 years that augment your sight with digital technology. What does this mean? They took a page out of First Person Shooter video games and are putting the ideas to use for reality. The idea is that these contacts will act like the head mounted HUDs that soldiers currently wear. It can display maps and information about the surrounding area for a person.

Right now it’s still in extreme early stages, they’re trying to make it draw power off of the loose radio waves that surround us. I’ve never worn contacts, but if it became part of every day life I might consider it for these things. The idea behind it is pretty nifty, and I foresee it to be used for military applications only when it first comes out (it is DARPA after all), but just like how the internet was originally made for the military, it might come to regular peoples’ lives as well. But if people get distracted by their cell phone while driving, this will probably be worse. =D

Happy Birthday to me!

It’s my birthday today!  I turn 25, omg a quarter of a century.  I need to finish college, gawd.

In other news, I saw that Intel actually released a wi-fi router thats range stretches 60 miles.   Holy crap

According to them, they have trouble due to the curvature of the earth in order to stretch it further.  Intel has installed and tested it in Panama, India, Vietnam and South Africa.  The idea behind it is to stretch out internet networks from heavily populated urban areas to more spaced out rural areas.  A very nice idea indeed, however I’d probably end up using it to get wireless internet on road trips.  =D

Still, that’s pretty amazing.  The speed isn’t spectacular, somewhere around 5 megabits per second, but at the rate technology advances, I could see that expanding in the very near future.  Anyhow, I’m off to catch a dinner for my birthday!

My glasses are smarter than I am

Aside from the fact that they are ginormous, the idea behind these goggles are actually pretty nifty.  They use the attached camera, HUD, and a computer chip to recognize and store shapes in its internal database to remind you where you last set your keys/iPod/wallet.   It’s an awesome idea because I’m prone to leaving my wallet somewhere and forgetting where I left it the next morning before I go to class.  This of course leads to the madness of searching my room for my wallet only to find that I accidentally left it in my truck the night before (true story, on many occasions).

These goggles were developed by Japanese scientists to help us in our “senior moments.”  Lord knows I have a lot of them.

GM to use a different battery in their cars

GM announced they’re going to be bringing a Lithium-ion battery powered automobile in 2010.  Of course it’s a hybrid like Toyota and Honda, and it is supposed to deliver 3x the power of their current hybrid battery powered vehicles.  These hybrid vehicles are of great interest to me because day to day expenses of gasoline are starting to get killer.

I worry about the lithium ion battery though, seeing as my laptop is powered by one of those.  They get really really warm, to the point where it’s aggravating to have my laptop on my lap.  Then I imagine a car with that.  Sounds fun.  Also, lithium ion batteries tend to have trouble holding a charge after a year or so.  That’d be awesome to get a 5 year loan on one of these and have it die on you a year later, and pay for it for the following 4 years.

And am I the only one that things that is ugly as sin?

Touch me for gas

Apparently, there’s 10 Shell gas stations around the country with a new pay at the pump method. Now all you have to do is simply touch your finger on a keypad, in which all of your payment, personal, and credit card information will be retrieved from their database which your fingerprint is linked to. That’s so awesome that I can leave my credit card at home, and the only way for someone to steal it is to cut off my finger. =D

But seriously, if this gets further looked into, it could be a nice secure way to pay in the future. No credit card to carry around and possibly lose (which I’ve done at a KFC drive-thru) and identity theft at the store level would be much harder to accomplish. Of course, then you couldn’t give your credit card to someone else to pick something up for you because you’re too lazy to get out of bed to get it yourself at the store. I mean, it’s the people at the counters’ responsibility too to make sure that the person paying is really the person who owns the card, but they never check anyway.

CDs going to the dinosaurs?

Compact disc sales are dropping massively as the internet age moves on.  Ever since Napster was first introduced, kids have been downloading their music more and more as the years go by.  Statistics show that in the year 2007, almost half of all teenagers did NOT purchase a single CD in the entire year.  Illegal downloading is actually going down as well while online purchasing through iTunes went up by 45% (now #2 in music retail behind Wal-mart).

These numbers aren’t too surprising, as a lazy young male I prefer to be able to do all my shopping without leaving my house, especially since I can actually sample those songs before I even purchase them.  I no longer even own a CD player, just my computer and my personal MP3, so CDs have turned into that thing I buy “just to have them.”  I can’t wait to see when CDs are being compared to Vinyl Records and Laser Discs.  Then I’ll REALLY feel old.

Space satellites give me internets

A satellite in Japan (named the “Kizuna” satellite) is in the works to be launched into space.  No big news, Earth has been surrounded by satellites for years.  The special thing about this particular satellite is that it aims to actually give insane internet speeds to people in Japan, boasting 1.2 gbps to those on the ground receiving its signal!  That’s INSANE, considering most DSL services are still being measured in the sub 20 mbps.

There are other benefits to this satellite service as well.  All that has to be done to receive the connection is to install an antenna to receive the signal, which isn’t bad for a connection speed of that proportion.  Also, if a natural disaster hits, the satellite is unaffected by it.  This is wonderful for disaster zones (like Japan) for those internet geeks that just can’t have enough of their Youtube.  I hope this hits mainstream in other countries as well, as long as the bill isn’t $300 a month or something like that.