Innovation - The AT&T ZERO charger shuts down when not in use, reportedly eliminating the dreaded 'vampire suck.'
Innovation - From Pandora to YouTube, there's plenty of free Irish music online. Here are three of the best ways to enjoy a St. Patrick's Day jig.
Innovation - Under attack from nimbler rivals such as Netflix and Redbox, Blockbuster has hinted it could soon file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Innovation - Google Nexus One joins AT&T. Just don't ask about the price tag.
Innovation - Kratos takes on Olympus in this PS3 exclusive, and the God of War 3 review scores are sterling.
Innovation - This week, Tim Bray was appointed 'developer advocate' for Google's Android operating system. Bray wasted no time teeing off on the Apple iPhone.
Innovation - Sanyo's just finished installing the bicycle sheds of the future: "Solar Parking Lots" that capture sunlight and turn it into electricity to charge up 40 electric bikes parked beneath. Shelter, green power, and the health-benefits of bicycling, all in one place. The two sheds are found in Setagaya, Tokyo, and they're designed to work with Sanyo's own Eneloop bicycles. During sunny hours, the incident solar radiation is converted to electrical charge by photovoltaic panels, which either feed the bike's batteries directly, or charge up an array of six lithium ion-based "Standard Battery Systems For Power Storage" for later connection to the bicycles. Furthermore, the solar power is used to illuminate the sheds with low power-drain LEDs for safety and convenience at night. Though the bicycles themselves are indeed electrically-powered, perfect for short range commutes that may reduce the CO2 burden of city traffic, they're also pedal-powered for the steeper inclines or when the batteries run out, which brings health benefits. And the cabinets housing the shed's lithium batteries also contain the necessary power converters to generate a mains voltage AC supply, meaning that in an emergency, devices requiring a mains connection can be quickly hooked up
Innovation - For the week ending March 16, Facebook pulled in more traffic in America than Google. But could Facebook ever really knock Google off its perch?
Innovation - Twitter CEO Evan Williams has taken the wraps off @anywhere, a service which will allow users to access their Twitter feeds from third-party sites. As of SXSW, initial @anywhere launch partners include the New York Times and the Huffington Post.
Innovation - Thought a goat cheese variation was as extreme as Doritos would get? Think again--the snack giant (specifically, its Canadian counterpart) continues to make each new commercial more eye-popping and provocative than the last. Some are successfully clever ("Taste-T Whistle-Blower") while others fall into the just-plain-wrong category, like "Hot Sexy Dorito Lady," (below), in which a certain body part--not the one you are led to believe--is inexplicably used to promote something delicious that you're supposed to put in your mouth. [youtube 8k1CsRGFOxM] The brains behind the Doritos ads know what they're doing, though. The four consumer-created commercials that won this year's "Crash the Super Bowl" cont have generated millions of views in turn for the $5 million in cash prizes the creators received upon being chosen from over 4,000 submissions. The trade-off? By reaching out to viewers and allowing them to express their originality, the Doritos folks can get away with more and accept less of the flack that might come with the more controversial fare. Here's a look at some of the company's recent talked-about ads. Doritos Canada's "Snax Effect" While this ad might not necessarily make you want to go out and buy the chips, you will at least want to forward it to
Innovation - A wave of spokeless bike designs (more renderings than reality) prompts one quion: why? Come on, guys: what did spokes ever do to you? It seems like every new bicycle prototype spinning around the blogosphere has one thing in common. Or rather, lacks it: spokes. For some reason, designers hate the things, coming up with one heavily-stylized way after another to do away with hubs and spokes. Some mechanical engineers from Yale even caused a stir last month by actually building one. But why? The most common reason is weight: Hubless wheels are supposedly lighter. But considering it's pretty easy to find wheel pairs (with spokes) weighing less than 1.5 kilograms, the claim is dubious. You'd need a pretty powerful rim to hold up under pressure unmediated by a set of spokes, and that's bound to weigh quite a bit. Spokes are near perfect: They put the wheel in tension, like a suspension bridge wrapped in a circle. The concept works so well, wheelbuilders have gotten away with using as few as eight spokes on a wheel--but they're still using spokes. When designers play around with the physics--putting spokes in compression, instead of tension, like Mavic infamously tried with their R-Sys wheels--the results are explosive. Should designers give up on rethinking