Codemasters Brothers Handed CBEs
June 14, 2008
David and Richard Darling, the brothers that co-founded the games giant Codemasters have been awarded with CBEs in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. Having initially started the company in their bedroom, Codemasters has gone on to become one of the leading video games publishers producing games like the Colin McRae Rally series and Lord of the Rings online as well as a host of other games on a variety of different platforms.
Originally, the Darling brothers along with their dad created titles for the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, BBC Micro, and Acorn Electron. These early games started with BMX simulator and progressed to include other simulator titles including Fruit Machine Simulator.
An unlicensed version of Micro Machines on the Nintendo Entertainment System was one of the first big titles to really project their names into the echelons of video game folklore. The NES was supposed to prevent unlicensed games from being created by using a “lock-out chip” but they managed to bypass this with Micro Machines and a number of other titles. Read more
The Ultimate Father’s Day RC Car
June 14, 2008
Forgotten Father’s Day and need to buy something really cool in order to make up for being late? Well, Fat Shark has the answer in the shape of FPV (First Person Video) radio controlled cars. A miniature video camera is mounted onto the radio controlled vehicle and images are transmitted back to a pair of VR glasses in a seriously cool, sci-fi HUD display type way.
The components can be bought separately so you can use the system on an existing RC car or you can buy the full kit including car, camera, and headset. What’s more, the glasses can be attached to pretty much any video device as long as it has an RCA adapter or wireless connectivity. Playing the Wii could certainly prove interesting.
Yet another cool feature is that by moving your head in any direction, you control the camera so that it makes the same movements. Tilt your head left and the camera looks left, and so on. Now, it is true that you might not want to play with this toy in public places – twitching your head from side to side while wearing a dangerously large pair of glasses and carrying something that includes a trigger is probably going to lead to 42 days detention in anybody’s book.
Win A Zero Gravity Flight
June 13, 2008
Short of being a co-founder of the most successful search engine in the world and booking a seat on the first commercial flight into space, zero gravity flights are the next best thing so that you can actually experience zero gravity. T3 and Sure for Men have partnered to offer an incredible prize worth over £10k.
Winners get to stay in Vegas for 5 nights accompanied by a pot of £2,000 spending money (granted, that’s about twenty minutes unless you get lucky) and an incredible zero gravity flight. An editor’s choice award is also up for grabs consisting of some fairly awesome home entertainment equipment.
Come up with a design for some type of future technology and upload it to the T3 Sure for Men competition page to be in with a chance of winning. Do ignore the rather tenuous link between the competition and Sure’s products, but remember that the design can be for any item and any technology of any type.
Scientists Use Sonic Crystals To Create Acoustic Cloak
June 13, 2008
Sonic cloaking technology has been unveiled by scientists that could be used to completely soundproof homes, concert halls, or even stealth ships. The technology has been under development for some time but the fantastically named acoustic cloaks have hit stumbling blocks in the finding of the most suitable materials.
A new technology can typically be judged on how cool the names sound, so the use of sonic crystals to create the acoustic cloak makes this an awesome technology. The sonic crystals essentially divert sound waves around the object that is being cloaked making it inaudible from anywhere outside the cloak. Read more
The Napkin PC
June 12, 2008
Every year Microsoft holds the Next-Gen PC Design competition and, in all honesty, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll ever see one of these in mass production. However, the winning designs do serve a purpose by indicating the direction that computers can go and they all serve some functional purpose (well, most of them).
Despite it’s rather unappealing name, this year’s winner is the Napkin PC. Also collecting the Chairman’s Choice award, the Napkin PC uses e-paper enabling designers and creative professionals to craft their latest designs onto a material that is more suitable to the task than a computer screen.
The image is then relayed from the e-paper to the napkin PC base unit. Pens of varying colours are provided to differentiate users during collaborative work and as soon as you sign your name, the finished piece is allotted to you and your own personal settings and files are used for saving and storing the information.
The Napkin is designed so that it can be “thrown about” between designers and other professionals, and work can be added to or altered without all the changes having to be documented at a later date. Paper and pens are stored in the base unit, which is designed to have the appearance of a napkin holder (obviously).
It’s an awesome idea, just don’t use it to blow your nose on or you won’t be the most popular designer at the table.
Having A Mozilla Party?
June 12, 2008
Mozilla is making a fairly big deal out of this so we thought it only polite to join in. In fact, in all honesty, while the release of Mozilla Firefox 3 on June 17 (you can actually get it now if you really want but that would mean missing out on the party and the world record attempt) is excellent news, the suggestion of having Mozilla download parties and attempting to set the world record for the most downloaded software in a 24 hour period smacks a little of going completely overboard.
Perhaps even more worrying, though, is the fact that there are already 444 confirmed Firefox parties with an unashamed (you should be ashamed – very, very ashamed) 2,648 people expressing their intention to attend. By attending a download party you could help set a world record too – still not selling the prospect to you are we?
The third version of the proposed release build can be downloaded here, and as this included only one very slight change it is highly like that this will be the final version that is released in 5 days. You could always download this version and then download the official release version on the big day if you really want to be a part of the action.
Google Co-Founder Heading Into Space
June 12, 2008
Following news that Google is to share a home with NASA, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has paid £2.5m to pre-book a commercial flight into space through Space Adventures, the US space tourism company. The payment ensures that Brin has first option on a seat in the first planed trip in 2011, a trip brokered between Space Adventures and the Russian space agency.
The commercial space flight will be the first of its kind, although Space Adventures has sent private tourists to the International Space Station (ISS) but only by buying individual seats on Russian missions.
A specially designed Soyuz aircraft will fly two tourists to the space station, at a potential cost of $35m. It has been pointed out that the flight and the “holiday” won’t, in any way, interfere with the running of the ISS or any planned missions.
As well as Google’s new home, bunking up with NASA, they have also become sponsors of a prize that is designed to help find new ways to initiate cheaper space flight and missions to the moon. Clearly, taking over the world just isn’t enough anymore and they intend to spread their wings.
Brin described himself as being a “big believer in the exploration and commercial development of the space frontier” and he is looking forward to the possibility of being one of the first commercial space travellers.
iLimb Wins MacRobert Award
June 11, 2008
The iLimb, an advanced prosthetic hand, has won the MacRobert award for engineering innovation. The impressive bionic hand has already been fitted to more than 200 patients and offers them a working limb rather than the static and limited prosthetics of old. Some of the recipients of the iLimb include soldiers injured in the war in Iraq.
The bionic hand is designed to much more closely mimic the action of a real human hand and, as such, offers independent operation of each finger and a realistic 90 degree rotation in the thumb. By combining these two features, the hand is capable of performing many more functions than rigid prosthetic limbs.
While more advanced limbs have been designed, the iLimb is by far the most advanced that is available commercially and amputees around the world have begun to receive the advantages that this offers.
No surgery is required to fit the iLimb, which instead relies on the use of sensors attached to the existing arm. These sensors read the motions of the muscle fibers and the computer in the back of the hand reacts to these movements by controlling the hand in the desired way.
Work has already begun on developing an entire arm that would work in the same way, as well as improving on the award winning design of the iLimb.
BT Offering To Speed Up Broadband
June 11, 2008
BT has offered ts customers paid access to a service that guarantees to speed up Broadband access by up to 0.5Mbps. However, the service has come under fire for being expensive, priced at £90, although it does offer a money back guarantee if it doesn’t speed up your broadband connection.
The UK is hardly a leading light when it comes to fast Broadband access and BT ranks 8th for its connection speeds, with many customers complaining of poor connections. Poor, or intermittent, connection speeds can be caused by a great number of different factors including proximity to the exchange and even the electrical equipment that is plugged in near the router and other broadband equipment.
The £90 service from BT highlights the reasons that a customer is getting poor connection speeds and offers advice on how to remedy the situation. Simple PC tweaks can be made that may go some way to improving the connection but it may be that general wiring problems in the house are causing the problem.
Because the BT Accelerator is seen as being expensive, experts believe that consumers will continue to find other methods and services to improve their Broadband speeds. There are certainly numerous online speed testing sites that offer advice regarding PC tweaks in their forums. The question of Broadband speed is one that is hotly debated time and time again because many customers are extremely disappointed with the speeds they can obtain compared to the speeds that are advertised.
The USB Motorbike Engine Hub
June 11, 2008
On some computers, USB ports can be as rare as hen’s teeth but with more and more USB devices (and awesome USB gadgets) becoming standard, they’re an integral part of your computer setup. A USB hub ensures you have enough USB ports and it can prevent you from having to fish around at the back of your computer if you’ve got a PC that’s been designed by a half witted ferret that puts the most useful features in the most inaccessible places.
The USB Motorbike Engine combines the usefulness of a three port USB hub with the wholesome goodness of USB gadgetry. When you connect the USB hub, the realistic motorbike engine starts (fortunately, the engine does cut off so you don’t have to listen to it continually while using your PC) and you can hear the engine sounds and watch the intricately designed parts whir away.
The hub is plug and play so no messy, and oh-so-often failed installation is required and it’s compatible with both Windows and Mac based platforms. The USB 2.0 compatible device means you don’t have to keep switching wires from your computer to your MP3, digital camera, USB mouse and keyboard, or your USB mini fridge – who could ask for more?
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