Is the Thomas Edison 1881 invention, one of the most successful invention of the 19th Century, will disappear soon due to its high consumption ? 

Today the World starts to wake up and governments finally show some concern about our ever growing power consumption and all its side effects. This may indicate that time has come for the incandescent bulb to retire. It exists, for many years now, some economical lighting alternatives (fluorescent ) to the incandescent bulb but most of them were not really welcome into our living areas (living room, bed room, etc..) due to the livid bluer color and their acquisition cost.

Then the LED (light-emitting diode) finally jumped out of electronics equipments and started to invade the streets (traffic lights, flashlights, bicycle, etc..). They may replace soon all incandescent and halogen bulbs we still have at home. Brasil and Venezuela have started the phasing out of incandescent lightning and Australia wants to get totally rid of them by 2010.

During "LED EXPO and FPD KOREA 2007" MK Electronics presented its LED lighting 'Lumi-Forta' which can present more 512 colors via remote controller.

In comparison with other bulbs the LED, once its price will be reduce, have lots of advantages

                               Incandescent     Fluorescent     LED 

Lifetime               ~3'000 hrs         ~10'000 hrs     >30'000 hrs
Input Power         60-100 W          20-50 W          7 W      
Temperature        60°C                 45°C               38°C
Color Change        n/a                   n/a                up to 512 pattern
Bright Control       external             n/a                10 steps
Main Issue           Input Power        Recycling        Unit price

Sources : Mkhunics, Ubergizmo, Wikipedia

Tags: 2007, art, ATT, blog, bulb, ces, consumption, Coup de Coeur, economical, electricity, flash, fluorescent, fon, global warming, Great Ideas, ia, im, incandescent, iso, lan, LED, light, lightning, Lumi Forta, MIT, MK Electronics, nomadcom.net, Our World, paris, power, space, traffic, world, wp, www, XP

As advertising on Fon web pages says it :

• At home you're a "Wi-Fi King"
• Away you become a "Wi-Fi beggar" 
  (or sometime even a Wi-Fi thief)

  so, why not to

• Share some Wi-Fi at home
• and get free WiFi access wherever you find a FON Wi-Fi access point (+360'000 members worldwide)

 

 That's the concept of Fon Movimiento but you can find more details on Fon pages or Wikipedia.

Hardware requirement :  

Benefits :

• Cheap wireless AP (with an "easy to get" voucher or invitation) : 20€ with shipping included.
• You're a Linus and get free access to others FON Wi-Fi access points
• You're a Bill and get 50% of the fees, currently $3.00, charged to Aliens (non FON members) for a day pass to connect through their route.

Risks :

• Your ISP may not like it, even if on their side they sell unsecured access point. So, it's up to you.. ask your ISP if you can share your connection.. or don't !   

Installation :

• Sign On Fon.com and order your Fonera
• Once you have it, connect it to your Internet router
• From your computer connect to the open FON_AP wireless network
• Launch your browser, you're automatically transfered to fon.com pages.
• Log On, change settings of your Fonera (password, SSID, WPA Key, etc..)
• Restart the Fonera or wait 24 hours
• Connect to your newly created wireless private network (by default named "my place").
• That's it… the whole process took about 10 minutes. 

Tags: 2007, 24, 802.11, access, advertising, art, blog, ces, community, computer, connection, find, fon, fon movimiento, fonera, fonero, free, Great Ideas, ia, im, install, internet, Internet World, King, lan, launch, map, minutes, mobile, Mobile Communications, network, Nomad Tools, nomadcom.net, On The Road, Our World, password, risk, safe, share, shared, space, telecom, Telecommunications, thief, Travel, web, website, wi fi, wifi, wireless, wordwide, world, worldwide, wp, www

Sanyo will release next month its first USB charger specially made for their Eneloop "ready to use" upon purchase rechargeable batteries.

The charging time is approximately 280 minutes for two AA size and 120 minutes for two AAA size batteries. The charging speed is doubled when users charge only one battery at a time.

 
The cable of the USB charger can be rolled up and stored within after use.
Dimensions : 93mm x 47mm x 17.5mm for 48g.

Eneloop are Ni-MH rechargeable batteries that can be used like a dry cell battery – ‘immediately after purchase" and later recharged up to 1000 times.

Sources : Ubergizmo, Sanyo

Tags: 2007, arc, ATT, batteries, blog, cable, ces, charger, ecological, eneloop, Gadgets, Great Ideas, ia, im, lan, LED, minutes, nomadcom.net, rechargeable, recyclable, release, sanyo, space, usb, user, wp, www

Based on proprietary network software, 802.11x wireless access points and a fleet of vehicles, including buses and motorcycles, First Mile Solutions proposed stored-and-forward Internet access to remote rural villages in the developing world.

How does it work:
The main location called a Hub is where there is a reliable  and preferably high-bandwidth Internet connection. From this place, subscribers within a radius of 5-15 km, can get Internet access, as it is the case with any Wireless Local Loop system.

First Mile Solutions technology has the ability to distribute Internet connection's bandwidth to the last 100km – the Village Area Network (VAN) – with relatively small infrastructure costs by installing Mobile Access Point (wireless connectivity and cached Internet content) on any vehicle (buses, motorcycles, boats…) which physically transports data to/from surrounding rural areas and automatically collects and delivers data wirelessly to/from access devices in each village. Internet kiosks are installed in villages along the road taken by the "VAN vehicles".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Projects have already been deployed in India, Rwanda and Cambodia.

More informations :

• First Mile Solutions, 
• Village Area Network,
• Ongoing projects, 
• Comparative Access Word Map

Tags: 2007, 802.11, access, blog, ces, communication, connection, connectivity, CTU, develloping country, first mile, fon, Great Ideas, HP, ia, im, install, internet, internet access, lan, last mile, LED, live, location, map, MIT, mobile, Mobile Communications, mobile internet, network, nomadcom.net, project, rural community, space, store and forward, technology, telecom, Telecommunications, transportation, vehicles, village area network, wi fi, wireless, world, wp, www

Kingston® adds to its DataTraveler® drive family an USB 2.0 drive (1GB, 2GB, 4GB ?) with an onboard expansion slot able to read SD, SDHC, MMC & MMCplus cards named DataTraveler Reader. With an aditional adapter it will also be possible to read miniSD, microSD, RS-MMC, MMCmobile™ and MMCmicro™ cards.

The drive will appear as two separate partitions: one for built-in storage on USB drive and a second one for the expansion slot.

1GB and 2GB drives will be available later this month with a US price of 19.99 & 34.99 respectively. A 4GB is also expected in Q2.

Source: Engadget

Tags: 2007, all in one, art, blog, card, card reader, datatraveler, datatraveler reader, flash, Gadgets, Great Ideas, im, King, kingston, lan, mobile, Nomad Tools, nomadcom.net, reader, space, storage, Travel, traveler, usb, usb drive, wp, www, XP

Some ICT specialists found what they consider the best way to quickly and securely install Windows Vista in about 2-3 minutes. As announced everywhere, Vista needs powerful hardware…even for such installation as you can see on this video.

 

 

Source: Mr. Lavomisse 

Tags: 2007, blog, Fun, Great Ideas, howto, ia, ict, im, install, lan, list, microsoft, minutes, nomadcom.net, power, quickly, securely, space, video, vista, windows, windows vista, wp, www, youtube

Will Sanyo revolutionize the way we use batteries on electronic devices ? Today, by chance I found a place selling Eneloop batteries and bought few packs. 

Eneloop are Ni-MH rechargeable batteries… nothing very new till here.

The difference ? They are sold fully charged so you can buy and use them immediately.

Then once the power is gone, instead of throwing them away returning them to your preferred shop for recycling, you can simply recharge them as any Ni-MH or Cad-Ni rechargeable batteries.

En Resumé : eneloop is a combination of a rechargeable and a disposable battery.

• Ready for immediate use
• Low self-discharge
• environment friendly
• universal applications (actually available in AA & AAA size)
• higher performances (up to 4 times more powerful than Alkaline batteries)
• Recyclable package

Technical specs :

AA   : 2000 mAh (min. 1900 mAh)
AAA : 800 mAh (min. 750 mAh) 
Charging cycles : 1000
Price : 500 THB (14.25 USD for 4)
Storage Energy loss : after 6 month 10%, after a year 15%
Charging time : depending on the charger. Sanyo says 250 mins for 2 AA batteries

 

So now it's testing time, but I already like the idea of having batteries that offer advantages of both disposable and rechargeable ones.

Source : Sanyo 

Tags: 2007, ATT, batteries, blog, ces, charger, CTU, ecological, eneloop, energy, fon, Gadgets, Great Ideas, ia, im, lan, nomadcom.net, power, rechargeable, recyclable, sanyo, space, storage, wp, www

At least Triumph Japan gives them a good opportunity with their "No! Shopping Bra". 

Though it was a joke but apparently japanese throw away 10 millions plastic bags every year, so came the idea of a 2-in-1 bra. Just can't really imagine a woman removing her bra at the supermarket, strating filling it with her shopping just because she does not want to use plastic bags anymore.

When the bra is being worn, the “shopping bag” portions are folded away inside the bra cups, where they serve as extra padding. The bra quickly converts to a shopping bag by removing the bag portions from the cups and connecting the hooks on the bra’s underwire. The lace cups serve as decoration along with the shoulder straps, which are disconnected and tied to the top of the bag as ribbons.

Sources :  Pink Tentacle, Triumph Japan

 

 

Tags: blog, ces, Great Ideas, im, japan, lan, nomadcom.net, Our World, pink, plugin, press, quickly, release, sco, space, wordpress, wp, www

It's an Offline Web based organizer and lots more…that should be available online soon.

Would it be a so called "killer application" ?  Far to early to say so, but seems a very attractive solution…let's hope the beta version will be available as publicized.A 7 mins. sneak preview movie is available here (english accent is great too)

From Scrybe page:

Scrybe^TM  is a groundbreaking online organizer that caters to today´s lifestyle in a cohesive and intuitive way.
Simple solutions for some age old problems.

• Seamless offline access – without any installations
• Rich and fast like a desktop
• Intuitive zoomable calendar views
• Organize your thoughts with bookmarks, web snippets, images and files
• To-do lists integrated with your calendar
• Share and collaborate with friends and co-workers
• Elegant, compact and handy print formats
• Easily work across multiple timezones
• Import and export from other apps easily.

Tags: access, ATT, blog, book, ces, Great Ideas, im, install, King, lan, LED, list, mobile, Mobile Communications, nomadcom.net, online, organize, pet, problems, public, review, share, simple, space, web, web based, wp, www, XP, youtube

 

The perfect timing to welcome Rod on this website  

FREE BEER is a beer which is free in the sense of freedom, not in the sense of free beer. The project, originally conceived by Copenhagen-based artist collective Superflex and students at the Copenhagen IT University, applies modern free software / open source methods to a traditional real-world product – namely the alcoholic beverage loved and enjoyed globally, and commonly known as beer.

This beer is based on classic ale brewing traditions, but with addded Guaraná for a natural energy boost. The recipe and branding elements are published under a Creative Commons license, which means that anyone can use the recipe to brew their own beer or create a derivative of the recipe.

More about: Free Beer
Source : Nouvo (video in french)
  

Tags: art, blog, energy, Flex, free, freedom, global, Great Ideas, im, lan, nomadcom.net, plugin, press, project, space, university, video, web, website, wordpress, world, wp, www