Technology Category
Independent news, views, opinions and reviews on the latest gadgets, games, science, technology and research from Apple and more. It’s about the technologies that change the way we live, work, love and behave.
21 vintage camera adverts for your inner voyeur
BEFORE the age of digital cameras in everything, buying a snapper was a call to loins. Men needed cameras for one reason: to record women (and in one instance below, other men). We’ve compiled 21 great images of what photography looked like before self shots and the internet.
Michael Landon did it was “flash”. The star of Little House on the Prairie was the wholesome and good Charles Ingalls, creating a myriad children from God’s will and hearty woodland walks. Then in the 1980s he got a Kodak Ektralite camera and went to film girls in their swimmers doing onto varnished hardwood flooring.
Going Beyond subtle.
Whipped hair and soup strainer, Tamon man was a serious photographer. The Playgirl ideal never smiled.
She’s looking at you. He’s looking to steal her necklace.
The name’s Bond. Basildon Bond. So shoot me!
Why flash at the beach? Because with brilliant light you can see through her swimsuit, that’s why. And you live in Bridlington.
a
It’s 1932. Women are free to watch.
The XL Addict has a raincoat and bins. He is a “man on the move”. He;’s looking at your “money maker”. He is the man your mother warned you about.
Five reasons. One… two… three… (or are they a pair?)… four…
Get a grip
An eyefull. Shoot.
Romance lives in upskirt shots.
Your Kodak dealer has lots of photos. You just need to aks the right questions.
That sort of man. And it’s not “small”, ok.
Also cooks, cleans, communicates with Mars and deflects Russian atom bombs. The camera is merely huge.
The man on the floor is a keen observer of the human condition.
The Nikkormat FTN is “bait”. Be the master of bait…
See that girl in the distance? Now take a look through a Soligor 80-200. Yeah, she’s that close.
Camera woman wears ideal photography kit.
It’s just like being there.
With the Vivitar Super 8 women are easy meat.
Talent
Posted: 30th, April 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology, The Consumer | Comment
New Kalq keyboard streamlines English language into a few easy-to-text words
BEHOLD the two-thumb operated keyboard. Evolution rules. Scientists at the University of St Andrews, the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Montana Tech have worked out what they say is the most efficient keyboard layout. It turns out that QWERTY is dead. On a tablet, the eight fingers are only useful for holding the device while the two thumbs type.
The boffins have called it Kalq, writing in a research paper:
An error-correction algrithm was added to help address linguistic and motor errors. Users reached a rate of 37 words per minute – with a five per cent error rate – after a training program.
…
Words like “on, see, you, read, dear, based”, frequently used in texts, have to be typed on a split-QWERTY layout with a single thumb only. This makes the typing process cumbersome and slow. This insight initiated the process to develop a layout for two-thumb text entry that could speed up typing and minimise strain for the thumbs.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 25th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
Patrick Kane’s remote control bionic hand can be programmed by a smart phone
FACE of the day: Patrick Kane 16, has become the first person in the UK to receive a revolutionary bionic hand which can be manipulated by remote control. He can control it with a smart phone app, which programmes the hand into a raft of pre-set grips.
Patrick, from London, lost his hand when he was a young child. He was fitted with the i-limb ultra revolution yesterday and has described its functions as “priceless“. It costs around $50,000.
Says Patrick:
It’s the little things that are important, like being able to hold a glass while you pour into it, or being able to cut up the food on my plate, rather than having someone else do it for me.
Says the company behind the wonder, Livingston’s Touch Bionics:
Utilizing its pulsing and vari-grip features, the i-limb ultra is the only prosthetic hand with the ability to gradually increase the strength of its grip on an object. This can be very useful in situations where a firmer grasp is required, such as tying shoelaces tightly or holding a heavy bag more securely.
We’ve come a long way, baby:
These prosthetics made by Felix B. Weinberg, in Baltimore, Md., include a manÂ’s hand, a womanÂ’s hand, two eyes, and an ear, shown May 10, 1951. The lifelike portions of the body are made of soft pliable plastics for use by the patient. Date: 10/05/1951
Posted: 24th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
White House speechwriter William Safire’s letter to President Nixon on the failed moon landing of 1969
AS we in the know know, the 1969 moon landing never happened. But in case what never happened, never happend badly and the mission failed, speechwriter William Safire wrote to President Nixon’s Chief of Staff, H. R. Haldeman. He wanted to outline a plan should Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin reach the moon’s surface but fail to return home. Buzz had a prayer. But the US needed a statement.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 22nd, April 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
Woo Hoo! Apple’s new iPhone is coming!
THE new iphone. It’s coming! Aren’t you excited too? I know I am because it’ll be just fabulous allowing me to pose even more effectively as a cool and in touch sort of person. You know, rather than the fat middle aged man I actually am.
The knowledge that the new iPhone is coming is revealed to us by the Wall Street Journal:
TAIPEI—Foxconn Technology Group has resumed hiring assembly-line workers in China after a postholiday freeze, in the latest sign that customer Apple Inc. is gearing up for production of a new iPhone.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 16th, April 2013 | In: Money, Technology | Comment
Every birthday celebrating on your Facebook Wall
YOU FACEBOOK friends want to wish you a happy birthday. Dan Hopper saves them the bother. This is what your Facebook wall looks like on your birthday:
Posted: 16th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment (1)
Big Brother: Tiny wireless injectable device shines light on brains to generate a reward
THIS can only go well for anyone interested in controlling human thoughts. Researchers, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have created a tiny device for triggering happy thoughts. It’s a tiny wireless injectable LED device that shines light on mice brains to generate a reward.
“Using a miniature electronic device implanted in the brain, scientists have tapped into the internal reward system of mice, prodding neurons to release dopamine, a chemical associated with pleasure.”
What could go wrong?
Posted: 13th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
Kiwi Minister says 3D printers can produce drugs, planets and MPs
“If people could print off … sheets of Ecstasy tablets at the party they’re at at that time, that just completely takes away our border protection role in its known sense… In the near future we will need to protect a digital border instead of just locating physical objects as we do now. If it’s made of atoms, you’ll be able to print it… [it] will change the very existence of mankind beyond anyone’s wildest imaginations”
Posted: 13th, April 2013 | In: Politicians, Technology | Comment
Your dead gran, recycled into road signs
PEOPLE who say old-folks are useless clearly are idiots aren’t they? For a start, old people are the main source of institutionalised racism and without pensioners, the makers of fig rolls would go out of business overnight. Pensioners are so useful that they even help us all when they’re dead.
The steel hips, plates and screws from legs and skulls can be collected after they’re cremated and the metal is sent off for recycling, used by automobile and aeronautical industries.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 12th, April 2013 | In: Reviews, Strange But True, Technology | Comment
Time machine inventor frets about Chinese stealing his idea
Posted: 12th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
1983: The first video game World Championship (video)
IT’S 1983. The first video game “World Championship” is underway. Twin Galaxies remembers when it was all lacquered whipped hair and lettering ironed onto T-shirts. In the best traditions of US-based ‘World’ sporting event, only North Americans entered:
Twin Galaxies first Coronation Day Tournament is recognized as history’s first video game “World Championship”—held January 8-9, 1983 at the the Twin Galaxies Intergalactic Scoreboard in Ottumwa, Iowa, USA.
Co-sponsored by Twin Galaxies and ABC-TV’s That’s Incredible, the event featured nineteen of North America’s top players competing on five current titles: Frogger, Millipede, Joust, Super Pac-Man, and Donkey Kong, Jr.
The top three finalists won complimentary subscriptions to Joystik, RePlay and Playmeter Magazine and were invited to compete on the “That’s Incredible” finals in Los Angeles.
The show was aired to an international TV audience on February 21, 1983.
Posted: 11th, April 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
Remember the game Snake? Want to see what it looks like to complete it?
NOKIA made the game, Snake, as popular as Tetris and infuriated mobile phone users the world over. Controlling the near formless blocky greedyguts was a nightmare once you got stuck into it for a couple of minutes, constantly chasing a lifeless square of food in a cold, desolate environment.
The snake, of course, wasn’t allowed to touch its own tail or it would die, so what happens when you complete the game? Once you run out of space, surely the only thing left for the snake to do, is to devour itself?
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 10th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
Which gamers are best at sex?
GAMERS are derided for their social skills, often depicted as lonely people, sat in their mum’s spare room, pale and wan. However, that’s a complete nonsense. That’s like saying movie fanatics are all 3 feet tall and live inside tinfoil pyramids eating socks.
People who play video games, believe it or not, have sex. But which gamers are the best in the bedroom? Well, thank god someone did a survey to find out exactly that!
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 9th, April 2013 | In: Reviews, Technology | Comment
This is what happens when you cry in space (gifs and video)
IN space no-one can hear you scream. But can they see you sob? Canadian Space Agency astronaut Chris Hadfield tweeted it “hurts to cry” in space. Then he showed us why. The tears have nowhere to go. They just roll around your face.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 9th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
‘Roadrage Instant Karma’: Volvo driver undertakes bikers
IN Roadrage Instant Karma, the Volvo driver moves to undertake the bikers who are spread across the road. The Volvo ends up in a bad place. The bikers give him the finger and drive on. But karma is not about retribution and punishment. It’s about intention. The Volvo driver never meant to injure the bikers. He just wanted to get by. And they weren’t letting him pass. If the bikers’ brand of karma is right, it is they who’d best watch out:
Posted: 8th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment (1)
When a Lamborghini Miura SV burns no-one in London can find a fire extinguisher
IN London a Lamborghini Miura SV burns. The fire brigade were in no hurry. And no-one in London has a fire extinguisher:
Posted: 7th, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
GPS knickers send electric shock to rapists and mums and dads
GOOD new for women in Chennai, India, who have their knickers stolen to order by perverts. Scientists have placed GPS tracking devices in lingerie. Manisha Mohan, co-developer of Society Harnessing Equipment (SHE), says her gadget has other uses:
“The lingerie, laced with modules of global positioning system (GPS), global system for mobile communications (GSM) and also pressure sensors, is capable of sending shock waves of 3,800 kV as well as alerts to the girl’s parents and police.”
Touch her knickers and get a shock. And if she touches, them, say, to got to the toilet, she also gets a shock. Great idea, Mohan. But why no camera? She adds:
“The shocks can be emitted up to 82 times.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 2nd, April 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
Irony overload: Guardian Comment is Free writer calls online journalism consumers ‘looters’
ON the Guardian ‘s Comment Is Free site – oh, the irony – Bob Garfield says people who consume news for free on the web are “looters“.
Those consumers cheerfully using the web to sample content from all over the world via news websites, blogs and aggregators are essentially picking the inventory clean. Oh, and when they get the stuff home, the goods aren’t what they used to be. And some of the stuff has a sour smell to it.
Anyone who cares deeply about quality, independent journalism should pray for paywalls and other subscription models to take hold. Because in the world of the smart and the desperate, desperate always has the last word.
Because news is a commodity? Opinion is only worthwhile opinion if it is paid for and sanctioned by a big brand? So says the man in the Guardian, the paper that loses a fortune, supports State-control of the media, doesn’t pay its interns, wants to colonise the world, is confused about economics, and won an award when the profitable News of The World (Britain’s best-selling newspaper) died.
Now read on. Or don’t.
Posted: 1st, April 2013 | In: Reviews, Technology | Comment
South Africa’s Invasive Species: phone towers disguised to look like trees
DILLON Marsh is a photographer.
Assimilation. In the vast barren landscapes of the southern Kalahari, Sociable Weaver Birds assume ownership of the telephone poles that cut across their habitat. Their burgeoning nests are at once inertly statuesque and teeming with life. The twigs and grass collected to build these nests combine to give strangely recognisable personalities to the otherwise inanimate poles.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 28th, March 2013 | In: Photojournalism, Technology | Comment
Apple device makes cracked screens impossible
BEHOLD! The “Protective Mechanism for an Electronic Device” will make it impossible for your iPhone, iPad or iPod to fall corner-first down and shatter the screen. It works on any device – including TVs in rock star’s hotel rooms.
Files at theU.S. Patent and Trademark Office illustrate a mechanism that shifts the centre of balance as the device falls. Before it hits the ground, the mechanism causes the product to twist in mid-air. The crash will result in minimum damage.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 25th, March 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
Modern inventors: Sean O’Connor’s Batter Blaster
INVENTOR of the day is Sean O’Connor. He invented theBatter Blaster – the pancake / waffle mix in a can. He says:
“We’ve had quite a few emails from dads, divorced dads or single dads, that are like, ‘Hey Batter Blaster, I can make heart-shaped pancakes for my girls on the weekends and I’m a hero.'”
Posted: 19th, March 2013 | In: Technology, The Consumer | Comment
Russian dash cam video of the day: the wing mirror two-step
WE’VE featured those Russian dash cams on Anorak before. In this video of life on the open road, two Russian truckers exchange wing mirrors. As the camera moves away, the two drivers continue to row. They might well still be there, swapping and shredding each other’s stuff, the duo stood on a pile of ex-trucks and clothing, still fighting as the sun sets…
Posted: 19th, March 2013 | In: Technology | Comment
The 25 most bizarre and adventurous aircraft ever invented
THE 25 most bizarrer and adventurous aircraft ever invented.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 16th, March 2013 | In: Key Posts, Technology | Comment
Mr Carron’s Falling Cone for Victorian daredevils
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: 15th, March 2013 | In: Flashback, Technology | Comment
