From the Your Tax Dollars At Work Department:
Sandia Labs had developed the world’s smallest combination lock, and hopes to have a commercial partner lined up for distribution within two years, after they have completed refinement and reliability testing. Each of the six gears is only 300 microns across, about as big as a period in standard newspaper text. The lock will be marketed at the computer industry.
(via Gibson via Sterling)
Tag: tech
Jon Gales has spun off from his regular blog a new weblog devoted to mobile communication technology. Seeing as how I’m four months away from the end of my current mobile phone contract, this new site of his is of great interest to me…
Thanks to JG & Co. at MacMerc for the link to a CreativePro story on safe password creation and usage. Good stuff here. Read and implement. (This means you, sweetheart.)
Yesterday marked the 5th anniversary of Apple’s discontinuing production of the Newton, the forerunner of today’s PDAs. Speaking of today’s PDAs, some are still trying to catch up, in terms of features and speed, to what was offered 5 years ago in the Newton MessagePad 2100. To this day, the Newton’s biggest shortcoming is still its size.
Michael notes how Newton users are continuing to extend the life of the original personal digital assistant. I can’t wait to reacquaint myself with Newton when a 2100 arrives in a couple of weeks, courtesy of a pal in NYC.
More gear lust, this time courtesy of Steven and The Register. With our current mobile contract up in June, I’ll be shopping around for the best plan, and a new phone. I’ve had my sights set on SonyEricsson’s T68i, and may still pick that up, depending on P800 pricing in 4 months. Both the T68i and the P800 would allow me to dump my Palm and have just one device. Currently, my mobile is a low-end StarTac.
Lose or have stolen your laptop–or desktop, for that matter? You can register the serial number with the Stolen Computer Registry. That great system you just picked up on eBay for next to nothing? Check it against the registry; if something seems too good to be true…
The DVD/CD Shredder from Alera Technologies destroys the data layer on DVD and CD discs, making the data unrecoverable.
Pretty much any size DVD or CD is handled, including 120mm, 80mm, and even Business Card size. It’ll set you back $39.99.
I’ve been saving quite a few CDs to send off to be recycled, and for the CDs that actually contain old personal data, this might not be a bad idea.
(via Macintouch)
As of this morning, our household is free of computer CRT monitors. Last night, we purchased a NEC 17″ LCD for my wife’s PC. With just a slightly smaller viewable area than the 19″ CRT she was using, she now has more desk space, along with the LCD’s crisper, easier-on-the-eyes view, and low power consumption. The NEC joins my Apple 15″ LCD as the household desktop monitors. All other systems in the house–PowerBook G4/500, iBook/300, and IBM ThinkPad–are laptops.
At 400 megabits per second, FireWire is 40 times faster than 10Base-T Ethernet, and 4 times faster than 100Base-T. The only Ethernet spec faster than FireWire is Gigabit Ethernet (1000Base-T), now standard on all Macs, but still an option for many PCs (like FireWire).
Today, Apple released a preview version of IP over FireWire, useful for networking and clustering solutions. It can even be used for temporary connections to the internet using Internet Sharing. It’s interesting if for no other reason than that of future possibilities in networking.
Proving they have too much time on their hands, as well as what PCs are really good for, it’s the NeuHausPlatz 200NC. NC stands for “no case.” This is an oldie, but a goodie.