Knight Rider GPS With KITT Voice
This Knight Rider-themed GPS unit from MIO has voice prompts recorded by the one-and-only William Daniels, the original voice of KITT, and asks cordially “Hello Michael, where do you want to go today?” when powered up. The LCD display is also flanked by a series of red LEDs reminiscent of KITT’s nose-mounted lights.
Nice gizmo but somehow the voice sounds quite a bit different than the KITT I remember.
Is it me or does this actually sound more like a James Bond?
Chris Bangle on Shapeshifting BMW
Bayerische Motoren Werke’s new concept car GINA is made from fabric and it’s body morphs to open it’s lights and doors. Here chief designer Chris Bangle gives a first impression of the ideas behind the process of sculpturing an experimental study. Its allover the internets - so its a good viral, too.
The GPS Generated Self Portrait
With the help of a GPS device and DHL, I have drawn a self portrait on our planet. My pen was a briefcase containing the GPS device, being sent around the world. The paths the briefcase took around the globe became the strokes of the drawing.
Check out The Biggest Drawing In The World - somehow I’m not sure if I believe this is actually real? Thanks Reza!
Group Nesting Limit Exceeded? WTF?
For a while I’ve been thinking what would be a reason for me to upgrade to yet another update of Photoshop.
I think I finally found one.
Tesla Roadster: Bring On The Electrics
2008 Tesla Roadster: 100% electric, 0 to 60 in 3.9 seconds.
One Of The Coolest Recording Studios Ever
I was quite surprised when I got this result on Google the other day: Vince Clarke (Erasure, Depeche Mode, Yazoo etc.) is a UK producer with one of the coolest recording studios I’ve ever seen. Which he apparently sold in 2004:
This is what it looks like from the outside..
..and this is what it looks (looked?) like from the inside:
It apparently went for roughly £2.5 million (it is in Surrey, and also included a spherical residential house).
Wow: Yellow Drum Robot
The Yellow Drum Robot drives around your house, collects some data and avoids some obstacles until it finds stuff to drum on.
Built in 20 hours for $120. More details here.
Eight Generatives Better Than Free
Interesting article from Kevin Kelly:
When copies are super abundant, they become worthless.
When copies are super abundant, stuff which can’t be copied becomes scarce and valuable.When copies are free, you need to sell things which can not be copied.
Read the whole article here.
Big RobotDog
Meet BigDog, its the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics family of robots.
It is a quadruped robot that walks, runs, and climbs on rough terrain and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by a gasoline engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog’s legs are articulated like an animal’s, and have compliant elements that absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule, measuring 1 meter long, 0.7 meters tall and 75 kg weight.
The thing is built by Boston Dynamics and funded by the DARPA Defense Sciences Office so who knows where this might turn up.
Berners-Lee on The Future of the Interwebs
Interview with Tim Berners Lee on the BBC site, Its mostly about plans by leading internet providers to use Phorm, a company which tracks web activity to create personalised adverts but there’s also some other bits and bobs.
I particularly liked this quote:
There are more websites then there are neurons in your brain.
(I tried embedding the video but that can’t be done - why not?).