Uber-Cool

Invisibility cloak

2006-05-26T09:19:00.000-04:00

EETimes.com writes about a substance which can bend light waves and cause them to flow around it, producing an invisibility effect:

"It may seem like something out of a "Harry Potter" novel, but the schoolboy wizard in this tale is nowhere to be found. Rather, physicists at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering and Imperial College London are responsible for the illusion.

Three physicists say they have developed the blueprint for an "invisibility cloak," or fabric, to make physical objects appear as though they have disappeared when they are covered.

The key to making the cloak work comes from an exotic artificial composite called "metamaterials," which could have numerous uses, from defense applications to wireless communications, according to David R. Smith, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke's Pratt School.

Smith, along with Duke's Pratt School doctorial candidate David Schurig, and Imperial College London's John Pendry, presented the theoretical papers, on Thursday. It appeared in Science Express, an online science journal. The United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) supported the work.

"The ability to hide or conceal things electromagnetically is a method used to design electromagnetic structures," Smith said. "We've been working on the project for about one year, and would have only been considered practical recently. It's been made possible by metamaterials because it can literally transform space, which is difficult to do with conventional material."

The cloak works on the principal of light as an electromagnetic wave, with a longer wavelength than X-rays and ultraviolet and shorter wavelength than infrared, microwaves and radio waves. The electromagnetic waves follow four mathematical formulas established nearly 150 years ago by James Clerk Maxwell.

Light that transmits through the fabric is made indistinguishable from light that passes through free space. "Using Negative dialectic constant materials is likely in principle, as we are discovering things in small scale that are possible in laborites," said B. Sriram Shastry, physics professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Shastry didn't take part in the project, but said "the things we see in 'Star Trek' are still far beyond what's available to reproduce in the laboratory, but they don't violate any laws of physics as we know it today." In theory, electromagnetic waves would flow around the object covered by the metamaterials similar to water in a river flowing around a smooth rock. The material would act as though a hole opened in space, and light or other electromagnetic waves were swept around the physical object to emerge on the other side as if materials had passed through empty space, Smith said.

The applications for this technology vary. Cloaking could improve wireless communications by eliminating effects from obstructions. An acoustic cloak could serve as a protective shield, preventing the penetration of vibrations, sound or seismic waves, Schurig said. "For the cloak to be effective it would have to completely encompass the object," he said. Schurig has written a computer program to validate the theories. The team's next goal is to physically verify the "invisibility cloak" works. "

LG KG320 Ultra-Slim Phone

2006-05-23T10:43:00.000-04:00

LG KG320 Ultra-Slim Phone: "With a thickness of only 9.9mm, compared to the 11.5mm of a Motorola SLVR L7, this LG is thinner than Nicole Richie after a three-day hobo-killing, dog-strangling, Herbie-the-Love-Bug-stealing coke binge.

LG doesn't skimp on the features either, with a 1.3-megapixel camera, 128 megs of flash memory, MP3/MPEG/AAC support and USB connectivity. No doubt this will be available only in Korea, but with any luck you can find a Korean exchange student and bribe him with some fajitas to import one for you.

AVing [via TechEBlog]
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Hydrogen to boost mileage by 30%

2006-04-05T10:48:00.000-04:00

Mobile Mag writes, "With gas prices as high as they are, would anyone complain about getting 20 to 30% better mileage? I didn’t think so. It may soon be possible thanks to hydrogen. The problem with hydrogen as an alternative fuel source up to this point has been availability. You can’t just go down to the gas station and fill your tank up with hydrogen.

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a new technology that creates its own hydrogen. It uses a fast response on-board reformer to generate a small amount of hydrogen from gasoline. That hydrogen is then added to the air/fuel mixture of a normal engine. The improvement comes without an increase in the NOx emissions that are a problem for diesel engines.

That mileage improvement comes from a device that is, in prototype form, just 18 inches long and 4 inches wide and just bolts onto the engine. Auto industry supplier ArvinMeritor is working with MIT to perfect the technology. The first production application may still be four years away."

XCute: a 6 Megapixel sleek camera phone

2006-04-04T08:52:00.000-04:00

This 9mm, tri-band phone is equiped with a 16.7 million color screen, the ability to play back AVI, ASF and MOV files, and... *drumroll* a 6 Megapixel camera!!!!!

Source = CNetAsia

The world’s first 50-inch 1080p plasma display

2006-04-04T08:25:00.000-04:00

Pioneer introduces the “world’s first 50-inch 1080p plasma display”. The PDP-5000EX has a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and will capable of displaying the entire range of High Definition sources, including 720p, 1080i and 1080p. The PUREBLACK Crystal Layer sandwiched between the plasma glass and the individual light cells improve brightness and contrast while consuming less power. The new PURE Drive 2 HD Signal Processing delivers low noise, high contrast and natural colour images. The High Precision Video Scaler receives and displays 1080p HD native resolution.

The Pioneer PDP-5000EX will be available from June 2006, pricing is not known yet.
Pioneer Europe - New Launches

Laser DLP Rear-Projection HDTV

2006-04-03T16:13:00.000-04:00

Gizmodo writes, "Mitsubishi tipped its hand to the New York Times, talking about a rear-projection HDTV that works with red, green and blue lasers using DLP technology. The company said it will reveal a prototype of the rear projector this Friday, and said it will be in stores late next year.

Conspicuously missing was the price of such a display, whose images were said to surpass those seen on film."

Mitsubishi Harnesses Colored Lasers to Produce New-Generation Lightweight HDTV [New York Times]

2006-04-03T16:00:00.000-04:00

Scientists in Portugal have perfected a device that helps blind people see. It's a series of computer signals that bypass the "dead" eyes of people who are totally or legally blind, going directly to the brain. A person who has had special electrodes implanted in the brain will then wear a special pair of glasses that have a camera that captures video images and then sends them to the electrodes.

It's not 100 percent images by any means; rather, what the person sees can best be described as the results of a flashbulb going off. The person sees flashes and an outline of what is there. But for someone who would otherwise see nothing at all, it is a vast improvement.

A total of 16 people have received the treatment so far, and all have reported seeing exactly what researchers expected them to see. The one caveat is that the patient must have had sight at one time; those blind from birth don't have the necessary optic nerve capacity. The procedure's cost runs about US$120,000; for those who now enjoy the benefits, it was worth it.

Availability in countries other than Portugal remains to be seen.

Source = news14.com

64GB flash drive

2006-03-30T14:51:00.000-05:00

Yes, that's right. A 64GB jump drive. Swap that with the 4GB one in the iPod nano and you'll be good to go. That is, if you can come up with the $5000 Buslink is asking for it.

If not, try any of the other sizes: 32/16/8/4/2 or 1 gigabyte devices.

Brain Cells Fused with Computer Chip

2006-03-28T10:32:00.000-05:00

This is what gets me so excited I pee my pants!!! Source: LiveScience.com

[QUOTE from LiveScience.com]

The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size.

They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. However, the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive.

"They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip," said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.

The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

It could still be decades before the technology is advanced enough to treat neurological disorders or create living computers, the researchers say, but in the nearer term, the chips could provide an advanced method of screening drugs for the pharmaceutical industry.

"Pharmaceutical companies could use the chip to test the effect of drugs on neurons, to quickly discover promising avenues of research," Vassanelli said.

The researchers are now working on ways to avoid damaging the neurons during stimulation. The team is also exploring the possibility of using a neuron's genetic instructions to control the neuro-chip.

[/QUOTE]

FlexiSPY PRO - Cell phone tapping tool

2006-03-27T14:48:00.000-05:00

FlexiSPY is the perfect spy tool! When you call your "friend" with a certain number, their phone will answer your call and put it on speaker phone while muting your end, allowing you to eavesdrop on their conversations with whomever they're with. Giving you the perfect opurtunity to quote Samwise Gamgee, "I ain't been dropping no eaves, sir, honest!"

Features include:

- Remote phone monitoring (Listen in on what they are doing from anywhere in the world!)
- Email Header Logging (Phones now have the ability to send/receive email. Now you can view all outgoing and incoming email headers)
- MMS Header Loggin (What are they writing when they send MMS messages? Now you will find out!)
- SMS Logging (As with FlexiSPY Light, SMS logging enables you to read the contents of all incoming and outgoing SMS messages.)
- Call History (No more wondering about that 'wrong number' your spouse received. You can now view their entire call history and see who is really calling.
- Call duration, GPRS activity, and much much more!

Product Page: flexispy.com

Bluetooth Helmet

2006-03-27T14:35:00.000-05:00

This, my friend, is the sleek and stylish BMW Motorrad WCS-1 System 5 helmet. Not only does this allow you to communicate to the passenger behind you, but you can also make phone calls with your bluetooth enabled phone, and actually hear them at the same time: "The aeroacoustically optimised form, the reduction in the amount of openings and edges, and a range of further technical features all come together in a functional and dynamic design, to make the System 5 helmet one of the quietest on the market. The noise level of only 86 dB(A) at 100 km/h is 8-10 dB(A) below that of most other manufacturers."

Main features at a glance:

Wireless communication between rider and pillion rider with a range of up to 10 metres for the System 5 helmet
Wireless communication between one helmet and a Bluetooth® mobile phone
Array microphone with automatic suppression of interfering noise
Functions with open chin section in the jet helmet version
Functional at speeds up to 150 km/h depending on the motorcycle model (depends on trim and helmet air flow)
Operated using three buttons (foil button panel) at the left-hand side of the helmet
All components completely integrated in the helmet

Specs:

Transmission capacity:		to 2.5 mW

Frequency range:		2.402 to 2.483 GHz ISM band

Transmission type:		FHSS (Frequency Hopping Spread System)

Battery capacity:		3 x AA NiMh rechargeable battery with 2000 mAh each

Temperature range:		-10 to +70 C

Air humidity:		90 % non-condensing

Frequency response:		0 - 3 kHz (headset profile, handsfree profile), 0 - 20 kHz (A2DP profile)

Bluetooth standard:		1.2

Bluetooth class:		Class II to 2.5 mW transmission power

Bluetooth protocols:		headset, handsfree, A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile)

Weight:		180g

Authorisations:		worldwide Bluetooth authorisation, homologation in System 5 helmet

1 set is supplied with:		main circuit board with foam pad, foil key pad, loudspeakers, microphone array, microphone covers, rechargeable battery pack, recharging unit, recharging cable, assembly material, instructions

Google Page Creator

2006-03-24T11:20:00.000-05:00

Google just released something called *drum roll* ...you guessed it, Google Page Creator! It's a WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) editor, so that anyone can create web pages. I commend Google on this step because it's just one more way to promote and track web based information. They even host your files.

eSnips - 1GB file sharing service

2006-03-22T11:13:00.000-05:00

eSnips is a very user-friendly online storage provider with a blend of social networking. The core idea is to allow users to upload media files of any type - photos, videos, office documents, whatever - tag them, and either keep them private, share with other or make them public. But eSnips is also allowing bookmarking of web content, from a whole page to a line or paragraph. Others can comment on each piece of media or content as well, and rate a user created page. RSS feeds are available for everything.

Check it out!

Biometric Wall Vault

2006-03-22T10:47:00.000-05:00

"The main storage space of the home safe can accommodate approximately two hand guns, while the hidden storage compartment in the back of this in wall safe is the perfect place to ammunition and other small valuables, such as jewelry, passports, and credit cards. This fireproof wall safe is constructed of handsome 14-guage stainless steel for maximum strength and durability. The biometric sensor can store up to 6 different fingerprints scans, so you won’t have to worry about loosing keys for this wall safe. Because of the fingerprint scan, you won’t have to worry about your children getting a hold of anything inside. The recessed door opens quickly at the scan of your fingerprint, and protects the safe from someone prying or trying to tamper with this gun wall safe. " - Stacks and Stacks

Biometrics are cool. I have a fingerprint scanner hooked up to my computer here that is set to automatically fill in all my usernames and passwords. It's also far more secure because keyloggers can't capture your passwords.

Like this LG LS50 notebook with a built in fingerprint scanner.

Vista shipment date delayed... again!

2006-03-22T10:26:00.000-05:00

Not that this is any surprise, but Windows Vista's release date has been delayed again. I've got the beta loaded on my computer and I gotta say, it's tight but not worth the $370 million to upgrade all the computers so they can run it. Microsoft removed so many features so they could get it out by the end of this year that it really isn't worth that much anymore. Just once I'd like to see Bill spend some time making something dependable and powerful, instead of changing the theme, adding a few small cool features, and making billions off of it.

Something else that bugs me is how many different versions they're releasing. Microsoft saw how much they made on shipping two main versions of XP (home and professional), so now they're shipping out 5-7 different versions of Vista to make even more money. F you Bill.

I really hate microsoft. (Even though I get excited and do everything I can to get my hands on all the newest releases.)

Firefly butts decoded!

2006-03-21T13:39:00.000-05:00

As a child fireflies - or lightning bugs, as we used to call them - fascinated me to no end. I would sit up at night and dream of ways to capture this glow-in-the-dark stuff. I even came to a conclusion that they made glow in the dark toys from the butts of lightning bugs. I wonder if anyone guessed this 7 year old was responsible for the elimination of close to half the population of fireflies in our small town.

So when I read this article I got all excited. Scientists have finally broken the substance down and figured out exactly what proteins produce the glow. I know this isn't really technology, so I hope you'll forgive me, but isn't this cool??

Weird alarm clocks

2006-03-21T11:42:00.000-05:00

I hate mornings. But only because I have to get up. That's the worst part.

Some people are blessed with the ability to wake up naturally when the sunlight hits their eyes. Everyone else has to rely on some form of device to wake us up (which in my opinion, makes us more dependent on that device). I'm not much one for tradition, so I got a kick out of these unique alarm clocks.

My favorite is the "Clocky" alarm clock:

When you hit Clocky's snooze button it rolls off the table and scurries around to find some place to hide before ringing again - forcing you to get up out of bed and go find it. And if this isn't amusing enough, it never hides in the same place twice.

Only one flaw... Since I'm not fully conscious when it goes off, and don't even realize I'm hitting the snooze button (my subconsciousness takes care of everything), I'd probably grab the clock and hold it under my arm so it can't run away.

The other four include The Sfera Alarm Clock , The Rumbling Alarm clock, Blowfly Flying Alarm Clock, and The Puzzle Alarm clock.

Dual Core Media Player??

2006-03-21T11:29:00.000-05:00

Now this one gets me. I can understand - in fact, favor - Dual Core chips in computers, but do we really need them in a media player? I don't own one so I ask you, do we need them yet? I mean, it's nice to have I'm sure. Maybe those Video iPods could put something like that to use.

[Quote from newlaunches.com]

Chinese manufacturer's TCLAST C150 is the first Digital Media Player with a Dual Core chip similar to the function used in PC CPU's but altered for better audio performance. The chip supposedly improves audio quality and signal-to-noise ratio (100db). The DAP sports a 1.5 inch TFT LCD capable of displaying 65,000 colors. The C150 has 512MB onboard memory for storing Audio and Video files, 8 equalizer modes, FM tuner, line in recording and supports MPEG-1 video playback.

[/quote]

Bluetooth Speakers

2006-03-21T10:57:00.000-05:00

I hate wires. They're all together entirely too cumbersome and annoying. Unfortunately, I think we'll have to endure them for at least a centery or two more. The good news though, is that the amount of those cables under your desk is being reduced drastically. The Parrot Sound System is a Fidelity Bluetooth 2 x 60 Watt stereo system, which works with every type of A2DP Bluetooth source: mobile phones, PDAs, MP3 players, Bluetooth-equipped computers, etc. You can place these wireless babies anywhere within 10 meters of the source. Imagine walking into your appartment, pressing play on your smartphone or pocket pc, and having real sound come forth!

And just in case you don't have a Bluetooth enabled device, these speakers also come with an analog input port.

Specs:

. Fully digitised, two-channel amplified speakers
. Digital Class-D amplifier with 60 W output per speaker
. Digital equaliser (PC software)
. Digital crossover
. Parrot 5 processor
. Bluetooth 2.0 & EDR (Enhanced Data Rate)
. Bluetooth scatternet
. Automatic scatternet set-up
. Bluetooth A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile) and AVRCP (Audio/Video Remote Control Profile)
. MP3 & MP3 Surround decoder with 192, 160, 128 and 112 Kbps
. SBC decoder with 320, 275, 250 and 150 Kbps
. RCA line-in for all audio sources

Available in about 3 months, for $435.

Source: newlaunches.com

Overclocking a Pocket PC

2006-03-20T11:12:00.000-05:00

As we all know, Microsoft is a power hungry hog. This isn't too big a problem for computers, because you can always buy more memory, hard drives, and even upgrade a CPU. Those who know what they're doing also have the ability to overclock their CPU and even memory sometimes. But what about those little handheld computers that come with just barely enough power to make a phone call and do basic stuff without slowing down or freezing up?? It doesn't look very good to have it running at the speed of cold lava in the middle of a meeting as you try to share the notes you made in another meeting. So how do you make those faster?? You can't really upgrade the internal memory very easily. And we're not even going to think about the CPU.

Luckily, there's a couple programs that will help us out with actually overclocking our Pocket PC. In addition, some of them actually allow us to underclock it in order to prolong the battery life of our device ('cause everyone knows they last less than the lifespan of germs soaking in dish soap).

Here's some screenshots of a program I've found to be very powerful called XCPUScalar:

A few other overclocking tools which you might want to look into as well:

ImmierSoft: Overclocking tool we used in this example.
Pocket Hack Master: Great Overclocking tool.

Morning Post

2006-03-17T11:25:00.000-05:00

Well, it appears everyone's doing nothing but wishing happy Patties day. Which is ok, for the first hundred blogs you visit. But after that... well, it gets kinda old. My fault I suppose for visiting so many. I did stumble across this video however, which I think is pretty cool. It's a transparent hard drive so you can see how it fast it spins. The guy does a fairly good job explaining it as well - in my opinion.

In addition, the good folks over at CrazyEgg.com have invited me to help test their product, so look forward to a more detailed review soon.

Crazy Egg

2006-03-16T09:11:00.000-05:00

There's countless website statistic services available today, including Google's new Analyst (which I'd very much like an invite to, if anyone's got one to spare). But I've never seen one quite like Crazy Egg. The guys at Crazy Egg have taken a different approach where you can measure and actually see what your users are doing when they visit your site. They do this by monitoring the mouse patterns and clicks, and then displaying that information in 3 unique ways:

Heatmap:

List style (which we can only assume what that means, since they don't have a preview).

and Overlay:

A similar service, which appears just as promising - if not moreso - is mapsurface.com

MapSurface, like many others traditional statistics services, logs the referrers, the exit links, and a boatload of other information. What makes them cool is the cool feature of pressing "alt x" while you're right there viewing the site to see the statistics instead of having to navigate to a completely different domain and jitter around for a bit before you get what you came for. Words can only describe it so well, so check it out for yourself.

Source: TechCrunch

isolatr

2006-03-16T09:03:00.000-05:00

For those of you who desire to be unique:

The Zot V2

2006-03-16T08:51:00.000-05:00

This, my friends, is a watch I'd wear. Far more stylish than the binary watch from ThinkGeek.com currently on my wrist.

Source: MoCo Loco

MP3 shoes??

2006-03-16T08:28:00.000-05:00

Ok, now I've seen it all!

Dada Code's new shoes can broadcast your music to your wireless headphones if you want to keep your music to yourself, or play your music over the built-in speakers in the shoes if you want others to hear them.

Now I can understand being addicted to music... but why in the seven hells would you want a pair of shoes to play music, when you can get an iPod for the exact same price that actually stores more and sounds better?? And doesn't smell either!??

*Raises hand*
"While you're at it, can I get a pair of underwear that plays music too please?"

Source: Mobile Mag

Orb, Wireless Router connects through light bulb socket!!

2006-03-16T08:14:00.000-05:00

What you see here is a two piece router which sends signals through a power socket with the first piece, and then picks them up through any light bulb sucket and transmits them again in Wi-Fi standard!

Yanko Design writes: Orb consists of two parts: 1) Network Home Plug: Its function is to transfer the network signal into the normal electricity network. Therefore this appliance features a power plug which is attachable/detachable and the plug is connected to the home plug main body with a power line. Also the home plug main body has a RJ45 port for connecting network cable. 2) Wireless Router: It functions as a normal wireless router, but it has a feature to make it special – a light bulb connector. Thanks to the built-in standard light bulb connector the wireless router can plug on to any standard light bulb housing, allowing the wireless router to receive the power and the network signal from the normal electricity network. This means that only a single necessary network cable is needed to connect to the home plug. This is the true meaning of “wireless router”.

Design: Liteon Technology Corp

Source: Yanko Design

Amazon S3 - $0.15 a GB web hosting!!!

2006-03-15T14:22:00.000-05:00

[QUOTE from TechCrunch]

Amazon Web Service is launching a new web service tonight called S3 - which stands for “Simple Storage Service”. It is a storage service backend for developers that offers “a highly scalable, reliable, and low-latency data storage infrastructure at very low costs”.

Pricing is cheaper than anything else I’ve seen: $0.15 per GB of storage per month, and $0.20 for each GB of data transferred up or downstream. This translates to $15 per month for 100 GB of storage, net of any transfer fees (to move that much data on to S3 would be a one time cost of $20). These prices are going to be significantly below the development and ongoing costs for small or medium sized storage projects - meaning a lot of the front end services I’ve previously profiled will be much better off moving their entire back end to S3.

[/QUOTE]

Source: http://aws.typepad.com/aws and TechCrunch

But what about this Google Grid / Google Drive we've heard about?

[QUOTE from TechCrunch]

“Google Grid”: “…a universal platform offering an unlimited amount of space and bandwidth that can be used to store anything. It allows users to manage their information two ways: store it privately or publish it to the entire grid.”

[/QUOTE]

Looks like this is the begining of a completely freelanced internet!! Soon the lines internet and intranet will be completely blurred. I hope some day everything becomes a big grid, and when you hit save Windows will place it anywhere on the unlimited number of servers around the world and then simply create a shortcut to it on your computer. Then again, with 100TB Disks... who'd need storage anywhere else. But still...

Google Analytics: Web Traffic Monitoring And Conversion Tracking

2006-03-15T11:38:00.000-05:00

As Gary Price had originally anticipated back in July this year, Google has now officially launched Google Analytics.

Google Analytics is a free service that Google offers to its customers to allow them to track, monitor and measure with great accuracy statistics relating to traffic, conversions and page views on your web site.

Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site.

You can find out how profitable your keywords are across different search engines and multiple online campaigns. You can identify where your best online customers come from and which target audiences are the most profitable for your specific content.

To make Google Analytics work you only need to place the special snippet of code that Google provides you in side the page templates of your web site.

No need to download anything.

If you don't edit your own site, your webmaster, designer, or hosting provider can probably do it for you in under five minutes.

Google Analytics has been particularly conceived and designed to help advertisers track and optimize their campaigns across multiple sites and even across multiple keyword advertisers.

Do you buy keywords on search engines other than Google? If you do, Google Analytics tracks them - all of your keywords, on every search engine. For both paid search and unpaid search.

In fact, Google Analytics tracks all of your marketing initiatives, Google-based or otherwise. All of your ads, email newsletters, affiliate campaigns, referrals, paid links, search engines, and keywords. So you can compare performance across the artificial boundaries of search engine, campaign, and medium.

Google Analytics makes large and effective use of visualization maps which help greatly in pinpointing rapidly important data.

GeoTargeting in particular, allows you to see your data mapped out on geographical world maps that allow you to associate different stats data to actual regions of the world.

If you are an advertiser and have already a Google AdWords account, you can immediately log in into Google Analytics and start using this very moment. Google Analytics automatically imports all your existing keyword data from your AdWords account. In this way you can see the ROI and other key metrics for every keyword you buy on AdWords, without having to do something extra.

Several useful features make it easy to pin down overall trends as well as to trace transactions to campaigns and keywords, get loyalty and latency metrics, and identify your revenue sources.

A unique feature facilitates the identification of critical pages and bottlenecks where you are likely to loose most of your online customers. The feature, called Funnel Visualization, shows you the bottlenecks in your conversion and checkout processes - attributable to such factors as confusing content or maze-like navigation - so you can eliminate or work around them, and start "funneling" visitors through the steps you want them to effectively take.

Another great feature, pioneered commercially by Clicktracks, is Site Overlay which allows Google Analytics to superimpose visitors and clickthrough data to your individual pages, giving you the ability to see exactly which links on each page are clicked, and with which relative percentages.

Google Analytics comes also with well over 80 predefined reports to analyze your data. Advanced Visitor Segmentation adds eighteen predefined segments for further drill-down into any of these reports, such as geographic location and new versus returning visitors.

Google Analytics is already available in multiple languages including English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Russian.

Summary

Google Analytics offers some uniquely interesting propositions. They are:

a) Zero cost. Great web site traffic monitoring and ecommerce tracking software available to anyone for free. This free version is limited to 5 million pageviews a month - however, users with an active Google AdWords account are given unlimited pageview tracking.

b) Highly scalable to any size web site.

c) Interface design. Great visual maps, stats and great use of effective information design principles. Navigating data is a strong point.

d) Advanced. This is not a little free web page counter to put up on your home page. This is a truly powerful monitoring and tracking engine like very few, if any, out there. Google Analytics has all the features you'd expect from a high-end analytics offering.

e) AdWords integration. If you have an AdWords account, you can use Google Analytics directly from the AdWords interface. Google Analytics also calculates ROI metrics from automatically imported cost and keyword tracking data.

f) Easy to use. Google Analytics is easy to use for novice marketers, while delivering all of the capabilities that experienced web analytics professionals expect.

g) Tracks all campaigns. Google Analytics tracks all online campaigns, from emails to keywords, regardless of search engine or referral source.

More information on Google Analytics.

Case studies on the use of Google Analytics.

Sign-up to Google Analytics.

Source: masternewmedia.org

Pleo - Ugobe

2006-03-15T11:07:00.000-05:00

I know this isn't 'fresh from the package' at this point, but it's a favorite of mine. Ugobe revealed Pleo - an artificial life form with a body of a one-week old infant Camarasaurus from the Jurassic period.

Cuter than a 2 week old puppy, more inquisitive than Curious George, and capable of showing emotions, who can't love him??

Excerpts:

"Pleo is capable of expression. He can feel joy and sorrow, anger and annoyance. When Pleo is tired, he will become drowsy and go to sleepóeven dream. Two or more Pleos will recognize one another. Be careful though. They can transmit colds to each other. Achoo! Pleo even sneezes!"

"Pleo is a one-week old infant Camarasaurus from the Jurassic period. Camarasaurus were born and raised in giant fern forests. They evolved camouflage that allowed them to blend with their environment of ferns, moss and ruff, the detritus that littered the forest floor. The first Pleo created is a Fernback. His markings help him to survive by hiding among the giant fern fronds in his habitat.

Pleo is an authentic Life Form. Treat him gently like any other living thing. Your Pleo will let you know how he feels at any moment. That's because he is capable of actual emotions including joy, aggression, sorrow, and fear. He can also yawn, sigh, sniff, sniffle, snore, cough, hiccup, and sneeze.

Pleo wants to explore his environment. He will be cautious when he walks to the edge of a table. He may cry when he is frightened. Pleo will stretch when he first wakes up. He may stomp his foot for food when hungry.

When Pleo grows tired, lay him down and attach his 'dream cord' so he can sleep, dream, and gather energy for more exploration."

All for only $199.00!! Available in December of 06! :-D

Links: Watch video of Pleo unveiled at DEMO 2006

Source: Ugobe's website

5 terabyte 3.5 inch hard drive in 2010

2006-03-15T09:07:00.000-05:00

"December 21, 2005 Those of us who can just never have enough portable digital storage will be heartened to hear that Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is working on a 5 terabyte 3.5 inch hard drive aimed at the PC market. Though it’s not due until 2010 – less than five years from now – it’s a reminder that the technological bar is being raised significantly every day, regardless of the industry."

Source: Unlimited storage on the way.

Think that's cool? Try a 100 terabyte 3.5 inch disk!!

Colossal Storage devices accomplish this through the use of 50nm ultraviolet rays. Blue-ray disks (DVD's which have a storage capacity of between 25-100GB) use a blue laser - 450nm. Your typical DVD uses a red 700nm laser, which limits it's storage
to 4.7GB.

Storage anyone?

VisionStation by Elumens - IMAX for gaming??

2006-03-15T08:57:00.000-05:00

Drool over this:

"Via patented technologies, the VisionDome delivers a full-color, raster based, interactive display, with 360 degree projection and a 180 degree field of view. The tilted hemispherical screen is positioned so as to fill the field-of-view of the participants, creating a sense of immersion in the same way that large-screen cinemas draw the audience into the scene. The observer loses the normal depth cues, such as edges, and perceives 3D objects beyond the surface of the screen. The dome itself allows freedom of head motion, so that the observer can change their direction of view, and yet still have their vision fully encompassed by the image. "

Source:
Elumens.com

Buggy Rollin': Full-body in-line skating

2006-03-14T16:26:00.000-05:00

"Buggy Rollin' is a fledgling sport that takes in-line skating to the extreme by adding wheels to a full-body armature so that every possible point of contact between you and the ground is covered.

Why stand up when you can skate on your hands and knees, lie on your back luge style, or hurtle face-first down the nearest sloping street at 60 or 70 km/h with your nose just 10 cm from the ground."

Now THIS is something I've got to try!!!

Source: gizmag Article: Buggy Rollin': Full-body in-line skating

Sony Ericsson Black Diamond

2006-03-14T16:21:00.000-05:00

Cell phones are one of the most exciting categories around today. Personally I'm a big fan of phones that actually DO something, other than make calls. This one however, I think I could make an exception for - seeing as how it's got a 4.0 MegaPixel camera.

Source:
http://www.esato.com/news/article.php/id=820

Welcome

2006-03-14T16:12:00.000-05:00

Welcome! I've created this blog to keep track of all the uber cool and facinating stuff I run across while reading other blogs.

I'm not very good at blogging, but with practice I'll get better!