This USB Wireless PC Lock from Think Geek is pretty innovative. It’s made of two pieces, a USB dongle which attaches to your PC and a battery-powered keychain transmitter. As soon as the transmitter is more than 2 meters away from the PC, the PC is automatically locked. Once you get back within 2 meters, it’s unlocked. Available at Think Geek for $29.99.
Yearly Archives: 2006
Lost Norman Rockwell painting
In a twist so good it can’t be made up, cartoonist Don Trachte, owner of “Breaking Home Ties”, stuck it to his ex-wife during a messy divorce by hiding the real painting behind wood paneling in his Arlington home. He made a copy of the painting, and fought for rights to keep it during the divorce, ready to give the fake up if needed, knowing the real one was safe at home. A year after his death, his sons uncovered the real painting in his home, and everyone finally realized why the painting hanging in the museum looked a little different than the tear sheets from the Saturday Evening Post, where it was originally published… Here is the link.
Apple releases Boot Camp!
In a surprising move, Apple has released software that makes it super easy for people to install and run Windows on Apple machines. This is interesting on all levels. I can understand the benefits, but this is a huge risk as well. There are plenty of caveats to this. I wonder what’s going through Steve Jobs’ mind here. He’s clearly inviting a side-by-side comparison of operating systems by doing this, and hoping that hardware and looks alone will persuade people to buy a Mac. Now people will have a choice when purchasing hardware for Windows. Will they be willing to pay more for a Mac? We’ll see! I for one hope so. :-). Here is the link.
➡ Updated 2/17/08: We know what happened by now, don’t we? Apple’s become even more popular, and Boot Camp has been integrated into Leopard, the latest version of OS X.
Stop-motion animation with people
This is an interesting video of stop-motion animation with people. Looks like it was done by students, but the low-tech effects are refreshing – although I should mention the illusion of floating through the air was first done (to my knowledge) several months ago by some teenagers on Google Video. I can’t find the link now, but this video will suffice to demonstrate it.
The Navman iCN750 GPS/Digital Camera Tags Pictures w/ Coordinates
Navman is set to introduce a GPS unit that combines standard turn by turn navigation with a built-in digital camera. Pictures snapped by the Navman iCN750 include a Geocode tag embedded in the picture, listing the longitude and latitude. This is meant to help you sort pictures by exact location. The camera (or GPS, depending on what you want to call it) has a 4-inch touch screen, preloaded maps, and the latest SiRF StarIII GPS chipset. The GPS/Digital camera (no word on megapixels) can be powered by either a power adapter or internal battery. The iCN750 should be available this may for around $800. Very cool!
Raoul Pop 