Hummer H1 Alpha, an SUV’s SUV…”Like Nothing Else”.
A Note from HUMMER: Let the Speculating Begin – GM FastLane Blog, June 6, 2008
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Here’s another pic from CommunicAsia 2008, this one of someday-to-be-available Garmin nüvifone. GPS device maker Garmin announced the nüvifone earlier this year, describing it as a touchscreen phone with navigation and a web browser. Many consider the nüvifone to be a mobile phone with added GPS, not realizing that the thing is actually a GPS device with an phone attached to it.
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CommunicAsia 2008 just ended. Most of the products shown at the annual Information and Communications Technology expo had been pre-announced, including the Samsung Soul mobile phone, shown above. Most reviews of the SGH-U900 as it’s also known, have been quite favorable, praising as they do, the 5MP camera and the user interface … so favorable in fact that they’re likely responsible for helping Samsung to move 1 million of the things in the 1st month of sales.
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Pocket-Lint reviews the new E71 from Nokia and gives the mobile phone a generous rating of 9/10. They liked the small form-factor (114×57x10mm and 127 grams) the metal frame, the fact that it has HSDPA (3.6 Mbps), Wi-Fi, and a 3.2 megapixel camera as well as a QWERTY keyboard. They also liked the “large bright crisp” screen (…although it’s actually only QVGA at 320×240 pixels).
On the flip side, they weren’t as keen about the semi-push email (downloads your mail every 5 minutes) and to a lesser extent, the rubbery keyboard. But all-in-all, Pocket Lint liked it enough to label the E71 as sleek & impressive and to rate it at the aforementioned 90%. Full specs are here.
Nokia E71 mobile phone review – Pocket-Lint, 17 June 2008
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NASA claims to have found water ice on Mars. Time lapse photography of a trench dug by the MarsPhoenix lander shows that small chunks of “bright material” have disappeared. According to investigators, the material must have been H2O ice for it to have sublimated over the course of 4 days.
…the white stuff cannot be CO2 ice because the phase change diagram for carbon dioxide shows that at the reported temperature ( -32 degrees C ) and pressure, CO2 is a vapor.
Bright Chunks At Phoenix Lander’s Mars Site Must Have Been Ice – Phoenix Mars Mission Home news release, June 19, 2008
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Fujitsu introduces their new model F706i waterproof (30 minutes at 1 meter) phone. Features include 1-Seg TV & a 2 megapixel camera.
Fujitsu Unleashes Its New Waterproof Wonder! – Akihabara news, 2008-06-18
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Honda will start selling its FCX Clarity hydrogen-powered zero-emissions car in the United States and Japan over the next few years. According to Honda, the name derives from the car’s fuel-cell engine and its ‘clear solution to the challenges of the future’.
Specs are here – includes top speed of 160 km/h, range of 270 miles and a 171 L High-pressure (5000 psi or about 340 atmospheres) hydrogen tank pictured below.
In an interview with the WSJ June 16 2008, Honda CEO Takeo Fukui answers some questions about green cars. Regarding the lack of a nation-wide system for generating storing and distributing hydrogen, Fukui says “..cars should come first and then infrastructure will follow”; and as for why choose hydrogen over electric, he replies “the biggest issue is driving distance” and adds “the FCX Clarity can be recharged in one minute” & “with the electric vehicle, it can take several hours”.
Honda plans to boost fuel-cell car production – Japan Times, June 17, 2008
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Sharp showed off their 108 inch-world’s largest LCD TV way back in January 2007, and it’s just now becoming available.
The TV has been given a model number, LB-1085, a price of about $101,000 and subsequently consigned to the industrial/commercial market because of it.
1080p resolution, 1200:1 contrast, 6ms response.
The world’s largest industrial 108 V-inch LCD display products, orders started – Sharp news release, 2008?6?13?
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The Times compares the new iPhone 3G to five of its touchscreen competitors, and finds that the LG Secret KF750 is just as good.
The article awards 5 stars to both the iPhone 3G and the Secret. Runner-ups include the Samsung Tocco and the HTC Touch Diamond with 4 stars, with the Palm Centro and Sony Ericsson W960i far behind.
We’re puzzled by the fact that the Times rated the LG Secret on par with the iPhone 3G. It seems that Secret’s numeric keypad, 5 megapixel camera, front-facing video camera, lighter weight and FM radio more than made up for the Secret’s smaller resolution screen (240×320 vs 480×320 for the iPhone), smaller memory (100MB on-board vs 8GB for the iPhone) and use of Java as an operating system vs Mac OS X v10.4…go figure.
Test bench: iPhone vs touchscreen rivals – The Times, June 15, 2008
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Alpine Astrovillage located in Lue Switzerland, will be the world’s first resort for amateur astronomers. Astrovillage will feature 6 studio apartments each of which comes with its own 3 meter domed mini-observatory equipped with either a 10″ Ritchey-Chretien or a 12.5″ Dall-Kirkham telescope.
AAV is located in eastern Switzerland at an altitude of 1935 meters in the pristine Muestair Valley, and interestingly only about 25 miles from where Ötzi was found. Opens March 7, 2009, which is the 217th anniversary of John Herschel’s birth.
Alpine Astrovillage Lue-Stailas – A Center for Astrophotography in the Alps – homepage
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