Filed under: Networking

Screen grabs chronicles the uses (and misuses) of real-world gadgets in today's movies and TV. Send in your sightings (with screen grab!) to screengrabs at engadget dt com.

Complete internet downtime is no laughing matter, but more frightening still is the prospect that the world's data flow is completely beheld to a giant, taciturn Linksys WiFi router. South Park clip embedded after the break -- we're still trying to decide whether this trumps the Aqua Teen episode where they meet the Wwwyzzerdd, freakish master of the internet.

Continue reading Screen Grabs: giant Linksys WiFi router is The Internet

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Filed under: GPS, Transportation

Okay Britons, here's your shot at ripping us Americans who've had quite a few laughs at the expense of your GPS-loving neighbors. Reportedly, the driver of a charter bus carrying a high school girls' softball team decided to casually follow the soothing turn-by-turn directions that were being emitted from the nearby GPS unit rather than actually noticing the enormous clearance sign on the overpass ahead. As you can likely guess, the 11-foot, 8-inch-high vehicle plowed right into the 9-foot bridge -- which was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982 -- though somehow everyone on board escaped without any major injuries. Oddly enough, the driver apparently isn't alone in chipping away at the landmark, as a local even mentioned that "large trucks hit the bridge every two weeks or so," but couldn't resist noting that "this [instance was] by far the worst."

[Thanks, Raleigh]

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If you lack the upper arm strength to lug around your laptop, worry no more. Thanko has a new way to lug your technology from A to B and it is awesome; a regular looking laptop bag that sports a telescoping mono-wheel. Whether you haul around some ultra-light and super-portable contraption or an 8.9 lb gaming beast, life just got a whole lot easier.

From time to time you will see a businessperson pulling around a roller-bag. If you ask me that just looks silly and impractical. Then you get those backpacks with handles and wheels that are only marginally better. The backpack is maneuverable if you have it on your shoulders, but in roller mode you still have to huff, puff and strain every time the wheels need to leave the ground. Depending on the weight of the bag, that can turn into a Herculean feat of strength that makes you wonder how much energy the wheels really save.

Thanko's Note PC Pack design is a bit of innovative genius. If you take a good look they have built the anti-roller-bag. They have gone with one wheel instead of two and they have swapped the long handle for a telescoping rod; getting on and off crowded trains or going up and down stairs is no longer be a problem. When you reach your destination, retract the telescoping foot and you have a boring old laptop case again. If there is a better way of saving your atrophied muscles for the rigorous demands of a day behind a desk, I'd like to hear it. At $97 the price is a tad steep, but Thanko does have a monopoly on the telescopic mono-wheeled laptop case market. [Thanko Japan via Far East Gizmos]

One of the most popular sentiments expressed by readers on our blog is "be a smart consumer." Now two privacy advocacy organizations are calling for the creation of a "do-not-track" list that would protect registered users from online data collection. They argue that a list is needed because too many consumers won't or can't understand the methods behind online tracking. To illustrate, one of the organizations "pointed to a 2005 University of Pennsylvania survey in which only 25 percent of respondents knew that a Web site having a privacy policy doesn't guarantee that the site refrains from sharing customers' information with companies." But a do-not-track list is overkill, and a fearful reaction against emerging technologies.

If such a list became popular, would it reduce the ad model of the web to the blind shotgun blasts of TV advertising? That would suck—personally, if I'm going to see an ad, I want it to be about something that interests me. I don't like the idea of a third-party harvesting my data and packaging it with other users' data to profit from it, but I do think targeted advertising is an improvement over traditional advertising. Besides, how would such a list work with the rapidly evolving technologies used for data tracking? NebuAd's deep-packet-sniffing collects lots of detailed info but doesn't connect it directly to an ISP customer's account—would that be permissible?

Being a smart consumer is deeply relevant to this issue. Ultimately, the individual consumer has to understand the basics of online advertising before choosing to engage in any online behavior. Telemarketing, and to a lesser extent junk mail, take public info that by necessity has to be public (telephone numbers and addresses, for example), then exploits that info to contact you without your permission. When you're online, however, you're leaving a data trail behind you like heat exhaust, and anyone who knows how to read it can gain information on you. But you can also learn to reduce that data trail, or cloak it, or even disguise it as a different data trail. It's an arms race, but then everything in the information age is.

When companies try to take control of your data trail from you—like what Facebook did with its Beacon program—then we have a real problem; suddenly your self-protection schemes no longer work and you're left open to privacy loss. So far the public has reacted swiftly and decisively against such overreaching stunts.

My hope is that the public side of the market remains a more efficient way of dealing with company misbehavior—and that Average Web User X gets over his technophobia (or more likely plain disinterest) and learns the basics of online privacy if he values his part in the demographic data pool so much.

"Privacy Advocates: Consumer Education Isn't Enough" [PC World]

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"UK advertising-tech fight shows complexity of privacy battle" [Associated Press]
(Photo: Getty)

In a cafe deep in the heart of Amerikamura, Osaka, tables of otaku are sitting down to tea and cake with women old enough to be their mothers. Mother Café is an otaku fetishist establishment staffed with women that give off a motherly vibe; maid cafés are so yesterday.

Working up the courage to talk to a woman in a skimpy outfit like one would find in the well-publicized maid cafes can be nerve-wracking for the shyest of the shy. This is perhaps what gave Mother Café boss Asahi Geino his golden egg idea; that Osaka's loneliest otaku crowd would be more comfortable talking to someone that reminded them of their mothers.

So, what do you get at a mom café? According to Geino, "We staff our cafe with women who look older than they actually are, but they're also capable of understanding worries people have and have experience in dealing with people of all ages. Our aim is to become a kind of therapeutic cafe where customers feel at ease enough to be able to open their hearts to staff."

There are 10,000 manga titles to choose from, the opportunity to be hand-fed a slice of cake by a woman that may or may not remind you of your actual mother and if you are a regular; you get some lifestyle-related nagging thrown in for good measure. [Mainichi Shimbun]

In a cafe deep in the heart of Amerikamura, Osaka, tables of otaku are sitting down to tea and cake with women old enough to be their mothers. Mother Café is an otaku fetishist establishment staffed with women that give off a motherly vibe; maid cafés are so yesterday.

Working up the courage to talk to a woman in a skimpy outfit like one would find in the well-publicized maid cafes can be nerve-wracking for the shyest of the shy. This is perhaps what gave Mother Café boss Asahi Geino his golden egg idea; that Osaka's loneliest otaku crowd would be more comfortable talking to someone that reminded them of their mothers.

So, what do you get at a mom café? According to Geino, "We staff our cafe with women who look older than they actually are, but they're also capable of understanding worries people have and have experience in dealing with people of all ages. Our aim is to become a kind of therapeutic cafe where customers feel at ease enough to be able to open their hearts to staff."

There are 10,000 manga titles to choose from, the opportunity to be hand-fed a slice of cake by a woman that may or may not remind you of your actual mother and if you are a regular; you get some lifestyle-related nagging thrown in for good measure. [Mainichi Shimbun]

Due to recruitment difficulties, the same guy making sure you don't bring on more than three ounces of deadly shampoo is now getting trained as a US Air Marshall. [CNN]

Apparently, buying a house you can afford and fixing it up with a modest loan and money that you earned through gainful employment is rare enough to warrant a 3-page profile in the NYT. [NYT]

The US Airways pilot who accidentally fired his weapon in the cockpit of a plane will be fired, says CNN. The pilot, r Capt. James Langenhahn, 55, was not available for comment. He told investigators that he was stowing his weapon in preparation to land when the gun went off. The bullet pierced the jet's fuselage but did not hit any crucial wiring or instrumentation, according to the TSA.

A group that trains pilots to carry handguns, the Federal Flight Deck Officers Association, says it will fight the termination. "This was accidental not intentional," Karn told CNN. "This is not the way to treat a long-term pilot."

Group: Pilot whose gun went off will be fired [CNN]
(Photo:zonaphoto)

Filed under: Ask Engadget, GPS

Yeah, you definitely have our permission to be incredibly envious of someone who is actually going to be motoring about in both Europe and North America on a frequent basis, but in all seriousness, we're betting Sneaker isn't the only chap out there looking for the best GPS for intercontinental travels.

"I'm headed to Europe in the near future and will be doing some extensive driving. Thus, I'm wondering which GPS units your readers have found to be effective for cruising on the back-roads of Europe, while still getting the job done in North America as well? Would appreciate some recommendations."

You'll notice a budget is glaringly absent here, so feel free to toss out your recommendations from low-end to princely. Meanwhile, you can beam in a burning question of your own by writing us at ask at engadget dawt com -- who knows, you might find your very own words in this space next week.

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