Continue reading MSI caught showing off VoIP video conferencing phone running Android
MSI caught showing off VoIP video conferencing phone running Android originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Point: As my fellow Jalopnik readers would agree, the thought of an au-to-MO-bile running on some coffee beans is equally laughable and insulting. Counterpoint: As my fellow coffee drinkers would agree, this is an utter disgrace to our holy bean.
Countercounterpoint: Carpuccino? Really?
A while ago we read that coffee-based biofuels were feasible. Knowing the internet as we do, we figured it was only a matter of time before somebody took that novel possibility and turned it into an absurd reality. We were right! The Carpuccino, a 1988 Volkswagen Scirocco modified to run on ground coffee, will drive 210 miles between Manchester and London in the coming weeks.
The trip will require over 150 pounds of coffee, with the car getting a mileage of roughly 1.4 miles per pound. The vehicle can hit speeds of 60mph, though the trip could take as long as ten hours, as the car has to stop every 60 miles to clean out its coffee filters (seriously).
The joke on wheels was built by the BBC1 show Bang Goes The Theory as a reminder that unconventional fuels can power vehicles. Sidebar: the Carpuccino's trip will cost up to 50 times as much as it would if it were running on gas.
All that being said, I think we can agree to set aside whatever qualms we may have with the Carpuccino in light of its similarities, aesthetic and otherwise, to Doc Brown's Mr. Fusion-equipped DeLorean from Back to the Future II.
Espresso? Where we're going we don't need espresso. [Daily Mail via Green Diary]
Continue reading VU Meter finagled into a PSP, reminds us of a time when the PSP was sexy
VU Meter finagled into a PSP, reminds us of a time when the PSP was sexy originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Mar 2010 20:38:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | | Email this | CommentsnewVideoPlayer( {"type":"video","player":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/vpdPSZB8A8E&hl=en&fs=1&fmt=22","customParams":[],"width":500,"height":412,"ratio":0.824,"flashData":"","embedName":null,"objectId":null,"noEmbed":false,"source":"youtube"} ); Nvidia posted a preview video of the GTX 480, their eyeball-popping, face-melting Fermi graphics card that is set for release "very, very soon." It bests ATI's HD 5870 in a benchmark, though maybe not by as much as you'd hope.
As Tom Petersen, Nvidia's director of technical management, explains in the video, the GTX 480 shines when it's tessellation time. During the tessellation-intensive parts of the benchmark, Nvidia's card outpaces ATI's considerably, though at other points they're neck and neck.
It seems obvious that Nvidia would choose something that really played to the GTX 480's strengths for its video debut, so we're hoping that the card lives up to our expectations for insane speeds when it shows up in the wild and people start running their own tests. [YouTube - Thanks Doug]
Different strokes for different folks, you know? And, whether you actually like this mod or not, you've got to admit it's cooler than a harelip. And probably killer at you know what. You DO know what, right? Tying cherry stems in a knot, silly!
Forked tongue [bitsandpieces]
Thanks to GuamOtoko, who wants his tongue cut into chicken strips. 
We've come across plenty of robots that were controlled by phones before, but usually those phones were being controlled by human hands. Some California hackers, however, are building bots that put Android to work for their robo-brainpower.
Their first creation, the TruckBot, uses a HTC G1 as a brain and has a chassis that they made for $30 in parts. It's not too advanced yet—it can use the phone's compass to head in a particular direction—but they're working on incorporating the bot more fully with the phone and the Android software. Some ideas they're kicking around that wouldn't be possible with a dinky Arduino brain: face and voice recognition and location awareness.
If you're interested in putting together a Cellbot of your own—can you even conceive of a cooler dock for your Android phone? Or a better use for your G1?—the team's development blog has some more information. The possibilities here are manifold; mad scientists, feel free to share your Android-bot schemes in the comments. [Wired]
Image credit Miran Pavic / Wired.com
If you'd like to experiment with studio flash configurations but you're short on the space or money to buy heavy-duty flash stands, this video tutorial details how to make portable flash stands using lightweight tent poles.
The design relies on sturdy but lightweight tent poles to provide support for your flashes and/or flashes with a soft box. The creator of the design, Peter Karlsson, put together two videos demonstrating first how the stand functions and then how it is constructed:
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The end product is smaller, lighter, and less expensive than a traditional light stand. It does have shortcomings, though mostly due to the lightness. You can put a flash on it, for example, but you couldn't safely put a strobe on it. It's also, as he notes in the video, a poor match for an outside shoot on a windy day. For portability and ease of packing, though, it's a great stand for flash-based photography.
