The US Air Force’s tanker procurement saga

March 9, 10

A torrid tail of Government military spending…

The Air Force has been trying to buy a new tanker for around nine years. And now it looks like it may go to Boeing. And here’s the irony: Back in 2004, Republican Senator John McCain successfully helped block a tanker lease arrangement that he saw as a sweetheart deal for Boeing. (Of course, I was secretly convinced that the nearly decade-long Air Force tanker saga was really a scheme to keep people in the defense trade press gainfully employed.)

Great photo though, more details at the fantastic Wired.com.

Victorian iPhone Dock

March 6, 10

Today Made-Craft launched an exclusive limited run of the iVictrola at Design Within Reach through their DWR Limited holiday program.  This version features a solid walnut base with a black Magnavox horn.  The 6 horns were produced and sold out by early afternoon.

via MADE-CRAFT

The Roboplow

March 6, 10

Granted you would need a hell of a lot of snow to justify this machine, either way, what a beast!

Microsoft’s Courier tablet concept

March 5, 10

This looks like a really exciting concept from Microsoft, combining note taking, organisation and reading into one multi screen device. I really hope they can bring a product to market that matches the quality demonstrated in the concept video…

Courier will function as a “digital journal,” and it’s designed to be seriously portable: it’s under an inch thick, weighs a little over a pound, and isn’t much bigger than a 5×7 photo when closed. That’s a lot smaller than we expected — this new picture really puts it into perspective — and the internals apparently reflect that emphasis on mobility: rather than Windows 7, we’re told the Courier is built on Tegra 2 and runs on the same OS as the Zune HD

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Asus’s wafer thin WiFi router

March 5, 10

Asus just released its RT-N56U, the thinnest router we’ve ever seen, or should we say, almost didn’t see? The router can handle 802.11 a, b, g, and n wireless signals and like a few other WiFi routers, you can plug any USB printer or hard drive into this to be able to access it via the wireless network. As of now, no price has been determined, but we’re very curious as to how this looks in real life.

via Unplggd.

Massive solar storms could reap Katrina-Scale devastation

March 5, 10

Solar storms take place when the sun’s surface erupts and spews radiation or electrically charged particles toward Earth. The more frequent minor storms may cause some radio interference and create the Northern Lights spectacle known as the aurora borealis. But every few decades can see a huge solar storm that releases the energy of 1 billion hydrogen bombs.

Events of that magnitude took place in both 1921 and 1859, before the world had become reliant upon satellites and electronic devices in everyday life. A recent exercise held in Boulder, Colorado simulated a worst-case scenario based on that storm, and involved both space weather experts and officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

More scary stuff at Popular Science.

HP Mini 210 Vivienne Tam Edition

March 4, 10

Paging all butterfly-admiring netbook lovers! With spring upon us, HP’s officially launching the Mini 210 Vivienne Tam edition that it previewed back at September’s Fall Fashion Week, and, well, it sure is unique looking.

via Engadget.

HP’s Slate & Adobe

March 1, 10

I like the look of the device, I hope it’s got solid performance, although I remain unconvinced by the HP addons, as Windows 7 is already very touch friendly. I hope it can also use Aero Glass, as their demo clearly looks to have switched it off in favour of higher performance in other areas.

via YouTube

The Green Book Marker

March 1, 10

Lovely idea for marking books and magazines, practical and decorative.

via automatism

Multi monitor home office heaven

March 1, 10

This office will take some beating, with over 40 monitors mounted desk to ceiling, this has to be seen to be believed….

Originally there was to be 60 monitors, a mix of 19s and 24s however, it changed a bit and there is now 40 24″ monitors and another 20 monitors offsite for development. There is six computers running all the monitors, each computer has a core i7 975, 24 gb of DDR 3 memory, two SLC SSDs in raid 0 and a large amount of nvidia NVS 420s as well as Nvidia 9800 GTs. This office is used for intraday trading and development.

Click through for more pictures during the build…

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