Robot cars race around California

A $2m race for robotic vehicles in the Californian desert offers a glimpse at a driverless future for cars.

BBC

MIT developing carbon-free, stackable rental cars

Sure, we know you love actually owning a car, but let's be honest -- in large cities with condensed layouts, your H3 doesn't make a lot of sense.

A group of researchers at MIT have been hard at work developing a solution that's kind on the planet and your scrawny legs. A team called Smart Cities have designed a small, two-seat, electric vehicle -- which they call the City Car -- that can be "stacked" in convenient locations (say, just outside a subway stop), and then taken on short trips around urban areas. The cars -- which are based around an omnidirectional "robot wheel" that encases an electric motor, suspension, and steering -- can be "folded" and attached to a group of other cars for charging.

The lineups of rentable vehicles would be accessible from various points around a city, with six or eight cars occupying just a single "regular" car space. Of course, you'll have to forgo your 24-inch rims... but that's life.

Engadget

AdMob Offers First Facebook Mobile Advertising Solution

San Mateo based mobile advertising solutions provider AdMob has announced AdMob for Facebook Mobile, a mobile advertising solution for developers of third-party Facebook applications.

AdMob has enabled optimized mobile ads for Facebook Mobile, which developers can use to monetize their mobile applications. Developers can start showing ads and earning money immediately.

AdMob for Facebook Mobile is said to be the first monetization solution for Facebook Mobile developers.

TechCrunch

$200 gPC launches at Wal-Mart

PC maker Everex rolls out a budget desktop PC today that costs $200 and combines the Ubuntu Linux kernel with Google applications and open source software.

The Everex gPC, goes on sale tomorrow at Wal-mart and is being touted by the company as a close collaboration between the PC maker, the open source community and Google that is intended to "bring Linux to the masses."

The machine uses a 1.5GHz Via C7-D processor, Via UniChrome Pro IGP graphics core, and comes equipped with 512MB of memory, an 80GB hard drive, a DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drive, and has built-in Ethernet.

But the real secret sauce is a software suite that begins with what the company calls its "gOS," which turns out to be a customized Ubuntu Linux kernel. The software bundle includes open source desktop applications highlighted by OpenOffice, GIMP photo software, the Xing DVD and video player, and Rhythmbox music management software.

PC World

Pay Up, Kid, or Your Igloo Melts

A virtual penguin teaches kids how to spend real cash, upsetting some parents.

New York Times

AOL To Announce Internet "Do-Not-Track" List

Most consumers are familiar with do-not-call lists, which are meant to keep telemarketers from phoning them. Soon people will be able to sign up for do-not-track lists, which will help shield their Web surfing habits from the prying eyes of marketers.

Huffington Post

Who needs an ad agency when your corporation is a cult?

I guess there's not much point in doing creative development when when someone's already made your commercial, and tested it, for you. An 18-year-old student from Leeds gets his youtube video polished up a bit to be the television commercial for Apple’s new iPod Touch.

New York Times

Bands find video games a ticket to fame

PARIS (Reuters) - Singer-guitarist Walter de Castro couldn't believe his luck when he found out his band's song "The Core" would be featured on "FIFA 2008," the Electronic Arts popular soccer game.

Reuters

EveryScape's 3-D Maps Take You Inside Landmark Buildings

EveryScape's 3-D maps go one step further than Google: They let you explore the insides of buildings, too. The service, launching next week, will give virtual explorers views of restaurants, hotels and landmarks in San Francisco, Boston, New York and Seattle.


Wired

Virtual worlds threaten 'values'

Virtual worlds for children could undermine the human values that societies need them to learn, says industry veteran.

BBC News

Smelly screens selling beer on the streets

The aroma-emitting Kaoru Digital Signage display will be appearing in front of a Tokyo beer hall called Kirin City from October 21 and will assault the noses of passers-by with scents of orange and lemon and the eyes with video of foaming jugs of beer.

Apparently, the men in suits reckon the citrus is “associated with beer” so the field test resulting in crowds flocking to the bar like journalists to, well, a bar will show that they’re correct. Either way, each installation uses ultrasound to vaporize aromatic oils and can waft the result over 500 cubic meters.

Digital World Tokyo

Google’s Purchase of Jaiku Raises New Privacy Issues

While Google’s Jaiku purchase may not seem like an earth-shaking event, some say it is the start of a truly interconnected world, where a chunk of our existence will migrate online.

New York Times

Welcome to the Rat Race: Steelcase's Desk/Treadmill Mashup

Anyone who reads the fine site Book of Joe knows that the man behind the blogging empire is religiously devoted to working out while writing, and prides himself on having integrated a treadmill into his workspace. Well manufacturer Steelcase thinks that this trend has grown beyond one individual multitasking in his underwear, and is poised to introduce a nicely-designed product called the Walkstation which seems more at home in a CEO's office than your messy living room.

Engaget

Sony's Virtual World Brand-Friendly

A couple of announcements indicating that Sony's upcoming PlayStationHome (site, wiki) virtual world will have plenty of ad inventory:

GameIndustry.biz: "SCEA has announced the formation of an in-game advertising business unit. Although the in-game advertising unit will be responsible for incorporating advertising across all PlayStation platforms, its emphasis will be on PlayStation Home, which 'will present opportunities for SCEA to deliver dynamic, relevant advertisements in game.'" [Oct 8 2007]

Advertising Lab

Bedroom 747: Man Builds $30,000 Jumbo Jet Simulator in his Bedroom

John Davis spent eight years and £15,000 building a Boeing 747 flight simulator in a room in his house. And now the 47-year-old's hobby has turned into such a full-time occupation that he has jacked in his job as a graphic designer to run a full-time flight simulation business from his home in Coventry, UK.

Gizmodo

The Web as Dominant Platform: Google VP Articulates a Revolution

Jeff Huber, Senior VP of Google, talking about Google "Gadgets" (aka Widgets ) at the Web 2.0 Summit made a very telling statement about the future of computing:

“The Internet has already won. The Web is the platform–a mosaic of gadgets, APIs and container all over the Web.”

His declaration of the web as the dominant platform in computing describes an approach to software design that is kind of a no-brainer for anyone watching the trends in desktop widgets, Facebook applications and the like. However, this kind of thinking also represents a paradigm shift in the established thinking about how we use computers.

Thinking about networks as the basic platform, not as a function of computers, but as their essential identity, represents a change in how companies will approach software design, and how users' will approach their own PCs.

Reading this, I can't help thinking of Sun Microsystems' original vision of the future of computing; as network based, with applications living on the network rather than individual hard drives, and PCs being little more than dumb terminals with storage capacity for personal files.

The ramifications of such a structure, however, are far reaching, affecting computer cost and, therefore, the so-called "digital divide", collaboration and, therefore, the structure of new business, as well as security, ownership, copyright, and much more.

It's a simple statement that, as I said, seems obvious to anyone with a passing interest in the subject. The downstream effects of this thinking, however, are very significant.

ZDNet

Firms seek online copyright pact

Firms including Viacom, Walt Disney and Myspace unite to set guidelines to protect copyright online.

BBC

MySpace and Skype to Announce Partnership

In November, MySpace will add the Internet telephone service’s features to its instant messenger software, which will allow users to make free calls from their computers.

New York Times

Blogged with Flock

High Impact: Impact Jackets (a.k.a. Wearable Airbags) Finally Make It to the US, and Are Immediately "Tested"

Impact Jackets, originally designed to save Japanese construction workers from long falls by inflating prior to impact, have finally made it to the United States. Only instead of construction workers, it's our motorcyclists that seem to be reaping the benefits. And it didn't take too long to see some results.

Gizmodo

Does Your Building Need A Social Network? Why Not.

New York-based LifeAt wants to create a social network around your residential building. Do you need one? Nope. But maybe you’ll use it anyway. And perhaps you’ll even get to know some of your neighbors.

TechCrunch