It seems there is some good news in the area of rechargable batteries: batteries that may be charged in just a few seconds. Hey, I'd be happy with batteries that can be charged in just a few minutes.

So many of my gadgets require some kind of battery to power them on the road. Most of the time I remember to charge the gadgets in time for any road trip. Not all trips can be planned for though, so sometimes I end up with a gadget that is not fully charged. (plus, ok, I'll admit it, sometimes I forgot to charge a gadget) Having the option of literally last-minute charging a battery would be great. Now I just need lithium-ion batteries for my Wii controller. Since I don't use it very often, I usually end up with empty batteries, scrambling to find a couple that still have some juice left.

It all sounds like something too good to be true, right now, but perhaps this will be available sooner than thought. Science is happening at impressive speed these days. Speaking of science and technology, the compact disc turned 30 this weekend. I didn't realize it (or I, for that matter) was that old already. For the record (no pun intended) I still love compact discs.

I have to admit I had never heard of Robert Adler before. It turns out I use one of his inventions on a daily basis. Robert Adler was one of the inventors of the remote control and he died last Thursday.

The remote control, a device so common nowadays, it is hard to remember the time when I changed channels by hand. Although I do remember my very first vcr, that had a remote control with a cable. We came a long way since then. Just a few days ago I attended a presentation where slides on a MacBook were advanced using a remote control.

So here is a thank you to the guy who invented the remote. With just one remark: couldn't he have made sure all devices use the same kind of remote? I can see four different remotes from where I am sitting now, and I don't even own that many devices. Yes, the potential for abuse would be big of course (I remember kids walking through the neighborhood trying to flip people's channels with their remotes by pointing it through the window, oh how they would have loved this gadget), but surely someone could invent a safety measure for that.
[Source]

Ok, this may seem like an out-of-place post, but really, I keep wondering about this. Does anyone know of an alarm that will give off a signal that will not wake me up? And I mean on a regular night, not when I'm in a drunken stupor.

Let me try to explain. Usually, an alarm is pretty straightforward. Either you set it so it goes off at a certain time and hope you wake up because of the noise (unless you're deaf and have one of those flashing or shaking alarms), or you don't set it and just wake up at a random point in time. On some occasions though, I would like to have an alarm that warns me in such a way that I would notice it if I am awake, but which would not wake me if I was asleep. This is great for certain reminders for things I might do if I'm still awake, for those restless nights.

An example: this morning I woke up at 5am, more than two hours earlier than planned. My alarm was set for 7:15. I tried to fall back asleep but that didn't happen. At some point I figured “if I'm still awake by 6:30, I might as well get up because there's no point in falling asleep for half an hour”. So it would have been useful to get a signal at 6:30. Unless, of course, I managed to fall back asleep, then I wouldn't want to wake up at 6:30. So a very soft signal would be required. Another example: I go to bed at 11 but know there's a great live match on tv at 1 am. I figure if I'm still awake by then, I'll check it out. But how do I know when it's 1am, without constantly checking the alarm? Right, with a nice soft alarm. Of course this would also be helpful if you wake up, want to fool around with your spouse for a while, and don't want to be reminded to get up by the alarm at full volume, but instead want a discrete sound to interrupt what you're doing. Hey, no doubt there are plenty more reasons, but you get my point. Anyone patented such an alarm or interested in marketing it?

A Welshman mailed a (paper) card to a friend without knowing the address. So he sketched a map that indicated the approximate location of this friend's new place. The card actually reached its destination. [Source]

Try doing that with email, your mail would just bounce or be picked up (and deleted) by the wrong person. Or if you're really lucky, the recipient knows your address, like when you share an almost identical address with a colleague at work. Another example of how paper mail is easier to recover from incorrect addressing is when someone mails a letter to the correct street, but wrong house. Quite often people at least know the names of their neighbors, so they can figure out where to drop off the mail.

A post on BoingBoing mentioned a wiki page that just started, which aims to compile a list of available power outlets in airports. The idea being that people traveling with a laptop may want to charge it (or at least plug it in and use it) while waiting at the airport. [Source]

An interesting initiative, and it will be interesting to see how this list turns out. It can be difficult to find an available power outlet, no doubt about that. But this wiki is missing an (IMO very important) element when it comes to using power outlets you don't own: are you allowed to do so? There have been accounts of people getting into trouble because of “stealing” power by charging their electronics in semi-public places. What is each airport's policy on the use of their power outlets?

In a more general way, it would be good if airports and other locations such as train stations and the like would offer power to its users/visitors. Providing a number of publicly available power outlets would be a good way to regulate this kind of thing, and it would provide the airport/station with opportunities as well. Put some ads near the outlets, put the outlets near the fast food places, things like that. Make 'm freely available, but make sure there are plenty of ways to spend money nearby.

Making something as important as power freely available may not always work out for the best though. Making WiFi freely available has its drawbacks as well, when people come in and occupy a seat for hours without spending any money. Experiences and studies differ on whether or not this is a big problem, but it's not too hard to imagine some people sitting someplace for hours just because there's free WiFi. It appeals to my Dutch side.

On my most recent US flight, I had to go through a new kind of security screening. At the time I was too preoccupied to even ask what this thing was, but I have since read up on it and found out it's an explosives detection machine that uses ion mobility spectrometry.

The actual security device looks like a fairly standard metal detection portal, except for the fact that it actually has a glass door that keeps you from going through it. You step into the portal/cubicle construction and a number of air vents blow brief puffs of air onto your body. From what I understand from some articles, the device then sucks up the air and analyzes its content to see if there are traces of suspicious chemicals in it. So if the subject in the booth had handled (or was carrying) a bomb or materials used in bomb-making, the machine would supposedly pick up on this and give off a warning signal. In my case, I guess I didn't smell too sulfurous, because I was allowed to proceed. [Read More!]

Every time I go out of the country for a while, I find myself recording lots of tv shows. Hey, what can I say, I'm addicted to some shows. So far, I usually manage to record the maximum possible time with my equipment. That means 16 hours of video, using two VCRs on the longplay settings. Every once in a while, I wonder if I should just buy myself a DVD/HD recorder, which would let me record shows to hard disk and/or DVD. The hard disk would then make it possible to record 100+ hours without running out of space. The problem? Well, for one thing, it's pretty expensive. Another problem is, most of these (if not all) seem to created DVDs at single speed. I have two locations in my home to watch recorded stuff, if it takes an hour to put an hour's worth of tv on a DVD just so I can watch it elsewhere, it's not worth the effort.

There are alternatives to buying HD recorders. One of those, is to add a video capture card with a tuner to a computer and record shows this way. I have thought about it, but it always seemed too daunting. This is, in part, due to my experiences with the current tv capture card (without tuner) and trying to get that to work. Then I read an interesting article on putting together your own PVR (personal video recorder, the kind of thing I was talking about) and this makes it sound much easier. [Source]

This got me wondering if I would be able to set up something using a USB video card (less risk of messing things up by installing the card inside the computer) for my old computer. But just exactly how old a computer can you use? Going by a FAQ from the Build your own PVR site, a 500 Mhz cpu would be required. I have an old computer that is no longer in use, but that is only a PII 450. So probably not enough. I could install the card and software on my main computer, no problem, but I don't know how much the recording would slow down or otherwise interfere with this computer. So I'll give it some more thought.

One problem I have with using my computer as a PVR though is the requirement of leaving it on 24/7. For some, maybe irrational, reason, I feel like it is a main fire hazard to leave this computer on for over two weeks in a row. Not to mention it would mean increased wear and tear.

So after all is said and done, I guess the best option is to simply buy another trusted old technology VCR. Much cheaper than a DVD recorder, too.

Yesterday I tried to set up one of those VoIp service I mentioned last week. Voipbuster installed without a problem, but when it was time to get an actual account, it turned out to be less good than expected. I would have to deposit € 10,- so I would get free calls to landlines in the Netherlands. Hm. Ten euros that also expire after 100 days or so? Not a good deal. It is also possible to pay by phone, in which case the maximum possible charge is € 1.50 so I did that. This is only good for seven days, but at least it would give me a chance to try the service.

Today my provider, XS4ALL, introduced Voip Out. With this service, not only can I receive incoming calls using VoIP, but I can now also call regular phones at a rate of 2 eurocents a minute. That is more expensive than Voipbuster, but the same price as Skype. Plus, it's not a prepaid account that expires after a while, but it gets charged to my monthly ISP bill. Now there's an interesting thing to consider, next time I am abroad and want to call home. If I can get it to work, that is. Haven't tried it yet, but it seems some routers may pose a problem.

The good thing about VoIP through my provider, would of course be that I don't have to worry about the service going tits-up. Chances of my provider stopping such a service are slim, almost as slim as my provider itself quitting. So once I get myself my own person VoIP phone number, I can keep using it for a long time, turning it into my second (or maybe even first) way of contact for people. There are some interesting possibilities to consider. But first, I'll have to see when I get around to installing the software XS4ALL provides.

With Voice over IP (VoIP), you use software to make “phone calls”. In the beginning, this was nothing more than running voice chat software to connect to other computers running the same voice chat software. But VoIP has grown up. There are very professional versions that are in use by major corporations and universities. Of course, those are expensive and nothing like what you would use at home. For the home user, plenty of alternatives exist. These options allow you to not only call someone else running the same program, but also to call people on real phones. Isn't that something? All this at cheaper rates than most regular phone plans.

One of the biggest VoIP providers for the home user is Skype (mentioned before). With its SkypeOut program, you buy calling time that you can use to call actual phone numbers all over the world at a rate of a couple of cents a minute. But there is more. There's an entire chain of programs all marketed by the same company, the German Betamax GmbH & Co.Kg . My brother alerted me to one of these programs, called VoipBuster. Then we came across two other sites that looked very much the same: VoipDiscount and VoipStunt. All three list Betamax GmbH as the one behind the site. [Read More!]

Well, after a few days of wrestling with bluetooth, I have to say it's definitely not always the great solution it's made out to be. For some reason, my Dell Latitude and Trust bluetooth adapter don't seem to get along too well. A few times now, I got a message saying the bluetooth could not be found. Reinstalling the software fixed that, but I don't know what is causing it. Maybe an upgrade of the software will help, if I can find it. Right now, bluetooth is not something I'd suggest to other people, given these problems. Maybe I'll find out I'm too harsh on it though, if it turns out to be a problem caused by my notebook or by myself.