The Geek Church

Ellen Degeneres made a joke about the iPhone, and Apple is not at all pleased.

Here’s a Slim Bluetooth Keyboard made for the iPad.

You won’t believe this product known as YourPebbles.

HP has two new laptops, the Envy 14 and the Envy 17.

Skype has two new developments. They are adding five-way video conferencing, and new calling plans to include 170 countries.

Here’s an iPad mounted in the kitchen.

Here’s a free App from Bing, with the Top 100 Tunes.

Waze is coming to BlackBerry.

Here’s a glowing dress from CuteCircuit.

Here’s a neat hack of a Canon camera. Check it out.

Here’s an interesting sight: If Drawings Were Photographs.

Here’s the Epson WorkForce 520 All-in-one printer.

What a Pink Kodak Zi6? Get it for a cheap price at Amazon.

A study by Duke University shows that TiVo isn’t stopping the TV advertising industry.

Here is some Folding Speakers from MUJI.

Apparently, James Cameron wants to put Titanic in 3D. What’s next?

Here’s the SanDisk 360 USB Drive.

Riding a bicycle to get from one place to another in a neighborhood, community or city has a number of benefits. By using a bike, you save money on gas and can go through areas that aren’t accessible by car. You also get more exercise through cycling and it’s a cheaper form of transportation than automobiles overall. But what if you want to enjoy these benefits of bicycling without having to spend up to a hundred dollars or more on a bike of your own? Well, the bicycle company Trek is ready to help you with their new bike sharing system.

They call this bike sharing system B-cycle and it’s currently making its grand debut in the city of Denver. Trek has set up a series of B-cycle stations all over Denver. In order to use this bike sharing system, you first have to start your own account. Then you can use a bike from any B-cycle station and drop it off at the station nearest to you after using it. Each B-cycle bike is equipped with a GPS unit that tracks your route when you ride it. Having a GPS inside these bicycles also allows you to check one of them out online after you’ve set up your B-cycle account.

Furthermore, the daily cost for using B-cycle is only $5 while a year’s worth of service is also available for $65. These service costs seem to be quite affordable and offer a nice alternative to consumers who want to use a bicycle without owning one. Trek is currently working to install their bike sharing system in a bunch of other cities but no information about these cities is available at this time. However, you do have the option of going online to vote on bringing B-cycle to your city at the Trek website if you don’t live in Denver. According to sources, the support of many grassroots organizations and enough public interest is required in order to bring this bike sharing system to New York City. Perhaps you can get B-cycle too if you get enough people in your city go online and rock the vote.

Source

Like other aspects of modern culture, automotive transportation continues to evolve with the constant advance of technology. Take a moment to consider what cars could look like in the next few centuries. Maybe cars of the future will end up being dome-shaped, flying vehicles like the ones in the Jetsons cartoon, wheel-less, floating land cars like the landspeeder in the Star Wars movies or even the smart cars from the movie Demolition Man that respond to voice commands. The possibilities for futuristic cars seem endless, considering the depictions we see in film and television and our own imaginations also exist as a limitless design table. Thus, a German designer named Thomas Pinel has recently conceived his own vision for the car of the future.

He calls it the EKON concept car. His idea is to create an automobile that can change shape, change opacity and communicate with drivers through a fingerprint interface. Of course, this car concept is mainly intended for people who live in cities and it would also have the capability to send messages to other drivers and even pedestrians on the street for the purpose of better safety in traffic through visual communication.

Furthermore, this vehicle design concept would use a set of emoticons as a form of visual communication between drivers and pedestrians. Pinel also intends for this communication system to be conveniently located on the driver’s steering wheel for easy accessibility and use. Judging from the pictures, the EKON car concept reminds me of the smart cars from Demolition Man. However, I have to wonder how practical it is to make emoticons the new communication system for the automobile. Would they be replacing car horns and signal lights on a vehicle? Emoticons are arguably less recognizable than car horns and signal lights universally to the common man. As a method of communication, emoticons are not fully proven in effectiveness and that could compromise the future of driver and pedestrian safety on the road.

Source

Okay, here’s the next chapter of the series.

Here’s the usual spiel about what to do if you haven’t been reading it. Click here for an updating link for the entire series.

Anyway, after the jump is the fourth chapter. Enjoy.

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