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| In the Future, We'll All Be Working on the Road | |  The Bentley Mulsanne Executive Interior Concept is brimming with digital hyperbole. Lets get down to brass tacks. Built into this car (which, despite its concept label, will be a made-to-order version of the ultra-upscale Mulsanne) you've got: Built-in mobile Wi-Fi. Two iPads and keyboards that fold up from a tray table. It should be noted that, in this context, they feel and work more like super-slim laptops that are built into the car. The tray tables electronically fold out for maximum futuristic-ness. A 15.6-inch high-def TV screen that is, as the company's marketing material puts it, "backed by the processing power of both an onboard hard drive and an Apple Mac computer housed in a bespoke boot drawer." A pair of smaller TVs, built into the front seat headrests. Sure, if you've even casually followed the evolution of the auto interior over the past decade, you've noticed that our cars are now increasingly home to more and bigger screens. Touchscreen infotainment systems are now the standard, and countless cars pair headrest monitors with a Spongebob Squarepants DVD to serve as a sort of digital babysitter. But this car takes it all a few steps further. The basic idea: Create a fully connected mobile office. If you're one of the masters of the universe that this vehicle is aimed at, traffic can no longer come between you and productivity. The Mulsanne concept is your own personal Air Force One. It's also the absolutely logical conclusion of the convergence of our mobile devices and mobile transportation units. (Check out the pic below for the full experience.) On a recent test drive of the Mulsanne concept, I parked myself in the backseat to see if it actually was possible to get real work done in this thing while riding around town. In fact, the onboard Internet proved reliable (and, dare I say: the ride proved smooth) -- enough that I was able to punch out a skeleton for this very story on one of the onboard iPads. SEE ALSO: Can Gamification Make You a Better Driver? But while this vehicle may be almost hilarious to look at (So! Many! Screens!), it's no joke. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the average American spends more than 50 minutes per day commuting to work -- a figure that glosses over the millions of long-distance commuters whose treks to work are basically "epic poems," as Mad Men's Pete Campbell called it. Those hours of lost productivity can prove soul-sucking, eat into time that could be spent working, and generally make life less joyful. And unless we change how we build our cities and suburbs, those hours on the road will likely go up, and not down. It will likely become a fact of life that many, many folks will need use the time they take to get to and from work to actually... you know... work. My friends who ride the train into Manhattan from Connecticut and New Jersey do this already. The key will be to build this functionality into cars in a way that's both safe, and accessible to folks who can't afford Bentleys -- or chauffeurs. Images courtesy of Bentley |
| Apple's Lightning to Micro USB Adapter Comes to the U.S. | | 12:26:07 AM | Stan Schroeder |
|  Previously available only in Europe, Apple's Lightning to Micro USB adapter is now available in the U.S. as well. The adapter, which costs $19 in the U.S. Apple Store (as opposed to £15 in the UK and ?19 in rest of Europe), lets you connect an iPhone, iPad, or iPod with a Lightning connector to a Micro USB cable and use it to sync and charge your device. Apple's Lightning connector is the new power connector used in the latest generation of iPod, iPad and iPhone devices. It replaced Apple's previous 30-pin dock connector, and is incompatible with cables and devices created for that connector. Most other smartphones on the market use the standardized Micro USB connector, and in Europe, all smartphones must use it, which is why Apple's Lightning to Micro USB adapter appeared there first. |
| Apple Looking to Drop Intel Chips From Mac Computers [REPORT] | | Monday, November 05, 2012 11:12 PM | Stan Schroeder |
|  Apple may drop Intel chips from Mac computers, in favor of chips similar to the ones used in the iPad and iPhone, sources say. According to a Bloomberg report, Apple's engineers think its own chips will one day be powerful enough to run laptop and desktop computers, but this change likely won't happen in the next few years. Apple's 2005 switch from PowerPC processors to Intel x86 processors was one of the most surprising moves that year, as the Cupertino, Calif. company has long maintained that PowerPC processors are better than Intel's. But it's currently tablets and smartphones, which use tiny, low-power chips, that are dictating where the industry is heading. Apple is known for releasing very thin, light laptops -- such as the MacBook Air and the latest Retina-equipped 13'' MacBook Pro -- which would benefit from such chips. Switching to another chip manufacturer would be a huge blow for Intel, which is struggling to capture some of the smartphone and tablet market with its own line of low-power chips, called Atom. |
| Man Climbs 103 Floors Using Thought-Controlled Bionic Leg [VIDEO] | | Monday, November 05, 2012 9:03 PM | Anita Li |
|  Fitted with a "thought-controlled bionic leg," amputee Zac Vawter climbed 103 floors of Chicago's Willis Tower -- accomplishing a task that would intimidate even seasoned athletes. But the 31-year-old, whose right leg is amputated, had help from a neural-controlled prosthetic leg. The device, which has a powered knee and ankle, can anticipate Vawkter's actions. For example, when he pushes on the leg to stand up, it "reads his intent," and pushes back, propelling him up, according to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. "One of the biggest difference(s) for me is being able to take stairs step-over-step like everyone else," Vawter said in a statement. "With my standard prosthesis, I have to take every step with my good foot first and sort of lift or drag the prosthetic leg up." "With the bionic leg, it's simple; I take stairs like I used to, and can even take two at a time." Vawter joined nearly 3,000 people to participate in SkyRise Chicago, the world's tallest indoor stair climb event. To see the bionic leg in action, check out the video, above. Images courtesy of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago |
| Rock Your Way To A Charged iPhone With This Chair [VIDEO] | | Monday, November 05, 2012 8:15 PM | Emily Price |
|  Looking for a way to rock out while rocking the baby to sleep? We've got the chair for you. Meet iRock, a rocking chair with a built-in iPad dock and speakers for listening to tunes and surfing the web, while rocking your day away -- literally. The fun doesn't stop there. A generator on the chair harnesses the rocking movement, and transforms it into power. A 60-minute rocking session, for instance, is enough to charge an iPad 3 to 35%. You can also use the chair to charge any of your other Apple devices, including the iPhone 5 and the newly launched iPad mini. Hand-built out of pine, the iRock is only available now in white, but there are plans to release the chair in red, black, yellow and striped varieties in the future. Check out the video, above, for a closer look at the rocking new charger. Then, let us know your thoughts on the chair in the comments below. |
| Students Create a Jacket That Can Send Messages [VIDEO] | | Monday, November 05, 2012 7:31 PM | Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai |
|  A group of students at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has created a wearable communication jacket for first responders in emergency situations. Firefighters and Emergency Medical Technicians, for example, need to communicate with each other in an emergency, but smartphones are uniquely unsuited to the task. The mobile phone requires both hands and the attention of the person holding it - a liability when you're dodging hazards. "Crews therefore need devices with a much simpler user interface. That was the basic idea behind making the jackets," says Babak Farshchian of SINTEF ICT, a research organization in Norway. The team designed a prototype jacket that incorporates a small screen in its sleeve. The students used Arduino, an open-source microcontroller, to build a display that communicates with an Android phone via Bluetooth. SEE ALSO: How a Plastic Watch Is Helping Those Living On Less Than $2.50 a Day/a> Whenever the user receives a message, he will feel a vibration in his neck via another sensor and be able to read it on the screen, which displays rolling text. Learn more about this innovative jacket in the video above. What do you think about it? Tell us in the comments. |
| Hang on Tight! Presenting the World's Fastest Electric Vehicles [INFOGRAPHIC] | | Monday, November 05, 2012 5:05 PM | Sam Laird |
|  Here at Mashable, we're fans of all things cutting edge, and that most certainly includes the gadgets that get you from A to B. In the world of vehicles, the newest and freshest offerings are all electric. New products from Tesla Motors, Elon Musk's Silicon Valley-based electric vehicle company, are always a hit. But Tesla's not the only company producing super speedy high-tech vehicles; in fact, cars are just the tip of the electric-vehicle iceberg. Take, for example, the JR-Maglev MLX01, an experimental magnetic levitation train developed in Japan. It uses magnets to move and stay on track, and is capable of topping 360 mph. Meanwhile, France's Train à Grande Vitesse uses old-fashioned wheels, but also runs on electricity, and has traveled as fast as 357 mph. SEE ALSO: James Bond: All His Awesome Cars/a> The spiffy looking Tesla Roadster Sport can hit 125 mph, but that doesn't even place it in the top two of fastest electric cars. A pair of electric motorcycles -- the Lawless OCC Rocket Bike and Mission R -- would also dust it in a drag race. The Roadster Sport, however, has them all beat on looks. The infographic below, which comes courtesy of the British website carloan4u.co.uk, gives us a rundown of all the world's fastest electric vehicles. Tesla is represented there, along with the aforementioned "superbikes" and high-speed trains, but there are a few funky-looking suprises as well. Check out the full infographic for more; then let us know in the comments: Which futuristic vehicle would you most like to take for a spin? Thumbnail image courtesy Tesla Motors |
| Facebook's iPhone App Now Lets You Send Friends Real-World Gifts [HANDS-ON] | | Monday, November 05, 2012 4:04 PM | Emily Price |
|  Facebook updated its iOS app Monday, adding the ability to send real-world gifts to your friends directly from your iPhone. Facebook launched Gifts on the web in September. The product of its acquisition of Karma earlier this year, the feature allows Facebook users to give real-world gifts to their friends on the social network without having to know that friend's physical address. Gifts range from cake pops to Uber rides, and can be sent along their way in less than a minute -- perfect for last-minute gift giving. SEE ALSO: Facebook Rolls Out Charitable Gifts in Wake of Sandy Along with gifts, Monday's app update also added the ability to upload multiple photos to Facebook at once as well as an updated Messenger, allowing you easier access to Facebook contacts you may want to communicate with on the social network. Check out the gallery above for an up-close look at the gift-giving process on the iPhone. Can you see yourself giving gifts on-the-go using your iPhone? Let us know your thoughts on the updated iPhone app in the comments. |
| Bitcoin: How the Internet Created Its Own Currency | | Monday, November 05, 2012 11:13 AM | Christina Warren |
|  Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer decentralized digital currency. It differs from traditional, government-backed currencies in that there is no central issuer, and there are no middlemen involved for various transactions. Back in 1998, the concept of crypto-currency was described by Wei Dai on a cypherpunks mailing list. Crypto-currency is an electronic currency that relies on cryptography to regulate functions such as value and counterfeit protection. Bitcoin is the first implementation of that idea. Its protocol was published in a white paper by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008. In 2009, Nakamoto released the first Bitcoin client and issued the first Bitcoins. The supply of Bitcoin is regulated not by a central bank, but by software. The original rationale behind Bitcoin was to create a type of electronic currency that was anonymous, secure and independent from governments or other central authorities. While still a nascent currency, various organizations such as WikiLeaks, the Internet Archive and the Free Software Foundation accept donations in Bitcoin. Moreover, thousands of smaller merchants accept payment using Bitcoin. Bitcoin Mining: How Bitcoins Are Created With a traditional fiat currency (think the U.S. dollar or the Euro), a central bank (like the Federal Reserve) issues currency. That's not the case with Bitcoin. Instead, coins are generated using a process called mining. Think of mining as a lottery. Computers connected to the network (known as miners) aim to find the solution to a certain mathematical problem. If they successfully solve the problem, a new block is created. Until December 2012, the value of each block is 50 BTC (Bitcoins). Every four years, the value of solving a block is halved. Mining was designed to be a resource-intensive process. In the early days of Bitcoin, users used traditional computers to mine for different blocks. Today, miners often use high-powered graphics cards and machines designed specifically for optimal Bitcoin mining. Moreover, there are networks of computers that work together in various pools to find blocks. The more powerful your system, the greater the chance that mining will produce a new block. As a result, there are individuals and groups that invest in computer equipment designed to mine more efficiently. They are betting that the cost of the equipment (as well as the resulting electricity) will be offset by the value of the Bitcoins themselves. The Bitcoin system is designed so that the difficulty of uncovering a block can be increased or decreased. This keep the output of the currency more consistent. Bitcoin Exchanges: Buying and Selling Bitcoins One of the basic tenets of Bitcoin -- and all crypto-currency -- is the absence of a central banking authority. That doesn't mean, however, that there aren't entities that exist in the same way. In the Bitcoin world, these are known as exchanges. These exchanges allow people to buy and sell Bitcoins with one another. The major Bitcoin exchanges include Mt. Gox (the largest Bitcoin exchange), CryptoXchange and Intersango. The most popular exchanges allow users to buy and sell Bitcoins using local currencies. For some, this can be a profitable source of arbitrage and big trades can impact the overall value of the larger Bitcoin economy. Many of these exchanges also act as eWallet's for users to store their Bitcoins. This is convenient because it offers an easy way to buy and sell from an exchange account, however, it can be risky because if the exchange is hacked, the eWallets can be stolen. This has happened to a number of large Bitcoin exchanges in the past -- with hackers absconding with thousands of Bitcoins. You can read more about eWallets and what to watch out for before using one in this Bitcoin.it Wiki article. Users can also store their own wallets on a local computer, USB drive or even print out a wallet address for offline safe-keeping. Using Bitcoin A small number of real-world and online establishments accept Bitcoin as a form of payment. It's important to understand that like any other currency, the value of Bitcoin fluctuates all the time. At the time of this writing, Mt. Gox values a BTC at ~$10.75 USD -- however that could fluctuate up or down, depending on the Bitcoin market as a whole. Some shops that accept Bitcoin may accept less than market rate (depending on current exchange values) in order to obtain more Bitcoins. Others can adjust their pricing depending on overall values. Many in the Bitcoin community use the currency to trade or barter with one another. At forums such as BitcoinTalk.org, users post messages of what they are willing to buy or sell with Bitcoin. Because Bitcoin is like cash, the onus is often on the buyer to trust that the seller won't run off with Bitcoins without providing a product or service. It's similar to the early days of eBay, where community reputation can act as a voucher for who to trust and who to ignore. The anonymous nature of Bitcoin means that the currency can also be used for seedier business transactions. The online marketplace Silk Road has been described as "the Amazon.co of illegal drugs." Silk Road sellers sell illegal drugs such as LSD, heroin and marijuana. Buyers conduct all transactions using Bitcoin. The hidden nature of the marketplace (it uses the Tor network to hide traffic) coupled with the technology around Bitcoin makes it ideal for drug transactions. Is This the Future? Some see Bitcoin as a future type of currency. While it's a stretch to see a decentralized currency gaining mass adoption, many of the ideas involved with Bitcoin, especially when it comes to online transactions and distributed computing for security could be used with existing fiat currencies. The Royal Canadian Mint's MintChip project carries on many of the same ideas as Bitcoin, but in a way that is backed by the mint itself. The MintChip project is still in its infancy but if it works, it could shape the future of Canadian currency. Have you ever used Bitcoin? What do you think of the alternative currency? Let us know in the comments. |
| Court Tosses Apple Lawsuit Against Google | | Monday, November 05, 2012 10:58 AM | Pete Pachal |
|  A Wisconsin judge has dismissed a lawsuit that Apple filed against Motorola Mobility, now owned by Google. The judge dismissed the suit, first filed in March 2011, with prejudice only a few hours before the trial was set to begin. Apple had been seeking to obtain licenses for some of Motorola's patents, and wanted the court to essentially force Motorola to license them to Apple at a reasonable rate (technically called a "FRAND" rate). Apple said it would pay up to $1 per device sold, but Motorola wanted more: a 2.25% royalty payment on every device. In asking the court to settle the matter, Apple said it didn't want any court-determined rate to be binding, and that it would appeal any ruling that settled on a rate of more than $1 per device. As first reported by Reuters, the judge took a dim view of Apple's stance. In a pre-trial brief, Judge Barbara Crabb wrote that she "questioned whether it was appropriate for a court to undertake the complex task of determining a FRAND rate if the end result would be simply a suggestion that could be used later as a bargaining chip between the parties." SEE ALSO: Apple vs. Samsung: How Much Copying Is Too Much? Whether or not any judgment in the case would have any meaning, considering Apple didn't consider itself bound by it, was apparently a major point of discussion in the days leading up the the dismissal. In its final filing in the case, Apple had asked the judge, if she dismissed the case, to at least not dismiss it with prejudice. That request fell on deaf ears, however, and the judge did exactly that. The case can still be appealed but, since it now has the "with prejudice" label, can't be re-filed with the same claims. This dismissal is just the latest in Apple's legal woes over patents. Although the company won a landmark $1 billion decision against Samsung in August, Apple has lost cases in Korea and Europe since then, and was even forced to run ads in the UK saying Samsung didn't copy the iPad. What do you think would help usher companies toward a ceasefire in the ongoing patent wars? Leave your suggestions in the comments. Image courtesy of iStockphoto, stuartbur |
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