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I wouldn’t call myself a Windows fanboy anymore than I would call myself a fanboy of the English language. I’ve never really played with a Mac. The weird shortcuts, the strange navigation; it’s all foreign to me. So, when I found out that Microsoft was slashing Windows 7 prices in half for the pre-order I instantly thought to promote such a great deal. And so the following disclaimer is in order: for all Mac aficionados, please don’t take this as choosing sides in this most epic of battles.

But a deal is a deal. $50 ($64 Canadian) to upgrade an XP or Vista operating system. That’s a massive 70% off of the price tag come October 22nd when Windows 7 hits retail. But before you get carried away, here’s all you need to know:

What is it?

Upgrade from XP/Vista to Windows 7 for 70%-off the retail price. Available through various online retailers including Amazon until July 11th/while supplies last.



Plus: Mini-projectors finding their way into smartphones. And an ecomill that'll really save on your energy bill
Mind Controlled Wheelchair

You know how in some versions of X-Men Prof. Xavier is able to control his wheelchair with his telekinetic abilities? It makes you wish that it was that easy to give mobility to those that paralyzed. But if Toyota has anything to say about it, it may very well become that easy. Toyota has teamed up with researchers in Japan to create the world’s fastest EEG sensor. The prototype is capable of interpreting specific brain waves in as little as 125 milliseconds. That’s virtually instantaneous, allowing user’s to command the chair to turn left of right on a whim. The command to stop the chair is for the user to simply puff out their check, an action tracked by a separate component. The technology has largely focused on tracking brain waves associated with imaginary hand and foot operations, but Toyota hopes to develop a similar devices that is based on emotional feedback. Toyota hopes to see the chair go into commercial production in the health care industry.

Source


An on-demand, illuminated bike lane? Gesture controls with your iPhone? A touch-screen wall? Yup, they're all in this week's Looking Ahead

LightLane Provides Bikers with Impromptu Illuminated Cycling Lane

When you’re on your bike the only thing to fear is fear itself. And cars. And snow. And sand. Also, stones, bits of trash, the night…Well, LightLane looks to mitigate the last item on the list, providing cyclists with a clever cushion on those dusk till dawn bike rides. In addition to some potent LEDs, the LightLane uses two diode-pumped solid state green lasers to dynamically ‘paint’ a line on the left of the rider. This long stretch of neon-green light provides a makeshift bike lane that drivers can readily see and hopefully respect.

The product, at one time simply relegated to the realm of ‘concept,’ has been met with overwhelming support, prompting the designers to move the LightLane into production.




Ah, another summer, another iPhone and another iPhone OS. So many new features, some many disgruntled iPod Touch owners (yes, you once again have to shell out $10 for the update, free for iPhone owners). But, without further ado, here’s what you can expect from the updated operating systm.

Copy/Past

Finally, the most fundamental aspect of modern computer technology comes to the iPhone. With the touch screen, selecting text is a breeze but up until this update it was not a possibility. Apple has finally rectified this archaism and you can now copy and paste until your heart’s content.

Spotlight Search

This new addition is accessed by swiping to the left from the main screen. This brings up a search box and a keyboard. Start typing and results will appear, letter by letter. Spotlight searches through media (music, videos etc) and contacts, as well as apps and emails. It’s a great way to browse through what can be a daunting amount of information and what’s best is that it provides instant access, allowing you to launch videos and play music right from the search screen. (In other search-related updates, Apple has also added the ability to search email over IMAP, enabling users to search, say a Gmail account, without having to launch the browser and log into Gmail itself.)



Our glimpse into the future of gadgets foretold of a monitor in a keyboard, a desk that 'reads' whatever's placed on it (including the temperature of your coffee!), and the iPhone getting a long overdue app addition

You Got Your Monitor On My Keyboard

Ah, Eee PC, what budget wonders will you cook up next. Wait a minute, this is actually pretty damn innovative. Asus has managed to squeeze in an iPhone-sized touchscreen onto the end of a rather thin keyboard. The result is a novel new way of surfing the net, controling media, and staying in touch while you’re in the bathroom. The 5-inch, 800x480 capacitive touchscreen runs in conjunction with an Atom chipset embedded in the keyboard. It’s also capable of running Skype and MSN, making an ideal addition to your TV room. Not much else is known about the Eee Keyboard but strangely, it's due out later this month.



Yesterday we posed the question: is the App Store more or less mature than a 7th grade game of truth or dare? Okay, so that wasn’t the exact wording, but the point remains; with each and every new urine-themed game and babe-ranking app that makes it into the App Store’s Top 100, the entire enterprise threatens to devolve into a portal for one-trick ponies and gimmicky titles geared towards that broad demographic known simply as ‘the immature.’ But how does this impact on the application marketplace kickstarted by iTunes? Is it a serious means of distributing quality games or is it merely a network perpetuated by frat boys and pubescent males? 

On the one hand, companies are not in habit of wasting cash. So it stands to reason that all these free juvenile apps were either commissioned on the sound reasoning that consumers would either buy the full-price version or succumb to the in-game adverts. Either way companies are banking on the viability of a market geared towards those that appreciate having toilet humour and hilarious insults in the palms of their hands. And judging by the fact that the number of these apps is only increasing, it’s safe to say, for now, that these low-brow games are a part of the App Store (and by extension iPhone) culture.



The exact ranking method of iTunes’ Top 100 apps is relatively unknown to those outside of the Apple offices but it’s believed to be a mix between recent and long term downloads. Either way, at the end of the day the ‘Top 100’ lists reflect what Apple and the average consumer thinks is popular. And so it’s interesting and informative to stop in from time to time and check out what represents the most coveted applications for the burgeoning gaming platform. Today’s results were rather…well, you be the judge. The following apps currently fill out the top third of the App Store’s ‘Top 100 free apps’:

#3 Urinal Test Description on iTunes: “The ultimate for any man: an app to determine how well you pick the ‘right’ urinal”

#4 Suicide Girls Description on iTunes: “Flick left and right through 10 of the sexiest SuicideGirls you’ve ever seen. Turn your iPhone or iPod Touch upside down and watch her clothes disappear”



Palm Pre Priced, Dated, Debunked

Sheesh, with all this Palm Pre hype you’d think it was coming out soon. Wait, it is? June 6th you say? And only $199?! So what’s the catch, some lame ass mail-in-rebate? Oh…

Get out your Sharpies and circle June 6th you technophile. Palm’s Pre will debut on that fateful day on Sprint’s Now Network. Retailers include Best Buy, Radio Shack, select Walmarts, Sprint.com, and of course, Sprint stores.

With the purchase of a brand new handset you also get an automatic subscription to the Everything Data plan for the low, low rate of $70/month ($10 more than the entry-level iPhone plan). Carry the one (199+(70x48)) and you get a Palm Pre with two years of service for just $3,559!

But don’t forget the mail-in-rebate. You see Palm’s done some research. Or rather, they’ve read up on someone else’s. Possibly Professor Sridhar Moorthy’s, who concludes that the highest redemption rate he’s seen is 50% on mail-in-rebates. Meaning half of the Palm Pre’s sold will be purchased for the full price of $299, leading to the question; just how lazy is the average consumer?



How do you like me now? Napster and Napster-owner Best Buy have to be wondering what consumers are going to answer to this pivotal question as they launch their new music pricing model. The new scheme is a hybrid of the unlimited music for a monthly fee and iTunes pay for what you play model. But can the ‘best of both worlds’ approach pull customers from either? Depends. What’s it gonna cost?

Since being tossed a life-preserver by Best Buy back in September 2008, Napster has done little to assert itself as one of the industry’s big players. Their $14 subscription service is on par with many others, including Zune and Rhapsody. And for a brand name that was nearly synonymous with mp3s Napster has had a long, unchecked fall from ubiquity. But that might change with an aggressive new pricing model. For just $5 a month U.S. Napster subscribers will have unlimited access to over 7 million songs via streaming. In addition, Napster will throw in 5 DRM-free tracks a month. Translated into the iTunes model, buy an EP get unlimited streaming access for a month.



It won’t be long before all the cool electric-themed names are taken (Tesla Motors alone has a de facto coolness to all their cars) and so we should treat each ‘cell,’ ‘electrode,’ and ‘circuit’ with all due respect. Which brings us to the Dodge Circuit, Chrysler’s prototype all-electric vehicle that continues the trend of sports car meets energy conservation (sounds even more ironic now that it’s typed out).

This spiffy looking EV relies on a 200-kilowatt electric motor, backed by lithium-ion battery system. With 268 horsepower and the ability to go from zero to 60 in less than 5 seconds, Dodge maintains the latest trend from automakers; just because it doesn’t burn gas, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be able to burn through energy. Those stats mimic the Dodge Challenger SRT’s 6.1-litre V8 Hemi, putting the Circuit’s into the echelon of high-end sports car.

The Circuit is one of the projects to roll out of Chrysler’s ENVI department, which specializes in electrically driven vehicles, and has recently been dubbed golden-boy status as Chrysler looks to make the Circuit the first graduate from the ENVI department into commercial production.


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