Our new blog will feature news, tips and products from the world of technology, as well as highlights from some our clients endeavors. Plus we'll add a few of our favorite picks from YouTube that arrive in our Inbox each month!
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The Mitsuoka Orochi is a Japanese sports car which takes its name from the mythical Yamata no Orochi 8-headed Japanese dragon.
The Orochi was originally built in 2001 as a concept on a Honda NSX chassis for the 2001 Tokyo Motor Show. Mitsuoka then kept revising the car, showing a new version in 2005 and displayed, at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show, the Orochi Nude-Top Roadster.
In October 2006, Mitsuoka officially launched the production version of the Orochi, now powered by a 3.3 litre 230 hp (172 kW) Toyota 3MZ-FE V6 engine. Production will be limited to 400 units over the next four years at a cost of around ¥10,500,000 (around $89,000 USD).
On January 30, 2008, Mitsuoka Motors announced that they will be producing 20 limited Orochi Zero models. They will be a pre-order release, handed to consumers in June. They said limiting stuff such as making the model available in only one colour, the cost will be around ¥9,340,000, which is cheaper than the original Orochi models.
Delta Air Lines passengers will get Wi-Fi access on all domestic flights by the middle of next year, the company said Tuesday.
Several other airlines, including American Airlines, Virgin America and JetBlue, have announced similar in-flight Wi-Fi plans, but Delta's roll-out is among the most aggressive plans announced.
Delta Air Lines will begin offering Wi-Fi throughout its domestic fleet by mid-2009.
(Credit: Delta ) Specifically, the Atlanta-based airline plans to outfit its domestic fleet of 330 aircraft with Wi-Fi, which amounts to around 60 percent of Delta's seats flown every day. The service won't be available aboard Delta's smaller aircraft, which typically seat 50 to 75 people.
The wireless service, which will allow people to connect to the Internet via Wi-Fi-enabled laptops, PDAs, or smartphones, will cost $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours. The airline is partnering with Aircell, which also supplies in-flight Wi-Fi technology to other carriers, such as American Airlines and Virgin America.
Founded in July 2006, Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging site that allows users to post their latest updates. Twitter allows users to post text updates ("tweets") of up to 140 characters via SMS, instant messaging, email, Twitter’s website and third party applications. Users have their own profile page that displays their latest updates. In addition, users can become “friends” with one another, or simply be a “follower.” Other than reading another person’s profile page, a user can also receive others’ updates through text messages, RSS or third party applications.
Twitter itself is a free service, though users may have to pay text messaging charges to their phone carrier.
A relative new comer to the world wide web, recent statistics show they are gaining in popularity, for example:
March 2008
Total Users: 1+ million
Total Active Users: 200,000 per week
Total Twitter Messages: 3 million/day
The service was started by Obvious Corp, who also started Odeo. In April 2008 Twitter launched Twitter Japan in partnership with Digital Garage.
You can find out more and sign-up at the Twitter.com website.
With hours of being launched Monday, Cuil - a new search engine created by former top Google engineers - was already being touted in the blogosphere as the next Google killer. But unless Cuil (pronounced ‘cool’) can develop an ad platform to rival Google’s, Cuil will have a difficult time challenging the search giant.
The comparisons to Google were inevitable. Cuil was founded by several lead engineers from Google, including Anna Patterson, chief architect of the company’s TeraGoogle search index. Cuil also claims its search algorithm scans through 120 billion web pages - three times the number that Google sifts through. And Cuil’s spare start page is reminiscent of Google’s minimalist home page.
The launch of Cuil certainly raised eyebrows at Google. Though the company would not comment on Cuil’s launch, Google’s web search team stuck it to the small search startup on Monday with a blog post that begins, “We knew the web was big…We’ve known it for a long time.”
All the media attention this week has been on the announcement of the new iPhone 3G during Steve Jobs’s keynote at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference. But for Mac users there was another huge story that day, one that took up only a few seconds of the keynote: Snow Leopard, a brand-new version of Mac OS X.
Apple has been working on Mac OS X for more than a decade, and the public has been able to use it for eight years. In that time, the replacement for the classic Mac OS has grown through several stages: it began in an awkward, half-functional state, progressed into a fully functional replacement for OS 9 with increasing levels of speed and stability, and finally became an entrenched system that advanced by acquiring whizzy new features such as Spotlight and Time Machine.
Early in Mac OS X’s history, the operating system sped up with each new version, as Apple engineers tuned the code and got it working better. But those improvements have faded, and the last two releases have certainly been no faster than their predecessors. Instability, too, has returned to Mac OS X.
So how refreshing was it for Apple to announce—albeit out of the spotlight of the keynote, via press release—that Apple is taking a break from rolling out Mac OS X updates with hundreds of new features. Instead, the next major release of Mac OS X will focus on speed and stability.
Tremendous live performance footage from one of our clients, Glenn Hughes, during his recently completed first run of the "First Underground Nuclear Tour" in Europe.
The song, "We Shall Be Free", is taken from his recently released solo album, "First Underground Nuclear Kitchen" (F U N K).
It features, Glenn on vocals/bass, JJ Marsh on guitar, Luis Maldonado on guitar, Anders Olinder on keys and Matt Goom on drums.
Filmed during their visit to Zlin, Prague and Budapest in May 2008.
Apple's soon-to-open online App Store has triggered a scramble among software developers to write business plans aimed at making money off Apple's iPhone, a mini-computer that doubles as a phone.
"I'm seeing an excitement among mobile developers that I've never seen before," said Sam Altman, chief executive and co-founder of Mountain View-based Loopt, a location-based social networking service. "People who said they'd never start a mobile (applications) company because they didn't want to rely on the carriers are now starting companies focused only on the iPhone."
Apple recently provided the tools engineers need to create applications for its popular mobile device. The Cupertino company said some 250,000 iPhone software development kits have been downloaded. The App Store Web site, where applications will be sold or given away, is expected to launch soon, perhaps July 11 when the faster next-generation iPhone goes on sale.
Apple could be creating a billion-dollar industry built around the iPhone, said Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. In a recent note to investors, Munster wrote that the App Store could create a $1 billion-plus iPhone ecosystem by the end of 2009.
The device allows owners to unlock it by drawing on the screen, and includes a built-in compass to help with navigation
Owners of the new Google-powered mobile phone will be able to unlock the handset by drawing a secret shape on the screen.
The new 'signature unlocking' tool was among the features revealed during a recent sneak preview developers conference event.
Other highlights include a built-in compass that will allow people to orientate maps as they use their phone to scout out a restaurant or venue, and a customisable homepage that lets people bookmark their favourite web pages.
The device - which is unlocked by drawing a shape only the owner knows on a nine-square grid - will also include a magnifying tool, to make zooming in on web content easier on a small screen, and a mobile version of the game Pac Man.
Demonstrating the device at a developers' conference in San Francisco, Andy Rubin, who heads up the project at Google, declined to give a release date, but said that the first phones powered by Google's Android operating system will appear in the second half of the year.
If you were thinking of purchasing an early corporate Christmas gift, we would be most grateful for one of these beauties!!
The Koenigsegg CCX is a mid-engined roadster from Sweden, engineered to comply with US regulation and market demands. The CCX can accelerate from stationary to 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.2 seconds and 100 miles per hour (160 km/h) in 7.7 seconds. It can complete a standing quarter mile in 9.9 seconds with an end speed of 146 miles per hour (235 km/h).
The supercar reaches a top speed of 395 km/h (245 mph).
Last March, the NPD Group reported that Apple’s retail market share — its cut of the computers sold in brick-and-mortar stores — had climbed to 14%, a figure that’s roughly double its overall share of the U.S. market and reflects the power of the Apple Store to draw customers and move product.
What NPD didn’t report at the time was the huge growth in Apple’s share of the so-called “premium” computer market — machines that cost more than USD$1,000.
To some extent, Apple’s (AAPL) share of this market is growing by default. Companies like HP (HPQ), Dell (DELL) and Lenovo ship enormous quantities of PCs at price points between $500 and $750, whereas the only Macintosh that sells for less than $1,000 is the $599 Mini.
Still, Apple’s share of the $1,000-plus retail market was less than 18% in January 2006 according to NPD. By September 2007, it had grown to more than 57%. And in the first quarter of 2008 it hit a record 66%.
Microsoft Corp.'s attempt to take over Yahoo Inc. has become so tortured it may help Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc. grow stronger, undermining Microsoft's main reason for pursing the deal in the first place.
"We find this to be a very advantageous situation for Google," Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Derek Brown said Thursday. "The longer this gets dragged out, the better for Google."
Yahoo signaled it is bracing for a protracted battle late Wednesday when an announcement and a media leak provided a glimpse at its labyrinthine search for alternatives to Microsoft's bid of more than $40 billion.
The options include an experimental advertising alliance with Google that could lead to a broader partnership and, according to published reports, a combination with the online operations of Time Warner Inc.'s AOL. Google also owns a 5 percent stake in AOL.
An especially awesome piece of music from one of our clients, Glenn Hughes, has just recently been given the video treatment.
The song, "Love Communion", which is taken from his soon to be released album, "First Underground Nuclear Kitchen" (F U N K), which is due out in Europe on May 9th and the rest of the world, May 11th.
It also features, Chad Smith (Red Hot Chili Peppers) on drums and Luis Carlos Maldonado on guitar.
Morph is a concept demonstrating some of the possibilities nanotechnologies might enable in future communication devices.
It's a flexible two-piece device that can adapt it's shape to different use modes. It can sense its environment, is energy harvesting and self cleaning. Nanotechnology enables it to have adaptive materials, yet rigid forms, on demand.
Call it the iPhone economy.
What NPD didn’t report at the time was the huge growth in Apple’s share of the so-called “premium” computer market — machines that cost more than USD$1,000.
Microsoft Corp.'s attempt to take over Yahoo Inc. has become so tortured it may help Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc. grow stronger, undermining Microsoft's main reason for pursing the deal in the first place.
