If Only I Had It

The one thing I hate about driving a car is when i have to spend hours trying to find a parking spot. And finally, when I get one, it is a paid spot with a parking meter that gobbles up my quarters, and as luck would have it, I dig into my purse to find that I’m out of quarters!! Oh, how I’d love if these meters would start accepting credit cards!! That’s a thought that crosses many minds several times a day, and one such mind belonged to Fred Mitschele, who figured out how to make money out of this simple thought.

In cities like New York and San Francisco, where parking is really hard to find, you see patrol cars taking rounds to find a car parked against an expired meter so they can immediately make money by issuing you a fine or a ticket. But in smaller cities, lots of such fines go unpaid, denting the pockets of such governments. On the other hand, customers are looking for an alternative form of payment for such meters, so they don’t have to finish their dinner in a hurry before the 1-hour parking window expires.

Photo Violation Technologies, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, has found the perfect solution. The newly re-invented parking meter allows you to swipe a credit card rather than hunt for coins, and what’s great is that you can leave your cell phone number with it, and it’ll call you when your time is up, and also provide you with an option of putting additional time on the meter, without returning to your car!! And for those who take the law lightly, the PVM will take a photo of your car’s license plate if you fail to pay your dues! Amazing and Perfect!! Just the way you need it. Now only if they figured out a way to park your cars too!!

Mitschele has partnered with IBM to finanace a $1 million trial, installing 300 PVM’s in Niagara Falls, SFo and Vancouver. When the trial ends in July 2008, Mitschele hopes to make upto $200 million in 5 years. Not bad at all!!

The world of technology comes with a breakthrough each day, and with every new day, we find a solution to one of our problems, or a new and efficient way to do something better. Have you ever pictured a world in which your cell phone could print out the pictures that you take with the camera built into your phone? Seamless mobility might have been a dream a few years back, but is very much a reality now. Welcome to the world of inkless printing or “Zink” (Zero Ink).

Zink, based in Massachusets USA, is a new startup which is a spinoff of Polaroid. It uses its patented process where all you need to print your photos or documents is to buy Zink special paper, which is embedded with three layers of dye crystals-yellow, magenta and cyan- which are designed to melt at different temperatures. No cartridges, no printheads, no bulky printers!! With the unique technology, Zink can make printers which are so small they can be easily integrated into cell phones, digicams, laptops, TV’s, digital photo frames and similar household devices.

This holiday season will be a witness to this amazing new technology for the first time as Zink comes out with its first printers embedded into digicams. The special paper will be sold by Zink, priced at roughly 20 cents for a 2″x3″ print. Just insert the paper into your printer device (digicam in this case), click a button, and print your photos!! The special papers makes your words or images appear like a Polaroid picture. Simple and beautiful, isn’t it??!!

To watch a live demo of this product, click here. If you still find it difficult to believe, visit their official website zink.com for the technology overview and product details.

New Zealand has given birth to adventurous stuuf like bungee-jumping, flying-by-wire and jet skiing. The first person to conquer Mount Everest was a Kiwi too; so its no wonder that in their craving for thrills, the 2 natives Andrew Akers and Dwane van der Sluis come out with yet another bizarre activity called “Zorbing” which is sure to send an adrenaline rush!!
“Zorb” is basically a huge 3.2 meter inflatable transparent sphere made from PVC. The inside of the original zorb has 9 straps to keep the rider in place. So you are wearing a harness, and are tied to the periphery while you yourself experience as if you are floating. For the more adventurous people out there, you could also try the Hydro Zorbing, in which instead of a harness, you are cushioned by water. Once you’re in, the fun really starts as the Zorb is launched down a hill and reaches speeds of up to 50km per hour, while you roll and bounce around inside. The clever bit is that there is an air cushion of two feet between you and the ground, so you are completely safe! And priced at about 30 dollars for 15-20 second ride, its a reasonably-priced thrill. If you are too chickened to go alone, the zorb has 2 compartments to take your 2 friends with you!

In the words of the founder (Akers) himself - “The experience is bizarre, funny and exhilarating. The most common reaction inside the Zorb is to be screaming with laughter - people exit from the Zorb with a massive smile on their faces and tears of laughter in their eyes.”

There are permanent Zorb sites in Europe, Asia, Australia and of course New Zealand. its a sport that is picking up as it affords a new set of thrills. So if you aim to be an astronaut, but that seems too far-fetched, I bet being a zorbonaut would come close!!

Man has already soared heights by inventing private jets and charter planes that are as luxurious as one can imagine. The seas are brimming with Yachts that host spectacular parties and huge Cruise ships which can treat you like royalty. What you saw in Titanic is probably 1/10th of what is out there.

And now, replacing RV’s, which till today were the best in terms of comfort and luxury on the road, comes the Spanish giant called Hotel Movil(photo courtesy of hotelmovil.com). Please welcome the first of its kind, a luxurious pop-up hotel
which is like a large truck trailer that can be dragged to any location and turned into a two level hotel within 30 minutes!! Yes, sounds too goo to be true, but not when you see this video. (Select fabrication, then video) A few clicks with your finger-tips, and this giant truck transforms into one of the most beautiful and lavish portable homes that you would have ever seen. After its 11 rooms are unfolded, the hotel on wheels can sleep up to forty people, making it roomy enough for wedding parties, family reunions or luxury camping trips with a large group of friends.

It is made of steel, but the interiors will leave you dumbfounded. Hotel Movil isn’t short on luxury: every room has a bathroom, plasma screen TV, DVD, internet access and more. Depending on the trailer’s configuration, a bar and movie screening room can also be included. You can have your private patio and balcony. The Price for a weekend rental is EUR 7,000. Alternatively, you can buy a hotel of your own for EUR 400,000. This sure is competitive with the cost of the RV’s at present, considering the functionality and luxury it offers. Now, is that an interesting innnovation or not??!!

With the increasing toll of work-related stress, more and more companies are waking up to embrace the concept of bringing home into the workplace. Google tops the list with on-site laundry, clinic and dental care, hair salon, 3 free meals a day and new T-shirts twice a week!! Please forgive me if I’m forgetting something here! But more and more offices are moving to no-cubicle designs, resembling kitchens and living rooms. There are media lounges, entertainment and game rooms, WII stations and now enters the Nap Station!!

Yes, a New-York based company called MetroNaps has invented the EnergyPod (photo courtesy of MetroNaps), a plush reclining chair that lulls users to sleep and can gently wake them up at pre-defined intervals using vibrations and lights!! Arshad Chowdhury, an investment analyst by profession, was struck by this brainwave when he saw a lot of his colleagues sneeking into the restrooms to take powernaps. And the benefits of powernaps are known to us all. 10 mins of stress-free sleep can re-energise and organize your thoughts, increasing the flow of creative juices and overall well-being.

EnergyPod is a classic design, resembling a dome-shaped egg-like cubicle that provides a perfect reclining postion, soothing music, sound-proof interior and gentle lighting-everything to make those 10 mins of sleep truly worth it. Check out the design here. Priced at around $12,000 it is proving to be an attractive investment for many companies like Proctor and Gamble and Cisco Systems.

So what are you waiitng for?? Ask your company to check this out today, or if you are an employer, maybe this might help increasing the well-being and productivity of your employee, huh?!!

Hi guys, I might be a bit late in posting this, and maybe some of you must have already read about this cool-looking watch on other famous blogs like engadget or gizmodo. But for those of you who are not so geeky as the others (lucky for me, or you wouldn’t be reading my post here), I am talking about the Brando MP4 wrist watch, which is not just a digital watch, but also an MP4 player.

Yup, it supports videos for both MPEG and Windows Media formats. You can use it to record and listen audio, play video clips and store files. From what I have found, the quality of the MPEG4 recordings is very high, an hour takes about 60 megabytes of storage. It also boasts an FM tuner, voice recorder, photo viewer, “eBook reader,” a 1.8-inch 160 x 128 resolution display, five preset equalizer modes, USB 2.0 connectivity, and yes, even a built-in speaker if you’re not down with headphones. For pictures and detailed reviews, visit here. They have a nice write-up on all the feeatures alongwith user reviews.It comes in a bold orange and a more conventional black color. I actually like the black one with the red dial. Looks sleek! Its available in 1GB and 2GB version (just like the iPod). And it’s attractively priced at $98 and $139 respectively.

Though I’d give Brando credit for being different and coming up with a product much better than their competitors, I am a bit skeptical about how much people would connect to it….After all, some things are best kept simple, right?!

BSE Sensex gained 70.61 points, or 0.37%, to close at 19,162.57, while the broad-based NSE Nifty closed at 5,766.00, up 15.35 points, or 0.27%.

Technical Analyst Vishwas Agarwal said “Long holding position may keep the market volatile or sideways but this is a consolidated phase and will show its impact in January 2007, when market will give more profitable opportunity, and specific frontline stocks will go up to support a rise in the Index and also lot of midcap stocks will perform“.

Giving his outlook for the coming days, Vishwas said “If Sensex maintains 18,888, then the market looks good and in trading zone and above 19,350 more profitable trading is possible with a possible target of 19,888“. He added “Market move will be decided by RIL and SBI, so its very important to two watch these two stocks“.

(more…)

As technology makes the world a smaller place and global revolution extends your business beyond the borders of your city, country or continent, we see more and more people travelling around the world for work or pleasure trips. Tourism and technology cannot function without air travel, and though planes are being converted into more luxurious ways to travel, the cross-overs from one time zone to another is always a pain. A 10-hr or longer flight induces jet Lag, no matter whether you travel in economy or business class. And if you are expected to attend 3 conferences in 3 countries within a span of a week to 10 days, imagine what that would do to your body and mind!!??

But if you have tried all the over-the-counter drugs and concoctions and have still not found something to alleviate this problem, you have probably not tried “FlyRight”(patent pending). People who have used it say that one teaspoon of this tonic with half a cup of water, repeated several times a day, can act as a fool-proof remedy against Jet-Lag. And as it is a herbal tonic in an alcohol tincture, it comes with absolutely NO Side effects!! It is also affordably priced at $20 per 1-oz bottle, and if this keeps you energetic and running on your hectic schedule so that you don’t sleep in your meetings or don’t waste 3 days of your precious vacation, I think the price is worth it!! For more information visit http://www.jetlagformula.com/

I’m going to try this on my next trip to India. How about you???

The famous inventor of Microsoft Word and Excel, Charles Simonyi, has come out with his new innovation, the “Intentional Software”, slated to be released probably by this fall, is a software so smart that you can simply tell it what you want and it’ll write the code for you. Hurray!! everyone does not need to be a programmer anymore!! Simonyi and his startup have been working on this for 7 years. it centers on Domain Workbench, a human-language graphically friendly representation of the software as it is built.. Users can write clear instructions in text, spreadsheet or flowchart describing what they want the software to do (basic logic), which is then sent to a code-generator, and the latter spews out lines of code to build the application. f course, human engineers are still needed to help set up the programming language and tweak for some changes. But still, the major load is taken care of. For further details, visit http://www.intentionalsoftware.com/

This could prove to be the next generation of software programming, and a boon to solve business problems, but will it be successful? People are skeptical about Simonyi’s ideas, and yet you’ll also find strong supporters who believe this could change the standards of technology by removing human errors or “bugs”.

What happens, is for you and me to see, but till then, I think we’ll just revel in this fantastic tech innovation!

Have you ever left a message on the message board for your colleagues or your loved ones and they never noticed it and it finally ended up with a big quarrel? A conventional message board that lets you use those ink markers to write on it, would not be prominent enough to attract attentions. You’d need something that can deliver the message in a more prominent manner, such as the written message could be flashing or blinking to attract others’ eyes on it.

Thanks to today’s LED technology, here comes the Lighted Message Board that features LED lights to better attract attentions. Just write your message on it using one of the two included special pens and switch on the LED. The message will stand out either blinking or flashing. You can also set it to work in the single color or multi-color mode. It runs on three AAA batteries.

Buy online, £19.95, ExpertVerdict

Lighted Message Board,message board,LED technology,shop online