Nelson Wong Life Blog

Amazing Robot Reality

Jules is an impressive animatronic puppet created by American robotics designer David Hanson, first presented at the Wired NextFest last year. He’s the next version in a long line of 13 robots by Hanson so far. This one has camera eyes that can track human faces, can recognize speech, and is loaded with “conversational persona” software that gives him an uncanny realism. But this is just the beginning. Jules describes himself as “a baby,” and said to Hanson’s son, Zeno:

“By the time you’re grown up, I’ll be as smart as a real person, and we will be like brothers. I do not know if you’ll remember me then, but I will never forget you. Someday I’ll come and find you, and we’ll be friends.”
He’s going to come and find us? Let’s hope we’ll be friends. But is this a robot or a sophisticated puppet? What’s the diff? Either way, this is spooky stuff

Robot Site

Trimble offers Juno ST GPS PDA to the mobile workforce

Businesses and organizations looking to deploy location-aware handhelds to large numbers of personnel will be delighted to hear about Trimble’s new Juno ST GPS / GIS PDA, which promises to be a low-cost solution that’s equally at home behind a desk or in the field. Featuring a 300MHz processor running Windows Mobile 5, ‘high-sensitivity’ GPS receiver, WiFi, Bluetooth, and an SD slot, the 2.8-inch Juno ST claims to be especially skilled at locating a signal in so-called ‘hostile environments,’ and predictably works with the company’s entire line of mapping and GIS software. The heralded low price has not been announced (it likely varies by volume), but you have until May to convince the boss that your team’s Handspring Visors and fanny packs full of Springboard modules are getting a bit outdated.

Beijing Olympics to get Lenovo-designed torch, seeded clouds

Apparently, Lenovo kept enough staff on board to create the 2008 Olympic torch, as the firm’s Cloud of Promise design was recently selected over 300 competing themes and will be “carried by torchbearers around the world in the Olympic Torch Relay preceding the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.” With Lenovo being a China-based firm, the company’s chairman (Yang Yuanqing) stated that it was “an honor to have its torch design chosen,” and oddly enough, that wasn’t the only cloud-related Olympic news coming out of Beijing. Reportedly, meteorologists will be utilizing a process known as “cloud seeding” to force rain out beforehand and subsequently clear the filthy skies and alleviate the purported “50-percent chance of rain during the opening and closing ceremonies.” Of course, this isn’t exactly a push to become a greener society or anything, but at least the HD feeds from around the area will look a bit better during the competitions.

Keyport

Getting more and more keys to put on your keychain when you were a kid may have been cool, but now all that massive clump of metal does is give your pants that unwanted bulge look (as opposed to the wanted bulge look). With the keyport, you’re free to shove six of your favorite keys into what looks to be a lighter-sized gadget, easily extending and retracting them when needed. Plus, there’s RFID and a built-in LED light, as well as keyless entry for your car.

The thing’s still in its design phase now, but you can sign up on their site to get notified when they ship. Personally, we’re pretty stoked at being able to ditch the unwieldy keyring for something more compact.

Productor page

Sony’s Blue Laser Diodes Down

Good news for Blu-ray fans. Sony’s just announced that they’re ramping up blue laser diode production yet again, which will lower the price to just around $8 each by June. What will this mean to you? Well, seeing as the diodes were the reason for the PS3 shortages this fall (and contributed to both the PlayStation’s and Blu-ray players’ high prices), this huge windfall of diodes could mean lowered prices for all Blu-ray related items.

Some analyst from Wedbush Morgan Securities agrees, saying “Sony is definitely in a position to cut price,” and that prices will be lowered once costs hit around $499. So those of you who are on the fence about dumping $599 may want to wait it out just a little longer.

Also, since HD DVD also uses blue laser diodes (a different type, and they just don’t call theirs blue), this news could also mean they will ramp up production of theirs as well.

Details

The CF-to-SATA hard drive adapter

The SD-to-SSD adapter will run you a stiff $258.50 sans flash cards, users who can’t seem to find a good use for those CompactFlash cards that used to rule to roost in your recently replaced Nikon D70 finally have a solution. The much more reasonable CF-to-SATA hard drive adapter simply takes any CompactFlash I/II card and snaps it into the 2.5-inch SATA HDD slot on the bottom of most lappies. The device then allows the CF card to be recognized as an “ordinary hard drive” which can even be “configured as a boot device” without any additional drivers. Moreover, it supports DMA and Ultra DMA modes, and is said play nice with just about every flavor of Windows dating back to 3.1, Linux, and OS X operating systems. The best bit, however, is the attainable price, as we could certainly see ourselves forking over $35.99 just to see how a CF boot drive would really effect performance.

Staples $50 off $200 5 digit code

coupon code

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have fun ^_^

Amazon, eBay, PayPal customer service 800 numbers

Just in case you ever need to, ya know, speak to a human.

* Amazon: 800.201.7575

* EBay: 800.322.9266

* PayPal: 888.221.1161

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Samsung 1080p Plasma Display with Bluetooth

Here’s the first Bluetooth-certified TV, the 50-inch SPD-50P91FHD 1080p plasma display from Samsung. Bluetooth, on a TV? Yep, that lets you pair it up with Bluetooth headphones, not bothering anyone as you crank the volume up to 11. Hey, that means no wires to trip over as you’re dancing around the room. Or, you can wirelessly connect this TV to a Bluetooth compatible printer, for instance. Or you could have it communicate with your cellphone, and DRM gods willing, maybe even play music from it. Maybe that’s going too far.

Besides its Bluetooth tricks, it’s tricked out for Korea with its ability to receive those kooky two-way data broadcasts flying around in that country. Yes, this TV is only available in Korea right now, but we’re thinking there might be some good reasons for this Bluetooth TV idea to spread worldwide. Until then, Koreans are being gouged an unusually steep $4600 for Bluetooth TV bragging rights.

Wii disassembly and Wiikey Installation video