Just stop and think about how far we’ve come in technology when Super Mario comes to the computer in the form of a 14 kb JavaScript code. It’s far from complete, and you’ll have to start over when you die but that’s besides the point — I’m in awe that something like that is actually possible.

Be sure to click the mouse on the game if Mario won’t move. When you die, you have to reload the page to start over. And yes, you can move left. Sorry.

Regular version: no music or with music

Double size: no music or with music

Source with writeup, instructions and full script.

Jatech LLC has come up with the Disappearing Car Door, a futuristic and innovative hingeless car door design that folds beneath the car. The technology can be implemented in any automobile or an originally designed body frame. It reminds me of something out of a Transformers movie.

The site is not very informative and I would have liked to hear more on it’s structural safety. There is nothing on the site besides the general statement:

We work with the finest and most experienced coach builders in the US and Europe, ensuring that your vehicle will be manufactured to the highest quality, reliability and safety standards, including a manual override for door operation.

With just an email, no company address (just its location), no other details of its licenses and who owns this company… it is hard for me to take them seriously. Is it a company out of someone’s garage? Is it a college project? It’s really hard to tell. Word of advice, cut the irrelevant sidebar Bed and Breakfast and Pet Retreat ads — not very professional.

They really need to add more facts and figures on their site instead of stating general statements without anything to substantiate it. The slideshow presentation (the link is located on right column above “Click here to Advertise”) has artist renderings, door specifications and they estimate that implementing it would be the same as a powered van door.

Some areas that was left unanswered after I saw the presentation:

- safety numbers; has it been tested? what are the crash test ratings?
- it states that it significantly improves in strength, stiffness and lightness; what is this in comparison too? numbers/ data would help me be a believer
- what is the extra costs to implement it on a current model car (as I highly doubt it would be the same a powered van door) i.e. a ballpark figure on a small, midsized and large car

Very cool idea and definitely a step towards the future. However, implementing it would depend on it’s safety and whether it is cost effective commercially.

YouTube link

Those liking the Sims will like this one — 3D Mailbox. It’s a software that brings your email system to life by converting it into an interactive environment. You can interact and explore the surroundings while reading and writing emails. It even has an integrated IM chat system that lets you talk with your friends while reading/ writing emails.

There are two different environments to choose from, the initial Miami Beach environment and LAX Airport. The free software version includes the Miami Beach environment but it’ll cost you a one time fee of $29.95 to access LAX Airport.

Everything in the environment has a function related to either the email or chat system. For example, within the Miami Beach environment, your emails are represented by people on a beach, every email (person) that comes into your inbox (represented by a pool) will be checked by a spam filter (represented by a bouncer). When you are ready to check your inbox, just dive into the pool and interact with the people in there (i.e. your emails). When you swim in the pool, you’re basically browsing the emails (or people) you have available. They’ll remain in the pool until you move them into folders (represented by Cabanas) or delete them (by sending them to the alley). To get rid of the unwanted spam that might have come into your pool (or inbox), just feed them to the sharks (spam killers).

3D Mailbox is a pretty innovative and creative concept that’s the first of its kind. However, this is probably one of those apps that you’ll use once and then not use it anymore. It’s meant to be more game like and cool than functional and convenient. When I was testing it to see what it was all about, it started getting annoying real fast when I wanted to access a feature quickly. It was also pretty repetitive and the novelty of the Sims like interaction started wearing off the more I used it. They do promise to keep you interested by introducing new environments in the future.

Seeing the scantily clad women also makes this an R-rated software that’s definitely not suitable for young kids. I’m not surprise if Second Life introduces something like that within their virtual environment soon.

Here are two trailers for the different environments. A little cheezy but it gets the point across.

3D Mailbox is created by Robert Savage. He is the founder and President of World Market Watch, Inc., best known for VisitorVille®, the popular 3-dimensional website tracking software.

Sad but true

Posting my Lifestream, confirms what I already know but didn’t want to hear - that I spend WAY too much time on the web and my computer (even though it’s part of my daily work routine). Sad but true.

Facebook buzz

The buzz yesterday was Microsoft buying a piece of Facebook - a $240 million stake and the rights to have exclusive third party advertisement rights possibly paving the way for a Microsoft Live Facebook search engine too. There are also reports that they may have secured another $500 million from two New York investors.

Although being only 3 years old, the company is already valued at $15 billion and is currently the 5th most valuable US internet company (via Techcrunch) behind the likes of Google, Ebay, Amazon and Yahoo. Facebook currently has about 47 million users/ members, records 15 billion page views a month and registers about 150,000 new users a day.

Mark Zuckerberg has really done well for himself, especially for a 23 year old that initially started Facebook in his Harvard dorm to keep in touch with his old friends. Mark has since held off selling off the company, apparently turning down a $750 million buyout offer. Good for him to keep his baby close to his heart, taking the extra risk and having business savvy.

No one really knows for sure what the revenue of Facebook is but Techcrunch reports that it may bring in an estimated revenue of about $1.5 million a week. I personally think it’s a good move to hold out on a sale as Facebook has not even matured as a company yet and its potential is tremendous.

I just love to hear about success stories like Mark Zuckerburg and Kevin Rose (of the Digg fame). It gives us hope and the proof that if you put your mind to something, dreams can be achieved.

Cryptology is not for kids

Came across a site called Cryptokids. It’s designed by the governmental branch NSA (National Security Agency) and tailored to teaching kids Cryptology in a fun and amusing way. While I love Cryptology, I do think introducing it to young kids isn’t entirely appropriate. Teaching and encouraging the use of Cryptology at that young an age opens up the possibilities of kids using it negatively and illegally for their own amusement e.g hacking. The majority of kids out there just aren’t mature enough to appreciate it.

Last.fm rocks!

Recently joined the free music site Last.fm after hearing rave reviews about it. I’ve not regretted my decision! It is a great site to find and listen to the music you like, listen to music recommendations and network with those who have the same taste in the music.

Using a unique music recommendation system known as “Audioscrobbler”, Last.fm builds a detailed profile of each user’s musical taste by recording details of all the songs the user listens to, either on the streamed radio stations or on the user’s computer or portable music device. This information is transferred to Last.fm’s database (”Scrobbled”) via a plugin installed into the user’s music player. The profile data is displayed on a personal web page.

Users can create custom radio stations and playlists from any of the audio tracks in Last.fm’s music library, but are not able to listen to individual tracks on demand, or to download tracks unless the rightsholder has previously authorized it. Registration is required to acquire a profile but is not necessary to view any part of the site or to listen to radio stations.
(Via Wikipedia)

Since I’ve downloaded their software, I’ve used it as an internet radio. All I have to do is put a singer or type of music of my choice into the software, and it will then stream music indefinitely until you stop it (advertisement free). You can see the songs I’ve listen to so far in my Lifestream or going to my Last.fm profile. I happen to like Indie, India Pop and Alternative music and my song list reflects that.

On the Home Front

On the home front, Miles (my cat) keeps following me around the house. Doesn’t he know he is a cat? Only dogs follow.

I keep killing fruitflies but they just keep coming back. At first we thought it may come from the pumpkins and apples we had but the apples are now gone and the pumpkin is outside. There are also no food lying about or in the trash. Weird and annoying! J has a home remedy of soap, vinegar and water which seems to attract and kill them — know any other ways?

If there’s one thing computers don’t do well, it’s matching your home decor. Wood Contour may change all that.

These beauties are made from one piece of wood, and you get to choose from 29 wood varieties - Mahogany, Beech , Oak, Ash , Birch and others. Hand crafted and custom made, the company guarantees that no two items will be exactly alike given the nature of wood.

I wonder what it would feel like using a wooden keyboard and mouse. I’m not quite ready to find out, as a set of keyboard, mouse and monitor costs about $2950 (or more depending on the type of wood I get).

Wood Contour Site

My Firefox 2.0.0.7 browser has been a very slow and unstable lately. It has also been a memory hog, consuming about 130K of memory with around 20 or so tabs open. My friend AG recommended I look at this Firefox tweak from Solo Technology. This tweak allows memory to be freed up everytime you minimize the Firefox browser.

It’s pretty easy to do:

1. Start Firefox (yeah, I know… duh.)
2. type “about:config” in the address bar and hit enter (don’t type the double-quotes)
3. type “config.trim_on_minimize” (again, not the double-quotes) into the Filter field. Odds are, you won’t have this preference but we should check first.
1. If you DO have the preference, make sure it is set to true
2. If you do NOT have the preference, add it
1. Right click anywhere in the preference list and select New -> Boolean
2. Preference name should be “config.trim_on_minimize”
3. Select true for the value
4. Close Firefox and then reopen it.

When the tweak is installed, and your browser of acting sluggish, just do a quick min/ max of it and it should free up memory. There were some comments on it not working on Vista and Linux, you may have to contact Solo Technology about that.

So far it is working like a charm, I haven’t had stability issues so far and the 130K of memory consumption has been cut by nearly half (with the same amount of tabs open). Be reminded that the amount of memory usage will be directly related to the number of tabs you have open and what you have running on your browser too. Therefore, it’s hard to be exact how much memory it will cut down on your browser.

Disclaimer: If you are not comfortable with tweaking a browser, it’s best not to do it. The Foo Logs and the author of the tweak (Solo Technologies) are not responsible for any breakage or/and data lost in the event you did the tweak.

Lockheed Martin and Supersonic Aerospace International has joined forces to make the Quiet Supersonic Transport (QSST), a high speed luxury jet that flies coast to coast in 2 hours at Mach 1.6 to 1.8 (approx. 1,056 mph to 1,188 mph) quietly without the eardrum-blistering sonic booms.

Specifications

Google owns and operates an AJAX-like experimental search engine called SearchMash.

There is no mention of Google accept in the Terms of Service. It would seem that this is an experimental playpan for current development, one similar to AllTheWeb (an experimental site for Yahoo). Visiting the site at random intervals allows you to experience Google’s experimental features.

SearchMash lets you search the internet in new ways. It is constantly evolving as we come up with ideas and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Check back here from time to time to see what has changed, and also to tell us which ones are useful to you. Please bear with us when the site is unavailable as we are limiting its use.

There are some neat features in it:

- There is a menu of options by each result allowing you to open the result in another browser window

- You can reorder search results by grabbing and dragging the number next to them

- There is the ability to hide and expand details of a of each search results

- The introduction of sub menus that allows you to see other types of results, such as images and blogs.

- The introduction of instant videos related to the search results
You can watch a video by clicking on its thumbnail. Click on the video that’s playing to pause it.

- Clicking for more results loads them in the current page and scrolls it down (in an Ajax-like fashion).

Here is a response from Google to why SearchMash was created:

* SearchMash is an experimental search site operated by Google. The goal of SearchMash is to test innovative user interfaces in order to continually improve the overall search experience for our users.

* The site does not include Google branding to help us gather more objective data about user response to new interfaces.

* There is no guarantee that the features tested on SearchMash will be seen on Google search. As with all of our experiments, one of the main factors we will consider is user response to the feature and how well it addresses their needs.

* This site is only a test and has traffic limitations so may be unavailable at times.

The Domain registration details state that it was registered by MarkMonitor back in September of 2006. MarkMonitor is a security company that specializes in making end to end solutions safer and creating/protecting corporate identities on the Internet. It would be a fair assumption to say that Google is also experimenting on new security and anti-fraud technologies for search users and new ways to deal with it.

I love the simplicity of Searchmash and it seems promising with its AJAX demeanor. One example of its simplicity is the lack of a “Search” button when you are typing in your search words, you will need to hit the “Enter” button on your keyboard instead. It would be interesting to see whether some of its features makes it to Google’s real search engine.

Seems like there are more and more click to call companies offering cheap national/ international calls. I read about it months ago but didn’t really pay attention until USA Today and Techcrunch reported on it today.

Here’s how it works:

1. You go their website, create an account
2. Using their dialup interface, you put in your telephone number
2. You then put in the telephone number of who you want to call
3. Both phones will then ring at the same time
4. Pick your phone up and talk like normal

If and when you are register, the companies will also give you a local number that will be linked to that national/ international number. This will give you a unique local toll number for repeated calling to that person.

So who offers it? Think triple J and a T - Jangl, Jaxtr, Jajah and Talkplus. (What’s with the J names?)

International and national rates are significantly cheaper than landline rates as it leverages the VoIP (Voice Over IP) technology. It’s a great alternative to individuals and small businesses than using the traditional VoIP providers and the popular peer to peer provider Skype. With VoIP providers like Vonage in trouble and SunRocket shutting down unexpectedly, this might be a good route to go without the monthly contract and still being able to keep your phone number.

Another useful feature provided by these companies is a button or widget to put on your website. Your friend or customer can use that widget to initiate the two way calling facility easily. Calling can be initiated from any landline or cell phone. You just have to remember that when using your cell phone, you will be eating up your cell phone minutes.

In comparing the 4 providers, Jajah seems to offer the best features for businesses like conference calling as well as useful desktop plugins for Outlook and Firefox. Talkplus offers the best call pricing e.g. a US to United Kingdom call costs about 1.1 cents per minute to a landline and 1.8 cents per minute to cell phones. Jangl and Jaxtr looks like it’s tailored towards personal users and offers voicemail capability. Jangl is currently offering free calling while they are in their beta stage. I may have to seriously consider using this to call my family internationally.

Read more about what everyone has to say about the companies below:

jaxtrjajahjangltalkplus

Bullseye on Google: Hackers expose holes in GMail, Blogspot, Search Appliance by ZDNet’s Ryan Naraine — In the past few days, there have been multiple disclosures of security vulnerabilies in a wide range of Google products, including a persistent e-mail theft issue affecting the widely used GMail service.