inportb

To celebrate Timex’s 150th anniversary, Timex and Core77 ran a contest to design a concept watch. In the year 2154, one would be able to tell the time simply by looking at one’s thumb. While this design is a runner-up in the event, the idea is pretty fresh.

The disposable device is designed to be clipped to the wearer's thumbnail. Pressing the tip of the nail would activate a luminescent time display.

[via: CNET] [winners] [nail watch]

After having dug to a depth of 10 yards last year, New York scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 100 years and came to the conclusion that their ancestors already had a telephone network more than 100 years ago.

Not to be outdone by the New Yorkers, in the weeks that followed, Michigan scientists dug to a depth of 20 yards, and shortly after, headlines in the Higgins Times newspaper read: “Michigan archaeologists have found traces of 200 year old copper wire and have concluded that their ancestors already had an advanced high-tech communications network a hundred years earlier than the New Yorkers.”

One week later, “The Baxter Bulletin” in South Carolina reported the following: “After digging as deep as 30 yards in a corn field near Mtn. Home, Bubba Johnson, a self-taught archaeologist, reported that he found absolutely nothing. Bubba has therefore concluded that 300 years ago, South Carolina had already gone wireless.”

found here, a variation of this.

Can this be the vehicle of the future? It appears that Aptera’s making tremendous progress on efficiency in both fuel consumption and cost. Aptera’s new design comes in two flavors, both with an all-electric drive train. One version is coupled to a gasoline-powered generator for 300 MPG while the other is purely electric with a range of 120 miles. Classified as a motorcycle, this vehicle will be produced in July and will be available for under $30000. It looks rather futuristic, too.

Meanwhile, sQuba is cool, but just slightly impractical and costly.

I was alerted today to the existence of a solid rightward arrow in the FedEx logo. Gee, I can’t believe I hadn’t noticed this before. The original font, Futura Bold, was modified to incorporate the arrow design and enhance the logo. Talk about subliminal messaging ;p

Space agencies were some of the first places where you could find open source software “in the wild”. Being natural early adopters, cash-strapped and very inquisitive, the agencies naturally took to the open source concept. Additionally they were some of the first users of ARPAnet and subsequently the Internet, which which lit a fire under the open source movement. Today this marriage between rocket science and open source saw its latest victory with the landing of NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander.

via OStatic

Apparently, the aerospace industry makes heavy use of free, *nix-based custom software for almost every mission. The U.S. military has already using/developing free software, and companies in the aviation business are most likely looking to use free software for their applications.