A new German ship called MV Beluga SkySails will set sail with a new concept for saving costs and saving the Earth. They are attaching very large kites to help move large boats. They say that it can cut fuel use up to 20% or $1,600 a day. Also, burning less fuel means less emissions into the atmosphere for a smaller carbon footprint. The Skysails will be the guinea pig and if it is successful other companies will be able to buy this technology.

Also, Britney Spears’ 16-year-old sister is pregnant.

NME has released the first HD VMD player and is now available to purchase on Amazon. HD VMD, unlike HD-DVD and Blu-ray, uses current DVD technology to store and play HD movies. A regular DVD has one layer for around 5GB or two layers for almost 10GB. HD VMD uses four layers for around 20GB. They also say that they can reach ten layers for 50GB, which is pretty much what Sony claims for their Blu-ray discs.

There aren’t many downfalls for HD VMD but a major one might be the lack of Hollywood movie studio support. The launch title are Hostage, Apocalypto, Pulp Fiction, Babel, Saw II and Saw III. These movies are more independent movies. You can’t have a successful format without any content, especially without big summer blockbuster movies. Also, I can’t find HD VMD movies to buy them. Amazon which sells the player doesn’t seem to have any movies.

Another downfall, which might be important to the early adopter that would buy this, is that it doesn’t support the higher quality surround sound like Dolby TrueHD. This might be because of the four layer, early VMD disc’s size as TrueHD is uncompressed and takes up a lot of space. The later ten layer disc might include it.

Engadget posted this video of the automatic toiler paper dispenser. Finally, no more using my hands to wad up TP like an idiot.

James Kim was father of Sabine and Penelope and husband to Kati. He was an analyst on the now defunct cable TV station TechTV and later a editor for CNet. When I first heard the story that his family was missing, I didn’t think much of it. I thought that there might have been some miscommunications.

When Kati and the two daughters were rescued, I realized that this was a big deal. There were more stories about how they got stuck in the snowstorm, they ran the heat in the car until the gas ran out, they burned the tires to stay warm, and Kati had to breastfeed the children. They survived for 9 days until Kati, Penelope and Sabine were rescued by a helicopter that was hired by the Kim family. By this time James had gone out looking for help.

After several days, James felt that they could not wait any longer for help. They had little food and water, and there no longer was anything to burn to stay warm. He had to do something or else his family would freeze and starve to death. He went out there with a few articles of clothing to use and trail markers so that if he did find some help or needed to go back, he could find the way. Because of his resourcefulness and strong will to save his family, he was able to survive 3 more days in the freezing wilderness.

I’m not sure why I was so sad when I read that he was found deceased. There are tragedies that happen everyday. Maybe it’s because he was on TV and he’s a celebrity in my mind. Maybe it’s because he’s also Korean. Maybe it’s because he has a beautiful family and a great job, and it’s a life that I’ve always wanted. All I know is that he was a loving husband and father and a courageous man.

CNN article
CNet article
CNet also made a playlist of videos featuring James here.

You can also go to their family website and donate here.

The Japanese beer maker Asahi is giving away these robots to people who collect 36 tokens from specially marked beers. Only 5000 of these great machines will be given out.

HardOCP claims taht they are the first people to watercool their Xbox 360. While I know that they are not the first, they did give a detailed article of the process of watercooling the Xbox 360. The finished product looks pretty good. The temperature of the back of the motherboard with stock cooling was around 151°F, but they were able to cool it to 101°F. I didn’t see if they had numbers about performance gains but with 50° cooling, it should make a noticeable difference in performance.

All-in-One Card, or AIO Card, is a thin client on a credit card size flexible display much like the E-Paper or EInk. A thin client, like the Sun Ray, is basically a barebones computer with no storage and other hardware devices that connects to a server that stores and processes everything. This makes the computer you use very small and light as well as use less power.

The AIO would go even further and use this literally thin display as a thin client. This means a device that would make the iPod nano and PDA bulky and obsolete. You would have almost infinite storage (depending on your wallet) for mp3’s , movies, etc. You would have the full functionality of a desktop PC in a credit card size display.

The display would have touchscreen capabilities. Although, an on-screen keyboard wouldn’t be too easy to use. The dispplay uses very little power, so it is equipped with only a row of solar cells, much like the ones found on a calculator.

The card allows for other possibilities like a monitor, mouse and keyboard stations you can put your card into and have access to your server but on a more conventionaly display. Because it has GPS built-in, it can be used as a GPS navigation system. You could just drop the card in a designated slot.

This seems just like a prediction made by someone who works for Sun Microsystems or just familiar with Sun, but seeing that all the technology is out there, the possibility is very plausible. There is definite hurdles it must overcome to be widely accepted. The built-in antenna wouldn’t be powerful enough if it will be that small, not to mention that a huge majority of the world is a wifi deadspot. One definite positive it has going for it is that it would very cheap to make. The technology involved is widely available now and very cheap.

Microsoft TV IPTV Edition developed specifically to deliver broadcast-quality video and new, integrated TV services over broadband networks.

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For Christmas, I got my mom a Roomba. Roomba is a robot that goes around vacuuming the house. It came in the mail today. My parents asked what it was and I told them that it’s mom’s present. She wanted me to open the Amazon box, so I did. Then my parents asked me what it was. So I took it out of the Roomba box. Then they asked me what it was. So I plugged it in to charge a little. After that, I unplugged it and pushed the clean button. Then Bagel got scared and hid behind the couch. Then my parents had to leave because they were on their way out anyway.

So I charged it more and let it do its thing. It’s loud but it’s a vacuum. I’m pretty sure there are quieter ones but the regular vacuums we have are just as loud. So that’s not a problem. If you have rugs, this doesn’t work well. It’s so low that it bumps into our rug edges and figures it’s a wall. It also tends to get caught up on power wires. It starts vacuuming the wire and gets stuck.

I does do a good job navigating around walls and edges. It rides the edge of the room great. The vacuuming part worked well, too. I thought the vacuuming part would get overshadowed by the robot part that navigates around the room. That is not the case. It works great. It picks up Bagel hair no problem. It has a feature where it can spot a dirty area and keep circling until you have to step in and tell it that the stain has had enough. I think it may be bipolar.

After the incident, it moved on to the living room and went under the couch. It kept very quiet for 4-5 minutes until it finally came out and went over to its charge station. It’s been there ever since. Charging, while glowing his aber light. Indicating that it’s not fully charged because it’s not a solid green.

Anyway, I don’t think Roombas are the replacement for our vacuum cleaners. It needs be quieter and be more efficient in rooms with a lot of obstacles like plant pots and rugs. It got confused and got stuck between two pots. It did pick up a lot of leaves left by the plants. I think if you set up your room a little for the Roomba, it’ll work great.