Filed under: Etc., Subaru

Gallery: Subaru Ice Racing School

Continue reading There Will Be Mud: An express course in ice racing with Subaru

There Will Be Mud: An express course in ice racing with Subaru originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Games industry trade body ELSPA has announced it is to change its name to the UK Interactive Entertainment Association, a re-brand that it says will help it to better reflect the industry it is representing.

The name was agreed by ELSPA members at an Extraordinary General Meeting held today. The Board originally proposed the name change in order to better reflect the evolving and expanding nature of the industry, it said, and to encompass new areas of activity that will be undertaken.

It will continue to operate as ELSPA while working on developing its brand for the industry going forward. - a process which is expected to be completed before this summer. "After this time the trade associationÂ’s new mission and image will be unveiled," it said.

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Filed under: Minivan/Van, Government/Legal, Work, Ford

Gallery: 2010 Ford Transit Connect

Continue reading Canada Post to replace fleet with Ford Transit Connect

Canada Post to replace fleet with Ford Transit Connect originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Si autrefois les Front Mission n'avaient pas besoin de flipper face à une concurrence inexistante dans le domaine du Tactical RPG robotique, maintenant que Front Mission Evolved passe au jeu d'action pétaradant c'est tout de suite autre chose puisque se trouvent en face plusieurs Armored Core et au...

An interesting patent of Apple’s relating to a social networking app surfaced recently. Dubbed iGroups, the app aims to solve the pitfalls of traditional social networks, like Facebook, that require users be a member before being able to participate. Instead, iGroups creates a virtual social network based on proximity.

To set the scene, imagine a casual weekend enjoying drinks at a bar. Your device would be able to detect others nearby and allow for easy communication by the tools already built into your device: SMS, email or by phone. If you’re a Mac user, you could loosely term this as Bonjour for your iPhone.

The idea of a network based on proximity is intriguing considering the technology built into mobile devices that can help facilitate this. Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, for instance, both allow for discovering new devices that are within range. But the problem arises when a user leaves. If they are out of range, they are excluded from the network.

iGroups attempts to solve this issue when it first detects other users. At this point, the devices exchange a token (or handshake, if you will). These tokens are tagged. If there happens to be a trusted source at this venue, for example, like a wireless access point or perhaps a website setup for this purpose, devices can exchange tokens with it. Before this gets too technical, let’s agree to call the trusted source “Wilma.”

This accomplishes two important things. The first is that Wilma can match or correlate tokens to determine groups and their members. When my device approaches and exchanges tokens, Wilma now knows what group I’m part of and similarly, I’ll know other group members that have checked in with Wilma. This process allows the network to grow by allowing its users to infer other users through this daisy chain process. Further, tokens can be exchanged through a variety of mechanisms: Wi-Fi if available, Bluetooth if desired or even 3G. By supporting all of these, it becomes much easier to visualize a realistic image of the network and prevents the network from being stifled because users are not exchanging tokens by just one method that not all devices may support.

The second important goal that this serves is solving the issue of users leaving range and thus losing the whole social networking aspect. If a user interacts with Wilma either at the event or afterwards (through something similar to MobileMe, perhaps), the user can see the entire group. Even if they are just uploading exchanged between Fred and their self, the inferring process described earlier will allow the rest of the network to be recreated. As Fred moves on and continues to exchange tokens, even after our user has left, they are still connected to the same event and will appear as part of the group. Mac users? Think of this as being similar to Smart Folders. The group “knows” who its members are by this process of exchanging tokens, even if not all of the users are present at the same time.

It’s worthwhile to mention that any sort of implementation of such a technology would of course be completely optional and protect the privacy of users if they did not wish to participate. Further, the patent sheds light on the fact that the tokens themselves do not contain information that would identify any particular user or device. Merely the tokens act as a way to tag an association with a specific group.

Still, the idea of creating these virtual social networks on the iPhone is appealing. In some regards, there are applications on the market that attempt to deliver similar functionality, like Loopt. However, as mentioned earlier, these solutions still require users to have an account with them which can be problematic if you meet someone and want to exchange information but they are not a member of Facebook or LinkedIn. Instead of waiting for them to sign up and register a profile, iGroups solves the whole problem faster.

This definitely isn’t Apple’s first foray into patents on social interactions, but none of them have seen the light of day. With rumors of iPhone 4.0 around the corner, however, perhaps there is a substantial social component waiting to be unveiled. What do you think about the potential of iGroups?

Friday Five : ’frÄ«-(,)dÄ,-dÄ“ ‘fÄ«v : On the sixth day of every week, I hit the shuffle button on my iTunes, then share the first five tracks and thought for each track. Sometimes there is a playlist involved, occasionally we’ll have a guest, but most of the time it’s just me. The rest is up to you, our friends and readers! Fire up your media player of choice and share the first five random track of your shuffle in the comments.

Editor’s Note: It doesn’t happen often, but I’m actually going to be away from all forms of internet today so I’ve asked my Popdose cohort, Rob Smith, to watch the shop for me today. I’m sure you will all make him feel right at home, and I’ll be back next week! – Michael

The Five:

Huh?  Wha?  You want me to do what?  Lead off this week?  Sure, dude.  Absolutely.  Anytime.

Here goes:

Gowan, “Moonlight Desires.”  Cool live version, solo piano.  I like this a lot better than the original studio version, with Jon Anderson on guest vocals.  Gowan, of course, has been the new Dennis DeYoung in Styx for the last 11 or so years.  I know a few Styx fans who can’t stand Gowan, but it’s not like he won a Rock Star: Styx competition to get the gig or anything. He had a solid, though unspectacular career prior to joining the band.  I recommend this live record (called Solo Live: No Kilt Tonight) for Gowan’s voice and chops, certainly, but also his humor (he performs a 30-second snippet of Monty Python’s “Lumberjack Song”) and this most excellent ballad.

Escape Club, “Wild Wild West.” Jesus freakin’ Christ, I have Escape Club on my iTunes?  Damn that Like, Omigod box set.  On the rare occasions I hear this song, I think about doing radio in college, freshman and sophomore years.  We had a Top 40 show I’d DJ on occasion, and this one was in the stacks and played pretty much constantly [I also think of Information Society's "What's on Your Mind (Pure Energy)" when I hear this, cuz both tracks were more or less ubiquitous].  We could play Escape Club once an hour with no complaints from management, but when I tried to squeeze in Thomas Dolby’s “Airhead,” I got in trouble.  I did win once, though — I was the first to play Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy,” got yelled at, but was eventually vindicated when it became, oh I don’t know, the Number One song in the country. I had fucking EARS back then, man!  But I hate Escape Club.  Shit.  Next?

Van Halen, “Unchained.” That’s more like it.  My fave Van Halen song, whether performed by Roth, Hagar (on the ‘04 tour — fucking awesome), or Cherone.  I just think the riff is tops — one of the simplest and best Eddie VH ever conjured. Big fail, though — having Wolfie do the “C’mon Dave, give me a break” line on the most recent tour. Roth could eat that kid alive, and on occasion did. You’d think Ed would want to protect his only child from wiseacres like Roth. Perhaps ye olde parental instinct got burned out during one or another evening with the Schlitz Malt Liquor tallboys.

Jonatha Brooke, “Because I Told You.” The gods smile upon me. I love Brooke’s music, particularly the stuff from the Story through maybe ‘95 or ‘96.  This is from her first live record, and it’s a gem. A track from Ten-Cent Wings, arguably her best solo record, the melody gives me chills every time I hear it (only other song to do so consistently: Springsteen’s “Bobbie Jean.” Man, when that sax solo kicks in at the end …).  The sorta/kinda middle-eight is particularly beautiful: “You take the wheel for now / I’m too tired to drive this one home anyhow, for now.” Find this if you’ve never heard it — studio version or live.  You’re welcome.

John Denver, “Rocky Mountain High.” Fuck you if you think this is wimpy. Just … I don’t want to hear it. It takes a man — a real man, one not afraid to mow his lawn in the nude — to come up with a chorus like this one. “I’ve seen it raining fire in the sky?” Are you kidding me?  Fucking great image.  I also like the AM radio vibe on this; it doesn’t matter what I hear this song on — computer, earbuds, boombox, or multi-component stereo system — it still sounds like I’m listening to it in my dad’s old Chrysler.  The one with the manual transmission, shift on the column.  But I don’t want to hear that it’s crap, or wussified pap, or unfit for man or Muppet. Great song. “Friends around the campfire and everybody’s high?”  I could go for being around that campfire right about now.

So anyway, now that I’ve defended John Denver by telling you all to fuck yourselves, I suppose that I should ask forgiveness.  But really, all I want to know is this: What’s on YOUR shuffle?

Dan Ardelean / Mobile Development:
WP7 Emulator “Unlocked”  —  I still cannot believe it but I did it... After a good idea, 6 hours of work and a lot a lot of digging I've unlocked the ROM image in the emulator CTP.  I will describe tomorrow the method but right now I will just post some screenshots, upload the bin somewhere …

LouiV / BlackBerry Leaks:
First Images of BlackBerry OS 6.0?  —  There has been much speculation over what OS 6.0 could possibly look like.  We were recently hit with these images of what appear to be of a device running OS 6.0 with a similar screen resolution of a storm or storm2.  These spy shot images come highly regarded as real from one our best connects.

Take this as you will, but we’ve been told the images floating around of “BlackBerry OS 6.0″ are nothing more than concept mockups that were originally made for RIM’s MWC presentation.

You might remember a similar looking one… Additionally, we’re told that the group working on OS 6.0 is so secretive that many RIM employees have never even seen the new OS so far. Lastly, we have heard that RIM is skipping right past OS 5.2 and will release OS 6.0 instead. Whenever that may be.

Sharp's latest CMOS camera unit was specially designed to cater for vehicle rearview monitoring systems. Known as the 1/3.7-type RJ642A10000Q CMOS camera unit, it boasts a resolution of 320,000 pixels, placing it on a pedestal by virtue of having the industry’s thinnest profile of 19.5mm. This single camera unit will integrate a high-sensitivity CMOS image sensor with on-board image processing circuitry, alongside a lens within a dustproof and waterproof enclosure that will hook up to an attached video output cable. Since it is so small, it can be installed without making a mess of your vehicle's aesthetics. Get this if you can't parallel park properly, otherwise it isn't a necessary upgrade for all drivers.

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BenQ has a new range of LED-backlit LCD monitors on their way, where they include the widescreen V2410T and V2410B, which will oust the V2400 Eco LED Monitor, while the third model would be the E2420HDB. Both of the first two models mentioned will come with 24" display sizes, native 1080p resolution, height-adjustable stands and a 5ms response time, with the only difference between the two being their form factor. Expect the E2420HDB to take a rain check for an LED panel, although it does have native 1080p resolution, 300 lumens of brightness, a 50,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio and a 5ms response time. All three models will sport Senseye image enhancement settings that will change for different applications, while display mode hotkeys lets you play back images with different aspect ratios apart from 16:9. Expect the V2410T to retail for $319, while the V2410B is going for $279 with the E2420HDB costing $195.

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