What if locking the front door of your home while you’re away were as easy as hopping on the Internet? At the CEDIA Expo in Denver this week, Ingersoll-Rand Co.’s Schlage unit is showing off door locks that can be wirelessly set or opened via the Internet, from a mobile phone or a computer.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/SmartHome/wireStory?id=5718271
No man can know what the future will look like, but we’re willing to go out on a limb and say that 1) there will still be advertising and 2) it will be even more annoying than it is now. Here are 30 visions of what might be in store.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/09/02/philly.body.parts.ap/index.html?eref=rss_latest
Swedish company Home Energy recently revealed an innovative wind turbine that spins in a spherical formation.
http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/09/03/energy-ball-by-home-energy/
Looks like the runner is related to Devin Hester or Barry Sanders. Either way, very embarrassing for the catcher.
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1828848
InvespBlog has published what it claims is an interview with a top Digg user - someone who has a 34% success ratio in getting submitted stories to the home page of Digg. The Digg user isn’t named - he or she says “I have a reputation to withhold” (we know what they meant). (It ain’t Mr. BabyMan, for the record.)
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/03/want-on-the-digg-home-page-thatll-be-1300/
In response to a Nov. 7 referendum, Kansas lawmakers passed emergency legislation outlawing evolution, the highly controversial process responsible for the development and diversity of species and the continued survival of all life. “From now on, the streets, forests, plains, and rivers of Kansas will be safe from the godless practice of evolution”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2662011/Three-children-left-home-alone-as-mother-honeymoons.html
Ostracus writes to share a new take on the word “treehouse.” Engineers and plant scientists from Tel Aviv have taken the application of tree shaping to the next level, designing everything from streetlamps to houses. “A home built from trees, the researchers said, would be a natural storm protector. “After earthquakes and after tsunamis the only structures that still survive are trees,” said Yaniv Naftaly, director of operations at Plantware, a company founded in 2002. Naftaly told LiveScience the same sturdiness should apply to tree-made homes. Eshel and TAU colleague Yoav Waisel are working with Plantware to commercialize the leafy designs. The team found that certain tree species grown aeroponically (in air instead of soil and water) have roots that don’t harden. Once the malleable, so-called soft roots grow long enough in the lab, they are molded around metal frames in the shape of a playground or park bench.”
Broadband writes “With a growing number of internet service providers imposing hard bandwidth caps, I too will soon find myself with a limit. In typical Slashdot fashion I use the Internet for everything from movie streaming to online backup and just realized I have no idea how much data traverses my pipes on a monthly basis. While I have wised up and installed a bandwidth monitoring solution, it’ll be some time until I have a normalized average. So my question is: What is the average monthly data usage in your household? How many people share the connection and is there anything you’ve found essential yet bandwidth intensive that you couldn’t live without? (E.g. VOIP, movie downloads, streaming audio, etc.)”
Tiny orange clownfish, made famous by the Disney character Nemo, use the smell of leaves and anemones in the water to find their way home on the coral reef.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/08/29/nemo-clownfish-smell.html
Why spend lots of money heating your house when nature can do it for you?
http://cleantechnica.com/2008/08/28/man-heats-4000-sq-ft-home-for-250-per-day-using-passive-solar-technology/