Inside View from Ireland

eFlow Letterbox

WE REGISTERED FOR an eFlow windscreen tag and might have become a little confused after the direct mailing dropped through the front door. The eFlow device is designed to support barrier-free movement around Dublin on the M50. A series of sensors reads the electronic tag when it's mounted on the windscreen. We plan to mount it in the boot and see if that affects anything. We have to pay €1 per month for having the eFlow windscreen tag. I think the tag is transferable--something else we're going to check after the system comes into effect on 30 August 2008. Television advertisements make the point that if you're unregistered,  you have to pay for your journey before 8PM on the day following your romp across the old toll plaza. All sorts of penalties and court snags face those who don't pay. Now the big news for us: "You will be able to use your eFlow tag to pay your tolls electronically at toll plazas nationwide." To us, it appears to affect the M8 en route to and from Cork. We'll keep readers advised.

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eFlow: helping the case of good stealth taxation everywhere. More info: 1890 50 10 50.

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Wrist Support for Tech Workers

IF YOU'RE LIKE ME and you have to spend several hours a day resting the palms of your hands near a computer keyboard, you might need a foamy baguette to help you stay on top of things. Or you might decide to save the €20 and just buy yourself a few baguettes and dip them in fresh water for the squishy feeling that you'd get from the futuristic gel foam in this little number. It's sold to help alleviate wrist strain. Nearly 1000 references point to this office accessory and during the past 14 months, it's increased in price by more than 10%.

Looking at Smart Touchscreens

WHILE A LOT OF PEOPLE stroke their iPhone screens lovingly, the big computer giant Hewlett-Packard has been working on an array of products that use the same kind of finger-tapping interface. And their first samples are in Irish computer shops, giving me the opportunity to play with the Touchsmart screen at left. I believe touchscreens are the preferred method of using a computer in a non-technical environment, even though I've seen effective touchscreen usages in hospitals and delivery vans. Touchscreens are the interface of the future. I'm impressed with the technology and plan to save the money required to mount a Touchsmart device in my sitting room. I'm thinking about designating a corner area where people can tap away during a television show or while watching a DVD on a main screen across the room. I know it's something I'd like to do during the evening news because I think a lot of stories on the main news shows need fact-checking.

OCC BBQ Essential

AN ESSENTIAL PIECE OF EQUIPMENT for the OpenCoffee Club BBQ has to be the beer handle. With this finely detailed accessory, you can hold a cold beer in your hand while enjoying the pleasant summer breeze blowing off Lough Derg. And when someone bumps in to you, your precious tinny won't slip out of your hand and fall onto the ground. This personal accessory ensures you can hold onto the can because the Beerhandle snaps securely onto any 12oz can giving you an easy to hold handle. The Beerhandle is available in four colours and ships immediately upon payment of $9.88. We have field tested the handle with Guinness cans and have to disclose that the larger Smithwick's tinnies should be poured into 12oz cans to ensure a tight grip.

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Sent mail2blog using O2-Ireland GPRS service.

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Electric Wheels

THROUGH A COMBINATION OF solar power at home and battery packs on the road, I think I'll be driving some kind of electric vehicle before the end of 2012. The delay is brought about by my bank account, not by the technology itself. BMW have an electric Mini in development. Mercedes Benz is developing a luxury class line. Tesla's coupe is rocking with acceleration normally reserved for Lotus, the body style it emulates. NICE car company has a electric commuter runabout (at left) good for 40 miles of travel. All these options are eco-friendly and worth considering by people with short commutes to and from work.

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Muamer Hodzic -- "Mercedes Benz Developing 100% Electric Car"
Yahoo! Business -- "Funky New Electric Car in London"
Christoph Hammerschmidt -- "BMW Launches Electric Car Field Trial"
Consumer Affairs document problems with the Toyota Prius.

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Tesla Sedan

AS MUCH AS I WOULD LIKE to commute to work in the sporty Tesla coupe, I cannot really afford dropping €100,000 into a car, even though it's a green car. So when Tesla announced the availability of an electric sedan, priced around the point of a BNW 5-series, I started looking closer at the car. The Tesla Model S, which could get 225 miles on a single charge, would and cost $60,000. In practical terms, when you consider shipping the car from California and paying at least 21% sales tax in Ireland, the Tesla S will cost at least €60,000 in Ireland.

The California tax incentives are helping Tesla push unit costs down. Better battery performance helps eke out the 225 mile range. That's a Dublin round trip for me, one that would leave me uncompensated for mileage, however.

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Damon Lavrinc -- "Tesla confirms Model S sedan, 225-mile range and $60k" on Autoblog.
Leftland -- "Tesla to offer all electric sedan too."

Five Months First Concrete Impact

AFTER FIVE MONTHS of daily use, I transferred my Nokia E90 to another piece of clothing and that hurt the phone. Because it was the first time I wore my photographer's vest in 2008, I failed to check the integrity of the velcro fasteners and within 100m of breaking into a fast canter after an Aircoach Bus, the E90 ejected itself from an outside pocket and split itself open in front of me. This is the first of many concrete impacts the phone will survive in my care. I normally get three years of solid use out of the largest phones made by Nokia and I demand that the phones can be dropped from shoulder height onto hard surfaces. After a few untimely impacts, the phones start to misbehave. They drop calls faster than they should, their voice pick-ups deteriroate markedly and the integral earpiece becomes unusable. But if I am lucky, this text-to-blog post will send and upload quickly and the E90 will continue serving into the next decade as my primary means of communicating as a blogger.

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Sent mail-to-blog using Nokia E90 over O2-Ireland 3G to Typepad.

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Review of MotionFlash Multi Card Reader/Writer

My office chair seems to run over card readers so I buy a new one every four months. Based on the speed of read/write access on the MotionFlash multi-card reader, I plan to buy another within a fortnight.

This is quite possibly the fastest card reader I have ever used. I saw the speeds most dramatically when using the MotionFlash multi-card reader to transfer sound files from a Sony Memory Stick Pro to my laptop. In three other card readers, several minutes would elapse before I could locate the appropriate file in order to transfer it to the laptop for editing. I experienced no delay with the MotionFlash device--quite remarkable since more than 300 different reside on my digital dictaphone's memory stick. I like the small labels next to the various openings on the MotionFlash reader because clear labels are about the only way I can differentiate between micro SD and M2 card slots. I even get those little cards confused in my phones. The MotionFlash card reader is handy in another way. I can store the smallest memory cards in the device, thus minimising the potential for them getting lost. My MotionFlash Card Reader cost me 21 in the Sony Centre in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland. Like I told my work colleagues, It was well worth the price.

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Rated 5/5 on May 06 2008.
Vote on Bernard Goldbach's Reviews at LouderVoice.

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3G iPhone 90 Days

FRIENDS IN THE printing business scanned me a box cover that proves Apple is within 90 days of releasing its 3G iPhone. Stock clearing exercises are the norm too, especially in the UK and Germany where the 3G iPhone will debut. Prices of the 8GB model have fallen from €335 to €210 in Regent Street, London. You won't find those kinds of price reductions at O2-Ireland until the next school term begins.

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Perfect Pencil

WE LIKE OUR TECHNOLOGY both old and new and we really like Faber-Castell's 19th century note case pencil since our great-grandparents used that pencil after landing on Ellis Island. The Perfect Pencil still sells in fine stationery stores. It provides sure lines when used with steady hands. The platinum-plated brass extender protects the point of your pencil and contains a spring-loaded clip and replaceable, non-smudging white eraser under the cap. An added bonus: the built-in sharpener from the extender. You can order one at World Lux. Remember, some luxuries are essential.
 

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Mermaid Corpse

YOU CAN BUY an authentic mermaid corpse at a current auction on eBay. Scientific readers will know that integrins are a family of heterodimeric receptors essential to cell adhesion in all metazoans. Scientific papers have presented phylogenetic reconstructions for the α and β integrin subunits based on sequences from 24 invertebrate and vertebrate species, including the fully sequenced genomes of the ascidian Ciona intestinalis (a urochordate) and the pufferfish Takifugu rubripes (a teleost). Both genomes contain integrin α subunits that have the inserted αI domain. Although the Ciona αI domains are missing the distinctive characteristics of mammalian collagen receptors, they form a new subgroup of α subunits with αI domains. Each of the pufferfish αI domain sequences does have characteristics of the collagen receptor αI domains, but no leukocyte-specific αI domains were found in pufferfish. Comparative protein modeling suggests that several of these fish αI domains are structurally compatible with binding to a GFOGER sequence in a collagen triple helix. So it is possible that humans trace their evolution to fish.

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Science Direct -- "Integrin Evolution: Insights from ascidian and teleost fish genomes"

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Learned Qikly

WITH FIVE HOURS of filming short videos by using Qik installed on a Nokia E90, I can most assuredly tell video producers that handheld shakeycam footage will not put them out of a job. It's very easy to find Qik videos about nothing. It is very easy to make Qik videos that suck. As my most recent Qik video demonstrates, you can do nothing with a mobile phone camera to reduce its tendency to pixelate active backgrounds. Nor can you really engineer your audio to any respectable degree. Nonetheless, I like Qik because it challenges me to think in storyboard fashion. In a related vein, I don't like Qik productions that show me tiny faces accompanied by nervous pans around audiences while offering no context for the video (i.e., no captions, no hyperlinks, no key words). With the throwaway nature of Qik streaming, people often treat their videostreams like their textstreams. Watching many of my friends make themselves available by Qik, I have to wonder whether they have a plan or whether they're just doing their videos because they can.

Four Years of 9500

MY NOKIA 9500 is one of my longest-serving pieces of technology. It has survived five drops onto concrete, two major water spills and an unknown amount of abuse at the hands of several students during creative multimedia classes and while in the field as a mobile blogging device. Two of those students took the phone with them into austere operating locations in Kenya where it rang up thousands of euro worth of call charges. The phone served as an ultraportable computer and podcast recording device there in Africa and also during several runnings of the Schoolworks programme in Tipperary Institute. At an initial purchase price of €800 (discounted to €620 during a subsidised upgrade), the Nokia 9500 costs as much as a laptop today. However, it has outlived two laptops I have used during the same time period. Through its life, my Nokia 9500 has helped O2-Ireland notch up more than €10,000 of revenue, most of it for charges related to data services (texting and browsing). For that amount of data shock, I get double diamond upgrade status with my network. Unlike most of my friends, I like the form factor of the Nokia 9500 so I'm transitioning to the Nokia E90 for daily use now. I'm in the process of stripping most of the data from the phone and handing it over to American backpackers who will use it with a Cubic Telecom SIM in the States and in Ireland when they roam for free in Europe during the summer of 2008. I wish the phone had a better camera and I wish it used the Series 60 operating system because both of those capabilities would extend the phone's usefulness for another two years. It's a great phone for browsing the web while using wifi, it plays podcasts for me several times a day, and it can see videos through its Real Player. Unfortunately, its web browser crashes easily when it encounters a lot of Javascript and Ajax so I use the phone primarily for mobile-friendly sites and for browsing XML files served up as newsfeeds. Back in 2004, when I first started using the phone, I thought it would be a year or two before most of my colleagues figured out newsfeeds and reduced their tendency to click around to view websites. That hasn't happened where I work which means most of my colleagues would not like seeing the web through the small screen of the Nokia 9500. But it works for me and the phone is one of the reasons why I'm hardly seen viewing web pages placed at the front of web sites. It's simply more efficient to view the newsfeeds, as I've been doing nearly every day since 23rd of February 2004, when I first unpacked my Nokia 9500.

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Previously -- "Nokia Communicator 9500" on 23 February 2004.
Common Questions about the phone -- "Nokia 9500 Items" on 15 April 2005.
Bonus Link: My 9500 photostream.

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Easy Driving

IF YOU ARE LIKE ME, occasional gridlock slows you down. What better way to leverage the frustration of daily travel than by some technology that helps you through the daily papers while behind the wheel? With a simple twist-on attachment, you can enjoy hands-free reading while stopped in traffic. The Easy Reader takes the pressure out of juggling things while driving. It lets you relax comfortably without the need to ever hold what you you have close at hand (e.g., coffee cups, jumbo breakfast rolls, your Asus Eee PC 710 ultraportable computer). Confused tourists in Ireland (or savvy country drivers visiting Dublin) can assemble their thoughtfully-folded road maps dead centre on their steering wheels and avoid the annoying voice of their GPS map units. I spotted this clever technology while reading a review from a guy who bought his Easy Reader "six months ago and its great. I can read while driving and best of all, I can move it to a new car every time I crash my current one. So far, I've gone through five cars in six months, and this thing attaches to every steering wheel. My insurance company is threatening to drop me, but without this item, I simply wouldn't be able to fill out my insurance form while driving." That's a good enough endorsement for me.

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Maxi-Aids -- "Easy Reader" for $30. It has earned three five-star reviews on Amazon.com. Get yours today. Operators are standing by.

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Need Laptop Power

  Need Laptop Power 
  Originally uploaded by Irish Typepad

I BURN OUT power converters all the time. Because I tend to plug them into industrial strength mains outlets--like the power outlets used aboard Irish Rail--a typical power block for one of my laptops lasts no more than a year. So now I need a Dell PA-12 family adapter and I'm out scavenging for one. The one I killed was made in China and at the end of its life, it could light a match on its black plastic housing after being in use for a few hours. I was replacing its 5 amp fuse every day and on several days, I used a 10 amp fuse but they blew too. Maybe it's good it's finally died. One of the benefits of posting my wishlist on my blog is that Google serves me suggestions below the blog post, so I'm counting on finding places that will sell the PA-12 family of power adapters online for less than €30. I think that's a fair price for mains power connections and I'll probably get two, one for the office and one for home.

Review of Trend Micro Internet Security

Trend Micro Internet Security. This venerable program detects threats even when throttled back down to its quietest level of watchfulness. When allowed to inspect everything, Trend Micro can effectively block all internet access, making it a handy little internet gateway as well. It flagged a phishing problem related to my online bank account (below).

iPod Touch Guitar

If you have an iPhone (or iPod Touch), try the Pocket Guitar. You can finger chords, and pluck the string by touching them. According to John Walkenbach, it was created by a Google employee. It has been tested on iPod touch 1.1.1 and is included in ModMyiFone Community Sources. Make sure you have the latest "Community Sources" packages, and you can find it under "Toys" category.

Longest-Serving Technology

AS MIGHT BE EXPECTED, the longest-serving piece of technology in my life has no moving parts. It's a hand-operated Borner vegetable slicer that I bought for $12 in 1987 from an Italian in West Germany. Since then, it's been with me in at least 10 different kitchens, helping me prepare meals and slice up things for stir frying or baking. It's quiet (unless you slice your fingers carelessly), clean, eco-friendly and dependable. Since purchasing the little guy, its cost has tripled but that's what you might expect with an implement that continues to be made in Germany and not outsourced to China for manufacture. I don't know if we'll ever buy another because during the past 20 years, there's really been no wear or tear. The metal tines seem impervious to wood, buckshot and stone. They have passed over all those surfaces while slicing and dicing countless meals of meat and vegetables.

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Swissmar Borner Slicer.

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Smallest Laptop in the House

ONE OF THE SMALLEST laptops I have ever used is the Asus Eee PC701 ultra-portable notebook computer owned by colleague Pat Donohue. It boots in front of me in less than five seconds, runs a seven-inch screen that looks like Windows but is actually Debian, and sells for less than €400. Asustek Computers sells the little beauty through Expansys in Ireland and it is a better piece of kit than the one laptop per child project, in my humble opinion. Irish educators need to look seriously at this scrappy, two-pound jewel because it does all the things a school student needs in today's classrooms. Give it a free path to the internet with wide open wifi and watch what happens. This Eee PC rocks and is definitely the best piece of on-board luggage anyone could carry aboard an aircraft. It weighs less than a Duty Free bag containing a bottle of Jameson whiskey. It's less expensive than an iPhone in Europe, more expansive than a low-end iPod Nano, and more durable than a standard laptop computer. During the past two months, I've listened to colleagues who have used the Eee PC to watch movies on Irish Rail, to read newsfeeds along the River Suir, and to check the stars with the astronomy package bundled aboard the sweet little notebook. I'm buying one coloured pink and plan to introduce it to my three-month old daughter, teaching her how to point and click icons on a screen that she will think is her personal eBook reader.

Open Recording

MEET THE NEUROS OSD, an Open Source Device that uses a memory card or a USB storage device to save copies of anything that plays on your TV screen. Without the hassle of a Media Center's DRM, the Neuros OSD can rip from DVD, VHS, cable, satellite, or mobile phones connected via line-in.  The OSD saves recordings in MPEG-4 format, which means the video will play on my iPod and W910i Walkman phone. You can get yourself a Neuros OSD in the States at Fry’s, Micro Center, J&R Electronics and online through several resellers. It costs less than €200 if you walk into a shop in the States and just under €240 if you buy it from Maplin Electronics.

According to the New York Times, "The OSD has not only open hardware, but also open software: it is based on the Linux operating system. Neuros Technology encourages hacking of the device; it has contests with cash rewards for new applications for the OSD. One winner, for instance, designed a program that lets people use it to watch YouTube on their televisions."

Review of SonyEricsson HBH-DS980 Headset

As rated 4 out of 5 stars on LouderVoice: "Bluetooth, hands-free walk-around earbuds that play around corners and through floors." These sweet little earbuds work right out of the box and if you have a mobile phone or entertainment device that can stream audio, you have a new way of enjoying music or podcasts while walking, working or driving. Newer phones can stream multimedia content--check with your mobile phone reseller for details.

First look at Walkman W910i phone

WITHOUT A MANUAL, we figured out how to pop off the back cover of the newest gadget in my wife's purse (see the phone at left) and then to do fun things. The newbie, a SonyEricsson W910i, replaces the first generation Walkman phone that we bought more than two years ago. That first gen Walkman phone is one of the fastest-selling mobile phones in County Tipperary. The W910i is much slimmer than its predecessor, is techno black (easy to misplace under papers) and includes an accelerometer. The last bit means you can flick through music by tilting the phone right to go to the next track or tilt left to go to the previous track.

Ladytaser

PRESSED FOR THE perfect gift? You might be pleased with the Lady Taser, now in such enticing colors as "metallic pink" and "electric blue." These don't come in bulky sizes. They look more like something you'd shave your legs with, and at five and a half inches in length, they're small enough to slip into a purse. You can get a Lady Taser for less than EUR 300. They come bundled in the C2 Personal Protection System may be the ticket from Taser International, the company that owns the Taser brand name and is the biggest producer of the "electronic-control weapons." In ads on its Web site, the company features a C2-loving Santa, as well as a self-assured businesswoman on a Manhattan street and the tag line "I will control my own destiny."

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Ashley Harris -- "Electroshock Therapy"
Buy Now and control your own destiny.
Previously -- "Build your own stun gun"

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Ideal Gift

FOR THE GUY who appears to have everything, may we suggest the Sno-Baller for Christmas? The Sno-Baller turns out huge numbers of snowballs in seconds, so gloves stay drier and hands warmer, and you can fire away without running out. Speaking from experience (four younger brothers and occasional dustings of two feet of snow in December), you need this tool in your arsenal when engaged in wintertime family activities. This clever piece of technology costs less than €5 and around triple that cost if shipping the Sno-Baller to Ireland. During my fortnightly trips to Goose Bay, Labrador, I froze my fingers when scraping snow for the ice hotel that we constructed every winter. I would have loved carrying along a Sno-Baller for those building challenges. Now you can. Act soon. Operators are standing by:  1-800-494-7544 and you could get your Sno-Baller before Christmas by calling today.

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Disclosure: I love snowball fights and think the sno-baller could be used for ice cream fights as well.

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Annoyatron Pressie

AT THE TOP of my Christmas Wishlist is the Annoyatron, a gadget that returns the favour of mobile phones allowed to ring when their owners are away from their desks for hours. With its thin design and embedded magnet for easy hiding, the Annoyatron slips into a variety of locations. You can select one of the three sound choices (2 kHz, 12 kHz, or alternating) and push the switch to the on position, then watch the fun begin. Your Annoyatron generates a short (but very annoying) beep every two to eight minutes. Your unsuspecting target will have a hard time 'timing' the location of the sound because the beeps will vary in intervals.  The photo shows the Annoyatron next to an American quarter but the device works equally well in Europe.

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Think Geek -- "A devious hide and seek game"

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Nokia PC Phone

IF YOU HAVE a Series 60 or Series 40 Nokia phone and want to communicate with a Windows XP browser (Firefox 2.x or IE 7.x), you might consider the free Nokia PC Phone. Vista is also supported but there are some minor issues with the Bluetooth support when using Vista. This Nokia service lets you use your Nokia mobile phone with your PC Web Browser. You can call, text and manage contacts from your phone. You can also see incoming text messages as popups and you can answer to calls. It's like having a Nokia Communications Suite installed locally. Your laptop keyboard become an SMS QWERTY keyboard. Your laptop stores SMS messages. You can connect from your laptop and ring someone with your mobile phone. The Nokia PC Phone software also behaves like Skype software when recognising phone numbers on web sites. When your browser encounters a sequence of numbers that look like phone numbers, it highlights the numbers and lets you click to call.

Thoughts from the Seventh Floor

I SPENT FOUR hours perched seven floors above the River Liffey looking out above several construction cranes, buffeted by 40mph winds outside and surrounded by very interesting technology from SonyEricsson inside an apartment suite attached to the Clarion Hotel in Dublin's Docklands. Along with RTE's Pat Kenny, I got to touch at least 15 different things, including a few phones that I know would serve friends well. I enjoy using the on-board presenter software that comes with all mid-range SE phones now since it gives me total control of my laptop presentations while walking around a lecture hall. I want to make standalone reviews of these features as well as a few of  the phones worth recommending, including the SE K550i at left since it was the handset many of the prosumers milling around the testing table pulled out to snap photos. I have some other thoughts below the break that relate to the hands-on event above the windswept Liffey.

Flash Media Server Nice Price

WE HAVE SOME unspent resources in our software budget and when Adobe slashed the cost of the Flash Media Interactive Server by 90%, we started looking at the possibility of getting a single server deployment for $995. Its big brother, Flash Media Interactive Server 3 (FMS3) , priced around €5000, is scalable and robust but since we don't expect to serve more than 100 streams simultaneously, we should be able to work with the lesser option when pushing out learning materials.  Adobe offers a developer version for free that supports up to 10 concurrent users but we have not used that version to support the streaming of HD video.

Hand Locker

WE HAVE ALL SORTS of needs in Studio Six in County Tipperary and occasionally a call goes out for special props. Now help is at hand for previously hard-to-find reusable latex intestines, both small and large, thanks to BJ Winslow. He comes with a strong recommendation from John Walkenbach, who says BJ "does good work, and his prices are reasonable. For example, say you're in the market for reusable latex intestines. You can search all week and you won't beat his price: only $8/foot -- and you have a choice of large intestines or small intestines. If you just need to rent your intestines, you can do so at half price." To prove the quality of the selection, we have a photo of a bin of assorted hands, priced from $15 to $30 each. You can also buy in bulk and get a six limb assortment for less than €80. Check with customcorpse AT yahoo.com for your bespoke selection box. Order three corpses, mummies, or skeletons and get a fourth free! Rent two caskets or toe pinchers and get one for half price!

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John Walkenbach -- "Prop Maker"
BJ Winslow -- "Prop Rentals and Fabrications"

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Flourescent Spycam

NEC HAVE a wireless camera that can be powered by a fluorescent light. All you need to do is simply attach a ring-shaped component for power acquisition to the bulb. This is a lot more convenient than having to wait for the sun to break through Irish cloudy skies. And since you can run your fluorescent lights all day without drawing anyone's notice, you can also use your spycam around the clock too. The camera uses electromagnetic induction in order to obtain power by using the magnetic field generated by the AC source (45-100kHz) in the fluorescent light. This wireless camera will be operable at 120mW and is capable of automatically adjusting the frequency of shooting video in response to the power supply from the fluorescent light. The camera shoots images every 10 seconds and supports VGA (640 x 480), QVGA (320 x 240) and QQVGA (160 x 120) resolutions. Image transmission is made possible via IEEE802.11b-compliant wireless LAN.

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See the NEC wireless camera at the  iExpo2007 in Tokyo Big Sight from Dec 5-7, 2007.

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Walkabout with 3 Skype

I HAVE A SKYPE phone from Ireland's 3 Network in my pocket and appreciate its single-button Skype access. I can walk the dog outside my home and talk for free using Skype. However, that feature alone would not be enough to cause me to change my current usage of mobile phones. I have grown accustomed to the Nokia and SonyEricsson menus after five years of using those phones as part of my daily routine. I need a strong suite of business applications on my phones because I need to read documents created in Microsoft Office and distributed as Acrobat files. I need an on-board recording device on my phones. That's me and I know I'm not a typical mobile office warrior since few people carry two phones around with them every hour. The 3 Skype phone is a third phone in my daily kit bag and I have some first impressions to report.

Best Invention of 2007

THE INVENTION OF 2007 most likely to help people is MammaPrint, a genetic print of a cancerous tumour. By getting a genomic profile, specialists can better determine the kind of spread most likely from the cancer. The 70-gene screen, developed by Amsterdam-based Agendia,  is the first DNA test approved by the Federal Drug Administration to measure genes at work. Cancer occurs when our genetic information mutates. These genetic alterations in turn cause inappropriate growth of the cells and thus lead to proliferation of the cancer cells in the affected tissue. I am highly susceptible to this malady and plan to use genomic profiling to get me through the year 2035. If I don't explore something like MammaPrint, I will be done and dusted within 25 years. My fate is already in my genes and I know that from a battery of tests run in the early 90s by the US military. I thought about these things during Science Week Ireland.

Next Gadget

BEING A SUCKER for writing instruments, I think the next gadget I will buy is something that won't go walking from my desk, perhaps something that looks alien. I think I'll get a Free Ride pen from Jean Pierre Lepine since it's actually dropped more than 30% in price since we last saw the thing in New York City. This means the pen costs less than €100 today. The Free Ride pen wants to be different, ergonomic, and fun. This push top ballpoint features a soft rubber like material in the vital sections where finger meets pen. The arched hull is held in place by hand drilled screws. As Lepine puts it, "I create tomorrow's writing instruments for today’s men and women". We'll go to Joon Pens the next time we're in New York, checking out shops in Trump Tower and Grand Central Station. I'll definitely get this pen if I win a Wii from Science Week Ireland and can sell it to someone for the money to buy the pen.

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Damien Mulley -- "Science Week Competition Day 3"
Previously: Science Week Ireland Survey and My Favourite Invention

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InsideView of 3 Skype Phone

ALTHOUGH THE FIRST batch of 3's Skype phones have not arrived in Irish sales channels, I had a look at a 3G Skype phone while in Dublin and just the Skype logo on the phone is enough to suggest this technology is one of the most disruptive to arrive in the telecommunications space in Ireland. The 3 Skype phone is a combination mobile phone and Skype handset. You can make calls and enjoy high-speed data services with the phone while connected to 3 or you can use the Skype software on the phone to connect to friends by using Skype. This capability works wherever you can get a 3G signal while using a 3 handset. In centre city Dublin where I checked out the phone, strong signal from 3 is a common. From practical knowledge, I know that high-quality signal deteriorates in towns with tall terrain obstructions, as in my experience in a home tucked close to the shadows of the Rock of Cashel. Nonetheless, it was impressive to watch the 3 Skype phone at work in Dublin. In my humble opinion, this lightweight phone delivers more value for money than the iPhone.

First Touch

TRYING TO FIND SOMETHING to help a nearly blind student engage with his third level college lectures, I played with an iPod Touch to see if it would aid someone who wanted to review lesson materials stored online. It wins in one respect by rendering web pages crisply and in an astonishingly clear fashion. However, the size of the fonts will not expand as high as with a dedicated screen zoomer. Nonetheless, its screen presentation deserves full marks. Assuming the student will lose more eyesight as the academic year continues, it's important to be able to play audio files and the iTouch does this but you need to work your way around a touch-based user interface. I don't think this will prove viable for a nearly-blind student because the industry recommends devices with large, tactile buttons. A sighted student would be well-served by the iPod Touch's capability to play audio files. And its wi-fi networking makes quick work of connecting up to an internet collection point where the lecture notes would await immediate download. Better still, students can download a raft of creative multimedia notes directly through iTunes or by subscribing to educasts at podcasting.ie.

K800i Taser Phone

YOU CAN CARRY a taser aboard an aircraft if you have a SonyEricsson K800i cameraphone in your pocket. The K800i's Xenon Flash circuit pumps out nearly 300 volts and that's enough to reach out and jolt someone but not incapacitate them. Creating a K800i taser is quick and easy for anyone used to DIY electronic kits. You open the phone, snip a few wires and connect them to the xenon flash circuit. This means that whenever you activate the flash camera mode, you send 300v across the taser probes on the back of the camera. This taser burst stings worse than a flu shot but it is not lethal. So before you dump your K800i into the recycle bin, consider its second life as a taser cameraphone.

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Previously -- "Build your own stun gun"

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Free Access to Eircom Wifi

A FEW YEARS AGO, I could sit aboard buses throughout Dublin and connect for free by using Eircom hotspots. From tomorrow, Eircom customers will have free access to 1100 wireless hotspots as the company opens up access to its wifi services.

Castlecomer Clean Coal Technology

WHILE LIVING A few miles from the former coal mines in Castlecomer, County Kilkenny, I occasionally thought about coal gasification. The coal mines are now shut but the coal reserves still remain intact in the hills surrounding Castlecomer and I wonder if it's possible to use carbon capture and storage to remove or intercept CO₂ from coal and store it deep underground.Richard Girling says "it can be done before combustion by a gasification process, or afterwards by stripping carbon from the flue gas."

Need Bluetooth Car Speakers

BRIAN GREENE, Ireland's first podcaster, asked whether I have listened to Phantom FM over the internet while in my car. I've done that but not through the car's audio system. I've heard Phantom FM on my laptop in my car and I'm testing the stream on several Nokia handsets but I've never pushed the signal to Bluetooth speakers. I want to do this some day soon. I think I will ask the experts at The Communications People in Thurles to guide me through a purchase of a Bluetooth speaker system that can be laid under the rear window area of my car. Since I don't want to slice up the car's electrical system, I need a way to power each speaker independently because I think I need a 60W amplifier for each speaker. The idea is to stream audio to the speakers by using Bluetooth EDR (Enhanced Data Rate). EDR offers three times the bandwidth of the previous version and thus is able to send a full stereo signal. I have several phones that support Bluetooth EDR and the Windows XP laptop I carry also supports that standard.

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Brian Greene asks on Twitter. Bernie Goldbach answers on Jaiku.

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By Their Switches

ANYONE WHO VISITS The Clarence Hotel in Dublin notices the vintage switches on the walls. They were part of the renovation, not part of the original structure. I've become a switch man myself and have now start scavenging for fluted brass switches similar to those in the Raheen House Hotel in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland. That venue hosted the most significant event in my life in Ireland and I want to touch something that reminds me of our special day, every day. Off I go to Knobs and Knockers in Dublin (cantankerous) and to Bailey's Home and Garden Centre (witty) in England.

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Yahoo Search Assistant

YAHOO! MAY HELP some people discover new or serendipitous things with its Search Assistant but my first impressions are that it's still not delivering high-quality results when compared to Google. I dabbled a little with the Yahoo! Search Assistant and have a few comments.

Phototextual Audio Mobile Ecosystem

RETURNING TO IRELAND from Nokia  GoPlay, several people asked me what I was using for my mobile phone since they want some ideas while upgrading their three-year-old models. I told them that I like to use phones that can provide quick high-resolution imagery to the internet while doubling as speakerphones during meetings or through earbuds while listening to audio tracks. Because I don't have a 2007 model, I'm using two phones to deliver this functionality. Both can talk to my television via Bluetooth as show at left (in the photo, the power cable is attached to the wall, not to the television). An important note here: in today's converged world, devices alone by themselves are not enough. Proper mobile devices need to detect and connect machine-to-machine. Mobile communications devices need to be able to accept smart software.

Nokia GoPlay in London

ALONG WITH SEVERAL hundred other journalists, I spent most of Thursday day at Old Billingsgate in London, watching Nokia GoPlay unfold (that's the Old Billingsgate cave at left), playing with different handsets (not all of them Nokia phones), and talking with managers as well as product developers. Throughout the day, I listened to the back channel chatter and learned other perspectives from Jaiku, IRC, direct text messages and Twitter. Those back channels gave me an indication of what Nokia could do with its positioning as an internet services company. I waited until midnight to wade through an inch of product descriptions, then I wrote this blog post while sifting through commentary from people about Ovi, the door to social media that Nokia wants people to use. What rambles below the break consolidates these thoughts.

FastLadder Speeds

WHEN IN LONDON, my 3G office has failed to deliver the same speeds as I got in Ireland. Speed is the most important aspect when reading large number of web sites through news aggregators. I read with Google Reader, with Bloglines and with FreeNews. On my 3G laptop, when speeds dip to GPRS levels, Bloglines and Google Reader are too slow. That's partially because I have more than 1000 feeds registered with each of the main services used to trawl web sites. I also use Fastladder (albeit for fewer feeds) and now in London at reduced network speeds, it's obvious that FastLadder is snappier than anything else I'm using. It boots faster into the XML feeeds, pre-fetches quicker and is smoother with keystroke commands. Recommended, if you don't mind losing some of the Google Reader command set.

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What is FastLadder?

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Releasing Grip on P1i

BECAUSE I LIKE the SonyEricsson P1i more than my P910i, I'm really hesitant to release my grip on it and let it land in the lap of James Corbett. But James has assured me he will run it hard and give me some feedback as a totally uninitiated user of a touchscreen jog dial wifi 3G multimedia phone. This phone won't appeal to digital natives who text while driving or to those holding out for a low megapixel, low bandwidth, iPhone. However, it has served me well for nearly a month by reducing my costs while simultaneously increasing my information flow. This is the most practical 3G videophone I have ever used because of its form factor and smart handling of communications protocols. I use it most of the time while mooching on free wifi nodes for downloading mission-critical mail, skimming through a well-populated collection of newsfeeds on FreeNews and handling GTD task lists with AquaCalendar. The phone does not hit all the hot buttons for everyone, largely because of its rocker keys and tight resolution.

Blowing Up Samsung DVD Player

TODAY, I BLEW UP our Samsung DVD player (at left). It was an accident meant to happen because I was running Saving Private Ryan at near-maximum volume to get the full effect of the bullets hitting corpses. When I pulled at one of the 5.1 speakers, I accidentally jerked its lead from the back of the DVD player. That effectively shorted out the DVD player and left us without a main source of entertainment. The unit was dead-black--no infrared light, no soft blue backlights. We liked the Samsung HT-Q20 a lot so I found my small screwdrivers in the gadget drawer and slid back its top cover, hoping to find a reset switch. Nothing but really sweet looking circuit boards inside. Resigned to buying another DVD player and this time ensuring nothing could pull its speaker cables loose, I slid the HT-Q20 back into the sitting room cabinet and covered it with a burial cloth. But then I noticed its little blue power light glowing! As luck would have it, the unit resets itself when its top cover slides back from the housing. That's good news for us and we hope to get at least five years of use from the DVD player.

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Google finds nearly 1000 results when searching for "Samsung HT-Q20 problem".

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Nokia N95 Award Winner

NOKIA'S N95 multimedia phone--a computer wrapped around a megapixel camera--has been voted "the European Media Phone of the Year 2007-2008" by the European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA), Europe's leading association for consumer electronics. EISA praised the Nokia N95 as containing "practically every feature one could imagine in a mobile device." My personal opinion is that the phone is more than bling. It feels good and works well for those interested in creative multimedia.

The judging panel cited Nokia N95 features such as GPS, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and MPEG4 video capture of up to 30 fps. EISA also highlighted the device's data access of up to 3.5 Mbs, advanced web browser, Wi-Fi, microSD slot, and audio reproduction of multiple audio formats. If you have a mature version of this phone, you won't be disappointed with its feature set.

Scanning Manuals

SINCE ONE OF THE most regular uses of this blog is by people searching for missing manuals, I've started scanning and saving manuals from nearly every electronics gadget and appliance in the house. Many of the appliances don't w