Nissan Leaf is 'Car of the Year' in Europe.

Nissan's new all-electric car has taken the automobile industry by storm. It is the first relatively inexpensive electric car that has been mass-marketed, and this is big news. “Nissan Leaf is the first EV that can match conventional cars in many respects," Hakon Matson tells Wired. In one charge, the Nissan Leaf can drive 80-100+ miles. This makes it great for anyone who isn't on a road trip, or drives 40+ miles to work. An electric car is also a much more spacious ride. Without the gas engine, and all the components that it requires, than there is enough room for more seats, and a hatchback. That is exactly what the Leaf is. It is a 5-seat hatchback, but it is a rather small sedan. The only real issue that could arise with such a car is the lack of charging stations. This would really be an issue for people who drive for 80+ miles in one sitting. Obviously, this is not that common, but it would be a nice to have charging stations integrated into gas stations. All I know is that this is my dream car, and a breakthrough for the automobile and technological worlds.

tech dudes' man caves

Here is an article about the houses and mansions belonging to the kings of the technological universe. It shows a personal view into their lives, one that we don't get very often. I am dissapointed that the pictures are mainly from satellites and not very good quality, although that is also impressive because we can the the immense size  the homes. The nearest to all of us in ATX is of course Micheal Dell's mansion nicknamed "The Castle." It is truly an awesome display of wealth. From the image, you can see a swimming pool and a basketball court combined with a tennis court. His house is just across the lake from downtown, and is perched atop a hill.

The most impressive house in my opinion belongs to the Microsoft giant and multi-billionaire Bill Gates. He is worth 54 billion dollars, and his house rounds up to a mere $145,000,000. It houses 25 bathrooms, an 1,000 square foot dining hall, and six kitchens. It is right on the water, and looks very impressive against the California landscape near Seattle.

Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook has a very interesting house compared to the rest displayed in the article. He seems to have a normal house. It is pretty small compared to all the other mansions, but is close to his Facebook headquarters where he works. 

 
-Scotty

Google Under Investigation

Today, the European Union (EU) announced an investigation towards Google about abusing the rules of the EU relating to online search. Specifically, the spokesperson claimed that due to Google's monopoly over the search industry, that they had a biased view against European users, and tended to favor their own products. This investigation does not imply that there is any proof to these allegations, and Google chose to cooperate with the EU in this investigation. A Google spokesperson announced that "But there's always going to be room for improvement, and so we'll be working with the Commission to address any concerns". A commission was formed to lead the investigation, saying that it will focus on whether Google lowers the ranking of unpaid ads, and raises the level of paid ones. Additionally, they claim that Google lowered the quality score of unpaid ads, forcing them to be displayed even lower than before, along with adding a better score to the paying users. Finally, they intend to investigate whether or not Google discriminates against a site based on the advertisements present. Specifically, that Google will force one company with the same content as another company, to pay more because they are running a specific add from say, a rival search engine, or a company that Google doesn't approve of. The time this check up on Google will take is unknown, as the Commission said that they will make this "probe" last as long as necessary to ensure that Google conforms to the regulations of the EU.

--Karl J.

Cowon 3D

 

Now, you probably haven't heard of Cowon before. Like Apple's iPod and Microsoft's Zune, Cowon is also a portable media player. They have had successful versions before that have been highly regarded for the amount of formats they will play, such as FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and other high quality formats.

As the name suggests, this media player allows you to view things in 3D. Normally for 3D like those in movie theaters, you need glasses. However, more recently technology has been developed that allows you to view 3D without glasses, which is exactly what the Cowon 3D does.

The Cowon 3D has full 1080p playback, which is considered "Full HD," but this doesn't quite make sense, as the Cowon only has an 800x480 screen. So while you can't watch in higher resolutions than 480p on the Cowon (still better than the average YouTube video), it does have an HDMI output port so you can watch the videos on your TV in their full 1080p glory. The Cowon 3D also has 64GB of flash storage and a 4.8 inch screen, so this is quite a bit larger than your iPhone or Droid, but still smaller than a tablet such as the iPad.

The battery can last for 10 hours of video, and over 300 hours on standby (more than the iPhone. Heh. iPhone battery life,) and also includes WiFi capabilities.

The Cowon 3D is set to launch December 10th in South Korea with a price of $431 for the 32GB model, and $509 for the 64GB version.

You can check out the product page here (Korean) and here (English)

-Teguh

Karl's Poll

Poll Found here

Karl J.

Poll Frenzy

I was going to embed it into the blog, but it didn't work.
Oh well.

Take the poll here.

-Teguh

Here's a poll!

Here's a poll about the computers you have at home!

-Scotty