Greg In The Desert

Wow, I’m really ruining my reputation as a Apple Fan Boy and early adopter. I didn’t buy the first iPhone when it first came out (instead waited for the 16GB version) and I haven’t purchased a iPhone 3G. I had no desire to stand in line for one on launch day. I’m not really a people person and I’m not interested in socializing with strangers.

I did look into it last week. The Albuqueruque Apple Store was out and while I was in Portland for a few days, all three of those stores were out.

I can live with the EDGE network speeds. The killer feature for me is the GPS. Since there are no real GPS realtime navigation software out for the iPhone, yet, I think I will hold out. If I hold out long enough a 32GB version might be available.

Since the bluetooth on iPhone is reserved for only wireless headset they actually used WiFi to transmit data between the GPS receiver and iPhone. To make this possible the GPS receiver integrates a processor, Wi-Fi antenna, and even a microSD card slot to store the maps. The navigation software itself will also be accesssed via the WiFi GPS receiver using a web interface. The navigation software used and customized for LocoGPS is iGO 8.

Impressive young Skywalker, Hopefully they will ditch the web interface now that the SDK is available. Hopefully Apple opens up the bluetooth interface so this sort of overdone interface isn’t needed.

Wow, a lot of work went into this.

Mona Lisa, the mysterious woman immortalized in Leonardo da Vinci’s 16th century masterpiece, had just given birth to her second son when she sat for the painting, a French art expert said on Tuesday.The discovery was made by a team of Canadian scientists who used special infrared and three-dimensional technology to peer through hitherto impenetrable paint layers on the work, which now sits in the Louvre museum in Paris.

Wow, a lot of old vehicles are showing up on craigslist lately. Or have they always showed up and I never noticed?

This 1949 Dodge Panel Van for $2500 is actually tempting. If it really does run good and is in good enough shape, $2500 isn’t a bad price. At least to me, if I had money to buy it.

Wow, who would have thought that urea (aka piss, pee) would be the latest technology, helping cut now emissions in diesel engines. Though the EPA is a little worried that people wont get their urea refilled in their cars.

One of the main drawbacks of diesels is an increase in the emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), one of the nastier pollutants and a result of the high temperatures and localized areas of lean combustion inherent to diesel operation. Urea injected into the exhaust stream of a diesel decomposes into ammonia, which then lends towards the breakdown of NOx into oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide.

Apparently it doesn’t take much to make the reaction work but it needs refilled ever 10K miles. This seems like a DIY job for sure.

Wow, this is quite a week for Apple Rumors. Now there’s talk of the Apple table with some guy saying he’s used it and the whole Intel chip thing is related to it. We will see…

I have no less than 5 sources saying an Apple Tabletannouncement is due soon. Or something, as some ofthese press people (Apple diehards at that), whonormally cared not about Tablets, and thought it wasall just Microsoft vaporware, are suddenly sointerested in the Tablet PC concept, and asking tonsof questions. Pretty easy to read those tea leaves, sosomethings up.