World's First Internet Car Radio Would Go Perfectly in KITT's Dashboard

Satellite radio is dead. The world's first internet car radio, from Blaupunkt and miRoamer delivers thousands of internet stations integrated with a standard AM/FM/CD dash console worthy of KITT.
All of your preferences, providers and searches are customized on miRoamer's site, and you can instantly flip back and forth between internet or terrestrial radio stations in the console. The secret sauce is 3G GSM. Since it's just a plug-n-play SIM, it theoretically means you could get the Australia-based service working in the States on AT&T, once it goes from being built-in equipment to a setup you can buy separately.
Even if it's not available over here immediately, just because it's the first doesn't mean it'll be the only one like this—this is just the beginning of car internet radio, for sure. Plus, I'm pretty sure someone will find a way to hack the 3G to use it tether it to your laptop over the system's built-in Bluetooth (as long as it has the right protocols built-in, anyway).
miRoamer Partners with Blaupunkt to Introduce the World's First Internet Car Radio
Drivers can access largest and most diverse global selection of Internet radio from their car stereo
(Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, NV North Hall Booth #5418 – January 8, 2009) – miRoamer, a global innovator in the Internet radio industry, is announcing a partnership with Blaupunkt, one of the world's leading consumer electronics manufacturers and specialists in car multimedia, at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show (CES). The partnership will introduce the world's first Internet car radio, giving drivers access to the world's largest and most diverse selection of Internet radio content through their car stereo.
"The beauty of Internet car radio is the customized user experience," said George Parthimos, Founder and CEO, miRoamer. "Today, users want to jump in their car and go – no pulling out third-party devices or plugging in cords to access their music and information. miRoamer's development with Blaupunkt is the first seamless Internet radio solution. Now, with the simple push of a button, users can access AM/FM stations or Internet radio's thousands of music, entertainment, news and talk stations from around the world, all from the same car stereo."
The world's first Internet car radio by Blaupunkt will enable drivers to tune into miRoamer's tens of thousands of radio stations and really feel like they're there. Users' favorite Internet radio stations can be easily chosen via clearly arranged information on a large screen display, enriched by state-of-the art performance in terms of car multimedia and consumer electronics connectivity.

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Display Technologies Guide (LCD, Plasma, DLP, LCoS, D-ILA, CRT)

A couple years ago it became apparent that in order to effectively review and compare the many upcoming display technologies, we'd need to publish an article or two about exactly what these differing formats mean and address the questions about which television or projection format is "best". After returning from CES 2006, we instinctively knew that it was high time we updated this article to reflect the newer technologies and discuss advancements made by current or older technologies.
The truth be told, each have their advantages and disadvantages. The comparisons we make will serve to educate, but only at the risk of adding enough additional information into the process that could make decisions even more involved. For some, this document will serve as a primer and will help pave the way towards understanding both current and up-and-coming technologies. Others may find that this article opens a Pandora's Box of comparisons and a more difficult decision-making process. For Audioholics, the goal is always to inform the end-user so that they can be better equipped to make the best choices. We hope that the detail included here helps to eliminate confusion and organize the positives and negatives of each format.
Editor's note: This article will also be somewhat dynamic as these technologies are almost constantly changing. Thus, in order to keep this document up-to-date, we'll address new issues, advances, and technologies as they arise and as time permits.
At the end of this article is a comparison chart of each display-type which compares the various displays against each other using metrics such as contrast ratio, weight, burn-in, viewing angle and longevity. If your head is spinning, this will be a good place to regroup before coming back up for air and once again delving into the technologies.
With that said - thanks for stopping by! We hope you can glean some helpful information from this document to aid you in your current and future purchasing decisions.

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Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2009, 2010

Analyst firm Gartner has just released a report that highlights eight up-and-coming mobile technologies which they predict will impact the mobile industry over the course of the next two years. According to Nick Jones, vice president and analyst at the firm, the technologies they've identified will evolve quickly and will likely pose issues that will have to be addressed by short term strategies.
Bluetooth 3.0
This is one of the no-brainers on the list. The Bluetooth 3.0 specification will be released this year and devices will start to hit the shelves by 2010. At this point, it's expected that the 3.0 spec will include faster speeds, reportedly transferring files at 480 megabits per second in close proximity and 100 megabits per second at 10 meters. It will also feature an ultra-low-power mode that Gartner predicts will enable new peripherals, sensors, and applications, such as health monitoring. The technology will be backwards compatible, allowing old devices to communicate with new ones, so there's no reason for it not take off in the upcoming years.
Mobile User Interfaces + Mobile Web/Widgets
mobile user interfaces and mobile web/widgets were listed separately, accounting for two items on the list, but we think they can be lumped together. They all point to how mobile computing is rapidly becoming a new platform for everything from consumer mobile apps to B2E (business-to-employee) and B2C (business-to-customer). (Gartner did not include B2B on their list.) Modern day smartphones like the iPhone, Android, Blackberry, the upcoming Pre, and others deliver better interfaces for browsing the web, thus making it accessible to more people. Widget-like applications, including those that replicate thin client technology, will become more common especially in B2C strategies. Yet the mobile web still has challenges ahead. For example, there are no standards for browser access to handset services like the camera or GPS, the report notes.

Near Field Communication (NFC)
NFC is a technology that provides a way for consumers to use their mobile phones for making payments, among other things. It's something that has taken off in many countries worldwide, but certainly not all, and definitely not in the United States just yet. Unfortunately, Gartner predicts that the move towards mobile payment systems will still not occur this year or the next in mature markets like the U.S. and Western Europe. Instead, NFC is more likely to take off in emerging markets. Other uses of the technology, such as the ability to transfer photos from phone to digital photo frames, will also remain elusive to more developed markets.

802.11n & Cellular Broadband
802.11n, a specification for wireless local area networks (WLANs), initially gave us pause. Although not ratified as an official standard yet, the technology is already commonplace. However, until it "goes gold" so to speak, it won't really infiltrate the mobile world. Even the ubiquitous iPhone only supports 802.11 b/g at the moment.

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Fuel Cell Technology and Its Importance to Society

A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts a source fuel into an electrical current. It generates electricity inside a cell through reactions between a fuel and an oxidant, triggered in the presence of an electrolyte. The reactants flow into the cell, and the reaction products flow out of it, while the electrolyte remains within it. Fuel cells can operate continuously as long as the necessary reactant and oxidant flows are maintained.
Fuel cells are different from conventional electrochemical cell batteries in that they consume reactant from an external source, which must be replenished – a thermodynamically open system. By contrast, batteries store electrical energy chemically and hence represent a thermodynamically closed system.
Fuel cells come in many varieties; however, they all work in the same general manner. They are made up of three segments which are sandwiched together: the anode, the electrolyte, and the cathode. Two chemical reactions occur at the interfaces of the three different segments. The net result of the two reactions is that fuel is consumed, water or carbon dioxide is created, and an electrical current is created, which can be used to power electrical devices, normally referred to as the load.
At the anode a catalyst oxidizes the fuel, usually hydrogen, turning the fuel into a positively charged ion and a negatively charged electron. The electrolyte is a substance specifically designed so ions can pass through it, but the electrons cannot. The freed electrons travel through a wire creating the electrical current. The ions travel through the electrolyte to the cathode. Once reaching the cathode, the ions are reunited with the electrons and the two react with a third chemical, usually oxygen, to create water or carbon dioxide.

Fuel cells may seem like a science fiction fantasy to many people, since they are an efficient and nonpolluting power source producing little noise and having no moving parts. But this futuristic energy source not only exists, it has played a key role in providing electricity on spacecraft since the 1960s. Currently, technologists are developing and adapting fuel cell technology for practical use in exhaust-free automobiles and in electricity-generating plants. In this article, the author discusses the possible applications, societal impacts, and safety concerns of fuel cell technology. He asserts that it is critical to incorporate fuel cell education in the technology education classroom in order to encourage its adoption.

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Mobile Applications.

By year-end 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce providing a rich environment for the convergence of mobility and the Web. There are already many thousands of applications for platforms such as the Apple iPhone, in spite of the limited market and need for unique coding. It may take a newer version that is designed to flexibly operate on both full PC and miniature systems, but if the operating system interface and processor architecture were identical, that enabling factor would create a huge turn upwards in mobile application availability.
“This list should be used as a starting point and companies should adjust their list based on their industry, unique business needs and technology adoption mode,” said Carl Claunch, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. “When determining what may be right for each company, the decision may not have anything to do with a particular technology. In other cases, it will be to continue investing in the technology at the current rate. In still other cases, the decision may be to test/pilot or more aggressively adopt/deploy the technology.”
Mobile Technologies to Watch in 2009, 2010
Analyst firm Gartner has just released a report that highlights eight up-and-coming mobile technologies which they predict will impact the mobile industry over the course of the next two years. According to Nick Jones, vice president and analyst at the firm, the technologies they've identified will evolve quickly and will likely pose issues that will have to be addressed by short term strategies.

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Gartner Identifies the Top Strategic Technologies for 2010

Cloud Computing. Cloud computing is a style of computing that characterizes a model in which providers deliver a variety of IT-enabled capabilities to consumers. Cloud-based services can be exploited in a variety of ways to develop an application or a solution. Using cloud resources does not eliminate the costs of IT solutions, but does re-arrange some and reduce others. In addition, consuming cloud services enterprises will increasingly act as cloud providers and deliver application, information or business process services to customers and business partners.
Advanced Analytics. Optimization and simulation is using analytical tools and models to maximize business process and decision effectiveness by examining alternative outcomes and scenarios, before, during and after process implementation and execution. This can be viewed as a third step in supporting operational business decisions. Fixed rules and prepared policies gave way to more informed decisions powered by the right information delivered at the right time, whether through customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) or other applications. The new step is to provide simulation, prediction, optimization and other analytics, not simply information, to empower even more decision flexibility at the time and place of every business process action. The new step looks into the future, predicting what can or will happen.
Client Computing. Virtualization is bringing new ways of packaging client computing applications and capabilities. As a result, the choice of a particular PC hardware platform, and eventually the OS platform, becomes less critical. Enterprises should proactively build a five to eight year strategic client computing roadmap outlining an approach to device standards, ownership and support; operating system and application selection, deployment and update; and management and security plans to manage diversity.
IT for Green. IT can enable many green initiatives. The use of IT, particularly among the white collar staff, can greatly enhance an enterprise’s green credentials. Common green initiatives include the use of e-documents, reducing travel and teleworking. IT can also provide the analytic tools that others in the enterprise may use to reduce energy consumption in the transportation of goods or other carbon management activities.
Reshaping the Data Center. In the past, design principles for data centers were simple: Figure out what you have, estimate growth for 15 to 20 years, then build to suit. Newly-built data centers often opened with huge areas of white floor space, fully powered and backed by a uninterruptible power supply (UPS), water-and air-cooled and mostly empty. However, costs are actually lower if enterprises adopt a pod-based approach to data center construction and expansion. If 9,000 square feet is expected to be needed during the life of a data center, then design the site to support it, but only build what’s needed for five to seven years. Cutting operating expenses, which are a nontrivial part of the overall IT spend for most clients, frees up money to apply to other projects or investments either in IT or in the business itself.

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DNA PCR Technology:Its Importance In Avian and Exotic Medicine

When it comes to performing diagnostic tests on avian and exotic animal patients, deciding which tests to perform under differing circumstances can be very confusing and challenging. Now, labs offer different tests for the same disease; for example, if you want to test a bird for chlamydiosis (psittacosis, Parrot Fever), you have the choice of performing chlamydial isolation (the gold standard, but may get false negatives), EBA titer (measures IGM, best for early infection), IFA titer (measures IGG, better for chronic infections and follow-up testing), DNA PCR testing (of a pooled choanal/cloacal swab, which detects the organism in the secretions), and DNA PCR testing of the blood (which detects the organism in the bloodstream). Choosing the correct test is very important in obtaining an accurate diagnosis, since there are many variables that can affect the outcome.
While most veterinary laboratories offer DNA PCR testing, there is often some confusion as to when this technology should be used in place of other testing methods. To better understand when and why to use DNA PCR tests, let's go over the basics of how this test works. PCR stands for polymerase chain reaction. PCR testing can be used to amplify the production of highly specific DNA fragments of Chlamydial, Mycoplasmal or viral genomes. This makes PCR testing both highly sensitive and highly specific. PCR testing can also be used to identify the sex of a bird, as well, by amplifying a portion of the W or Z chromosome, however the primers for sexing are generally species-specific. (The most widely used DNA method for sexing is called restricted fragment length polymorphism, RFPL, which is also extremely accurate).
By amplifying specific portions of the genome of a disease in combination with an avian probe, it is possible to identify specific disease strains. The major disadvantage to this technology is its extreme sensitivity. It is possible to contaminate a blood sample with organism particles from the skin or a toenail. For this reason, it is vital that the blood sample be procured aseptically and from a clean venipuncture stick. A toenail clip should never be used for the blood sample, since it is impossible to adequately disinfect the toe and nail to prevent contamination of the specimen, which may result in false-positive results. Tubes used for sample submission should be stored to prevent potential contamination. Often, bullet tubes are used, and these are supplied with the caps open. It is possible for environmental dust from a clinic to contaminate these tubes, which may also result in false positive test results. Make sure to store these tubes in sealed plastic bags, and close the caps for storage, as well.

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