The BlackBerry PlayBook tablet is available at Retail Stores in the United States

via http://www.cultofmac.com/problem-of-ipad-printing-has-been-solved-pic-of-the-day

Google is handing out free numbers called “Google Numbers” that sync all your phone lines to one voicemail and transcribes your messages to you via text.

Fellow Tweeter, “Isky” (Carl Iskandar), attests to Google Voice: he Twittered: “Got a voicemail on Google Voice this morning and it transcribed it to text perfectly”. Isky, a tech-maven already subscribed to GrandCentral, Google’s $50 million phone company, received an early edition of the app.

I just signed up for my own Google Voice phone number and did a voicemail test and it did, indeed, transcribe my voice perfectly to text! Pay services providing the same thing like “PhoneTag” are about to be toast.

Link to this post.
URL: http://dailytruffle.blogspot.com/2009/03/google-voice-get-all-your-vms.html

Share this post on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and more …

The Darth Vader Alarm Clock, displays the time in his eyes, it has a built in AM/FM radio and 3 sounds effects that are bound to wake you up. If you want one of these cool Darth Vader alarm clock’s they will be available shortly for $30 from Sakar. via Geeky Gadgets

Link directly to this post.
URL: http://dailytruffle.blogspot.com/2009/04/this-will-wake-you-up-in-morning.html

Etsy seller Substrata handmake wooden cases for the 3G, $84.99. [via 7Gadgets ]

Create Your Own Social Network: Today was CNBC’s annual lunch at the Grill Room of the Four Seasons’ aptly coined “Thrill Room” by the well-seasoned who gather to ‘power lunch’ in New York city. CNBC annually welcomes the year’s most promising up-starts. Today’s leading new contender was the build-your-own-networking-site site, Ning.com, whose tagline is “Create Your Own Social Network”

This grand affair where duck is ordered and personal trips the wine cellar are made, is CNB’s day to allow new and old media to get to know one-another, honor eachother and discuss the future. This luncheon once housed then-infant Google, Ebay and Yahoo among others. In case you don’t believe me, Vanity Fair released a piece on The Grill’s upcoming 50th Anniversary, this July. Below is their ‘class photo’ featuring their regulars, many of whom also attended the brunch today.

Photograph by Todd Eberle. Enlarge this photo.
Front row, seated: Georgette Mosbacher, Ed Koch, Stephen A. Schwarzman, Sandy Weill, Julian Niccolini, Henry Kissinger, Pete Peterson, Donald Marron, Liz Smith, Alex von Bidder, Leonard Lauder, Jonathan Tisch, Leo Hindery Jr., Martha Stewart, Donald Drapkin.

Second row: David Dinkins, Gael Greene, Thom Browne, Edgar Bronfman Sr., Edgar Bronfman Jr., Richard Meier, Peggy Siegal, Michael Ovitz, Arne Glimcher, Joel Ehrenkranz, Zac Posen.

First row, upper level: Christine Quinn, Raymond W. Kelly, Lally Weymouth, Tom Brokaw, Ralph Schlosstein, Nina Zagat, David Boies, James B. Lee Jr., Bruce Wasserstein, Joni Evans, Bill Rhodes, Sandy Lindenbaum, John Veronis, Lauren Veronis, Jonathan L. Mechanic, Wilma Jordan, Gershon Kekst, Richard Johnson, Dolly Lenz, Bill Rudin.

Top row: William O’Shaughnessy, Jes Staley, Bill White, Aby Rosen, Charles Masson, Michael Wolf, Ed Lewis, Tim Zagat.

From Matt Tyrnauer at Vanity Fair: The Thrill Room: A “class photo” as the Four Seasons turns 50.” Plus: watch the video from this historic photo shoot.

Link to this post directly.
URL: http://dailytruffle.blogspot.com/2009/04/ning-is-darling-of-cnbcs-annual-power.html

Designed by Intuitive Surgical, the da Vinci Si system consist of a surgical console with 3D HD vision brought from the merging of two separate HD optical channels for maximum accuracy. The console includes a patient side cart with four robotic arms. While seated at the console, the surgeon can view the enhanced images and control the robotic arms for endoscopic procedures.

Google has moved several tons of electronic storage unit to bardges in the ocean – not for privacy protection but to harness the immense power of the sea waves which generate more power at a lowered cost than paying rent and buying conventional power on land. Read more here.

A recent patent application made by Google was found that sites, “Computing centers are located on a ship or ships, anchored in a water body from which energy from natural motion of the water may be captured, and turned into electricity and/or pumping power for cooling pumps to carry heat away.”

According to a 2005 study completed by Stanford researchers, the year’s power bill for all datacenters worldwide was $7.2 BILLION, so the incentives are in place for innovative power and cooling opportunities. The concept suggests that massive floating barges approximately 11 km off shore could house the data centers and be tethered to land with the massive cables needed to transmit the data.

Now, wave power is immature, the methods for cooling are not yet in place, and the risk of a huge floating bomb target that could take down significant data communications are all problems yet to be solved, but the concept is innovative thinking, and I for one am a fan.Edited by deej – Fri, 19 Sep 2008 21:35:52 GMT Stroy from http://greenhome.huddler.com/forum/thread/684/the-interwebs-powered-by-wave-energy?replies=2

Eco Energy: Google sketches patent for wave-powered floating Data Center. Eco Factor: A Data Center that uses wave energy to fulfill all its energy and cooling needs. It seems that people are realizing the power that the ocean holds in its waves with concepts like Wave Powered Gymnasium coming up.

Google seems to have unearthed another gold mine by visualizing a data center that floats on the sea. Google apparently filed a patent in the US Patent and Trademark Office in early February this year. The document shows Google’s plan to build giant floating data centers on waves. The new data centers would be completely powered by wave energy and a freshwater-seawater cooling system would be used for cooling the peripherals.

A data center of one square kilometer area would produce 30 MW of electricity and Google says that this would be sufficient to run the data center. This not only cuts down on fossil fuel use, but keeps the data centers close to customers and reduces transmission power. The Dark Side: Such database centers floating on waves worldwide could hamper and destroy that already fragile ocean ecosystem. The ocean ecosystem is already known to be very sensitive to even the minutest of changes, and this could possibly affect the balance.

Addendum March 12, 2009: NASA is making strides in developing ways to harness sea power much like wind power. Read more here and here.

http://www.bravenewleaf.com/environment/2008/03/wave-power-gain.html

http://thefutureofthings.com/pod/6415/efficient-wave-power-in-sight.html