WHAT’S NEW
It’s called Sealand, it’s currently 10m by 25m and it’s about to become an international “data haven” run by an American company, HavenCo.
Sealand is an abandoned fortress built by the British during World War II and “colonised” by a British eccentric and former army major, Roy Bates, in 1966. A 1968 British court decision recognised it as a sovereign nation, but all previous attempts to exploit it commercially have failed. Now HavenCo aims to hire out e-mail servers to corporations wanting places to store data that are free of potential lawsuits. In an effort to steer clear of the wrong kind of attention from other sovereign governments, it will not be hosting porn sites or spamming enterprises. (www.havenco.com or www.fruitsofthesea. demon.co.uk/sealand/factfile.html)
A Japanese university has unveiled a robot waitress that brings a glass of ice water, politely takes orders and carries dishes from the kitchen to the table.
“It is the first intelligent, autonomous robot in the world, as far as we know, which is working in the real public environment with unspecified and untrained human beings,” said its creator, Professor Eiji Nakano, director of the advanced robotics laboratory at Tohoku University in Sendai.
Currently working a two-hour daily shift at a Chinese restaurant in Tokyo, the 140cm-tall robot, named Mei Mei, can move from its base station to the tables without guidelines and is able to talk to children or entertain them with games. Thirty ultrasonic sensors are fixed around its body enabling it to stop autonomously when a person walks into its path. It can also ask for right of way by saying: “Excuse me, please.”
Sony is continuing the rollout of products that use its high capacity Memory Stick storage system.
Hot on the heels of the Memory Stick Walkman comes the ICD-MS1 – a digital recorder targeted at business users. The ICD-MS1 enables the user to easily transfer the pearls of wisdom they have recorded on to the Stick to a PC via a card or floppy disc adapter. It features a 16MB Memory Stick that is capable of archiving up to 131 minutes of speech. The ICD-MS1 is also supplied with software that lets users play back, edit and re-organise the data on their PC.
High-tech married high fashion at last week’s Internet World Show in London and gave birth to a range of wearable Internet products.
The event, organised by Los-Angles based Charmed Technology, featured cybermodels parading all manner of devices, from an earring that blinks whenever messages are received to a smart badge that electronically exchanges business cards. The catwalk queen proved to be the Charmed communicator, a wireless Internet device designed to be worn around the waist. It can be controlled by voice, pen or via a keyboard. The communicator will send and receive still and moving images and allow the user to download and listen to music files. For that ultra high-tech finish, the communicator can be hooked up to a specially designed monocle for what Charmed describes as discreet web surfing.
DVD-Audio is back on Panasonic’s agenda. The format’s original January launch was scuppered by a Norwegian teenager who hacked its copyright protection system.
Panasonic is promising two players, the DVD-A7 and DVD-A10, and a DVD-Audio- equipped micro-system, the SC-HDA710, in September or October. DVD-Audio discs boast a significantly higher frequency capability and wider dynamic range than standard CDs.
Panasonic has also given a sneak preview of some of the products it is launching in Japan this year. Top billing goes to the DMR-E10, a DVD recorder that uses the DVD- RAM format to store more than two hours of high quality video on a 4,7GB disc. Also on display were products that use secure digital storage cards, including a tiny Internet audio player and a digital camera that can be worn as a pendant.
The bad news: robots have started taking over the world. The good news: they’re mowing lawns. Or at least that’s what the RL500, from Friendly Robotics, is designed to do, and more devices will follow. The company, which was founded in Israel in 1995, says its dream is “to one day make our robotic appliances as commonplace in the home as washing machines and dishwashers.” The RL500 is a small robot powered by two 12V sealed lead-acid batteries, which are rechargeable.
RoboMow uses RoboScan patented technology to find its way around with the help of an electric perimeter wire. Sensors prevent it from running into the family dog, though not vice versa. In fact, the only aggressive thing about the RL500 is the price. Friendly Robotics is selling machines in the United Kingdom for 499. (www.friendlyrobotics.com)
Just as you were getting over the hype for wireless application protocol cellphones, another flurry of techno spin is headed our way with the arrival of Bluetooth.
Bluetooth is a new way to get electronic devices to talk to each other through the air. So it’s bye-bye cables and hello seamless integration of cellphones, handheld organisers, laptops, desktop PCs and any other gadget that has the technology attached.
Already announced is the company’s first Bluetooth gadget, the funky cordless handset. Also available will be a Bluetooth PC card for laptops and a Bluetooth Home Base, which will switch your cellphone from its cellular link to a landline connection when you’re at home.
By the time Ericsson’s first effort arrives, however, there will be plenty more crowding the Bluetooth block. More than 1 900 companies have adopted the Bluetooth standard and are developing their own products.
ENDS