Although it might be nice to have a robot that would pick up my socks, I'd much rather have one that would paint my house, wash my car, or make money.

What can robots do? Fetch beer, pick up socks and empower rodents.

At the Consumer Electronics Show, iRobot will publicly release its latest product, the iRobot Create, a programmable robot for entertainment and education. The base of the Create is similar to the Scooba, the company's floor-mopping robot, and the carpet-vacuuming Roomba. It comes with wheels, motors for movement, and sensors that prevent it from tumbling downstairs or getting mired in corners.
iRobot Create

The brushes and fluid tanks, however, have been removed. Instead, the Create comes with a series of connectors that let users attach reticulating arms, cameras and other devices. The idea is that people will devise their own tasks and write their own programs. Some add-ons can be purchased, but the company also expects that people will craft their own peripherals.

"This isn't a toy or a plug-and-chug thing," iRobot co-founder Helen Grenier said in an interview. "It is a programmable robot for students and robot enthusiasts." ...

http://news.com.com/...3.html?tag=nefd.lede

Answer: A 3d game controller (input device) that also provides force feedback based on what is happening in the game.

THE AWARD WINNING NOVINT FALCON
"Novint Technologies opened our eyes to what it's like to actually feel a game.  The Falcon is a first-of-its-kind PC peripheral that makes use of force feedback to allow users to experience artificial 3D-touch "Haptic" sensitivity of virtual objects.  Three articulated arms attach to a center grip that can control games just like a mouse, and highly-developed algorithms apply appropriate forces of resistance to create realistic impressions of weight, recoil, and shock.  We demoed the Falcon with Half-Life 2 and were blown away.  Shotgun blasts produced hard, lurching recoil, while automatic machine gun fire was fast and light with an upward pull on the handle, simulating the barrel-rise effect of automatic fire.  Lifting a box put weight on the handle, and taking damage from the side jerked the controller appropriately as our character stumbled away.  We were blown away..."     ~IGN, Best of E3:  Gear

http://www.novint.com/novintfalcon.htm

Here's another fun game from MiniClip.com. Play this game and you'll find out it's not so easy being a soap bubble and just maybe, try to stay clean from now on.

http://www.miniclip....es/soap-bubble-2/de/

I was just following links and got to this long post on making chocolate chip cookies.

And it reminded me of the thing that is so remarkable in this world, which is that no matter what concept you can imagine, someone somewhere is experimenting, studying, documenting, and discovering new things about it.

We can't spend all of our time going deep into the mysteries of every idea and object we interact with daily.  But it's nice to occasionally take a trip a little deeper into something then you are used to.

Here's some of the text from that chocolate chip cookie article:

But there are important things to remember about butter vs margarine. Butter melts differently. Butter has different ratios of fats. Butter is a different fat altogether than margarine. Don't think you can go swapping it out willy-nilly; you will not have the same results. I'm not saying you won't like the results. But I am saying that I probably won't.

I used bread flour. You see, I like chewy cookies. I don't like thin and crispy. I don't like light and fluffy. I like chewy. Bread flour has a higher protein content, and the possibility to develop more gluten. It's important to remember that it doesn't actually contain gluten, but it does contain more of the proteins that create gluten. In order for gluten to form, it needs moisture and it has to be worked. Note: fat is not the same thing as moisture. In fact, fat shortens the gluten strands, whereas actual moisture helps them develop. I also upped the ante on baking soda. This was to help the cookies spread more slowly. This is not a concept that I fully understand, nor think worked. I also used dark brown sugar, because I like the deeper flavor that it offers.

http://blog.josephha...te-chip-cookies.html

I'm a big music guy.  I listen to a lot of music, I'm a musician myself, it's one of the things I really love.  I'm also a huge computer geek and a gadget-a-holic.  Putting all of this together, one would think that I would have some mp3 player by now (like an ipod or something).  But I don't.  Why is that?  It's because there's a whole bunch of little things about these players that annoy me and they just aren't implemented well at all.  For someone like me (and a lot of the people here at DC) who are computer "powerusers" and are really picky (er...anal) about every minuscule detail, these annoyances are intolerable.  OK, I'm exaggerating a little, it's not that bad, but it's still the reason why I haven't bought an ipod yet.  OK, OK!  The real reason why I haven't bought one is because I'm a cheap bastard.  But for the sake of this blog, let's just blame it on the annoying features.


Proprietary Multimedia Management Software
These softwares are the spawns of the devil himself.  Why do I need a software, whose primary purpose is to transfer files to a media player, take over the management of the music itself?  Just transfer the freakin files and be done with it!  But that's what all these programs do (itunes, Sony's SonicStage, etc.).  I'm already extremely anal about my management and organization of my mp3 files.  I rip and encode them with very particular software (EAC and advaLAME); I tag the files with a consistent naming scheme using another software (Tag & Rename); and I organize the files in directories in a very specific manner.  Furthermore, I keep track of the files I burn or archive using another software (MP3 Collector).  Therefore, I don't need my mp3 player's software duplicating any of these functions, especially since they can't do it half as well anyway.

But why is the software necessary at all in the first place?  Think about it, the files are already on my computer, and all I want to do is transfer them to this device.  I don't use special to transfer files to USB sticks, so I shouldn't need one for these mp3 players.  There are a variety of reasons why the companies do this:

• Not all users are as computer literate as the rest of us.  They need a nice, easy interface to use their device without having to call their computer friends for every little problem (don't you just hate that!).  This is a fine enough reason, I don't really have a problem.  But, please, for the rest of us provide a way to bypass these novice features.
• Copyright protection.  The companies believe the more control they have over the transfer of the files, the more copyright protection they will have.  This is true to a point; it makes it more difficult to transfer the music files off the device.  I think the global impact of it is pretty insignificant, but what do I know.  I feel like this is one of those things where they punish the consumer too much for the level of prevention it offers.
• Corporate greed and/or ignorance.  Instead of concentrating on quality, a lot of these large companies just want their name all over the place.  Think of all the bloated software you know of.  This trend of multimedia software taking over all aspects of your computer is sickening.  I also mention ignorance, because, to be fair, they may not do it on purpose all the time.  I'm sure that SOMETIMES they think they are helping.

Replaceable/Rechargeable batteries
Or should I say lack thereof?  The ipods, and I'm sure some of the competitors, make it difficult to replace batteries if they go bad.  Don't you wish they all just ran on rechargeable NIMH AA batteries?  That's one of the things I love about my Minidisc player; it uses a replaceable "gumstick" battery and you can also screw on this attachment that holds a single AA battery to extend the battery life by a few hours.  So, essentially, you can carry with you a handful of rechargeable AA batteries, and you won't run out of power for weeks.  The good thing about that is, you can find AA batteries anywhere, and the proprietary gumstick battery is replaceable (and relatively cheap) if it ever goes bad.  What happens if the ipod battery goes bad?  Well, let's just say it's a little more of a pain in the ass.


Music Storage
Hard-drive, built-in flash memory, card memory.  These are all different ways that these mp3 players can store the music.  If you want lots of storage, you go with one of the hard-drive units.  If you want something that is really tiny, get a flash player.  There really aren't many card-reading players that I know of.  And that is a shame.  Why?  Imagine if these mp3 players used cards like digital cameras?  That would give the user flexibility in how much they wanted to spend on the memory.  Let the company sell the player, and the user will buy the cards, just like the cameras.  Wouldn't that be fantastic?  I remember, before mp3 players were so popular, the company Rio had a couple of players that operated like this.  The problem back then was that the flash cards also weren't that widely used yet, so the people who had the players and wanted to buy more memory didn't have it as accessible as they do now.  Besides, back then 32 MB and 64 MB were pretty freakin expensive.

The main issue in storage is the portability.  With flash cards and flash memory, the players are very small and extremely portable.  Some of them are ridiculously small.  There's this tiny little cube mp3 player that holds 1 GB of music literally in your fingertips:

However, these little drives can only hold a few gigabytes of music (which, of course, is plenty for most people).  But for hard core collectors, you're going to need a hard-drive based player, like an ipod.  These are significantly larger (although, realistically speaking, they're not all that big...it just goes to show how spoiled we've become ).  They are also heavier, but can also do a lot more things by virtue of a larger screen, better navigation controls, and more advanced features.  Personally, I've never considered a flash player because the amount of music I have is enormous.  Besides, I like things that have a little heft to them; I don't like those super-light plasticky players.

Another question I have is why do ipod's competitors keep coming out with hard-drive players with 20 or 30 GB of memory, when ipod is now up to 80 GB?  Geez people, if you're going to compete, compete!  Maybe there are some technical details I don't know about, but I keep shaking my head at the Microsofts, Zens, irivers, Sony's, etc. when they come out with yet another hard drive player that can hold about half of the largest ipod.  From what I know, the hard drives aren't too much different than laptop 2.5" drives, so there shouldn't be too much of a problem, right?
Edit:  Zen finally came out with a 60 GB model, about freakin time-->Zen Vision M

You know what would be really cool?  A player where the user can buy whatever 2.5" drive he wanted, and just slide it into the player (kind of like the flash cards).  That would be awesome!

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Random Ranting

• I said I don't have an mp3 player, but I actually sort of do.  My Sony RH10 Minidisc Recorder doubles as an mp3 player.  In fact, I use it 10% for recording my music and 90% as an mp3 player.  It's actually really cool, but as it always goes with Sony, they always find a way to screw something up.  In this case, they make you use the Sonicstage software, which is really annoying.  In the last year, however, they loosened their Nazi grip on copyright protection.  Those of you that are familiar with MD will be glad to know that the new HiMD format has several advantages:  now has 1 GB discs (around $7 each; compare to memory cards), the players can play back native mp3 files (doesn't have to be ATRAC anymore), you can upload and download quickly using USB (you don't have to use the line-out to play back recorded material in realtime to record to the computer).  See this DC thread on minidiscs (MINIDISC)
  Here's a picture of my beautiful gold player:
  
  
• How about this movement of integrating mp3 players in the cell phones?  I'm a bit torn on this idea, because I like keeping my different applications separate from each other.  I hate all-in-one things, whether it's software or hardware.  On the other hand, there's no need to carry around an mp3 player, cell phone, and pda around with you, so it kind of makes sense.  Most likely, these portable devices will be the big thing in the near future.  PDA's have already become less and less common as they've become integrated on the cell phones, so the same will eventually happen with the media players.  In fact, apple already has a jump on this with their new phone-video player.
  
• You know what would be REALLY cool?  An mp3 player that runs on replaceable/rechargeable lithium and/or AA batteries, has a removable 2.5" hard drive, and also has one of those 15-in-1 cardreaders all on the same device!  Oh yeah, baby!  I don't care if it was big brick and ugly as hell, that would be the ultimate.
• I know so many people that keep their entire music collection on their ipods, and don't have a copy of it backed up on their computer.  Yikes!  That's all I have to say about that.
• Is it just me, or do you get uncomfortable listening to a portable music player in public, like out on the street?  I feel antisocial, like I'm missing out what's happening around me.  I've never been able to do for more than a few minutes.
• It's the new year, right?  Man, I've recieved like 10 calendars already from different vendors and stuff.  I don't even use calendars anymore!  Some things just won't die, will they?  I can get a calendar with one click on the computer, not to mention all the mini-calendars integrated in our PIM software also, and other various drop-down calendars on applications that use dates.  You know what else?  I've never actually turned the page of the calendar when the month changed last year.  Yet, it's always on the right month!  It must really bother someone around here, where they go through the trouble to change my page.  That's pretty funny.  I know this has nothing to do with mp3 players, but it is the "Random Ranting" section.
• Does it bother anyone else that mp3 files are audio files, and mp4 are quicktime video files?  That's annoying.  By the way, if you really want to read how confusing it all is, research the differences between mpeg-1 audio layer I/II, mpeg-2, etc.
• I'm completely sick of ipod accessories.  All those little boombox stations where you plug an ipod in.  Please...no more!
• There is a little subculture out there that is into custom building computers that will work in the car.  They are called carputers.  If I had the time and money, I would build one of these for my car.  Then I can use a regular 500 GB hard drive and have endless amounts of music and all the customization I wanted.

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For those who don't know, Bits du Jour is a new and useful site:

Bits du Jour offers one great deal a day, on a Windows or PDA program, or a service like internet faxing or hosting. It's Bits (anything digital) of the Day. Every weekday, we'll feature one program or service at a substantial discount. The discount is available for that day only.  We don't process the sales; we just arrange the discounts and provide the links. You buy the program right from its vendor.

editor's note: they neglected to mention they make a fee for each sale..

Anyway, the site can be a great way to get a very good discount on a program you've been holding off buying. Today they have a discount on ClipMate, the top of the line clipboard extender program:

Friday, January 12: ClipMate - This is how the clipboard should work!! Multiple clips, choose your own format, strip newlines, screen capture, autotext, and a lot more useful stuff. Be sure to check this one out - you won't be sorry!

Visit: Bits du Jour for the ClipMate discount today.