Frosted Porsche :-)
Oliver

Pigeon-Empowered Wireless Internet

A group of several dozen Internet addicts from Israel and abroad, gathered in the large grass field of the OHALO Center near the Sea of Galilee. The purpose of the gathering was to try and improve Wi-Fly - pigeon-empowered wireless internet and to confront this technology against ADSL. The participants sent 3 homing pigeons to 100 km distance, each carrying 20-22 tiny memory cards containing 1.3 GB, amounting in total of 4 GB of data. (…) “Improving the method was achieved by changing the medium on which the message is stored and carried by the pigeons, from paper (as required by the original protocol) to Memory Flash Cards” , said Ben Bassat. Replacing the old analog content transfer by digital one, enables the pigeons to transfer data faster than ADSL, and to achieve what apparently looks as pigeons’ record in data transfer to a given distance.

I drive the most Republican of cars according to NY Times

Your Car: Politics on Wheels

By JOHN TIERNEY

T has always been tempting to think you can figure out who a person is and what he thinks by what he drives. That subject was raised recently by Chely Wright in her country and western hit, "Bumper of My S.U.V.," in which she tells of a "lady in a minivan" giving her a vulgar hand gesture for driving a car with a Marines bumper sticker:

"Does she think she knows what I stand for/Or the things that I believe/Just by looking at a sticker for the U.S. Marines/On the bumper of my S.U.V.?"

The lady in the minivan might not know, but some of the finest minds in market research think they do. By analyzing new-car sales, surveying car owners and keeping count of political bumper stickers, they are identifying the differences between Democratic cars and Republican ones.

Among their findings: buyers of American cars tend to be Republican - except, for some reason, those who buy Pontiacs, who tend to be Democrats. Foreign-brand compact cars are usually bought by Democrats - but not Mini Coopers, which are bought by almost equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. And Volvos may not actually represent quite what you think.

How valuable is this information? "I think it's fun to talk about," the political analyst James Carville said, "but I mean, you see a guy in a pickup truck with a rifle and a Confederate flag, and you know how he's going to vote anyway." But upon further reflection Mr. Carville acknowledged the value of the surveys. "It actually does have some merit, especially when used in conjunction with other information about consumer habits. It can be a very accurate predictor."

Last year, the Republican National Committee applied data supplied by Scarborough Research, a New York market research firm, to a range of leisure-time and consumer activities to find where it could reach potential voters with advertising. Part of Scarborough's effort was to survey 200,000 car owners about their political affiliations.

Scarborough found that Porsche owners identified themselves as Republican more often than owners of any other cars, with 59 percent calling themselves Republicans, 27 percent Democrats and the rest either calling themselves independents or declining to answer. Jaguars and Land Rovers also registered as very "Republican" vehicles.

Scarborough also determined that Volvos were the most "Democratic" cars, by 44 to 32 percent, followed by Subarus and Hyundais. But although a lot of old Volvos on the road are driven by Democrats, the customers in Volvo showrooms no longer fit the old stereotype, according to a survey of 163,000 new-car buyers last year that was conducted by CNW Marketing Research of Bandon, Ore.

As Volvo's advertising has stressed performance in addition to safety, more and more Republicans are buying Volvos. The CNW survey last year showed that Democratic buyers of Volvo cars outnumbered Republicans by only 32 percent to 27 percent.

"Volvos have become more plush and bourgeois, which is a Republican thing to be," said Mickey Kaus, a dual expert in politics and cars as the author of the Kausfiles and Gearbox columns for Slate. "Subaru is the new Volvo - that is, it is what Volvos used to be: trusty, rugged, inexpensive, unpretentious, performs well, maybe a bit ugly. You don't buy it because you want to show you have money; you buy it because you have college-professor values."

The CNW survey, which measured political affiliation not just by make but also by model, found that a Jeep Grand Cherokee S.U.V. was more than half again as likely to be bought by a Republican than by a Democrat, at 46 percent to 28. Among Hummer buyers, the Republican-to-Democrat ratio was a whopping 52 to 23.

According to CNW's figures, staunch Democrats drive S.U.V.'s too, but they tend to prefer smaller, foreign-made ones. Republicans generally like them bigger and American-made, or at least bearing the name of an American company, even if they were built elsewhere.

The survey also found that minivans skewed blue, just as Chely Wright surmised in her song. At first glance, this might seem odd, because Republican car buyers tended to have more children - 3.5 on average, versus 1.7 for the Democratic buyers. Explaining this apparent contradiction offers a look into the increasing exactitude marketers seem to be applying to the question of who drives what.

"You might think with all the kids, they'd want the practicality of a minivan," said Art Spinella, the president of CNW. But practicality was not the Republican customer's highest priority, as Mr. Spinella's company discovered by tracking the customers throughout the buying process.

"There is a certain resistance that male new-car buyers have to minivans even in a household with two or three kids," Mr. Spinella explained. "For the most part, red-state households are more male-dominated when it comes to decision-making for a vehicle. In blue states, it's more of a joint decision-making process." Because the Democratic women get more of a say in the decision, their families end up with more minivans than S.U.V.'s.

The Democrats also tend to consider a wider range of cars before buying. "In red states, there's more affinity to specific brands or loyalty to the same brand they had before," Mr. Spinella said. "A person in a red state will start with an average of 2.5 vehicles on the shopping list. In the blue states the average is 6."

The blue-staters, not surprisingly, are a lot more likely to put hybrid cars on their list: buyers of the Toyota Prius hybrid were Democrats by a 35 to 22 percent. Democrats in general are more fond of smaller cars (the Ford Escort and Dodge Neon both skewed blue by about 34 to 20), although energy efficiency is hardly the only reason. Besides having fewer children, Democrats tend to be younger, less affluent and more likely to live in cities where small cars are easier to park.

Some of these differences have more to do with geography than personal politics. Democrats are concentrated in port cities with more links to Europe and Asia, making them more open to foreign car companies. Republicans are more likely to be living in the heartland, where there's room for bigger cars and a tradition of loyalty to the American cars built in nearby factories.

But car buyers are also responding to the political images that come with some cars. Some foreign car companies have marketed cars as environmentally friendly, and some have at times focused on parts of the Democratic base. Saab and Subaru were the first and most visible to aim advertising at gay drivers.

Midsize and large American cars skew Republican, and so, of course, do big American pickup trucks. That may have something to do with American car companies marketing themselves through one of the great symbols of Republicanism, Nascar, which is enormously popular in the red states.

"Nascar has an American-made-only requirement for cars and a variety of other rules that discourage foreign makers from competing," said Steve Sailer, a conservative journalist who has analyzed the red-blue divide. "Toyota has dipped its toe into Nascar's truck-racing series with its American-made trucks, but there isn't a lot of demand for Japanese participation.

"In truth, a lot of fans would be sore about ending the all-American monopoly. Nascar has become a covert ethnic-pride celebration for red-state whites of Northern European descent."

All surveys found that nothing is more Republican than a big pickup. "The No. 1 vehicle bought by millionaires is the Ford F-Series pickup truck," Mr. Spinella said. "They're farmers, ranchers, contractors, independent businesspeople. They basically work for themselves and they have substantial assets."

The Saab is a Democratic car, according to both CNW and Scarborough, which found that Saab owners were about twice as likely to be Democrats. It's an upscale car an affluent Democrat can drive without feeling guiltily ostentatious while also reveling in a different sort of status symbol, said the president of Scarborough, Bob Cohen.

"The Saab owner is not going after the obvious status symbol like a BMW," Mr. Cohen said. "He wants to make a statement that he's in a small group with specialized knowledge who don't go for a safe choice like BMW, because he can get a better deal with a Saab."

A less affluent version of that car buyer might go for a Saturn, the offbeat brand of choice for aficionados who skew heavily Democratic, by 39 to 11 among last year's car buyers. Mr. Kaus says they appeal to Democrats because they are "clunky, Earth Shoe-like cars."

SATURN owners were also prone to put their Democratic loyalties on display, at least according to a count undertaken by Political Bumpers, which was billed as "an extremely unscientific" project undertaken near the end of the presidential campaign last year.

Volunteers counted more than 1,300 bumper stickers in a half dozen states from Sept. 20 to Oct. 31 and came up with results (www.laze.net/bumpers) that roughly jibed with the much larger market-research surveys. Like the larger surveys, the Political Bumpers totals added up to within a couple of percentage points of the 51-percent-to-48 result of the 2004 presidential election.

The Political Bumpers spotters, who recorded bumper stickers in favor of or against any of the candidates in the 2004 election, found that the drivers of pickup trucks and large S.U.V.'s were overwhelmingly right-leaning. But the leader of the project, Ryan MacMichael, of Leesburg, Va., said his biggest surprise was the pronounced Democratic skew of bumper stickers on economy cars (71 percent were left-leaning) and station wagons (67 percent).

The most left-leaning models with at least a dozen sightings in Mr. MacMichael's project were the Honda Civic (80-20 left-leaning), Toyota Corolla (78-19) and Toyota Camry (74-26). The list of most right-leaning was led by another Toyota, but a midsize S.U.V., the Toyota 4Runner (86-14), followed by the Ford Expedition (76-24) and Ford F-150 (75-25).

To Mr. Spinella, those bumper stickers merely provided further proof of the most fundamental difference between the two parties.

"Democrats buy cars," he said. "Republicans buy trucks."

Confessions of a TiVo Addict - Has TiVo really ruined my life?

By Stephen Schleicher

Hi. My name is Stephen, and I’m a TiVo addict. I love TiVo so much that I actually bought two; one for the home theatre in the rec room and dual tuner for the family set. While TiVo (and PVRs in general) is the best thing since sliced bread, there are some reasons for concern.

The great thing about TiVo is I no longer have to worry about missing my favorite television shows. Tell TiVo to record Smallville, and boom, every episode of Smallville is recorded and stored until I have a chance to watch it. Love The Rockford Files? No problem set a Season Pass to record every episode. Heck, if you put Rockford on a Wish list, if The Rockford Files movies air on a different channel, TiVo will catch them too. Don’t want to watch a repeat? The Season Pass Manager let’s you select which episodes TiVo will record. If I am watching a live show, and the cat throws up on the carpet, I can push the pause button, clean up the mess, and when the cat is feeling better, resume watching CSI, or CSI: Miami, or CSI: New York, without missing a beat.

Life is great with TiVo. Or is it?

Read Full and Very Informative Article at Confessions

Panasonic Shutters U.S. Mobile Operations

Panasonic Corporation of North America has officially closed down its U.S. mobile phone operations due to lack of support from carrier partners. The last handset sold through a carrier (AT&T Wireless) in the United States was GU87 camera phone, almost two years ago. After failing to find new carrier partnerships, Panasonic has been selling phones on its Web site, but it seems not to justify the efforts of testing handsets for the US market. Now Panasonic Corporation will focus its attention on manufacturing mobile phones for Europe and Japan.

Personally I agree with this business decision. While Panny offers some really nice products for the Asian market, their business plan for mobiles in the US was horrible. They put out outdated, overpriced and underperforming products. Plus even dreaming of the best business possible they would be hard pressed to compete with firms like Nokia, Moto and the whole new slew of PDA/Phone combos.

Buslink USB Wireless GPRS/WLAN Adapter

The Buslink USB Wireless GPRS/WLAN Adapter simply plugs into any PCs with USB Port for Wireless LAN connection or slide in Your cell phone's removable sim Card for access on your Wireless cellular carrier's Network.

The GPRS function operates on Twin Dual Band GSM900/1800 MHz; GSM 850/1900MHz and can support upto 64Kbps. The Wireless LAN function operates on the standard 802.11b which supports upto 11Mbps. Buslink states that the device will get coverage upto 400m outdoors and 100m indoors, the unit also supports upto 128 Bit Data Encryption. The Buslink USB Wireless GPRS/WLAN Adapter retails for $200.00 USD.

Text / Picture from Mother digital

Hm... I have a Porsche Boxster but its in Artic Silver and not black. I even have the hard top. Now all I need is the girl to stand in front of it wearing very little clothing and I can recreate this picture. =p
Oliver

Rex Sox Fans Are Crazy
Oliver

52 different trojans found in mobile games

From Mobile9.com

A record number of 52 different Trojans have been found in varous Symbian S60 games, announced anti-virus specialist Simworks today. Although the actual threat is still relatively low, because the user would have to manually download the game to the phone first to become infected, Simworks urges S60 users to be extra careful in respect to downloading games and applications and never to accept any files from unknow sources or crack sites.
A list of files currently known to be infected is available from Slashphone.

The trojans appear to be cracked versions of popular Symbian applications such as BitStorm, BugMe!, Cosmic Fighter, 3D Motoracer and SplashID. In addition to the installation files for the application itself, the files also include various versions of previously known malware such as Cabir and Locknut. SimWorks CEO Aaron Davidson says “This is a significant development as until now we’ve usually found mobile trojans two or three at a time at the most. It would be easy for a malware writer to create 1 trojan and give it 52 different names however this is not the case here where we have 52 separately cracked and infected applications. Somebodyhas gone to an awful lot of time and effort to turn these outâ€?. SimWorks has yet to receive any reports of the 52 trojans identified today in the wild.

The increasing number of Trojans available is reason to worry though. It is not unthinkable that somebody would develop one to read data from a phone one day, or to make calls from a phone one day. Be sure to only accept files from trusted sources at all times.

Ferrari branded phone

Vodafone, who else, have released a Ferrari branded Sharp V902. A limited number of the phones will go on sale worldwide in April. They are branded with special Ferrari logos, and users have access to special limited Ferrari content on Vodafones Live! portal.

The handsets will be available for sale, from April in Vodafone stores worldwide. Only a very limited number of these distinctive Ferrari phones have been produced, making them an instant collector’s item. Ferrari driver Michael Schumacher commented, “The new Ferrari handsets are great and an essential accessory for all true Ferrari fans, and with Vodafone live! fans can stay in touch with the team and obtain the complete inside line from Scuderia Ferrari.”

Without a doubt this is a great collectors item for the true Ferrari lover, but for mobile phone lovers the phone has little extra to offer compared to Vodafones current line-up.

T-Mobile Adds Detailed Coverage Maps

picture from engadget.com

T-Mobile USA has added a new, street-level coverage map to their website. This new map provides quality of service ratings on a gradual scale from great to good, fair and none overlaid on a national street map. The map is searchable by locale, intersection and address for easy zooming. Although it is believed all carriers have similar data for their coverage, this is the first time an American carrier has made it available to the public. T-Mobile still has the more traditional map showing which geographic areas have coverage on their site as well.

http://compass.t-mobile.com/