Season 1 Episode 10 - Tesla Car - 15/05/07

This is our tenth episode. In this episode we discuss: ipod vista fix, nasa's hubble successor, galileo system in crisis, tesla electric car, joost raises $45m, uev spyder electric car, bmw motorrad's neck brace system, vonage patent workaround, myspace acquires photobucket, earPod auditory menus. The Word For the day: Galatians 4.7: So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.   ipod vista fix While iTunes 7.1 claimed to play nicer with Windows Vista, there was still reason for avid iPod users to hold back on upgrading, and now it looks like those final issues have been ironed out. Starting today, Vista users can download a software update that purportedly solves the problems some users were having as their iPod became corrupted when "ejecting them using Windows Explorer or the Safely Remove Hardware function in the system tray." Of course, those of you who got burned by this aren't as apt to become guinea pigs in finding out just how well (or not) the patch actually works, but for those mettlesome folks out there, feel free to hit the read link and commence downloading. full story | contact us | sponsor [weddingringnetwork] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   NASA's hubble successor With Hubble slowly winding down after years of service, NASA has now taken to talking up the telescope's successor, even going so far as to take a full-scale model of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on the road. Currently on display outside the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., the model measures an impressive 80 feet long and 40 feet high, which you'll have to be content with until the actual telescope launches in June 2013 at a cost of $4.5 billion. Once deployed, the telescope will sit some 1.5 million kilometers (or 930,000 miles) from Earth, and be able to peer far deeper into space than Hubble is able to, thanks in large part to the JWST's ginormous foldable mirror (almost three times bigger than Hubble's). If you can't make it to the Smithsonian to check out the model, you can at least get a better look at it in the gallery of images below courtesy of NASA. full story | contact us | sponsor [weddingringnetwork] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   Galileo system in crisis Europe's proposed satellite-navigation system, Galileo, will need more public funds if it is to be built. Hope is receding that a private consortium asked to run the system can end its infighting and meet a 10 May deadline to move the project forward. This is likely to mean European taxpayers stepping in to cover costs. The consortium comprises leading aerospace and telecom concerns: EADS, Thales, Inmarsat, Alcatel-Lucent, Finmeccanica, AENA, Hispasat, and TeleOp. Galileo's planned network of 30 satellites will beam radio signals to receiving devices on the ground, helping users pinpoint their locations. full story | contact us | sponsor [weddingringnetwork] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   Tesla electric car Tesla Motors this morning announced a $45 million round of financing, bringing its total funding to $105 million as the company prepares to ship its hotly-anticipated all-electric Roadster this fall. The Silicon Valley startup is backed by a who's who of the tech elite: individual investors include PayPal co-founder Elon Musk - who serves as Tesla's chairman - Larry Page, Sergey Brin and eBay employee No. 1 Jeff Skoll. Technology Partners and Musk co-led the latest round of financing. New investor Capricorn Investment Group was joined by previous backers Vantage Point Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, JP Morgan Bay Area Equity Fund (JPM), Valor Equity Partners and Compass Venture Partners. Technology Partners' Ira Ehrenpreis joins Tesla's board as does Valor CEO Antonio Gracias. The new round will help fund the development of Tesla's next zero-emissions car, a four-door sports sedan called WhiteStar slated to hit the streets in the 2010 model year. The first production run of the $92,000 Roadster ($100,000 fully loaded) sold out, but the company is taking orders for the 2008 version on its site. Vroom. full story | contact us | sponsor [weddingringnetwork] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   Joost raises $45m Joost raised $45 million in a venture round of financing. Investors include Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, CBS, Viacom and Chinese billionaire Li Ka-Shing. Roelof Botha from Sequoia and Danny Rimer joined the board of directors.The company has not previously disclosed any financings. Joost was started by Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström in 2006; presumably seed funding came directly from them.  Viacom and CBS have also signed content deals with Joost, so this looks like it will be their main online TV play. News Corp./NBC Universal formed an online TV joint venture earlier this year, which is still unnamed and has earned the nickname “Clown Co.” Sequoia was also the venture backer of YouTube, which is indirectly a competitor. Joost is currently in private beta and is rumored to be launching within days. full story | contact us | sponsor [weddingringnetwork] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   UEV spyder electric car The UEV (universal electric vehicle - http://www.universalelectricvehicle.com/) Spyder is an all-electric two-seat sports car that will soon be available for around $70,000 (plus $30,000 for optional lithium ion batteries). It has a top speed of 100 mph, does 0-60 in 7 seconds and a has a range of 70-150 miles (250 with li-ion). full story | contact us | sponsor [weddingringnetwork] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   BMW motorrad's neck brace system While BMW is no stranger to the motorcycle helmet arena, the Motorrad division has went and gone official with its neck bracing system in the UK. Introduced in November of last year, this safety-minded technology utilizes Kevlar, carbon fiber, and padded foam to create a plate that sits between a rider's shoulders and any helmet in order to "provide optimum protection for the spine during an accident." Due to the materials used in construction, the contraption is both lightweight and rigid, and two side clasps enable rides to easily strap it on similar to a collar. The idea is of course to stop the head from moving too far in any direction whilst in a collision, but the team does state that "the rider is also able to retain freedom of movement needed when driving." The neck brace system is available now at Motorrad dealers for £325 ($648), and while there's no word of a US release just yet, we can't imagine it being too far behind full story | contact us | sponsor [weddingringnetwork] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   Vonage patent workaround What's that you say? A faint glimmer of hope on the horizon for Vonage? Surely you jest! But that unlikely-as-it-seems scenario appears to be just the case, with Vonage following up recent Q1 financial results of shrinking losses ($72.3 million, as opposed to $85.2 million last year) and growing sales ($195.9 million, up 64 percent) with news of a heretofore-thought-impossible technology solution to its patent woes. "We will begin rolling these workarounds out shortly, hopefully in the next few weeks, and we believe they will work," says CEO Jeffrey Citron. Analysts point out that Vonage isn't making any promises, and the company is far from out of the woods, but we're guessing Vonage wouldn't be bragging about something like this in the midst of appealing the Verizon patent suit if there wasn't some truth to it. The update will apparently be low-cost, just involving software downloads. full story | contact us | sponsor [weddingringnetwork] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   Myspace acquires photobucket Yesterday Myspace announced the acquisition of Photobucket, an enormous online photo-sharing site. The announcement was a bit of a surprise, considering that less than a month ago, Myspace placed a two-week ban on Photobucket for "breaking terms of service". Perhaps more surprising than the acquisition's announcement is the acquisition price - a mere $250 million. For a website with over 40 million registered users, that accounts for 73% of Myspace's photo traffic, and that's the number one most visited downstream site for online photo sharing. full story | contact us | sponsor [weddingringnetwork] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   earPod auditory menus A new development from the Microsoft Research labs: software that could make it possible to navigate the menus of gadgets that use circular touch pads with only audio cues.  Currently, the system is quite limited in regard to the number of cues available, but here's to hoping that text-to-speech capabilities can become integrated as well so we can  cycle through the thousands of artists and songs without even needing a display. full story | contact us | sponsor [weddingringnetwork] ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________   The Word for the day Galatians 4.7 - So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir. bible gateway new international version | bible gateway amplified version | contact us