Google releases the first edition of the World Wonders Project on Thursday, May 31, an innovative website that allows us to “visit” ancient and culturally important locations around the globe up close and personal.

Google’s street view has proven itself to be an important tool for those of us curious about the world outside of their own neighborhoods. Since its initial launch over 5 years ago, the service have been able to travel the world visually mapping roads, railways, parks, airports, malls and even parts of remote locations like the Amazon basin.

Now the powerhouse internet empire has given us yet another reason not to venture past the confines of our computer screens with the introduction of their newest feature: the World Wonders Project.

Officially launched on May 31, 2012 in a post on Google’s official company blog, the World Wonders Project gives us 132 ancient and culturally important locations spanning across 18 unique countries. The World Wonders Project uses a “Street View” technology to let viewers get an up close and personally view of the different sites, which include the UK’s Stonehenge, archaeological areas of Pompeii in Italy, ancient temples in Japan’s former capital, Kyoto, Shark Bay in Australia, Yosemite National Park and the palace at Versailles.

There are also some great little extra features that come with Google’s newest project. Its Stonehenge pictures, for example, take you right in among the stones — something you can’t even do if you visit in person, as a rope cordon around the ancient monument has been in place for the last 35 years. In addition to taking a ground-level tour of a site, you can display information about it with a click.

“Most could not be filmed by car, so we used camera-carrying trikes to pedal our way close enough,” Melanie Blaschke, product marketing manager of the World Wonders project, explained in the blog post.

On some of the more well known locations, you’re also able to get a look at 3D models of the location, watch YouTube videos about it and see additional professional photographs, some of them gleaned from sources such as Getty Images and Ourplace.

World Wonders was developed under the auspices of the Google Cultural Institute, which, in the past, has brought to the Internet such amazing treasures as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the archives of Nelson Mandela.

“We also partnered with several prestigious organizations, including UNESCO, the World Monuments Fund, Getty Images and Ourplace, who provided official information and photographs for many of the sites,” Blaschke wrote, adding “World Wonders is part of our commitment to preserving culture online and making it accessible to everyone.”

Google hopes World Wonders will prove particularly popular with students and scholars, and has even put together a number of educational packages for use in the classroom.

So if you feel like enjoying some of the world’s ancient sites without actually having to physically travel to them, or if time and money are a bit on the tight side just now, the World Wonders Project could be well worth checking out.

 

A talented group of extreme Firefox enthusiasts responsible for the Firefox mural made from cornstarch and kool-aid in addition to launching the Firefox weather balloon have now carved out a full scale Firefox Crop Circle in Oregon. “Does the sudden appearance of a Firefox crop circle imply which browser extraterrestrials prefer? We don’t know, but it was still fun to make,” the creators commented.

The 12 member crew planned out the project in less than two weeks and finished carving the crop circle itself in less than a day. The finished product with an astonishing diameter of 220 ft (67 m) was constructed in an oat field near Amity, Oregon, where it was completely invisible from the road but unmistakable as seen from the sky.

The team, (mainly consisting of OSU students with way too much free time), carefully and precisely pressed down oats from 3:30pm Friday afternoon until 2:30am, putting on the finishing touches between 7:30am and 11:00am Saturday.

Inspired by the enthusiasm and support of Asa Dotzler at Mozilla, Matt and John, Mozilla video interns, came up with the idea a few weeks beforehand. The next thing they needed was to find a field with an owner willing to go full Firefox. Well they did, and even found a pilot willing to help them see what they were doing from above.

How did they do it?

The design took shape from several large posters that had a two color version of the Firefox logo. They then partitioned the photo into 32 distinct sections and overlaid 60 concentric circles with an even space between them. On the top of the design, the team constructed their stompers – a unique tool, consisting of some 2x4s and rope, used on the Discovery channel to quickly shape crop circles.

The circumference was made by connecting a taut measuring tape to the end of a stake and walking around in a 220 ft (67 m) circle.

Throughout the night, the team used walkie talkies to quickly report our progress to the each other.

“For example “from 2 to 4 from 74 to 86″ means we were about to stomp an area from ray number 2 to ray number 4 (somewhat analogous to going from 2 o’clock to 4 o’clock) with a depth from 74′ from the center to 86′ from the center. With two teams of stompers, each with a walkie talkie and smaller version of the map, we reported our progress to our map team located outside the circle where they recorded all the work by highlighting it on their copy of the map. The map team then knew what needed work and what had been finished even when the stomping teams couldn’t see each other,” the creators said.

After they had stomped through the larger areas boxy grid-like pattern, they simply “connected the dots” by smoothing out all the edges and blending the corners of the grid to fill everything in.

This didn’t happen without a little trouble though, “For the most part, everything went perfectly! We had a brief accident around midnight and accidentally gave our Firefox a little bump on the head, but after we saw what we had done, fixing it wasn’t very difficult,” the creators noted.

Great job guys!

 

Pioneer launches the new Cyber NAVI car navigation system in Japan – With the world’s very first Head-up display to project augmented reality information in front of the windshield.

The Pioneer Corporation has announced the release of its latest Cyber NAVI car navigation system for the Japanese Market, which will come with the revolutionary AR HUD unit – the world’s first Head-Up Display. The device uses the AR HUD unit to project various GPS augmented reality information useful for the road using a vivid full color image. The AR HUD unit overlays augmented reality information on top of the real scenery in front of you, so that you can track information simultaneously while driving – significantly reducing eye movement and refocusing.

The Cyber NAVI mounts right on to the car’s sun visor and projects an augmented reality heads up display in front of the driver almost like it is right on their windshield. The latest version of the Cyber NAVI includes a number of advanced functions to support a comfortable driving experience. The AR HUD View function displays information in the AR HUD unit, such as information about the route and the distance to the car in front of you, in an easily understandable way.

The Parking Watcher function downloads information in real-time to show the latest information about car park congestion in the navigation screen. There is also a function that detects and displays speed limit signs, notifying the driver with a sound effect when a sign is detected. This device also provides routine map data updates with no additional fee for the first three years, and a Road Creator function that automatically generates road data when you drive on a road that is not listed on the map, and then uses this road data for route navigation.

The AR HUD unit uses an RGB laser light source to display full color augmented reality information with a high contrast and high brightness level for those sunny days. It is projected three meters from the driver’s eyes and is 90 cm across and 30 cm high, roughly equivalent to a 37 inch display.

The AR HUD View function will display augmented reality information that is useful for driving and relevant to the given situation. The AR HUD has three View modes:

HUD Driver Mode – Displays info about the distance to the car in front and the route to your destination by arranging the information in an easily understandable way.

When the vehicle stops at an intersection or a traffic light, the Driver mode will automatically switch to display useful information such as the guidance direction and the names of the next three intersections. The unit also detects red traffic light signals and displays a corresponding icon. Once the AR HUD unit detects that the traffic light has turned green, or that the car (or the car in front) has started moving, the display will automatically switch back to the HUD Driver Mode.

HUD Highway Mode – When the car merges onto the highway, the AR HUD unit will switch to the HUD Highway Mode. You’ll get relevant information such as the distances and estimated transit time to exits, and information about Service Area and Parking Area facilities, while also getting the road status and using different colors to indicate congested sections.

HUD Map Mode – This will display a map of the given area around the vehicle, with indications on toll roads, national roads, and ordinary roads using different colors. The map can be displayed at six different zoom levels, ranging in scale from 200m to 10km, letting drivers check info about the area around the car. Map Mode also displays lane info, a guidance arrow, and alerting icons that indicate when a red traffic signal has been detected.

The AR Scouter Mode displays clear, easily understandable navigational information using unique video technology to analyze video images that are recorded through the windshield by the AR HUD Unit. This guidance information includes:

  1. Speed Sign Detection
  2. Longer Lock-on Range
  3. Lane Change Detection
  4. Guidance Arrows
  5. Red Traffic Signal Detection
  6. Car Movement Detection

Additional Features:

  1. Parking Watcher
  2. 3 Years of Map Updates at No Charge
  3. Road Creator – Automatically generates new roads on the map as you drive.
  4. Fastest Route Search

The Cyber NAVI system will be released in Japan this July with two models 2AVIC-ZH99HUD (¥300,000 or $3,755) and the AVIC-VH99HUD (¥320,000 or $4,006), which comes with a better display that rises up to the dashboard. There is no word of a US release as of yet.

So what do you think about Pioneer’s Cyber NAVI? Is it a useful navigational tool or just a driving distraction?

 

 

If Time Traveling DeLoreans and “bleep blooping” Star Wars Droids haven’t given you a hint already, that future technology we’ve only seen in the movies is right around the corner. We’re living in an age in time where Star Trek technologies are being realized little by little, and Google’s just revealed a secret development project that checks off augmented living from the science fiction tech “to-do” list.

Google’s Project Glass is an attempt at the lucrative augmented reality medium that’s come out of the company’s top secret innovation lab, known only as Google X. With Project Glass, Google is taking augmented reality seriously. What do you think life would be like if rather than reaching into our pockets for our phone, all the data we needed was fluidly integrated into our line of vision?

Google stretches wide and far when it comes to researching projects that are a bit closer to the innovative and bold than plain email and search. Its best known future-tech project is a small number of self-automated and self-driving cars which have already hit the streets for testing in California, but it’s reportedly also quietly working on a space elevator and as many as 100 other covert futuristic projects.

Not to be confused with Google Search – a mobile phone app that lets you search for anything by taking a picture of it – Google’s augmented reality glasses overlap what’s called a head up display (HUD) over your eye’s scope of vision. The augmented reality visual display provides contextual information and lets you accomplish all the things you did with your smartphone, from texting and geographical check-ins to step-by-step directions – all without ever pressing any buttons. Obviously Google concept includes its considerable collection of products, from Google Maps to Google+. According to the development team behind the futuristic concept, technology should just “be there when you need it and get out of your way when you don’t”.

Although this cool tech is light years away from being market-ready at the moment, Google’s Glasses are very much the real thing. There are reportedly many models, ranging from a Star Trek-inspired visor to a design that “sits over a person’s normal eyeglasses.” The employees at Google will actually be testing them in the field, so don’t be alarmed if you bump into a Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge look-alike near the company’s Mountain View headquarters.

The idea of a system like Google’s Project Glass is to steep reality in captivating, non-disruptive data. All tasks would be integrated right into your visual field, keeping your hands free while still providing the informational amenities we’ve come to expect from smartphones and tablets. In the world of Project Glass, our devices’ screens would melt away altogether in favor of translucent data draped right over the world as we know it. Who needs a high resolution display when you’ve got everything you need, right before your eyes?

 

Have you ever wondered who has the fastest Internet the in world? A new report by Akamai details the top countries with the fastest Internet connection speeds.

For the past 4 years, the Internet content delivery network service, Akamai Technologies, has been releasing its State of the Internet report.  The findings detail the various countries that have the highest broadband capabilities as well as those that offer the slowest connection speeds to the Internet.

South Korea came out on top with both the highest average connection bandwidth to Internet users at 17.5 Mbps as well as the highest average peak bandwidth delivered to users at a staggering 47.9 Mbps. At that type of speed, you could download a movie in full high-definition quality in little over 30 minutes and download a regular mp3 file in less than 3 seconds.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, the Central African Republic, Niger, Guinea, Mali, Sierra Leone, Burundi and Cuba all came at the bottom with average connections speeds of under 300 kbps. At those speeds a high definition movie would take more than a full 24 hours to download.

Akamai places the United States at 13th place in the world’s Internet connection speeds, with an average connection speed of 5.8 Mbps. The same movie in HD would take about 90 minutes to download.

According to the Akamai report, the top ten the countries with the highest average broadband connection speeds are:

  1. South Korea
  2. Japan
  3. Hong Kong
  4. The Netherlands
  5. Latvia
  6. Switzerland
  7. Ireland
  8. Czech Republic
  9. Romania
  10. Belgium

It’s interesting to note that there was an enormous difference between South Korea’s speeds as compared to the rest of the world. South Korea’s average broadband connection speed was 17.5 Mbps as noted before, but Japan’s speed comes in at 9.1 Mbps. That means that the average broadband Internet connection in South Korea is close to twice the bandwidth the second average connection. In percentages, South Korea is 92 percent faster than Japan and a whopping 201 percent faster than the United States.

 

This statistic doesn’t necessary mean that everyone has access to the country’s highest connection speeds.

The average connection speed of a few people misrepresents the actual experience of the majority. Here’s another list of the top ten countries sorted by the number of Internet users who have connections over 5Mbps.

  1. South Korea
  2. The Netherlands
  3. Japan
  4. Hong Kong
  5. Belgium
  6. Switzerland
  7. Latvia
  8. Romania
  9. Czech Republic
  10. Denmark

South Korea wins again with a staggering 83 percent of its Internet users connecting at speeds above 5 Mbps. This time however, the Netherlands (67 percent) beats Japan (60 percent). Hong Kong, Belgium, Switzerland, and Latvia each have more than 50 percent of their Internet users connecting at above 5 Mbps. The United States did better than 13th place in this comparison. Akamai lists it at 12th place, but it’s basically tied for tenth place with 44 percent of Internet users having connection speeds over 5 Mbps.

 

 

A new Pingdom study has concluded that half of the top 100 blogging sites are now powered by WordPress.

WordPress, the free and open source blogging tool and a dynamic content management system based on PHP and MySQL has long been one of the most popular platforms for personal and professional blog sites (that’s what we use here at Talesofinterest.net as well).

After observing the top 100 blogging platforms in Technorati’s index, a leading blog search engine and directory, a new research study released by the website uptime monitoring company Pingdom discovered that 49 percent of the top 100 blogs now use WordPress.

That includes both its hosted sand self-hosted forms, and is up from the32 percent recorded in a study conducted back in 2009. No other blogging platform even came close.

Typepad, a blogging service from the company SAY Media originally released in the fall of 2003, was still the second most widely used platform in 2009, but now it has, for all practical purposes, disappeared from the rankings.

Movable Type, a web publishing system developed by the company Six Apart, was still being used by 12 of the top 100 blogs back in 2009, but now is down to 7.

Confidentiality and Custom Platforms

Apart from the total WordPress dominance on the blogging platform plane, what was most intriguing about this study was the steady increase of blogging platforms that allow customization.

In the Technorati Index top 10, for of the blogging sites now use their own form of custom blogging platform. This is a perfect example of how competitive and diversified the professional blogging market has now become.

After all, the majority of blog sites look very much alike and having a platform you can customize to fit a company’s needs lets these websites to distinguish themselves from the competition.

As a result, this opened the door to a whole new level of secrecy within blogging sites. Pingdom, for example, was unable to determine which platforms some of the top 100 sites use and was even told by one site administrator that they “were under non-disclosure agreement to not reveal anything about the site.”

Platform

2009

2012

Blogger

3

2

Blogsmith

14

4

Bricolage

1

0

Custom

8

14

Diderot

0

1

Drupal

4

6

Expression Engine

1

0

Movable Type

12

7

Gawker

8

5

N/a

0

8

Scoop

1

1

Tumblr

0

1

Typepad

16

2

WordPress – hosted

5

9

WordPress -self hosted

27

40

 

An intriguing new marketing campaign from the minds of Coca-Cola has customers hugging vending machines in order to receive a free Coke drink in return.

Coca-Cola vending machines have been providing us with its caffeine spiked goodness for over half a century now, and ask very little money in return.

So don’t you think it’s high time we gave those big, red machines some love in return? Although the idea of hugging the Coke machine in the lunchroom during your break sounds rather absurd and perhaps embarrassing, maybe you should take a second and rethink it.

Thanks to a brand new marketing campaign by the Coca-Cola Company, several new vending machines will be scattered throughout the globe that will give its customers a free coke for nothing more than a nice, warm hug.

As one of the world’s most profitable, valuable companies, Coca-Cola has always been recognized for its memorable commercials and marketing campaigns.

Everyone remembers the highly successful “hey kid, catch,” advertisement released during the 1979 Super Bowl featuring Pittsburg Steelers defensive tackle, “Mean” Joe Green. And who could forget the Coke-Cola Santa Clause or the Polar Bear commercials that have remained in the hearts of its coke drinkers throughout the years. The Coke rewards program also stemmed a considerable jump in profits where customers could collect coke codes and use them for various prizes and partnered discounts.

It’s clear that Coca-Cola has created unforgettable ads that have brought great success to the company throughout its years.

The newest edition to the marketing roster at Coke is part of the company’s “Open Happiness” campaign. The soft drink giant has teamed up with the global marketing firm Oglivy & Mather and introduced coke vending machines entitled with the tag line “Hug Me”. The first machines have been released in Singapore and will soon spread throughout strategic locations in selected nations.

The campaign works as easily as it sounds.

Basic, ordinary Coke vending machines were placed throughout busy public venues in Singapore with a sign that read “Hug Me”. If you were curious enough to actually comply with the request the machine would dispense a Coke drink. Hug the vending machine, get a free coke. Not a bad deal.

According to the Oglivy & Mather, the campaign was an immense success, with “four to five people hugging the machine at the same time as well as each other.”

Plans to implement the marketing campaign and roll out similar machines across Asia are expected to take place, however, no word on whether the promotion will make it to western shores.

What do you think? Would you hug a Coke machine in public for a free drink? Leave your comments below.

 

 

26.) Subway chin rest

If you can’t find place to sit, here is solution.

 

25.) The Noodle Guard

Because putting noodles into your mouth is one of life’s biggest challenges.

 

24.) Umbrella Tube

Never touch rain water again. Never have any friends again either.

 

23.) Chopsticks fan

Because, you know, chopsticks weren’t nearly as complicated before.

 

22.) Subway Hat 

Sleeping on the subway is something of an epidemic in Japan. People regularly lean on complete strangers for a quick snooze on the way home from work. What’s a stylish alternative? Stick a plunger to the window behind you and put the attached hat on your head. As if this wasn’t enough, the hat comes with a message board attachment that warns your subway neighbors of your stop so they can wake you.

 

21.) Daddy nurser

This is just plain embarrassing. Nurse your child like a real mother with complete bottle breast attachments. This kid is going to all types of therapy sessions in the near future.

 

20.) Eyedrop funnels

There eye drop funnel glasses have to be one of the most ridiculous inventions to ever come out of a Japanese mind. Honestly if you can’t aim an eye dropper directly into your eyes then you probably don’t deserve to have eyes in the first place. Maybe a device that would keep you from blinking would be more useful. A Clockwork Orange anyone?

 

19.) 10 in 1 gardening tool

It’s like a giant size Swiss Army knife for all your gardening needs. While in Forest Gump’s world of logic this bad boy is the ultimate idea, it’s entirely impractical, unusable, and just plain dumb. But hey, “stupid is as stupid does” I suppose.

 

18.) Butter Stick

Somebody took the phrase “a stick of butter” a little bit literally I’m afraid. Why use a butter knife when you can just glue your wonder bread bologna sandwich together? Guess now I know what Joey was thinking when he downed those glue sticks in kindergarten…

 

17.) Personal Rain Saver

We recycle plastic, paper, metals, so why not water? Better yet, why not rain water? We spend half the time on a windy, rainy day flipping our umbrellas right side in, so let’s just leave it like that and get a little rain water in the process. I bet you’ll rethink it when you get next month’s water bill in the mail… possibly… maybe not.

 

16.) Duster Slippers

We all know you get a kick out of torturing your cat from time to time you little devil.  So why not get your house dusted clean in process?

 

15.) The Umbrella Tie

Never worry about forgetting your umbrella again! Rainy day? No problem! Just detach your trusty umbrella tie, open, use, and when you get to work just attach that soaked umbrella right back on your… oh.

 

14.) The Boyfriend and Girlfriend Pillow

Longing to cuddle with that boy or girl you’ve been Facebook stalking for the past 3 months? Just print out their profile picture, attach the boyfriend/girlfriend pillow and enjoy you crazy stalker you! For you practical jokers out there, this is the perfect way to respond to your girlfriend when she says she wants to cuddle. Just be prepared to start using it for yourself from then on…

 

13.) USB BBQ

So here we have a BBQ made with what looks like 40 USB cables and 10 adapter cards connected to a tiny palm sized BBQ. If you ask me, all that electricity drain and cost for such gross tasting meat, would be easier to whip out your camp propane/electric grill.

 

12.) The Urinal Elephant

That’s right, this elephant cleans urinals. All you have to do is push it this heavy bastard up against the urinal and it will get to work cleaning out all those stray pubic hairs, leaving your urinal sparkling and minty fresh. What? Too big and heavy you say? Nonsense! It’s not like it’s an elephant or anything.

 

11.) Sexual Chewing Gum

Shall we shag now or shall we shag after I chew this gum? This is a brand of chewing gum that will increase a man’s sexual performance. Puts a whole new spin on those Dentyne Ice commercials don’t it?

 

10.) Training Wheels for High Heels

Seems crazy but I’d be willing to bet there’s a couple of you gals out there that would be willing to try it. (Alone at home that is).

 

9.) Panoramic Head Camera

How many tourists does it take to capture a panoramic? Just one really, really dumb one.

 

8.) Camera Umbrella

I have to admit that this invention is actually kind of clever.  I could use one of these for my iPhone.

 

7.) Clean Air

Tired of breathing that nasty, polluted air in your town? Try taking a big whiff of this plant and enjoy the freshness. Don’t get any ideas you potheads.

 

6.) Grass Toilet Seat

It’s like taking a big, smelly dump on nature itself.

 

5.) Lipstick Application Helper

Paint me like one of your French girls.

 

4.) Dusting Onesie for Babies

As if your cat wasn’t enough, strap one of these dusters on your baby. Because having your children wallow in dusty filth all day is good for their immune system.

 

3.) Ear Cleaning Device with Video Camera

Yeah, because I really want to see that.

 

2.) Hair-Growth Shower Cap

So if you slip one on, the cap will basically steam the water that is captured in the shower to invigorate new hair growth, because they claim Japanese scientists have discovered that the root of all hair loss is the clogged hair pathways in your skin. I guess they figured it’s so stupid and simple, that it makes perfect sense.

 

1.) Ever-ready tissues

This is good. Ever needed a tissue but was way too inconvenienced by going through all the pain, sacrifice and trouble of sticking your hand in your pocket and pulling out a tissue? Then strap a roll of toilet paper to your head and call it a day.

 

 

Japanese tech companies are well known for improving foreign inventions, from the car to the video game console, but there have been many significant technologies to come out of Japan in the last 50 years – some of which are still widely used today. Here are 11 of the very best to come straight out of Japan.

11. The Karaoke

Meaning literally ‘empty orchestra’, the first Karaoke machine was invented by Daisuke Inoue in the early 1970s, but unfortunately was not patented. Instead, an almost identical invention and one which is earning massive revenue around the world was registered and patented by a Roberto del Rosario in the Philippines in 1983. Karaoke is a huge business and large part of Japanese culture. The largest seller of machines in Japan is Daiichi Kosho, with about fifty percent of a JPY100bn market.

 

10. The Quartz Wristwatch

Released in 1969, the Seiko Astron was the world’s first quartz wristwatch. Quartz technology was a considerable upgrade over its mechanical watch predecessors, because it eliminated the need for easily damaged moving parts, while keeping time much more accurately. It is powered by and electronic circuit that produces a repetitive electronic signal that is regulated by a small quartz crystal to keep time. To this day, Quartz remains the standard for wristwatches and clocks.

 

9. The Pocket Calculator

 

In January of 1971, portable calculators became widely available with the release of the Busicom LE-120A by the Nippon Calculating Machine Corporation, which subsequently later changed its name to Busicom. Although it was initially released at a cost of $395, (the cost of several weeks salary at the time), the technology improved over the years and mass production took over. As a result, the price of pocket calculators plummeted. Sharp’s EL-8086 released in 1978 was the first solar-powered calculator, and this further extended the popularity of the device around the world.

 

8. The Flat-Panel Display

The first consumer available flat-panel display of any kind was found on the Sony Watchman FD-210, a pocket television launched in 1982. The FD-210′s display was a measly five centimeters, but the technology involved in its production was impressive for the time and carved the way for the home television and computer flatscreens we see today. The first LCD and Plasma televisions were also created by Japanese companies – Sharp and Pioneer.

 

 

7. The Digital SLR Camera

The first digital camera with single-lens reflex elements was the Sony Mavica, released in 1981. Sony’s first full-fledged digital camera was the Mavica MVC-FD5 released in 1997. However it wasn’t until 1999 and the release of the Nikon D1, that Japanese-developed digital SLRs started to widely replace 35 mm film as the popular choice among professional photographers, thanks to their superior combination of speed, ease of use, and image quality.

 

6. The Video Cassette

The video cassette and VCR, both made by Sony, were first released in 1971. Thanks to the video cassette, consumers were finally able to watch films at home, and at a time of their choosing. You could stop, rewind, and fast forward through your favorite movies, and see them over and over again. The idea of capturing the movie-going experience and putting it in each home was a technological breakthrough – and not just for the audiences. Movie Studios benefited enormously too, as they were granted a new revenue stream in the form of the home video market, which eventually overtook the box office in value.

 

5. The Camcorder

The process of on-location video recording used to require at least two people, in other words, a film crew. Prior to the 1980s TV news crews used video cameras – that is, the devices that were actually used to shoot video – with separate recording units. The earliest portable video recorders still had to be connected to the camera through a cable, which limited their mobility and utility in the field. With the Sony Betacam, released in 1982, a video camera and video recorder were combined into a single device for the first time. The ‘camcorder’, as it came to be known, revolutionized journalism and filmmaking, and eventually brought video recording home.

 

4. The High-Speed Passenger Train

If you’ve ever ridden one of these, you’d instantly know why it made the list. The 12-car 0-Series Shinkansen bullet train, which ran from 1964 to 2008, was the world’s first high-volume, high-speed passenger train. Superior rail transport was one of the major factors that helped to power Japan’ economy to number two in the world, and the design of the early Shinkansen influenced overseas engineers as well. The technology is still relatively new overseas, but has seen a sudden surge in popularity from European regions, The United States is said to implement bullet trains into commercial use in the near future.

 

3. The Portable Music Player

Before the iPod, Zune, and mp3 player, the Sony Walkman was the leader of music on the go. While it’s technically not the world’s first portable music player, the Sony Walkman was hands down the most successful, bringing the concept of portable music to the mainstream. Everyone in the mid 80s either had one, or wanted one. Sony constantly introduced a number of new features along the line, including a recording function, and playback of other media, like compact discs and TV and video cassettes. Imagine what the world would be like without portable music players.

 

2. The Floppy Disk

The floppy disk is counted among the many inventions of the colorful Yoshiro Nakamatsu, AKA Dr. NakaMats. The details behind the invention, and how the technology wound up in IBM’s hands, are shrouded in mystery, but Nakamatsu was awarded a patent for the base technology behind the floppy disk in 1952, long before they went public. While floppy disks are now considered a relic, they were the primary portable storage medium for computer users everywhere for a good three decades. It basically introduced the idea of carrying and sharing information easily, and effectively. Something we now have implemented and integrated into what seems like every part of our society.

 

1. The Compact Disc

Created in collaboration by Sony and Philips in the late 1970s, the compact disc and the Sony-developed CD player is the most important technological inventions to have come out of Japan. Originally intended simply as a smaller, more mobile replacement for vinyl records, the CD proved incredibly useful as a general data storage medium in the form of the CD-ROM and then the CD-R. Its successor technologies, the DVD and Blu-ray disc, are both also Sony and Philips collaboration creations. The digital optical disc still remains one of the modern world’s most important inventions to date.

 

Yeah I'd rather stick with Firefox

 

App Tabs is a cool feature by Mozilla Firefox that lets you always keep your most visited web sites like Facebook, Twitter and Gmail open in miniature tabs. Apps tabs open automatically each time you launch Firefox and can’t be closed by accident. In this tutorial we will show you how to make and use Firefox App Tabs.

Why you should use App Tabs

Firefox App Tabs allow you to pint any website to the left side of the Tab Strip so that it’s always available, loaded, and ready. In this way, you can receive notifications from websites like Twitter, Facebook, and Gmail without even breaking a sweat. It helps too if you’re like me and periodically late to work (almost every day) and need your company’s clock in website open and ready when you launch the internet browser.

Or it could just save you the refresh…

Typical day at the office

 

How to make an App Tab

Right-click on the tab you want to keep as an App Tab and select Pin as App Tab from the menu.

 

How is App Tabs different than a regular tab or a bookmark?

- App Tabs don’t have a close button so they are always open and you can’t close them by accident.

- They notify you with a blue highlight when you receive new data on the site like an email, comment or message.

- All the App Tabs will automatically launch each time you launch Firefox, so you don’t have to wait for it to load like a bookmark.

- When you open a link in App Tabs, it’ll automatically open in a new tab so your App Tabs stay on the same page.

- App Tabs are smaller and out of the way.

 

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