Tech for Lunch!

Several restaurant owners in Europe, Japan and the United States have installed new gadgets within their establishment. It is a touch screen, through which customers can pass their order.

The idea behind this concept is to encourage impulse buying. If, for example, a person is looking at a beautiful picture of a chocolate cake, it is quite possible that he/she will be tempted and won’t have to wait for someone to show up to take the order. Does the principle work? It looks like it does… A sushi restaurant in Tel Aviv, where such a system has been installed, reported sales up by 11%. It appears that customers who reserve tables now require that a touch screen has been installed. Two small companies offer such a system for restaurants. They are the Israeli society Conceptic and Japanese society Aska T3.

But very large companies have already thought of this, including Microsoft.  Remember when the company launched the Microsoft Surface System. It is a kind of table glass, which is actually a huge touch screen, controlled by the movement of the fingers. These famous tables will be installed over the coming months in hotels, bars and casinos. They allow customers to play computer games, listen to music … and order meals.

Some technology followers believe, “we live in technology, and no one nowadays, fears a screen”.

I’m always a fan of merging technologies because they are usually a great way to facilitate user tasks and make something available to a broader audience. This one is about a little website that everyone must have heard of: Youtube. Each month there is an average of 66 millions viewers who flock to youtube.com to watch 2.6 billion videos. That’s about 57% of all video viewers on the internet, which is estimated at about 116.7 million according to Nielsen Online.

The second technology involved in this news snippet is another well known broadcaster: TiVo Inc. “Founded in 1997, TiVo (NASDAQ: TIVO), a pioneer in home entertainment, created a brand new category of products with the development of the first digital video recorder (DVR).” The company has an approximate 30-40% market share in the DVR market, so it’s a fairly large audience to be able to reach and the TiVo box removes the requirement for a computer to watch Youtube videos.

The basic idea behind this move is to be able to broadcast Youtube videos to a larger audience, by removing - or at least, extending - the boundaries of the internet. Youtube videos are already available on some cell phones and via Apple TV to users who are not sitting in front of a computer. By the end of this year, TiVo users should be able to watch these videos directly on their television. This should be available to users of the TiVo Series 3 boxes, which also includes an HD model.

Although I’m not a TiVo user, I think it’s a pretty cool idea and this technology merge will allow many new users to get busy wasting a LOT of time watching Youtube videos. It’s like an addiction - Once you start watching, you just can’t stop and Youtube keeps suggesting more interesting ones to watch!

The Husqvarna Company has just put on the market what appears to be the ideal mower. It cuts the grass automatically. That’s right! It does not need human intervention to carry out its task. The name of the device is the Automower.

“The new Husqvarna Automower™ Solar Hybrid is powered by innovative and groundbreaking technology that combines solar power and electricity.”

“This will take Automower to the next level with higher performance and further reduced environmental impact” says Bengt Andersson, CEO Husqvarna Group. He continues, “90% of Automower is recyclable, it eliminates the need for fertilizers, it is almost silent, has no exhaust emissions at all and delivers perfect results every time without you having to lift a finger.”

This mower is a bit like a small wireless vacuum for your home. This is how it works: You must first set the limits of your lawn by installing a wire around the yard. The mower detects the wire in question and then changes direction. You can even create pockets in order, for example, to protect flowers or shrubs.

But what is most surprising of this device is its charging station which is installed outside. This is more or less than a “garage” where the mower will rest at the end of a shift. If it senses that its batteries are beginning to run low, it automatically ceases to cut the grass and will return to its docking station.

It is not available in Canada yet, but there are dealers all over the world. You can use their website to find a dealer near you and to get more information on this cool new gadget.

The first time I used a flash drive, I thought: “Why don’t they just make huge storage with the same technology?”. Turns out it was already in the works and it has been for quite some time, but we are about to see the first real-world applications of this technology. Solid-State Drives, means that there are no moving parts in them and uses Solid-State memory. This has some significant results:

• Improved durability
• Quieter
• Uses less power
• Three to Four times faster read/writes than conventional drives
• No spin-up time
• Consistent performance on the entire surface

There are already machines that use this technology as an option, like the recent Apple Air notebook. In the beginning these drives will cost as much as four times the price of regular drives and probably won’t be available everywhere, but as time will go by, this will probably become the technology of choice because of its many advantages.

Personally, I will most certainly be interested in the 4x speed increase, but we will have to wait and see if the initial specs we have been given all come true. Current drive sizes are as large as 160gb and climbing.

Canadian shoppers who bought HD-DVD players before the ” Format War” was over thought they would be stuck with their obsolete players with no more new media coming out.  Future Shop has announced that they will be giving consumers a 100$ credit towards the purchase of an LG or Samsung Blu-ray and HD DVD combo player.  Naturally, this is in exchange for their old players.  A combo player is a good avenue for those consumers because they can still watch their HD-DVD media, so they won’t need to purchase them again in Blu-Ray format.

Canadian consumers who wish to take advantage of this offer have until April 3rd to do so.  The good news is that the offer does not only cover Future Shop customers.  If your HD-DVD player comes from another retailer, you can still take it in for the credit.  The old HD-DVD player, which can also read regular DVDs, will be donated to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada. Estimates claim that 35,000 canadians have invested in HD-DVD players since their introduction in 2006.

Circuit City has also extended their return policy for customers who bought HD-DVD player.  Customers have 90 days instead of the usual 30 to return their players.

Imagine taking life with you…anywhere.

A man sitting next to me on the subway took out a Samsung Q1U-V ultra mobile PC from his backpack which got a lot of attention from the other passengers. I got to see him play around with it; listen to music while answering his emails and opening document after document to fiddle in.

I have read up on this little gadget and it is pretty amazing. The screen has a really great display it’s has the best sound quality of any device of its kind, it is small and lightweight so it doesn’t weigh you down and you can fit in any bag or purse even! It comes with a hand strap and there is a built in stand on the device. The keyboard buttons are small and might be hard to read if you don’t have good eye sight, but then again, you don’t really need to look at the keys when you are typing… and you have to be pretty agile with your thumbs to write fast. But over all, it seems like a really cool thing to own. It is a bit pricey for the capability and size of the device but you can purchase one for just over 1000$ USD. There are also many variations on this same device. This is the model that I saw, but there are quite a few on samsung’s site, so perhaps a different one could be a better fit for your needs.

What’s in the Box? The Samsung Q1U-V ultra mobile PC comes with:

• Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC
• Battery
• Samsung Q1 Ultra Getting Started Guide
• AC adapter & Power cable
• USB Data Transfer Cable
• Pen
• Travel case
• Hand Strap
• Samsung System Software & System Recovery Cd’s
• Safety instructions guide
• Samsung Recovery Solution II / reinstalling Vista guide

You may want to take a look at the Samsung micro site for all the details on this little gizmo. The thing I found most interesting about it is that it runs on Windows Vista Business, and not some stripped down mobile version.