Peter's Quasi-Daily Blah-g

Like this…only on your face.

Wearing glasses that superimpose a layer of information—nearby pizza places, the local bus line, or, if you’re the Terminator, the amount of ammo left in your weapon—over reality is a long-held techie fantasy. Fighter pilots already use such “heads-up” displays to keep track of vital info while keeping their eyes ahead of them, but despite the constant low buzz about such augmented reality glasses for the rest of us, actual products have been few and far between. Now, though, Google employees speaking to the NYT’s Bits blog have confirmed that Google’s experimental lab is indeed building such a device. Due to come out at the end of the year, these “Google Goggles” are said to function basically as a smartphone you can wear on your face.

According the the Bits blog, users will be able to scroll around on the glasses’ tiny screen using small head motions. The glasses will also feature a low-res camera that monitor the world in front of the user and take pictures, but there are obviously privacy issues at stake with such a feature: apparently the team is currently discussing how to make …

from Discover Magazine

Most people are familiar with the concept of a “carbon footprint,” and some even feel dutifully guilty about their own. “Water footprints” get a little less play. Even though we live on a blue planet (oddly named “Earth” by one of its continentally-biased inhabitants), water is still a precious resource that warrants conservation. After all, over 99 percent of that water is either in salty oceans or frozen glaciers.

A paper published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences delves into an analysis of humanity’s water footprint and the various components that contribute to it. This isn’t the first stab at a global assessment, but it’s a significant improvement on earlier work. And, in one of the more interesting twists, it accounts for the international movement of water use that occurs when a good that requires water is shipped to another country.

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from Ars Technica

Google was also able to bypass privacy settings on mobile Safari, which normally blocks cookies as well

from DailyTech Main News Feed

Microsoft today filed a competition law complaint against Motorola Mobility with the European Commission, claiming that the company—and, by extension, its soon-to-be-owner Google—is charging outrageously high licensing fees for patents essential to complying with industry standards.

In a blog post titled “Google, Please Don’t Kill Video on the Web,” Microsoft general counsel Dave Heiner said Motorola “is attempting to block sales of Windows PCs, our Xbox game console and other products” by charging unusually high fees for patents related to the H.264 video standard. On a $1,000 laptop, Motorola wants a royalty of $22.50, Microsoft claims. Microsoft said its complaint, which is not a publicly available document, is filed against both Motorola and Google.

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from Ars Technica

Filed under: Car Buying, Etc.

If you’re still driving that 2006 Ford Fusion you bought new, apparently you are not alone. Automotive data provider Polk says that the average new car buyer is now holding on to his vehicle for a whopping 71 months – almost six years. Used vehicles are being held for over four years, almost 50 months, according to the new study.

Polk based its findings on vehicle registration data through September 2011, concluding that longer warranties, better reliability, and of course, a miserable economy, have contributed to the shift. By comparison, just five years ago Polk showed new car buyers swapping out after just 53 months – a year and a half earlier.

This latest study reflects what we heard from Polk last month, that the average age of vehicles on the road has hit a record high. We might even see consumers further stretch this number, as Polk’s analysts are not forecasting a return to the magic 16-million-units sales level until 2015. For the carmakers this represents more than just a simple make-your-numbers sales challenge, says Polk, because the longer people keep their vehicles the less brand loyal they become.

To read the full release, click through the jump.

Continue reading Buyers holding onto new cars for nearly six years – longer than ever before

Buyers holding onto new cars for nearly six years – longer than ever before originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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from Autoblog

In a poetic turn of virology, the scientist who discovered hepatitis C in 1989 has now also discovered a vaccine that will hopefully cure the now-incurable disease. More »

from Gizmodo

Need a portable boombox for your smartphone or music player? Industrial design student and Instructables user MTriest has a great, minimalist design that’s easy to carry around. It was designed for the iPhone, but you should be able to adapt it to accommodate any similarly-shaped device with a headphone jack. If you want to give it a try, here’s what you’ll need: More »

from Lifehacker