SEE A SPLASH OF 'POPBANG' COLOUR ON THE CHEVROLET MOTOR SHOW STAND!

- Unique Chevrolet Camaro painting wows crowds at British International Motor Show
- Paintings created with remote control cars
- Live demonstration on Sunday August 3

Visitors to the British International Motor Show will be able to check out unique renderings of a pair of very special cars on the Chevrolet stand.

The paintings, of the Camaro Convertible and Beat concept cars – both of which are the stars of the Chevrolet stand, are the work of 25-year old artist Ian Cook from Solihull, West Midlands. But instead of creating the images with a simple paintbrush, Ian used a somewhat unique method of artistry.

The images were created using remote control cars driven through acrylic paints, with further detail added by using old car tyres. As well as cars, Ian has also painted some famous figures from the world of motoring using the same method, including Lord Montagu of Beaulieu and F1 ace Lewis Hamilton.

"I wanted to be an artist from a young age and decided that to be successful I needed something completely unique," said Ian. "I've always been mad about anything with wheels and I figured that using cars to paint cars would capture peoples' imaginations, so I experimented at home by driving some remote control models through paint."

Ian, who calls his art Popbang Colour, used a host of replica GM cars to create the Camaro, including three models of the Camaro Concept itself, live on the show's opening day. He also created an image of the Beat minicar concept, both of which will be on display in the Chevrolet Drivers' Lounge for the duration of the show.

But those who want to see Ian create a masterpiece in person should pop along to the Motor Show, at London's Excel exhibition centre, Docklands, on the final day of the event – Sunday August 3 – from 10.00am.

There, Ian will be using his unique painting method to create an image of British racing star Rob Huff's Chevrolet Lacetti World Touring Car, a week after the series visits the UK for its annual visit to Brands Hatch.

"I can't wait to get started on the racing car," said Ian. "With the intricate liveries and body kits, competition cars require an extra level of detail, and that's where you need skill with the remote control cars."

One thing's for certain – Ian's next creation is sure to go with a bang. Or maybe even a pop...

And remember, mother there's only one, so treat her right!

Fools! [Firebox via Toyology]

Pretty impressive, and saves all that fiddling around with buttons when you should be busy controlling your car. It's got background noise suppression, so apparently it can cope with driving noise. And its independent battery runs it for 10 hours, without affecting the iPod.

There's just one flaw: its price. At $159 it's more than a 4GB nano itself, and that seems a little crazy. They are planning on releasing new versions for other iPods and the iPhone "as soon as possible," but this one will be out in December. [DirectVoxx]

And, this thing can deliver a mean cocktail and turn in place while moving, no sweat. Great news for finicky guests that change their mind at the last second.
[Danbar Toys via Technabob]

The whole thing feels like having iTunes in the palm of your hand. Once you authenticate your remote by entering a four-digit code—the iPhone or iPod touch needs to be in the same wireless network—it's all a matter of opening the application and starting to surf your iTunes library.

There are five sections on the remote:

Playlists
Here you have access to your personal playlists, just like in iTunes. This includes the smart playlists as well. All changes in iTunes are reflected in real time on the remote, just as you would expect.

Artists
This is a browser view by artist, which looks identical to the one on the iPod.

Albums
Same as Artists. Here you can see the artwork, streamed directly from iTunes.

Search
The search engine is a little bit weird but works great. It's live, so when you start writing, the results start to appear on the screen. However, you can't click directly on the list. When you are done writing whatever you're searching for, you click on the result list and it activates. Then you can scroll through it, with all your results neatly organized by Albums, Artists and Songs.

More
Here you will find access to the rest of the media in iTunes, from audiobooks to music videos and, of course, movies.

You can associate several libraries to the remote. There is a Settings button on the top left corner. When you click on it, you can Add Library and also turn on the Stay Connected option, which is listed under Performance. I don't know if this is related to Wi-Fi power consumption or just to the fact that, while being always connected, you won't need to reconnect after your iPhone wakes up.

There are no delays in the operation so far. Everything works fast and smoothly. Now, the only thing I want is having playback on the iPhone. Not just control iTunes remotely, but actually accessing the media from the iPhone or iPod touch, via Wi-Fi or 3G network. That would be the key to avoid having too little space: get an unlimited data plan and just access everything on your computer remotely. We can only hope that this is what Steve & Co. have in mind for the next version.

Update: Sorry, that last panel looks like a Photoshop. You fooled us, guy with rudimentary knowledge of the human anatomy!

[Washington Times via Consumerist]

Jacob Whitehill, who is leading the team from the Machine Perception Laboratory, reckons that it could put an end to confused students during lectures. "If I am a student dealing with a robot teacher and I am completely puzzled and yet the robot keeps presenting new material, that's not going to be very useful to me," he said. "If, instead, the robot stops and says, 'Oh, maybe you're confused,' and I say, 'Yes, thank you for stopping,' that's really good."

Whitehill gave a German grammar lesson in his lab—ja, ja, das is fantastich!—and recorded it using video-conferencing software in an effort to understand the facial expressions used by people as they learn and process new information. Nods from the students generally meant understanding of the subject, while a frown or puzzled look means, "Wassee on about?"

There's a video of Jacob and his fabulous zapper face in action here, and the team's findings are being presented today at the 2008 IEEE International Workshop on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition for Human Communicative Behavior Analysis. [Science Daily via Neatorama]

• Crowning your 1:25 reproduction of the Statue of Liberty.
• Hold a poker hand.
• Neatly store four dildos and a lube bottle.
• Dock a shaker and four flasks with the ingredients for Perfect Manhattan cocktails.

Which as you can tell, is what I had with my cornflakes this morning. Really, for $59.98, this product is a bargain. [Taylor Gifts via Random Good Stuff]

History & Design
By the spring of 1998, TiVo was developing what we all know now as the DVR. During the design stages, their designers knew they would not only need to create a DVR that was extremely functional, but also a corresponding remote control that would allow seamless and intuitive use.

This is where Paul Newby enters.

“I came to TiVo when we were still called Teleworld, and when we started off we grabbed off-the-shelf remotes. These remotes had multiple rows and columns of keys, and it was clear this wasn’t going to work. What we decided to do early on was make a remote that grabbed attention off the coffee table.”

When Newby pushed his designers to create a remote that would stand out, he was shocked by the initial designs. The reasonable ones resembled items like a bread-stick or a spatula, but there were few that were so crazy they looked more like a toad.

There was one designed that was nicknamed the Peanut. Once a few foam prototypes were made, the designers called the shape a success.

“It became obvious early on that to achieve the seamless trick play and control we were after for our new PVR/DVR creation, the remote must be comfortable for long periods of in-hand use. This and an iconic look, were motivations for the more distinctive, organic, peanut shape.”

This peanut shape saw slight variations from mold to mold, with some that were wafer thin to others that were more like a thick slab. With the final prototype, designers and the TiVo team felt that a medium amount of curve was the best for a remote.

Once the shape had been finalized, the designers and engineers began tackling other details to the remote. Aspects like button layout and electronics were now on the drawing board. But throughout the tedious work of refining, the designers began to poke fun at the decision they made.

“There were a lot of jokes about the shape. Not just the obvious ones,” said Newby. “I can remember some referencing to an earlobe, or the shape of the lower back/butt area."

Like any remote, the designers were adamant about keeping the remote’s button layout as simple as possible. But with the DVR’s numerous features, the designers needed to create lots of extra buttons. To keep things straight, each button needed to have a distinctive feel, giving the ability to control the remote without even looking at it, which Newby described as a “key Braille-ability" surprisingly helped by the "blank finger parking spots between keys" that were equally important.

Eight and a half months after the team started in July 1998, the first remote was done.

Throughout the whole design process, Newby continually told his design team to try anything, but to always keep two things in mind.

“Number one, get up from the desk, and number two, be ready to endure someone telling you in less than an ideal way that your baby stinks.”

Without knowing it, Newby’s last bit of advice was crucial when TiVo started to work with other manufacturers who were reluctant to use this strange Peanut remote.

Dealing With Manufacturers
At this point, TiVo's designers felt that they had developed one of the most ingenious remotes on the market. Sadly, when TiVo began working with manufacturers such as Sony and Hughes (Direct TV), they did not feel the same.

“The process was very very very, frustrating and quite frankly, I was surprised.”

Because some of the manufacturers didn’t want to use the Peanut shape at all, the TiVo decided that if a different remote was going to be supplemented, it had to have some core requirements.

A big yellow pause button and characterize thumb buttons were a necessity. But as hard as TiVo pushed, these were the exact type of buttons that the manufactures insisted against.

“Using a bright color on remotes was not something that these companies did. Anything thing with character images on it, the companies didn't want to use.”

In the end there was consensus, but it wasn't easy getting there.

Series Updates
With each Series update the Peanut saw a slight change in design.

“We’ve toyed with other shapes in the background but always come back to the peanut. The subtle shift from Series 1 to Series 2 allowed more free space between keys, space for partner branding, and improvements for manufacturability. The shift to Series 3 made refinements in key snap, backlight, fore/aft directionality, and balance.”

During the change from Series 1 to Series 2 there was an interesting internal change that many users never knew about.

“We set the IR emitter power fairly high on the early Series 1 production remotes. This had the effect of being able to control TiVo from any number of off angle positions. It also turned out that, in some cases, a user could even drape themselves and the remote completely in a blanket, yet still blast through the blanket to control TiVo.”

Among designing and updating the remote, this concern for battery life would stay as a major concern for adding features. For example, Newby's team has a Series 2 remote that was back-lit, but backed off because of power concerns.

With a back-light feature finally being added to the Series 3 remote, the team decided to use 4 AAA batteries rather than 2 AAs. (As a bonus, the heavier remote had a better center of gravity.) The batteries offset some of the power drain, but there is also a slight decrease in life, even with the light sensor selectively enabling the remote's illumination.

Even within the Series 3's lifetime the Peanut remote has seen some changes. When the first Series 3 remote shipped with the Series 3 TiVo, it had a painted gray bezel. Now that the Series 3 TiVo is being killed off for TiVo HD, TiVo’s flagship remote is the Glo remote. The major different between the original Series 3 remote and the new Glo remote is the bezel, which is now a shiny chrome which is cheaper to make.

Rare Remotes
Among the various colors of remotes that were produced, there are a few that were far less common.

For the first version of the remote, TiVo made a translucent array of colors that mimicked their logo's color. Sadly though, these remotes never actually made into the public's hands.

The rarest of them all is a rubberized blue five-year remote. This remote is only given to employees who have worked with TiVo for more than five years. More of an award than actual remote, it even has its own stand that displays it proudly. This remote was originally made in a rubberized Series 2 form, but has now been updated to the non-rubberized Glo form.

In the same vein as the five-year remote, there is now a 10-year.

“My team is working on a 10 year remote, and we're right on the cusp.”
“It will be a permutation of the Glo in a steel blue color.”

Future
With TiVo continually adding features to their DVRs, there is a growing need for a remote that will complement new features. The TiVo design team has acknowledged this, and Newby assures that they are are always working on improvements.

"There's probably about two and half of us at any given time designing the next remote."

With the next generation TiVo remote on the drawing board, I wondered what the possible additions could be.

When I asked if adding a small QWERTY keyboard was a possibility for the next generation, I was surprised by Newby’s answer.

"Let me just say we're ping-ponging the idea. You wouldn't be disappointed."

If they had given the idea of adding a keyboard though, then I figured I had to ask if there was possibility of incorporating a touchscreen for future use. Once again Newby’s response sparked my interest.

"We've either given it thought or were in the process of prototyping it. I'd say it's a healthy combination of both never been done, done before and what's been done well elsewhere."

"So you name it, were thinking about. But we are carefully at what we throw at it."

Also, thanks go to Danny.

On the plus side, the inherent ESPN-ness of the remote will undoubtedly appeal to hardcore fans. It even goes so far as to play the ESPN theme song in Tim The "Tool Man" Talyor's famous grunt when you turn on the TV. Convenient features like a "learning mode" to customize functions and a programing setting that will allow you to perform multiple tasks in a single keystroke were also nice touches. However, for $300, you will be getting a device that is fairly difficult to set up, uncomfortable to hold, and includes an underwhelming W-Fi experience with a small screen and plain old WAP browsing.

All in all, PC Mag felt that you would be better off with a Logitech Harmony One as an "ultimate remote control." Not a bad idea when you consider that it can be had for at least $50 less than ESPN's remote. [PC Mag]

I'd never stick one of these clunky beeping remote finder devices on any remote I gave a damn about. But they are triggered by the tone of the included whistle, which gives you and your clicker a relationship not unlike Lassie and Timmy. Very cool, until you lose the whistle. $18. Bonus: They've got a keychain version with a flashlight and voice recorder, too. [1ofakind via Crunchgear]

The Ultimate Remote can also deliver one-touch access to internet content like an electronic program guide (EPG) for TV listings, a weather widget, internet browsing, email and text messaging. Admittedly, that is a pretty formidable list of features—but whether it surpasses the best of what Logitech has to offer is up to you. The ESPN Ultimate Remote is available now for $300. [Amazon via PR Newswire and ESPN]

Lazy Bones (1950) - According to Electronic House, it was the world's first commercially available TV remote control. It could only flip through channels by triggering a motorized knob. Needless to say, its secondary skill as a tripwire caused problems in the living room.

Flash-Matic (1955) - Billed as "absolutely harmless to humans," this focused flashlight could be aimed at one of four light sensors on the TV itself, in order to turn TV on or off, change channel or adjust volume. But like Gyration mice and other gestural devices of today, it was a challenge because people forgot where and how to point the thing to activate each function. Also, sunlight really played havoc with the sensors.

Space Command (1956) - A much better system than Flash-Matic and as comfortable as a pack of Benson & Hedges in the hand, the Space Command used ultrasound—ingeniously generated without batteries by plungers hitting aluminum tuning forks—to change channel, turn TV on or off, and adjust volume. It did have one problem, though: Some dogs couldn't stand the noise.

Check out EH's "A History of TV Remote Controls" for the full story. [Electronic House]

Installation is pretty simple and allows for TiVoRemote to be installed via Installer.app, once a new source is added. After launching the program and entering the settings menu, all that's required is the TiVo's IP address. Once entered, your iPhone / iPod is ready to control your Series 3 or HD TiVo. As you can see from the video above and picture below, the key layout is pretty basic. But I am sure it's only a matter of time till it gets spruced up, allowing the TiVo guy to be on the iPhone / iPod. From complete instructions hit the TiVoRemote link for the Google Code page. [TiVoRemote via TiVo Community Forum]

References to gaming in the filing also serve to rehash old rumors about gaming and Apple TV as well as how a controller like this might fit into such plans. Naturally, I have my doubts about such theories given Apple's stance on gaming over the years, but as with all rumors and patent filings, we will just have to wait and see what comes of it. [Appleinsider via MacRumors]

Type IRCODE in caps, followed by any of these commands.

UP DOWN LEFT RIGHT SELECT TIVO LIVETV THUMBSUP THUMBSDOWN CHANNELUP CHANNELDOWN RECORD DISPLAY DIRECTV NUM0 NUM1 NUM2 NUM3 NUM4 NUM5 NUM6 NUM7 NUM8 NUM9 ENTER CLEAR PLAY PAUSE SLOW FORWARD REVERSE STANDBY NOWSHOWING REPLAY ADVANCE DELIMITER GUIDE

Update:
Denny Breitenfeld, the CTO of NetBlender, told us that it's not a standalone application but a technology for professional Blu-Ray authoring tool combined with an SDK for iPhone developers:

It's a technology that is built into our professional Blu-Ray authoring tool that will allow studios, independent movie companies to enable BD Touch features.

These features send data in two directions from the Disc to the Iphone and vice versa. Video, Audio, text, and player commands can be sent.

So right now it seems everyone likes the "remote control" idea. However the player can control the IPhone as well. One idea is to automatically pull up IMBD of the movie you are watching right on your Iphone or send the movie information a movie database on your phone. The ideas are only limited to what people want and will use.

We are releasing an SDK for the 100k Iphone developers out there so they can take advantage of BD Touch features to build applications that easily work with all kinds of titles.

According to NetBlender:

• The iPhone application will be able to interact directly with movies, showing extra information in the iPhone.
• It will also be able to keep a database of your movie collection.
• BD Touch will also be able to get digital copies of the movies inside the Blu-ray disc, presumably already encoded for iPod touch and iPhone playback.

The only problem we see with BD Touch is the quote they gave to MacWorld UK:

The sophisticated user interface of the iPhone enables greater user interaction as well as the power to leverage the iPhone's existing network. Search, e-commerce and advertising possibilities related to movie content abound when one imagines real-time communication between the iPhone and the content currently being displayed on a Blu-ray player.

Possibility of buying/snatching a song while I'm listening to it in the movie soundtrack? Great. Advertising popping on my iPhone while I watch a movie? I was going to say "no thanks," but I just stopped at the "why?"

We will see how it exactly works when it gets announced this Thursday. [Netblender via MacWorld]