Pixel Qi's last announced manufacturing date—residue of which still graces their website—was "the second half of 2009." In big, bold type, they've updated the claim: "We are starting mass production of this screen in December 2009," is proudly emblazoned on Pixel Qi's worryingly retro website, while "We totally totally promise this time," a comforting, if slightly desperate adjunct, is not. But this is:

We have begun design of a sub-10 watt HDTV that can be used in hundreds of millions of households that don't have steady, if any, access to electrical power. The typical HDTV uses more than 100 Watts and often draws several hundred watts. We are working on a way to massively lower the power consumption, and significantly lower the price with a target price of $100. Thus this HDTV can run off of battery that can be charged up when the power is on, or charged with a small solar panel, crank, or so forth.

I'm sure there are about a million different applications for a low-power screen tech that displays full-motion color, static e-ink and works in the sunlight, but don't get ahead of yourselves: we haven't seen a single non-prototype device yet. Throw us a bone, guys! And by bone, I mean the name of any hardware partner who's willing to make a product with this screen tech once it starts shipping. [Pixel Qi via Blogeee via Slashgear]

To make things easier, OnlineCourses has put together a list of 100 open tech courses and broken them down into 10 categories: Computer Science and Engineering, Computer Security, Programming, The Web, Software, Information Technology, Communication Technology, Technology in Education, Tech Math and Technology and Society.

Looking over the list, about 98% of the courses come from MIT, so you know you are going to learn something valuable. Admittedly, some of the courses are a bit out of date, but they should provide you with a foundation on usefull topics like computer systems engineering, C++, Computer graphics, Flash and Database systems to help you decide whether or not to pursue your education further. Hit the link for the full course list. [OnlineCourses]

China's In Technology Group (ITG) has now posted an English-friendly page for pre-orders—there's no price yet, they're essentially seeing who's interested. If you are, you can choose a 3G module for your carrier's necessary frequency (AT&T, Vodafone, and Orange are listed).

Not only has the QWERTY-slider much improved cosmetically since I first saw a working prototype in June, but we now know the full specs (see below). They're crazy, no? Not listed is that the solid-state and standard hard disks are both included, for when you need to save power.

It almost sounds too good to be true, so I'll be watching this one closely. The xpPhone could either be one of the most powerful phones yet, or an almost one pound failure of epic proportions. I'll let you know when I find out more on pricing/availability—or any plans for an actual U.S (non-import) release. [ITG via Slashgear via Pocketables]

Configuration
• CPU: AMD Super Mobile CPU
• Memory: 512M/1G
• SSD: 8G/16G/32G/64G
• HDD: 30G/60G/80G/120G
• LCD: 4.8' TFT Touch-screen LCD 800*480
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP
• Network: GSM/GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA (HSDPA/HSUPA)
• CDMA/CDMA2000 1X/CDMA1X EVDO,TD-SCDMA，TD-HSDPA
• Wireless: WiFi 802.11b/g,WiMax(optional),Buletooth,Stand-alone GPS
• Camera Specifications:CMOS, 300k/1.3 Million
• Ports: 1 x earphone jack, 1 x microphone jack,Docking Connector (includes VGA output signal ), 1 x USB 2.0, SIM Slot
• Battery: Removable Lithium-ion
• Talk time: about 5 hours,Stand by time: about 5 days
• Real life: about 7 hours(Standard), about 12 hours(Large)
• Talk time: Standby time，Operation time may vary depending different usage.
• Weight: 400g (include battery)

I don't agree with everything in the issue—I will not accept Facebook friends I've never meet in real life, I think it's rude to text message in front of other people, and I will not, under any circumstances, pretend I don't hate Twitter—but it's definitely a fun and thought-provoking read. My favorite is this article on haggling over Craigslist, which has saved me hundreds of dollars over the years. [Wired]

It was made from the bone of a giant vulture during the Upper Paleolithic. Found in Ach Valley, in the south of Germany, the 8.7-inch long, one-inch diameter instrument has five holes, with two V-shaped notches carved on one side of it. This was the part in which the musician put the lips to blow, according to University of Tubingen's professor Nicholas Conard, the lead author of the discovery. The other end is broken just on the fifth hole.

Also according to the study, it was capable of producing a note range similar to those of modern flutes. Conard also points that while music probably didn't have much to do in the success of the first modern humans, it could have given them an advantage against the Neanderthals:

Upper Palaeolithic music could have contributed to the maintenance of large social networks, and thereby have helped facilitate the demographic and territorial expansion of modern humans compared to the more culturally conservative and isolated Neanderthals

[AFP]

Technical writer Heidi Waterhouse chaired the panel called "What Gender is Your Roomba?" where she was joined by robotics engineer Hari Mirchi and fantasy author Madeleine Robins. Waterhouse began by saying that she'd done an informal poll at the con, asking people what gender they imagined for their Roomba broom robots. "A lot of people said it was female because it does domestic work," she said. "Somebody said it has no gender until they get angry with it, and then it becomes female."

Robins said her Roomba was female, but only because "everything in my house is female except my husband - I have two daughters and a female dog. So I just assume all the machines are female too."

Mirchi said none of the machines in her house were gendered except her Roomba, which is decidedly male. "I have a hard time communicating with it and don't understand its behavior, so I think of it as male," she said.

The question is, why do even roboticists attribute gendered characteristics to something as clearly inanimate as a Roomba? "I think we want to anthropomorphize our robots," Mirchi said. "So we give them genders." She talked about a study done at the lab where she'd worked on robots in Japan, where researchers introduced a genderless robot to schoolchildren. With its boxy frame, the robot struck the children as male or female seemingly at random. "About fifty percent of the children called it female, and fifty percent male," she said. "But the gender each child chose for the robot had nothing to do with the child's gender."

Robins asked why certain machines are gendered female, while others are male. Ships - and, in science fiction, spaceships - are female. But soldier robots are male. Nobody could figure out what a tank's gender might be.

The speakers and the audience debated why ships are female, talking about how it was partly maternal because the ship protects its crew in a kind of womb. But it's also condescending, because of course the ship cannot do anything without being controlled.

Waterhouse talked about how robots in science fiction are often divided up into two groups: Fembots (who are generally sex bots or at least sexy) and hypermasculine military-style robots like Terminators or Robocop. Audience members noted that when the robots aren't particularly sexy or macho, like those in Wall-E, we still assign them genders. Perhaps, suggested one person, we want to give genders to robots in order to make them seem more human. Calling a robot "it," the way the humans do in Terminator, is intended to turn them into faceless enemies.

Mirchi described recent efforts in Japan to create robots who will be caretakers for the elderly or sick. These robots, she said, are deliberately created to be genderless. But the idea of creating a genderless robot, especially one that will interact a lot with people, seems doomed. Even schoolchildren assign random genders to robots designed to be genderless.

Panel members and the audience debated a lot about why people sometimes want to make their robots female, giving their GPS devices women's voices for example. Or why it's common to give automated instructions to pilots using male voices. Female voices are easier to hear over engine noise, but studies show that people follow instructions better when delivered by a male voice. Are our robot designs sexist, or pragmatic?

The question I was left with after the panel is what will happen to all these gendered robots in the future. If robots ever achieve human-level intelligence (or greater) will they want to be gendered, or will they view gender as something human-centric? Perhaps, in the end, robots will develop genders that mean nothing to humans, assigning specialized pronouns to wheeled robots, scorpion-shaped robots, insect-sized robots, and humanoid robots. Will relationships between the scorpions and insects be taboo?

One name came up again and again. It was the Flip Video, the little camera that changed the industry. While tech giants like Sony, Canon and Nikon were duking it out in the typical, spec-warring dSLR space, a relatively small company named Pure Digital Technologies developed a real piece of crap camcorder called the Pure Digital Point and Shoot. The video quality was absolutely atrocious for 2006. The name was obviously equally as bad.

But as technology improves, we're reaching the era of "good enough."

The Pure Digital Point and Shoot (later renamed the Flip Video/Mino) was pocketable, cheap ($180) and served an important function: It was the perfect YouTube camera. And that, in itself, was enough.

Because of Pure Digital's singular vision and perfect timing, not only did the camcorder quickly steal 13% of the camcorder market causing bigger companies start duplicating the Flip (with only moderate success), but Pure Digital was itself bought out by mega corp Cisco.

However, the Flip Video is not alone in under-performing game changers. You may remember way back to 2007 when a company we all kind of knew named Asus had something planned called the Eee PC.

Its screen was but 7-inches, and its storage was dwarfed by most iPods. But once again, the Eee was small, cheap ($245-$400) and served an important function: It was the near-perfect knock around computer. And that, in itself, was enough to drive the entire computer industry mad overnight.

I'm by no way implying that the technological arms race is over, that companies no longer care about building the fastest machines with the biggest storage and most ridiculous sticker prices. But a number of technologies are finding a new equilibrium of price and performance in the industry by knowing just where consumers are willing to settle.

These are devices that fulfill a functional niche, sure, but do so with the minimum amount of effort possible—keeping a unit price and bulkiness to a minimum. The breakthrough "good enough" product features the price and specs of a third tier product, the build quality of a second tier product and the design aesthetic of a first tier product. The hardware is fully capable, but it's just sort of...cheap...for lack of a better term.

And yes, like Wired, we have to marvel at how magnificent gadgets of yesterday—the ability to record something in HD (HD!)—became just a "good enough" gadget.

Of course, now we must wonder, what is the next Flip or Eee? What's the next technology that can have its bar set ever so lower but actually excite the public with a new, utilitarian form factor in the process?

If you know the answer to that question, you stand to make a good deal of money.

Energy could be harnessed from eternal sources, like the sun, the wind, or the seas. But there is only a limited amount of elements in planet Earth and—what's worst—bringing them from other planets will prove impractical with our current technology (and the technology that will be available in the next century).

In the meantime, copper—which is everywhere around you—will be gone in about 61 years; antimony—widely used in medicines—will be depleted in 20 years; while indium, rhodium, platinum, or silver—which are present in many essential consumer electronics—won't last much longer. And those estimations are only valid if we manage to consume half of what we are consuming now.

So, unless we really push technology forward, dramatically increase our recycling rhythm, or something extraordinary happens first—like Apophis obliterating us or the Large Hadron Collider blows us to another dimension, or Nazi zombies getting out of their crypts to make bacon of all of us—we and our children are going to have a really hard time pushing the world forward.

I guess we will have to keep taking life one weekend at a time. [New Scientist via Dark Roasted Blend]

The Post talks to several homeless people and advocates, but Chris, a recovering crack addict, probably has most the stereotype-busting story of all. He works various entry-level jobs and keeps his homelessness a secret from employers (for obvious reasons), but lost a job at a Verizon call center last year when his boss couldn't reliably get in touch with him. Now that he has a cellphone, employers can call him anytime they need an extra hand, and he's even been promoted at one of his jobs, despite being homeless.

Others use the phones to keep up with food stamps and various appointments or to take pictures—a million phones popped out when Michelle Obama worked at a soup kitchen, as pictured above. Many blog as well, with blogs hosted at Streats.tv. Really fascinating, it might change the way you look at the homeless: [Washington Post, Image: Martinez Monsivais/AP]

Spotted initially by CrunchGear, the movie links to a web site called What's In The Box, but the trail pretty much ends there. They don't have any ideas either.

If anything, it's just a cool short film that successfully combines gadgets, sci-fi and film making into a nice little package. That it apparently doesn't have any point whatsoever, and ends somewhat abruptly with a "singularity," well, that's another thing. For now, enjoy this on a lazy Sunday. [CrunchGear]

These bishops apparently issued a blanket suggestion against all technology, including iPods, Facebook, television, text messaging, and Twitter. While I understand the impulse to ban the latter, the bishops stated that they hoped a ban on text messaging would "draw attention to the conflict in Congo, which it says is fueled by a struggle over mines that supply minerals used to make cellphones." That's sort of reasonable and at the same time also totally unreasonable, in that nobody is going to make that connection unless their phones are inscribed with "MADE WITH THE BLOOD OF CONGOLESE MINERS" on the front.

The Pope, apparently, is still out there YouTubing, which kind of takes the sting out of the bishops' words. Is anybody out there giving up any sort of technology for lent? And if not, may I suggest Twitter? [LA Times]

Among the many online weather and emergency alert services, job listings, and the like, the Bush years also found a few more interesting new tools. The Library of Congress began posting photos of their incredible catalog on Flickr, for example, and the FBI created widgets for locating sexual predators and most wanted criminals. New tools for college students helped them find loans and compare schools, and finally we were able to pay taxes online. Diplomatic and Intelligence agencies jumped on the Wikipedia bandwagon with Diplopedia and Intellipedia, respectively.

Sure, it's not free broadband internet for all, but let's give credit where credit's due. That Flickr page is amazing! [Nick Thompson via Wired]

Kaczynski had appealed from jail that sale of his writings constitutes a violation of his freedom of expression, and while denying the appeal, a San Francisco Circuit Court also allowed that the University of Michigan receive copies of his work, in accordance with the crazy scary man's wishes. Let's hope that the method of sale really sticks in the craw of the anti-technology crusader, whose bombs killed 3 and wounded 23 over a period of 18 years. Hell, I'm even writing about the sale of his stuff on the internet, on the internet, from a source I found on the internet. It's a meta-feast of technology up in here. [San Francisco Chronicle]

Take this quote from the Washington Times:

Pointing to President Kennedy's challenge to put a man on the moon, Mr. Obama said: "I will set big goals for this country as president - some so large that the technology to reach them does not yet exist."

We all know saying and doing are two completely different things—especially when it comes to a presidential election. Hopefully, he will actually be able to pull some of this off. Hit the link for the rest of the list. [Junauza via Digg]

Results from "Do You Prefer a Paper Ballot or a Voting Machine?"

Which Do You Prefer?

Touchscreen 29%
Lever Machine 9%
Punch Card 3%
Paper (Optical Scan) 32%
Paper (Ballot Box) 20%
I Don't Care 6%

Which Did You Actually Use?

Touchscreen 26%
Lever Machine 7%
Punch Card 1%
Paper (Optical Scan) 42%
Paper (Ballot Box) 13%
I Didn't Vote 10%

CNN's holographic election coverage is fancy pantsy, but how did they manage to send 3D 360 degree footage of virtual correspondent Jessica Yellin from Chicago all the way to the station's election center in NY? As Arthur C. Clarke says, Magic. A magic made possible from technology Vizrt and SportVu with the help of forty-four HD cameras and twenty computers. Here are the details.

On the subject's side:
• 35 HD cameras pointed at the subject in a ring
• Different cameras shoot at different angles (like the matrix), to transmit the entire body image
• The cameras are hooked up to the cameras in home base in NY, synchronizing the angles so perspective is right
• The system is set up in trailers outside Obama and McCain HQ
• Not only is it mechanical tracking via camera communication, there's infrared as well
• Correspondents see a 37-inch plasma where the return feed of the combined images are fed back to them. Useful for a misplaced hair or an unseemly boogar
• Twenty "computers" are crunching this data in order to make it usable

On the HQ side:
• Only used on two out of 40-something total camera feeds that CNN has
• Wolf Blitzer really loves it (or loves Jessica Yellin):

It's still Jessica Yellin and you look like Jessica Yellin and we know you are Jessica Yellin. I think a lot of people are nervous out there. All right, Jessica. You were a terrific hologram.

• The delay is either minimal, or we've gotten used to satellite delay that we don't even notice now
• An array of computers takes the crunched info feed from the subject's side in order to mesh it with the video from Wolf's side.
• Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the images are actually "projected" onto the floor of the CNN studio so that Wolf can actually talk to the person, you know, in a face to face. So it's not quite Star Wars just yet. Only after computers merge the video feeds together do you get a coherent hologram + person scenario

• HiPER is being designed to demonstrate the feasibility of laser driven fusion as a future energy source. It will also enable the investigation of the science of truly extreme conditions – accessing regimes which cannot be produced elsewhere on Earth (temperatures of hundreds of millions of degrees, billion atmosphere pressures, and enormous electric and magnetic fields).

• HiPER will require major developments in technology, building on the highly successful European capability in this area. In particular, the PETAL laser, located in the Aquitaine region of France, will be a fore-runner to the HiPER facility to address physics and technology issues of strategic relevance for HiPER

Hopefully it will work out and we all would be able to party and have canapes and maki rolls to celebrate we can send oil to hell. [Telegraph]

The neatest bit (and most difficult to design) is that specific segments of the processor are arranged for optimum performance: timing delays and synchronization issues are thus minimized. Apparently it's the first 3D synchronization circuitry chip, and it's running at 1.4GHz. It's one possible future for chip tech (should we rename them "cubes"?) As the team leader puts it, horizontal fabbing tech is getting closer to its size limits, but "we're going to start scaling vertically, and that will never end." [HotHardware]

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