Cargo bikes are cool.

When I was in Peru last year, we saw tons of these cool cargo bikes.

If I could have shipped one home, I would have. Seeing the prices of these, I wish I had ordered one. Super cool though. Treehugger has a review of several high end cargo bikes here.

Casio Exilim EX-F1 Slow-Mo Super Cam

I love my Cameras, and love taking pictures. I thought I had an awesome pairing, but now I want a trio. I have a Canon Digital Rebel SLR, a great camera with several lenses. I also have a Pentax waterproof camera, a great little camera for on the river, that takes great pictures on land and fits in a pocket. Gizmodo has a review out of the Casio Exilim camera, which makes me want a third. It's main claim to fame, super slow-mo pictures. Up to 1200 frames per second. I can't imagine that, but even 60 FPS is awesome. I'd love to take shots of my friends running a waterfall, and getting full resolution shots for the every inch of the drop. Check out the videos of them blending a tomato.

A detailed review full of "I want it" goodness here:
Casio Exilim EX-F1 Slow-Mo Super Cam Full Review (Verdict: Totally Unique, Shockingly Powerful)

30 electric cars available now or soon...

I was talking about electric cars just yesterday. They still have many limitations, cost, range and charging times. But they are getting close. I could see my wife and I sharing an electric car and a conventional car or hybrid. Use the electric for much of the day to day stuff, the hybrid or conventional for longer trips. If there was an electric car with the room and drivability of our Honda Fit, for less than 20K, I'd strongly consider it. Venture Beat blog has a seemingly comprehensive list of electric car manufactures:
30 electric cars companies ready to take over the road » VentureBeat

VW finishes development of BlueTDI; 60 mpg Jetta coming to U.S. this summer - AutoblogGreen

Diesel cars are on the rise. A 60 MPG Jetta Wagon could be my next car...

VW finishes development of BlueTDI; 60 mpg Jetta coming to U.S. this summer - AutoblogGreen

Google is the worlds #1 Brand...

As a student of brands, the web, free tools, and marketing, I find it amazing and simultaneously not suprising that Google is the worlds #1 Brand, according to Millward Brown. They define the value of the brand as "Brand Value is the financial value of a brand, defined as the sum of all earnings that a brand is expected to generate." Even more remarkable, they are a brand that gives away much of their product. Read the full report - BrandZ-2008-Report.pdf (application/pdf Object)

I started thinking about the Google services I use frequently, and it's an impressive list (listed in rough order that I use them).

Gmail
Free

Blogger
Free (mostly, I pay to have the custom domain)

Bookmarks
Free

Notebook
Free

Calendar
Free

Search
Free

AdWords
Pays me

Google Maps (on the computer and my phone)
Free

Picassa
Free

Picassa Web Albums
Free

Google Talk
Free

Google Groups
Free

Google Documents
Free

Goog-411
Free

SketchUp
Free

YouTube
Free

Groups
Free



Something makes me think I'm missing a few. Impressive.

For a full list of available Google Products, click here.

Using the power of crowds for bicycling and commuting

No hybrid will ever match the efficiency of a bike for getting around, I've been an avid cyclist since I was 13 or so. But finding good routes can be difficult. Bikely uses the power of crowds to develop a database of bicycle routes, with descriptions, that are mapped on Google maps. Pretty sweet.

Bikely

Craigslist Image Preview in Firefox

This tool combines two tools I really like, and makes them easier to use. I shop and sell and recycle on Craigslist. There is a firefox extension that displays the images from with the ads, without having to click on the links. Looking for a bike or a car? Scroll quickly and see what looks like what you are looking for. Simply, but super effective. I used it recently while shopping for a tandem bike, and it worked super well.

Get it here

Google now predicts the future. Not a Joke.

Ok, so it's only future traffic patterns, but still, pretty damn cool.

In about 30 markets, when you look at Google Maps, and click on the "traffic" button, it will show you current traffic patterns. But look for the button to change the time, and you can change the day of the week and time of day, and Google will tell you what traffic to expect.

Of course, it uses past data to predict based on patterns, so a wreck or other anomaly would not be included, but it would allow you to see whether there are patterns in traffic, and perhaps reroute.

Pretty cool. Now if only this would be incorporated into a car based GPS, and done in real time to calculate the best route. Imagine if Google plotted your route, but knew that a certain area got slow at 5:25 every evening, and your route would take you past there, so it re-routed. That'd be cool.

maps.google.com

Magic Pen - Cool Physics game

Ok, so this is outside of the normal stuff I'd put on this blog, but this is a super addictive little web based physics game. Give it a try.
http://magic.pen.fizzlebot.com/

Do you do web design? Here are some very helpful webdeveloper extensions.

The Technology Bites blog has a post about Useful Firefox extensions. I've bookmarked several of them for looking at later, but there are three on their list that I've been using for quite some time.

• Web Developer Toolbar -This extension adds a toolbar to your Firefox menus, with an incredible host of tools available. Simple put, I can't figure out how I got away without it. Try it.
• FireFTP - FireFTP puts FTP in your firefox browser. Works well, seems quick, simple and easy to use. I've had some small issues using it, I get menus (like right-click menus) that don't get away when they should, but it mostly works.
  
• ColorZilla - Is great for figuring our colors. Click the button, hovor over a color you like, and click it. The Color will be picked, and you can send anyone of several color code formats to your clipboard to paste into something else.
  

Google Notebook

Here's another tool I've been using for awhile. As often as I use it, I haven't blogged about it before. Over at Google Operating System they noted that Google has rolled out some new features for google notebook. But first, what is Notebook? It's exactly what it sounds like. As you cruise the web, if you see something interesting, highlight it, right-click (with Firefox or Explorer extenstions installed) and save it to your notebook. You can have as many notebooks as you want, so it's easy to have Notebooks for different subjects. You can also share Notebooks with other users, which is awesome. When I was in school, we used features like this to create a central Notebook that several of us used to work on group projects. When my wife and I were planning our last vacation, we used Notebook while planning. I use it all the time for work. Simple, but very useful.

Some features:

• Publish a notebook online, so anyone can see it. Or not.
  
• Share you notebook for collaborative notetaking.
  
• You can publish an RSS feed of your notebook.
  
• You can clip text, pictures or links. They are saved with a link back to the original page.
  
• Of course, you can search your notebooks.
  
• You can export to Google Documents. From there, you can export to Word. For those of us that still work in Desktop apps part of the time, it'd be very nice to be able to do this in one step instead of 2.
  
• Your notes are available on any net connected computer
  

Give it a try, and let me know if you come up with any really cool uses.
Google Notebook
The FAQ

Recycle your electronics carefully

I'm a geek for shiny toys, and willing to admit it. I try and keep my consumption resonable, my laptop is approaching three years old, my desktop is an anchient box running Linux, and my Mac (for testing web designs) is an OLD G3. But right now, I can count 6 computers (I've got some "Make" style hacks intended for 2 of them) in my office. Three I use, and the others. I know there are at least 2 others in the house. Plus at least 3 old phones and misc other electronics.

Reading this amazing National Geographic article about the global environmental implications of electronic waste is sobering. Some numbers from the article.

"an estimated 30 to 40 million PCs will be ready for "end-of-life management" in each of the next few years."
" In the fashion-conscious mobile market, 98 million U.S. cell phones took their last call in 2005. All told, the EPA estimates that in the U.S. that year, between 1.5 and 1.9 million tons of computers, TVs, VCRs, monitors, cell phones, and other equipment were discarded. If all sources of electronic waste are tallied, it could total 50 million tons a year worldwide, according to the UN Environment Programme."

And what happens to that old gear is sometimes surprising and sickening. Much of it, even if you drop it off to be recycled, is sold to brokers who ship it to countries like China and Ghana, where the lack of regulation creates industries that pollute horribly and threaten the health and safety of their workers. Hardly a satisfying solution.

Some ideas-

Re-use is of course, always better than recycling.

• Is there someone in your life that could use that old computer? A student, a single mom, a charity? Even if it's old, you might be suprised at the very decent level of performance that a Linux operating system can extract from an old machine. And a linux installation like Ubuntu can be very user friendly, with tons of free software available. Ask your favorite geek for help if you need it. Or if you live near Berkeley, contact these guys. I've dropped stuff off there before. They use the rebuilding for job training, and donate the final products. Looks like the accept stuff from other places too, with shipping, or you can possibly find something similar closer to home.
  
• There are charities that take old cell phones and recycle them for various causes. Google has lots of options, including selling it, giving it to soldiers,and others.
  

Remember, that computer/cell phone/PDA still has value, and should be treated carefully. Don't toss them, and don't let them just collect dust. It's unlikely you'r ever going to use or need that 15 inch VGA monitor again, so dig it out of the closet and put it to good use.

Geoff

Bird Identification - WhatBird

We have a bird nesting in our backyard, and I didn't know what it was. (I'm a tiny bit of a bird geek. ) I went online to look it up, and discovered this cool site.

It takes you through a series of questions to identify the bird. Sort of 20 questions. I found it remarkably fast, and the final answer certainly looked just like the bird outside.

Very cool. I'm almost enough of a geek that I want it on my phone for remote identification.

WhatBird.com

No lefts? This could be an awesome Google Maps or GPS feature...

UPS has gotten significant press for their use of software to maximise efficiency in their route planning. (See this New York Times article) The article claims that through efficient route planning, including the elimination or minimization of left hand turns, they have had some astonishing results.

the software helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons.

At $3 a gallon for fuel, that's $9 million in savings. I wonder what it cost to implement?

How cool would it be if this was a feature in Google Maps or a GPS unit? You enter all the errands you need to do in a day, in any order, and it spits out the most fuel efficient and time efficient options, especially if it took traffic data into account.

Jott - How I love thee....

Jott is one of those super simple tools. It really has one trick, it does it well, and I find myself using it all the time.

Jott is a voice to text transcription service. You call it with your cell phone, and then are asked "Who do you want to Jott?" These have to be set up ahead of time, but you can Jott any email address, your Google Calendar, RememberTheMilk, even Blogger. After you select your Jott, simply speak the message. You're done.

I use it for two things primarily, and it works great. I have an email based ToDo list, and since I drive a lot, I have a lot of time to think. When I have an idea or something I need to do, it's speed-dial 2 on my phone and I speak. When I get home or in front of a computer, there is the reminder, sitting it my ToDo box. I also find it easier to add events to my calendar than using the interface on my smart phone. I find the translations are mostly surprisingly accurate.

Caveat-
I've heard there might be humans involved in checking the translation, so this might not be the place to share your plans for global domination through insider trading and assassination.

Jott is free currently. Not sure how they make money, since I rarely need to go to their web interface and the notes have no ads.

www.Jott.com