I came across this whilst looking artwork by Blade Runner conceptual artist Syd Mead.
Futurness is a online gallery of fictional and real life technology concepts, products, buildings and artwork with a 1950′s – 80′s Sci-Fi vibe. If you like retro tech, them you might get a kick out of these galleries. I know I do
Here’s a few examples -
Just think what we’ll be comparing our flash drives with in another 50 years.
It’s early morning, dark, wet and cold out there and soon I’ll be heading out for another early commute to work. Christmas might be just around the corner but an entertaining pick me up is just what I need before bracing the cold.
Cue Internet and this hilarious video from two Lord of the Rings fans who, despite Sean Bean’s famous ‘one does not simply walk into Mordor’ line decided after checking the film locations on a map of New Zealand, one (or two) could indeed simply walk to Mordor…it’s only 120 miles from Hobbiton.
The quest begins.
Thanks guys, just what I needed 
If you have a few minutes (actually a lot of minutes) then take a journey through time by visiting the Retronaut website and have a look at a huge collection of images covering a range of subjects grouped together timeline. Fancy a look at technology in the 1970′s, Art Deco buildings of the 20′s, propaganda posters from the 1940′s or fashion from the 1950′s? It’s all here and well having an explore to see what you can uncover.
Here’s a sample from some of the images that I’ve been viewing.
I bet she didn’t have to deal with Spam?
Paul Newman – Navy photograph
Suits for real men.
Vintage SciFi – Metropolis Movie Brochure.
I used to own one of these and they were NOT whisper quiet. However, the GLS model had a 7 seven dial instrument panel on the dash with looked super cool. Jet smooth? Hmm, maybe if you left the choke out!
Lunch time at Disney’s Canteen during the 1960′s
Oh my, they actually produced these 
One for the faux magazines produced for the Bladerunner movie set.
They should replace today’s often mundane health and safety posters for something a little more graphic like this one from 1920′s Soviet Union. Ouch, that’s gotta hurt!
Eek, I’ve been giving it to the birds instead!
Just a couple random tube videos I wanted to share -
The first is about a rather interesting Kickstarter project to produce a wifi enabled light bulb that can be controlled by a phone. There’s on/off/dimmer control as well as the ability change the exact colour. Freaky and awesome-ness – want one for photography experiments.
This next one also deserves the awesome-ness badge. Take one building, a group of students, a camera and a bit of stop motion processing and you end up with this.
Seven million views already and I bet a fair few dozen of those belong to me. Thanks for the link Rob, this one’s hilarious!
Hahaha, and with perfect timing too, a food photo just popped up on my FB feed
For a few weeks now I’ve been having a weird issue with my internet connection. All appears o.k for general surfing the web and transferring data around my LAN but whenever I try to download anything large than say 100mb via HTTP, it craps out an about 30%. At first I thought that this was an issue with Chrome as the success rate with Firefox seemed to be a little better especially with the ability to resume a failed download. A
As the days went by, even Firefox was having problems and then it came to be that it didn’t matter which browser I used or computer. Even my iPad struggled to download some of the larger apps. Incidentally, FTP and torrent files seemed ok and my client was happy to chug away at the latest Linux distro etc
A very weird problem and as one with a large number of possibilities, proved to be very difficult to research online for answers. My tests has ruled out any issues with my ISP.
After more head scratching, working my way through my router config and trying this and that I was started to run out of ideas. My router is usually left powered on and so I thought I’d go back to basics…i.e switch it on and off again.
Switched off……..waited…..switched on….POP…….oops!
Router is now dead.
Weird!
So, I never got to the bottom of the problem…maybe there was an underlining issue with my router after all and the reboot just finished it off?
Typical, having had the day off and working out in the garden I was looking forward to a bit of downtime online.
See me race to the PC store to pick up a new router, scan the box contents to make sure it supports all the bits and pieces a proper router should support…race back home….box open and probably the fastest bit of network kit I’ve set-up in ages
Woo and it’s got a USB port too, that’ll come in handy.
It’s now, whilst setting up the security do you realise how many wireless/wired devices you have!
So…my top tip…if you’re having issues with larger downloads, only reset your router at a time when you need the internet the least and also when the shops are still open in the event you need to nip out
I found this fantastic page that looks back at the early computers of the 1940-60′s and includes some wonderful photographs to accompany the article. Fascinating stuff indeed and well worth a look if you have the time….if not, ‘How about a nice game of Chess?’ 
As the article ends, it really does make you think about the capabilities of those room filling machines vs. that little mobile phone in your pocket!
http://royal.pingdom.com/2009/12/11/retro-delight-gallery-of-early-computers-1940s-1960s/
Got to work this morning and sat on my desk was this! No time for morning Coffee StiGGy, go go go!
CNET have posted additional photographs of the newly unveiled Microsoft Surface tablet and includes a rather interesting article that speculates the disappointment of previous hardware partners as it appears that the new tablet will be produced solely by Microsoft.
Microsoft unveiled their new tablet yesterday and although I’m still ploughing through all of the launch reviews, the photos hitting the net show it looking pretty darn cool. Loving Microsofts take on the Apple smart cover with integral touch keyboard on the back side. Let’s hope it’s actually usable.
Exciting times ahead and one I’ll be following closely. Being MS and,I’m guessing more open than Apple, who knows what opportunities the Surface tablet will provides us retro gaming enthusiasts?
Microsoft have a big opportunity here and although I’d doubt very much they could knock Apple of the spot in the consumer market it’s in the the corporate market that they could really shine considering their dominance as the number one for business/office software.
Currently watching the live stream from the second of two flight tests of Solar Impulse – a revolutionary solar powered aeroplane that can fly day or night. This two stage journey is precursory to a record breaking round the world flight scheduled for 2014. Fascinating stuff indeed and history in the making.
Yay, it looks like June is going to be a great month for new tech toys.
Firstly, I received and update email from Poland to advise that my new DIV IDE board for my ZX Spectrum’s has been shipped. I ordered this way way back in November last year and had the choice of having the, then, current model or wait out for the new and improved version. Not in any rush i decided to wait but as it happens, production has taken longer than expected. As a gesture of good will, the guy responsible for creating these little beauties has also included a brand new Spectrum joystick adaptor with pass through edge connector so it can be used without tieing up the Sepctrums cartridge port i.e can use a joystick and DIV IDE on older model ZX Spectrum.
So what is a DIV IDE? Well it’s a mass storage device (SD or CF) for ZX Spectrum computers allowing for software to run directly from modern storage cards almost in an instance. Just think how many games will fit on a single 4gb SD card!
For more info, and to place an order yourself, please visit Lothareks Lair
…and secondly, after waiting flippin ages and ages since sitting in the kitchen at stupid O’clock in the morning on the infamous release day of the Raspberry Pi, mine has finally been shipped and expected any day now. Many of my friends have already recieved there’s and I for one cannot wait to mess around with it.
Highly impressed with this, being a green fingered geek myself. It’s PC that’s been modded to grow wheat grass on top of the case and reuses the heat generated from the PC to aid seed germination.
Check out the full story and tons of photo here – http://www.totalgeekdom.com/?p=683
Inspiring stuff indeed.
The past few weeks, i’ve been playing around with a freebie mapping app called ‘Outside Maps‘ ‘ which displays open ordnance survey maps on my iPhone and used in conjunction with my phone’s compass and GPS functions which is proving to be an invaluable aid whilst out walking. The app has a whole list of features including setting waypoints and offline map pack downloads in the event that mobile or 3G signal is weak.
You can’t beat having a proper map with you though and I usually like to carry an appropriate OS Explorer map with me but having a little GPS ‘me’ moving along the map as I walk the route and having a directional indicator is rather fun!
I recently picked up a new walking book called the Robin Hood Way which details the 105 mile 18 stage walk from Nottingham Castle to Sherwood Forest, taking in many of the historical sites and countryside along the way. The book also contains 14 circular routes and and it’s one of these that I thought I’d use to test out the app.
Prior to heading out, I looked up the route area on the map, went to the offline download section and installed map tile packs for the area. They correspond to the Ordnance Survey maps and therefore are quite easy to figure out which are the current ones to get. Also, there’s a handy radius feature so for example, setting the slider to 10 miles will list will all tiles within a 10 mile radius from your current (or starting) position.
Data is supplied by the Ordanance Surveys OpenSpace and OpenMap initiatives which doesn’t have the same level of details right down to field boundaries like the OS Explorer range, but i’d say that they were on par with the OS Landranger series. Using the book as guide i placed various waypoints onto the map and although they might be slightly off course I would relocate any waypoints en route by simply tapping and dragging them around the map.
At the start position, I dropped a waypoint on the map and headed out to the next one via the rather handy ‘To next waypoint’ feature that gives you a compass bearing and indication on distance which counts down as you get closer. Along the way (and avoiding any encounters with ‘his band of merry men), i moved and added more waypoints to mark areas of interest and reference for when i walk this route again. Very handy for the amateur photographer!
The route itself uses a section of the Robin Hood trail which is well known and clearly marked through Fountain Dale, the alleged home of Friar Tuck and the place where he and Robin Hood met, fought and became lifelong friends. Further on as I leave the trail, the way becomes a little unclear and so I had to resort to the paper map to double check the app map due to the lack of detail. With the waypoints already entered and the compass to guide the way, you could quite happily rely on the app alone. However for me, who didn’t want to be trudging around looking for an overgrown trail or a hidden stile, I much preferred the OS Explorer map. Besides, those clouds behind me were chasing.
Stopping next to a small nature reserves to watch unknown black and white birds hover and perform aerial acrobats over the ploughed fields.
One of the beauties of modern technology and signal coverage means that one has the internet in the palm of ones hand and can use it out in the field…and so i did, Mr Google says that they were Lapwings!
After 4 hours of great walking and thankful that the clouds gave up chase, i arrived back at the start of the trail and eye-spied the refreshments cabin for bacon cobs and hot coffee.
Back home, I’ve used another feature of the app to export the waypoint GPS data (in the form of a .gpx file) and transfered it to my PC. You can either email the file to yourself via the in app mail client or copy the file to DropBox).
Using something like Google Earth, i can then import the data, amend the waypoints, add further notes and tag photos before saving for future use (or indeed share with other walkers).
My route in Google Earth.
On the iPad’s larger screen the app really is a pleasure to use – although you might need to tether an iphone if your iPad isn’t a GPS model. I also read that you can can import .gpx data into the app, but as of yet, i can’t figure out how to do it. Can anyone help?
O.k sure, so Outside Maps can’t compete with the zoom detail you find on the genuine Ordnance Survey apps but bearing mind that this is a completely free app, unlike the others that are very expensive, save yourself a bit of cash, try it out for yourself on a known route and buy some new walking boots instead
