Archive for August, 2008

Hasselblad H3DII-50

Streaking naked across the boundary between film and digital imaging quality is this medium-format DSLR from Hasselblad (www.hasselbladusa.com). Using a giant 36 x 48mm CCD sensor from Kodak, the H3DII-50 snaps 50MP images until you run out of storage. (An even larger sensor, the 645, should be unveiled before you read this.) We could throw specs at you, but when a DSLR costs $39,995 and has an imaging sensor with its own cooling system, you can assume it’s a fairly serious piece of kit. Options include a GPS attachment, plus Hasselblad’s innovative HTS 1.5 system that brings lens tilt and shift tricks to medium-format cameras.
Klipsch Palladium P-38F

Trickle-down theory works, at least as applied to tech gizmos. We love it when an innovator follows up an impressive high-end achievement with a lower-cost version. Take Klipsch (www.klipsch.com) with this new floorstanding speaker ($12,000 per pair), a direct descendent of the $20,000 per pair Palladium P-39F. The P-38F’s resemblance to its big brother goes deeper than its beautiful, eco-friendly Linia veneer. It uses the same Tractrix horn-loaded midrange and supertweeter as the P-39F, and it underpins them with a trio of 8-inch hybrid woofers. Klipsch also sells a triple 12-inch subwoofer unit and peripheral speakers in the Palladium series, so you can outfit your home theater as easily as your audio sanctum.
Volkswagen One-Litre Car

Forgive us for taking liberties with the parameters of “dream hardware” for a sec—when a car manages 264mpg on diesel without using even hybrid technology, it gets noticed (www.volkswagen.com). This concept car has been in mothballs since 2002, but with the oil crunch and the resurgent green movement, some think that its hour has come ’round at last. With a CFP (carbon fiber-reinforced plastics) monocoque and a reliance on magnesium and titanium parts, the whole two-seat car only weighs about 639 pounds. The “One-Litre” part doesn’t refer to the car’s 0.3L single-cylinder, but rather to the amount of fuel it takes to drive roughly 100km. Three video cameras take the place of mirrors. A report in the UK’s Car (www.carmagazine.co.uk) predicted a limited production run of modified One-Litres in a couple of years, but VW of America’s press and PR director Steve Keyes called the story incorrect. “There are no plans to introduce the car in 2010,” he said—which, you’ll notice, doesn’t exactly say “never ever.”

Sorry Absolute Zero, you’re going to have to cut your pr0n downloads down to 8Gb/day

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/Comcast-Internet,news-2501.html

Looks like the mopar boys are the new unofficial king of the ring.  So the GTR/vette sound like well polished high performance machines.  The viper sounds like a dinosaur with a jetpack on its back trying to race its way out of a collapsing cave.  Now thats what I call exciting!

Viper

Ok so i’m an organist and what not.  The church I play for is building a new church and i’m in charge of what new instruments will go into this building.  SO, in the quest for the most epic digital organ EVER, i’m always on the lookout for new technologies.  Marshall & Ogletree make some amazing instruments.  They capture every nausence of sound and transfer it until digital form.  SO, without going into too much detail about organs, basically there’s no digital organ/sound system that can reproduce the lowest notes on the organ at a clean/clear/high dB.  32′ and 64′ pipes on an organ reproduce sounds in the 8-16hz range.  All cone subwoofers roll off around 18-20hz.  So these guys bundled up with http://www.eminent-tech.com/ to install a ‘rotary woofer’ that can produce infrasonic sound down to 1hz.  I mean wtf….that kind of wave movement will kill you at high enough pressures.  It’s kind of funny, it looks like an oversized desk fan but the technology is really cool.  The whole system installed is about $20k, only requires a 200w amp, but you need a whole attic worth of space.  Apparently the rotary woofer has been around for quite some time (and is patent pending hahah) but its the first i’ve heard of it.

Check out where the headlights are, sweetness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pwabDeqVi8&feature=related