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Gratis RFID umbrellas track movements, excite marketers
Dutch Umbrella -- a startup focusing its efforts in and around the city of brotherly love -- is looking to take the idea of courtesy umbrella rentals to a new level by incorporating RFID tags and marketers. Currently, the firm has landed eight partners that will toss logos on the stark white umbrellas and utilize the tantalizing tracking information that gets recorded each time a rainy day encourages patrons to grab some cover. Merchants are required to pony up $100 per month in order to receive the marketing intelligence, and can then use it to determine where umbrella carriers go once the downpour begins in order to better position future ads. Unfortunately, we tend to hear that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but there's probably not much truth to that.[Via DailyWireless]
Around Azeroth: A mushroomy sunset
Maybe I haven't spent enough time adventuring in Zangarmarsh (I do seem to jump straight from Hellfire Penninsula into Terokkar Forest on most characters), but I've never seen the sky quite this shade of pink. However, reader Humata of Twisting Nether (EU) managed to snag this impressive shot of the brilliant Zangarmarsh sky. Do you have a unique shot of Azeroth or Outland that you'd like to show off to the rest of the world? Tell us about it by e-mailing aroundazeroth@gmail.com! Or perhaps you'd just like to see more of your pics from Around Azeroth. %Gallery-1816%
Beijing Olympics to get Lenovo-designed torch, seeded clouds
Apparently, Lenovo kept enough staff on board to create the 2008 Olympic torch, as the firm's Cloud of Promise design was recently selected over 300 competing themes and will be "carried by torchbearers around the world in the Olympic Torch Relay preceding the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games." With Lenovo being a China-based firm, the company's chairman (Yang Yuanqing) stated that it was "an honor to have its torch design chosen," and oddly enough, that wasn't the only cloud-related Olympic news coming out of Beijing. Reportedly, meteorologists will be utilizing a process known as "cloud seeding" to force rain out beforehand and subsequently clear the filthy skies and alleviate the purported "50-percent chance of rain during the opening and closing ceremonies." Of course, this isn't exactly a push to become a greener society or anything, but at least the HD feeds from around the area will look a bit better during the competitions.Read - Lenovo designs Olympic torchRead - Cloud seeding in China
Asahi Kasei unveils singing Rain Sensor flower
We've got flowers that have seen fire, and now we're seeing ones that brave the rain, as Asahi Kasei's plainly-named Rain Sensor spends (quite literally) half its time perched outdoors awaiting those sprinkles. As you might expect, this two-part device consists of a mountable rain sensor that resides outside and connects wirelessly to the indoor monitor in order to alert you when it begins to drizzle. Presumably aimed at those who frequently leave their car windows down or wet clothes on the line, this little fella belts out a friendly jingle whenever its drop-sensing partner feels the water. Although there's always the "look out the window" approach, this device does indeed save you from focusing intently on what's happening outside in order to determine precisely when the first drop falls, but even if it doesn't seem worth the ¥3,980 ($33) asking price to you, be sure to click on through for a live demonstration anyway.[Via Plastic Bamboo]
Today's hottest game video: Wii forecast channel
What's the Wii weather forecast? Chili today, hot tamale! HO HO HO! Sorry, that's stuck in our head from some really flimsy joke book we read during our childhood. Apparently the joke doesn't really hold up, but it's about the only weather-related joke we've got at the moment. Today's hottest video covers the newly released Wii Forecast channel now gracing screens everywhere. If Nintendo would just release a Murder, She Wrote and a Matlock channel, they could really market this thing to seniors everywhere.Check out the video after the jump, and then look up the Wii-nter weather on a console near you.
Heavy Rain interview pours on the details
In this whopping 4 page interview with IGN, France-based development team Quantic Dream, who brought us Indigo Prophecy (or Fahrenheit for you foreigners) discusses their title Heavy Rain. Founder and CEO David Cage, COO and Executive Producer Guillaume de Fondaumière, and Lead Character Designer Thierry Prodhomme were all on hand to reveal more information on the title than there was available at E3 a month ago. The interview reveals that Heavy Rain will not be a direct sequel to Indigo Prophecy and is a "dark film noir thriller with mature themes." The team is also tossing out the Sci-Fi elements of Indigo Prophecy and aim to ground Heavy Rain totally in reality. Heavy Rain is currently slated for a Fall 2008 release.
Cellphone towers beat radar at detecting rain, say researchers
Proving once again that wireless technology isn't all bad, researchers from the University of Tel Aviv have determined that cellphone towers are as good as, if not better than, traditional meteorological techniques at measuring rainfall patterns. The team took data already documented by the carriers about each tower's signal strength over time and compared it to information that had been collected by radar and rain gauges, and found that not only did the towers accurately detect the electromagnetic disturbances inherent to storms, but that the degree of change in signal strength was directly proportional to actual rainfall. While widespread utilization of this data could probably have an immediate effect on forecasting if combined with current methodology, the researchers have an even more ambitious goal of detecting signal variations from the end-user -- that is, on consumers' handsets -- for aggregation into even more precise and localized reports once weather-related changes can be teased out from among the many other signal strength variants.[Via Slashdot]
