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Jamie Foxx to play Lynch in Kane and Lynch film
According to the Twitter account of Kane and Lynch screenwriter Kyle Ward, it seems that Lynch will be played by Academy Award winning actor ... Jamie Foxx. Huh? Tweeting last night that it's a "Done deal ... Jamie Foxx is in," Ward outed the star of Ray as one half of the game adaptation's titular team (Bruce Willis is allegedly signed on for the role of Kane). When asked about whether Foxx would be playing Nathan Drake in the upcoming Uncharted film (also being written by Ward, though he was said to be taken off writing duties some time ago), he clarified, "Foxx for Lynch (Kane/Lynch)," pinning Foxx to the long-haired half of the duo. What's really surprising is that the film's producers didn't go with Kevin Gage (Heat's "Waingro"). Come on -- they look identical! [Via ShackNews]
MIT gurus use polyethylene to suck heat away from your next CPU
Man, MIT is making all of these other places of higher learning look silly. For what seems like the fortieth time this month, scientists at the university have revealed yet another breakthrough that might just change the way we compute in the future. Polyethylene, which is about as common a polymer as they come, could very well become a vital part of the way your next processor is cooled, as MIT boffins have figured out how to cause said polymer to "conduct heat very efficiently in just one direction, unlike metals, which conduct equally well in all directions." If you're still struggling to figure out why this matters, have a listen at this: "this may make the new material especially useful for applications where it is important to draw heat away from an object, such as a computer processor chip." In fact, even Intel is taking notice of the development, though no one's saying outright when exactly this stuff will leave the lab and hit Dell's supply chain. There's no time like the present, guys. [Thanks, Kevin]
Sanyo's Eneloop Kairo hand warmers just barely beat Old Man Winter to America
Sanyo's Eneloop line of wares have been slowly but surely crossing the Atlantic (or the Pacific, depending on the preferred route of the day) for some time now, but the all-too-enticing Eneloop Kairo has managed to stay far, far away from North America. Until now, of course. As winter sets in across much of the mainland, Sanyo has just started selling the hand warmers to frigid Yanks. The KIR-SE1S is a single-sided, egg-shaped device that ships in white and pink hues, while the double-sided KIR-SL2S (available in silver and pink) is designed to heat those who feel as if they're living life within an icebox. The single-sided version promises up to four hours of warmth on a full charge, while the two-sided model delivers one to three hours depending on what setting you select. Check 'em out soon for $34.99 and $44.99 in order of mention.
Heat diodes give thermal computing a fighting chance
Anyone who has tried their hand at overclocking recognizes just how evil waste heat is, and we're guessing that one Wataru Kobayashi at Waseda University in Japan understands explicitly. He, along with a few colleagues, has recently devised a new diode that allows heat current to travel in one direction but not in the other. The breakthrough essentially paves the way for thermal computing to actually take off, with obvious applications including heat sinks for microprocessors. Kobayashi, who may or may not be able to eat a dozen hot dogs per minute in his spare time, also hopes that his discovery will lead to a thermal transistor, thermal logic gates and a thermal memory. The future's yours, friend.
Gearbox gives up on Heat, says IP is up for grabs ... kinda
Ever since Heat's 1995 cinematic debut, aggression-soaked psychos (like ourselves) have been clamoring for a game adaptation of the crime drama. Gearbox Software prez Randy Pitchford agreed as well, optioning the rights to develop a game back in the mid-oughts. Fast forward to 2009, and GameSpot drops the hammer on him during a Borderlands press tour. "So what is the current status of the Heat game?" In so many words: Kaput. "In a nutshell, we're nowhere," Pitchford said. And it's not for a lack of trying, as "filmmakers, game makers, and publishing partners" are all still apparently on board. He says, more or less, it's a matter of time -- or lack thereof. Due to time constraints, Pitchford says that his studio won't be keeping the rights to the game adaptation of Heat any longer. "We're not keeping the IP locked down anymore ... if somebody else were in a spot where they could do it, and everybody was comfortable with that, then conceivably that could happen." So, how about it, aggression-soaked entrepreneurs? Hmmm?
Water-cooled Aquasar supercomputer does math, heats dorm rooms
Not that we haven't seen this trick pulled before, but there's still something magical about the forthcoming Aquasar. Said supercomputer, which will feature two IBM BladeCenter servers in each rack, should be completed by 2010 and reach a top speed of ten teraflops. Such a number pales in comparison to the likes of IBM's Roadrunner, but it's the energy factor here that makes it a star. If all goes well, this machine will suck down just 10KW of energy, while the average power consumption of a supercomputer in the top 500 list is 257KW. The secret lies in the new approach to chip-level water cooling, which will utilize a "fine network of capillaries" to bring the water dangerously close to the processors without actually frying any silicon. While it's crunching numbers, waste heat will also be channeled throughout the heating system at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, giving students and dorm room crashers a good feel for the usefulness of recycled warmth.
All the World's a Stage: So you want to be a Blacksmith
This installment of All the World's a Stage is the thirty-second in a series of roleplaying guides in which we find out all the background information you need to roleplay a particular race or class (or profession!) well, without embarrassing yourself. Blacksmiths are known for being brawny folk -- hammering pieces of metal together is not easy work after all. But in World of Warcraft, even the smallest gnome or scrawniest elf can be a great blacksmith. Azeroth is a land where even the smallest people can wield the biggest of axes, so it would follow that they could craft them too, as well as any other sort of armor or weapon that they could imagine.Typically, however, even in Azeroth, blacksmiths are, by and large, members of a class that can use plate mail and heavy weapons, such as a warrior, a death knight, or a paladin, just as tailors are usually spellcasters of some kind. So even if a blacksmith appears scrawny on the outside, he or she is very likely still quite brawny on the inside. Underneath that elf's pretty skin are muscles of steel!Being a blacksmith implies a state of mind as much as it does a state of body, however. Working with metals is not something for the light hearted. The weight, the heat, and all the soot are not for people who like to keep their clothes clean at all times, for instance. It's also not a very socially-oriented profession, requiring long hours spent hammering away at something until it reaches perfection, often using lots of material in the learning process before you finally get one right. Blacksmiths of lore tend to be patient and hardy people, tempered and perfected by their work, like good, hard steel.
Heat2power sucks on exhaust gases for extra mileage
The concept of turning waste heat into energy is hardly new, but it looks like it's getting a little closer to your engine these days. Heat2power is similar to other systems that are designed to take the excess heat that normally goes out the exhaust pipe and turn it into go power, but the claim is that this one bests them on efficiency -- to the tune of reducing fuel consumption 20 percent in the city and 35 percent on the highway. The best news is that the device, which hooks right into the crankshaft, is compatible with "any" internal combustion engine. Of course, that's big talk for a company that doesn't have an exact product yet. It also seems like retrofitting would be a bit rough. The estimated additional cost to a vehicle is in the range or 300 to 400 euros (about $500 US).[Via Autoblog Green]
Belkin justifies $30 for a pillow, calls it CushDesk
If you're still up for spending unnecessarily these days, Belkin has the perfect excuse to blow 30 bones on a couch pillow replacement. The oddly, almost comically named CushDesk, is nothing more than a sophisticated lap cushion with a somewhat sturdy top that acts as a portable tabletop for your molten-hot laptop. It's available in a number of soothing hues, and while it's fully compatible with mobile PCs and Macs up to 17-inches in size, we're still waiting to hear back about compatibility with UMPCs, MIDs and Linux-based netbooks.
New cooling material keeps heat down in densely packed electronics
Oh sure, liquid cooling rigs are all the rage, but they aren't too useful within minuscule things like netbooks, MIDs and pocket projectors. The always churning minds over at Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft are already on the issue, recently conjuring up a new material designed to "efficiently dissipate heat even in devices with densely packed components and that can give increasingly miniaturized electronics a longer life." Researchers at the entity's Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Applied Materials Research have teamed with gurus from Siemens and Plansee to create the substance as part of the EU project "ExtreMat." Unfortunately, details beyond that are few and far between, but given that demonstrations have reportedly "already been produced," we'd say it's well on its way to infiltrating things far smaller than your mind can grasp.
EcoDrain heat exchanger makes good use of warm waste water
File this one directly in the "why didn't I think of that?" folder. As the bathroom gets more and more eco-friendly, the EcoDrain is stepping in to take advantage of all the hot water that goes to waste each time you shower. Put simply, this user-installed heat exchanger transfers heat from hot shower waste water to cold incoming water, essentially cutting water heater usage by as much as 40 percent. Of course, we've never seen a plumbing job that was anything close to simple, but for savings like this, it may just be worth the trouble.[Via Inhabitat]
Kolon's heated Sport Life Saver III makes a trip to Yellowknife totally doable
Kolon's Sport Life Saver III doesn't include any fancy extras like built-in Bluetooth, speakers or a pocket specially designed to keep old tater tots warm, but it does include an integrated heating module to keep your blood from chilling. Redesigned from the ground-up, this here coat sports a supple Gore-Tex Proshell 3L shell, a "survival kit," compass and a translucent hood. The standout feature, obviously, is the HEATEX function which provides heat of around 95 or so degrees Fahrenheit, though we're not told exactly how it's powered. Sadly, we're also left clueless when it comes to pricing and availability, but those who've been avoiding the slopes for fear of frigidness will probably pay just about anything.[Via BeSportier]
Waste heat close to becoming useful in cooling / lighting applications
Not that waste heat in general hasn't been repurposed for non-wasteful activities before, but researchers at Doshisha University are now edging ever closer to making useful the previously annoying thermoacoustic phenomenon. For those not really tied into the science realm, said phenomenon is a nonlinear one in which "heated air autonomously transforms into sound when passing through small mesh holes in a wire sheet." Gurus are now developing a cooling technology that would have heat converted to sound, where it would then be transferred through a tube and reconverted into heat; furthermore, other whiz-kids are looking to generate actual electricity from the racket. In related news, the thermoelectric conversion is being used to transform waste heat from candles into energy for LEDs, which would emit more light than the candle powering it. Pop on past the break for a demonstration of the former.
Christmas gifts Apple could give me
It's the Holiday Season, and over the years I have happily spent a lot of my XMAS money with our favorite fruit named company. My love affair with Apple products goes back to the venerated Apple II. I do have a couple of PC laptops in the house, and of course I can also run Vista on VMWare Fusion, but I'm pretty much a Mac guy through and through. Always have been. Always will be.Nevertheless, I'd like to find some gifts from Apple under my tree this year. They are not big deals, but would be greatly appreciated. So Kris Kringle, if you're listening, pass these on to Mr. Jobs and friends. How about some documentation? I know Steve thinks books are dead, but in the old days Apple documentation was really first rate. Remember that old MacWrite manual? Apple, I know you are in the electronics business, but reading help files on a laptop screen that covers up the application I am trying to learn is a bit of a pain. When you release an update to an iPod, iPhone or OS X how about telling me what the update really does. I know you have gotten better at this, but why should people have to guess all the features and fixes that you have put in? Just own up to it and trust your customers. Find another partner in addition to AT&T for the iPhone. My phone is a great product that is significantly damaged by an inferior, unreliable network. To me, "more bars in more places" means I'm looking for bars to find a stiff drink so I can recover from my frustration with dropped calls, poor signal strength, and sporadic 3G coverage. A lot of your products get really warm. My MacBook Pro can be a sizzler on my lap. My Mac Pro keeps my office pretty warm, and I don't need those high temperatures since I'm in Arizona. Don't get me started on the Apple TV. I do think it is a great product, but I'm thinking I could make a fondue on that top surface. There is no fan in the Apple TV and when I put it in standby to spin down the hard drive it wakes up by itself paying no attention to my command. If I want to be ignored, I can walk into any Home Depot. (Update: Some users say the Apple TV does have a fan. I regret the error. It's still too darned hot!) OK. it's not a big list, but it's a list just the same. What's on yours? And to all, a good night!
Another team figures out how to convert waste heat into energy
Not that mad scientists haven't figured out a way to convert waste heat into energy, but a team from Ohio State University has developed a new material that does the same sort of thing... just way, way better. The new material goes by the name thallium-doped lead telluride, and at least in theory, it could actually convert exhaust heat from vehicles into electricity. According to a new report about to hit the journal Science, the material packs "twice the efficiency of anything currently on the market," though it still seems as if it's a good ways out from being ready for commercial applications. Nanotechnology geeks -- you've got a real treat waiting in the read link.[Via CNET]
USB-powered HEAT ME stirrer: a coffee addict's dream
We'll go ahead and squash your hopes before you waste time pulling out the plastic -- this thing's just a concept, at least for now. From what we can glean, the HEAT ME is a fantastic device just waiting to be snapped up by Brando (or similar) and turned into the next must-have USB-powered gizmo. Put simply, the metal ends of this here stick warm up when plugged into your USB port, thus giving you a toasty wand to keep your hot tea / coffee at the proper temperature even when colleagues pull you away momentarily. Really though, is there any doubt this won't go commercial within the next six months?[Via Coolest-Gadgets]
They're no Ocean 2, but Helio busts out White Mysto and Red Heat
Just because Virgin's scooping up Helio doesn't necessarily mean the product parade needs to stop (not to say it was moving at anything more than a glacial pace to begin with), and to that end, the MVNO has just released its Mysto and Heat models in white and red, respectively. The creatively-named White Mysto and Red Heat are initially available exclusively to the Korean community -- a strategy Helio has used before -- and there's no word on if or when they'll be outed on a wider scale. We would've preferred an Ocean 2 release here, but at the very least, you've got to admit that these new colors suit 'em well.[Via Heliocity]
ElectraTherm's Green Machine converts waste heat into electricity
Converting residual industrial heat into something usable (read: electricity) has proven to be more than a novel concept on more than one occasion, and ElectraTherm's giving the process one more vote of confidence by installing its Green Machine at Southern Methodist University. Just this past week, the firm flipped on its first commercial waste heat generator at the Dallas-based institution, with hopes to generate "fuel-free, emissions-free electricity at three to four cents per kW/hr during payback period and under a penny/kW hour thereafter." The 50kW rig has so far exceeded expectations, and the firm is now forecasting that its units will have a "subsidy-free payback period of three years or less." Of course, we aren't told exactly how many zeros reside on the left of the decimal or anything, but folks in the area can get a tour of the installation later this month.[Image courtesy of Jetson Green]
Heat from data center used to warm Swiss swimming pool
Here's a novel idea: rather than stressing over the choice between solar or hydroelectric power sources to keep that green data center running, just build the thing near a community pool. Apparently that's exactly what's happening in Uitikon, Switzerland, as an IBM-built center erected for GIB-Services AG is using its excess heat to warm a local swimming pool. Put simply, the warmth emitted by the computers will be piped through a heat exchanger to boost the temperature of water used in the neighboring pool, and while the town had to cover some of the equipment costs to make it come together, it'll reap the oh-so-steamy benefits for free.[Via FashionFunky, thanks Yash]
Alienwarez: Bios released to fix overheating Area-51 m15x rigs
Drop those pitchforks m15x owners and prepare to update, Alienware just released a fix to your overheating (and downclocking) problems. A new beta BIOS -- X29b P3A30 -- features a few tweaks including the ability to spin-up the fan to a new 5400rpm max. So more noise for more speed; sounds like a reasonable trade-off to us. Unfortunately, the new BIOS is only available if you email area51_m15x@alienware.com for a copy. A general release is expected shortly. Until then, however, it looks like all m15x shipments are on hold. Ouch. [Via Laptop, thanks Kris J.]
