http://yellinglizard.com Technology News from the Lizard Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:47:53 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en A flying car devised by a British inventor and a team of engineers took off from London on Wednesday on an epic journey to Timbuktu, Mali, in West Africa -- a trip they hope will prove the fantasy has become reality.The "Skycar" is a road-legal all-terrain buggy with a huge ... http://yellinglizard.com/2009/01/14/flying-car-takes-high-road-to-timbuktu/ A sea-going robotic glider that harvests heat energy from the ocean has been tested by US scientists. The yellow, torpedo-shaped machine has been combing the depths of seas around the Caribbean since December 2007. The team which developed the autonomous vehicle say it has covered "thousands of kilometres" during the tests. The team ... http://yellinglizard.com/2008/02/09/robot-glider-harvests-ocean-heat/ Ryuta Kawashima, the researcher behind Nintendo's Brain Age series of games for the DS portable system, would rather be working than enjoying $11 million in royalties he could have earned from his creations. Instead, he used the proceeds to help fund $6.5 million in construction projects on Tohoku's campus."My hobby is ... http://yellinglizard.com/2008/02/05/game-researcher-ducks-millions-in-royalties/ Amazon.com, which has been rapidly adding digital downloads to its vast Web store, said on Thursday that it had agreed to buy Audible, the largest online seller of audiobooks. Amazon will pay $300 million in cash for the company, or $11.50 a share, a 23 percent premium to the stock’s closing ... http://yellinglizard.com/2008/02/03/amazon-to-buy-audiobook-seller-for-300-million/ Having a tornado demolish her home was bad enough. But when Ann Beam received a $2,000 cable bill a few weeks later, she was floored. "I just couldn't believe it," Beam said. "I was like, 'What are they thinking?'" Time Warner Cable billed a number of Wheatland residents for equipment destroyed ... http://yellinglizard.com/2008/01/31/tornado-victim-billed-for-cable-devices/ Apple has postponed the release of the Apple TV software update by a week or two, saying it needed more time to finish the upgrade that would let people rent movies directly from their televisions. In delaying the Apple TV upgrade, the company said the software wasn't quite finished. "Apple now ... http://yellinglizard.com/2008/01/31/apple-delays-apple-tv-software-update/ The wireless data network operated by AT&T Mobility had returned to service for most customers by Thursday afternoon, a company spokeswoman said, and should be working for the rest of the customers by evening. "Service for our Edge and 3G networks was disrupted for customers in the Midwest and Southeast, but ... http://yellinglizard.com/2008/01/31/att-says-edge-data-network-is-back-up-chicagotribunecom/ Large swathes of Asia, the Middle East and north Africa had their high-technology services crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope. Dubai has been hit hard by an Internet outage apparently caused by a cut undersea cable.One major ... http://yellinglizard.com/2008/01/31/internet-failure-hits-two-continents-cnncom/ The way people interact with computers is going to dramatically change in the next five years, Microsoft chief Bill Gates has told BBC News. He predicted that the keyboard and mouse would gradually give way to more intuitive and natural technologies. In particular, he said, touch, vision and speech interfaces would become ... http://yellinglizard.com/2008/01/06/gates-hails-age-of-digital-senses/ U.S. video game industry sales growth is expected to slow in 2008 as accelerated demand for software is tempered by a decline in hardware revenue, the Consumer Electronics Association said on Saturday. Overall U.S. industry sales are seen rising to $17.9 billion in 2008, up 13 percent from an estimated $15.8 ... http://yellinglizard.com/2008/01/06/us-video-game-industry-growth-seen-slowing/