RoboScooter moves toward production

At last week's Systems, Cities, and Sustainable Mobility summit in Pasadena, Calif., Raul-David Poblano of MIT announced that the RoboScooter is moving toward commercial production. The RoboScooter, developed by the MIT Media Laboratory, Sanyang Motors, and Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute, is an electric scooter designed for cities.

The goal of the program is to provide clean transportation for congested urban areas. RoboScooters would sit in charging racks at key points in cities. Users could swipe a credit card, get a scooter, and ride it across town, bringing it to another rack. Once the RoboScooter is put back in a rack, the user's credit card deposit gets returned. There could also be a nominal rental fee. MIT suggests putting GPS chips in the scooters to keep track of them.

The scooter uses in-wheel motors to save weight and space, while making the energy transfer to the wheel more efficient. Because of this design, the RoboScooter can be folded, making them easier to store or drag up stairs. A prototype of the RoboScooter met a positive reception at the Milan Auto Show last year.

Via Crave CNET (Source: Green Car Congress)

HTC P3470 to ship in March

Latest in HTC's burgeoning portfolio of Windows Mobile 6 devices is the P3470. According to our sources, the touchscreen GPS handset is slated to be available in selected countries in Asia-Pacific some time in March, though the company wasn't able to be more specific. Features include a 2.8-inch QVGA touchscreen LCD, quadband GSM and miniSD expansion card slot. The P3470 is still based on the TI OMAP 850 200MHz chipset and comes with 128MB RAM and 256MB ROM. More details to follow once we have them.

» Mobile World Congress 2008 show report

No PDA? Tattoo your to-dos

Here at CNET, many staffers can't bear the thought of life without their Treo, Blackberry, or iPhone. But for those who haven't jumped into the digital era, here's a new take on the old-fashioned to-do list written on the back of your hand.

With the To-Do Tattoo, you can write out your shopping list and then transfer it to your hand (or other body part of choice), where you know you won't lose it, drop it, or have it unexpectedly run out of battery life at the grocery store.

The To-Do Tattoo comes with an ink gel pen and 12 temporary tattoo lists to help you get inked and get organized.

Via Crave CNET

A vacuum that sucks it for insects

Whatever happened to the good old days of fly swatters or even yesterday's rolled-up newspaper? The Japanese, of course, are masters of chindogu or unuseless inventions. So suck it up for this insect vacuum. We're just not such how effective a sucker this 2,839 yen (US$24.50) gizmo is since it relies on pneumatics (read: Compressed air). Not to mention there aren't any clear instructions on what to do with the poor bug once it's trapped inside the tube. The more important question is whether this weapon of mass destruction will do the trick with those nastily huge Asian flying cockroaches. We've seen grown men reduced to screaming like little girls when encountering these winged spawn of Satan. Die, sucker, die.

Via Plastic Bamboo

New Bravia W undergoes refreshing facelift

Sony has just fired its first salvo for the new year with a spanking new Bravia W-series. These full-HD LCD TVs are shipped in 32- to 52-inch screen sizes and sport a unique "Draw the Line" design. This latest styling concept is centered on a section of semi-translucent bezel and a thin panel frame dressed in shimmering midnight blue finish. We have also confirmed that this is the only hue available, a rather strange approach considering its ongoing multicolor proposition for its existing Bravia TVs.

Also new on the plate is an improved Bravia Engine 2 video processor and Digital Media Port (DMP) support. While there is limited information on enhancements for its proprietary picture-processing engine, the latter does open up a slew of new connectivity options. These include DMP bases for its Walkman MP3 players, Bluetooth-enabled Sony Ericsson mobiles and Apple iPods. With these addons, you could easily manage and playback multimedia clips on-the-fly right on the big-screen Bravia via the bundled remote controller.

The Bravia KLV-32W400A, KLV-40W400A, KLV-46W400A and KLV-52W400A will be available throughout Asia Pacific from March. Further details such as detailed pricing were not ready at press time. Check more information here.

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