How cool would that be: a car that sees for you? In-car cameras that look ahead is an idea that has been floating around the technology liturgy for years.

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/55351

There’s a good reason why: An in-car based visualization system that alerts drivers to road hazards would save lives, money and cut down on accident related traffic jams.

Until recently there has not been much hard news in forward-looking camera systems; but over the past few months that has changed. A company called Mobileye released its AWS 4000 earlier this summer. And reports are the system is not half bad..

http://www.mobileye.com/

Forward-looking units are strictly early-adopter stuff, but for an edgy tech story, the concept has legs.

<<Image link>>

http://www.mobileye.com/images/pro_ca_1.jpg

Picture this: Art that hides speakers.

 Hide that gadget: Speakers that hide behind paintings.

It’s a sad fact: technology can strain a relationship. One person wants to see their technology in all its nerdy glory. The other person does not: metal boxes and gear are the last thing they want to look at.

Here’s neat sleeper of a solution: hide that ugly speaker behind a nice picture.

A company called Art and Fusion makes speakers that live behind decent paintings and images. Art and Fusion offers their own images or they can work to custom images. Audio quality is not top drawer, but it’s not awful either. And hiding the speaker behind an image makes a nice compromise for a well designed living room.

www.artandaudiofusion.com

<<image link>>

http://www.artandaudiofusion.com/gallery/71.jpg

 Get a second life. Conferences go virtual.

We spend a lot of time at conferences. Nothing beats rubbing shoulders with vendors and buyers to get a sense the tech market. But traveling is a drag. And it’s expensive. And honestly, we can’t be bothered with what passes for airline travel these days.

They may be an answer for travel weary conventioneers: the virtual conference.

Wikipedia had its annual Wiki conference last week in Cambridge, Mass. Besides being loaded with interesting lectures about user-created journalism and other content, the organization ran a section of the conference entirely virtually.

Go to this link and download the Second Life client. And you can be there now.

Second Life is VERY cool. And it should make a great story.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Berkman/137/104/24/

Cool stuff worth tracking

MTV to use to Google to distribute video clips.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-08/07/content_4929897.htm

Riptopia buys Ripdigital.

http://new.dealerscope.com/enews/fullStory.bsp?sid=33271&var=story#33271

Gateway losses money in second quarter.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/15192096.htm

Pioneer to offer free handheld global positioning system with in-dash unit sale.

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6359538.html

Kensington portable media player now for sale, via Gizmodo.

http://www.kingston.com/flash/kpex.asp

World Wide Developers Conference for Apple gets going.

http://news.com.com/Leopard%2C+Power+Macs+expected+at+Apple+confab/2100-1045_3-6102558.html?tag=nefd.lede

And finally … music without those pesky musicians.

It’s called Animusic. And, yea, it’s been around for a while: nothing but bouncing balls and synth instruments. But there is something quirky and cool though. But we miss the real people.

<<link>>

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5503582578132361295&q=animusic

<<Image link>>

http://www.cfcl.com/~vlb/weblog/images/solo-3.jpg