The latest generation of the popular corporate mobile communicator is the first touch-screen device from BlackBerry and it obviously took its lead from the most talked about phone in the past two years. The Storm goes on sale Friday from Verizon Wireless but we were visited this week by Verizon’s Irvine folks, who demonstrated all that the Storm could do.  Check out the photo slide show.  

Curt Keller, Verizon Wireless’ director of data sales, gave us the quick tour. While 30 minutes of play time really isn’t enough to really get to know a gadget, I feel that it is all I needed. This won’t be my next phone. But I believe the corporate world, BlackBerry fans and smartphone lovers will and should be excited.

Watch the video, produced by staff videographer Robert Whitfield:

Click here to view the embedded video. 

Keller said he’d only been playing with the Storm for about week. Plus, the model he had was not the final product. That could explain why, as you can see on the video, it wasn’t easy to scroll down a web page by sliding a finger down the screen. Typing was hard too — you have to press harder on the screen than you think. But then again, I have a hard time typing on the iPhone’s virtual keyboard (which I don’t own, by the way).

Another first-time feature for a BlackBerry was that it could play movies. But for many smart phone users, that’s far from unique. With a 3.2-megapixel camera, it also records video — something the new T-Mobile G1 (aka the Google phone) doesn’t do, but many other phones do.

However, I did like several features. Mobile versions of Microsoft Office tools — Word, PowerPoint and Excel — are available. And unlike many other phones where the software can only be read or written to, the Storm lets users create files on the phone. Why anyone would want to create a spreadsheet on a 3.25-inch screen beats me. But hey, I’d love to have that option.

Another plus over the iPhone: Photos taken with the 3.2-megapixel camera can be easily sent like as a multimedia message (or MMS)  to another phone. (I can’t believe Apple didn’t build this feature in, but apparently someone has found a way around this.) 

Also, there’s a removable battery, something the iPhone doesn’t have. Keller made a good point. If a CEO was using an iPhone and the battery died during a business trip, he’s out of luck until he can plug in.

Several applications are also available and can be downloaded to the phone. Software tools for the Storm include Facebook, Flikr, all sorts of IM services. … More are coming although no where near the scope of the iPhone Apps Store.

Another cool feature is Visual Voice Mail, which Verizon offers on a few other premium phones. This looks like an e-mail inbox because it displays a list of voice-mail messages. But instead of having to call in, just hit the ‘play’ button to hear the voice message. Technically, it’s just a nice interface. Hitting ‘play’ is a shortcut that dials “*86″ and “send” to get messages.

Also, I love that the Storm isn’t too proprietary with its cables. It takes standard 3.5 mm stereo headphones and uses a micro USB cable to transfer files and charge.

Some of the other details I feel are important to highlight:

• It has 1 GB of memory, plus a slot to add an 8 GB MicroSD memory card (included). 
• Includes a SIM card so phone can be used in other countries.
• No Wi-Fi! How dare it!
• Because it’s a BlackBerry, users can add up to 10 e-mail accounts.
• It’s Verizon’s first phone to utilize the high-speed Internet technology of EVDO Rev A.
• It’s $249.99, plus there’s a $50 rebate. 
• Verizon’s data plan is about $30/month for consumers and $45/month for corporate users.

Verdict: Strange, but one feature really turned me off on the Storm: the not-so-sensitive touch-screen. Again, the unit Verizon showed me was a pre-production model. With the launch just a few days away, I’d wait to hear what real users have to say about it.

I’m also not a BlackBerry user so I don’t really understand the intricacies of why its nickname is the crackberry. However, I’m definitely impressed by what I saw. With all the new entertainment options plus the useful features absent from the iPhone and Google phone, the Storm is a great new phone option that has a few minor dings. 

Interesting BlackBerry Storm posts from the web:

• 8 reasons to pick the iPhone over the BlackBerry Storm (PC World)
• Why I’m picking the BlackBerry Storm over the iPhone (Daily Tech)
• BlackBerry Storm is a little too consumer for some (The Register)
• BlackBerry Storm vs. iPhone 3G: 8 Reasons to Pick the Storm (IT World)

More cell phone posts:

• A picture frame with its own phone number
• Cell phones aren’t cheap, how to save money
• T-Mobile offering free airline tickets
• It’s official: BlackBerry Storm pricing, launch date
• When AT&T, Guitar Hero and O.C. mix
• AT&T’s program eases cost of calls among military families
• How any consumer can ‘test’ a cell phone
• AT&T adds McDonald’s to its Wi-Fi hotspot arsenal
• Verizon Wireless improves cell coverage in O.C.
• BlackBerry Bold selling out in … one Irvine store

Post from: Alt+Save with the Gadgetress

BlackBerry Storm: First look at its first touch-screen phone

I like it. You need to turn it on in the Google App, at which point, you can simply push a microphone button and speak your search into the phone. Google then generates a visual wav pattern, outputs a delightful burbling audio noise to indicate that it is processing your requests, then outputs search results as normal.

How does it work? Pretty well. When you first start it up, a charming cartoon boy walks you through how to use the program, and "skateboard bulldog" works as advertised. I decided to take things up a notch, and Google voice search performed well here too, managing to keep up with a torrid stream of profanity and give me results to match. Likewise, it correctly gave me results for my name without a stumble.

Unfortunately, Beschizza did not fare so well, first returning a result for "rob dyskenesia," which sounds like a cerebral disorder and then for "robert fisk usa." Likewise, "Salomee Sklodowska Bronislawa" resulted in listings for various Warsawian pizzerias. Basically, you need to use some common sense: things that are not pronounced even close to phonetically will generate bad results.

Overall, it's a big improvement over stock Google searching on the iPhone: for most searches, just speaking into your phone is about a hundred times easier than trying to type it out with the iPhone's excellent but typo prone onscreen keyboard. Go grab it.

Unity Peg's unconventional graphics of conventional domestic products printed on tea towels and tablecloths are an easy way to liven up kitchens with modern graphic flair. The brainchild of an Australian husband-and-wife duo, their goal with Unity Peg it to explore visual ideas and carry them out on textiles, making the mundane household item modern and relevant again.

Beginning with the "Wash Up" series, furniture designer Jane Atfield and artist Robert Shepherd created a range of tea towels which boast bold colors and simple outlines of items like cleaning supplies and plumbing. Their acute sense for captivating color schemes and interesting compositions is apparent from their initial series to their latest, which features playful graphics of various weather elements. Included in their collection is a customizable tea towel, offering the important date of your choice in large block numbers.

Designed to evoke emotion, the tablecloth "Picnic" encourages people to dine together outside or to bring about a sense of nature indoors if used as a wall hanging. Even more curious though are Utility Peg's self adhesive wall stickers, a collection of high quality cut-outs that range from animals to musical instruments. Easy to apply to a variety of smooth surfaces, they are great for decorating a child's room or adding a bit of character to a lackluster wall, the perfect example below in which Unity Peg was commissioned to brighten up the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

Unity Peg products are available on their website, where you can also see their list of upcoming exhibitions and shows.

Ever since we started putting high-powered engines into jets, there has been a long line of skilled but misguided lunatics eager to rip them out to use in their stupid and dangerous contraptions. Simply put, we are fascinated by speed—whether it is the latest military super aircraft or a flaming toilet blazing down the road at 70 mph. A jet engine attached to anything is sure-fire entertainment—as the following ten gadgets will demonstrate.

Jet-Powered Toilet: Powered by a Boeing Jet engine, this outhouse can reach speeds in excess of 70 mph—giving it the distinction of being the "fastest toilet in the world." The way I see it, that puts inventor Paul Stender on the same level as Chuck Yeager. [Link]

Jet-Powered Bicycle: Robert Maddox has a unique hobby—he builds and sells pulse jet engines. He is also a man that understands the value of a little viral marketing. That's why he decided to strap one of his kerosene-powered pulse jet engines onto an old-timey bicycle and ride it down uneven country roads at speeds up to 75mph. [Link]

Jet-Powered Kayak: A race between a jet-powered Kayak and a souped up off-road vehicle? Man, I love Top Gear. [Link]

Jet-Powered Grocery Cart: Using pulse jet engine instructions he found on the internet, a microlight instructor named Andy Tyler fashioned a grocery cart deathtrap that can reach speeds of around 50 mph. [The Sun]

Jet-Powered Wheelchair: A grocery cart that can hit 50 mph is impressive, but it doesn't compare to a wheelchair that can do 60. Next up—attaching a jet engine to a Rascal to help Grandma retain her independence. [Link]

Jet-Powered Rollerskates: An Aston Martin V8 Vantage vs a guy on rollerskates with a 300 horsepower jet engine strapped to his back? Yeah, Top Gear again.

Jet-Powered School Bus: Apparently, this heavily modified school bus is packing a 40-50's era Westinghouse J-34 Turbojet under that bright yellow exterior. These engines were capable of producing at least 3000 pounds of thrust—but since the bus never moves it's hard to tell how fast you could get to school riding in this thing. [King on Wheels and Hacked Gadgets]

Jet-Powered Scooter: I've been seeing a lot more scooters on the road in the States since gas prices became an issue—usually lumbering down the road in front of me when I'm trying to get somewhere in a hurry. That woudn't be a problem with this modified version however. The addition of two JFS 100 jet engines should get this little guy going over 40 mph no problem. [Ron Patrick Stuff]

Jet-Powered Road Luge: Using a small 90,000-rpm jet engine, luge rider Joel King was able to hit a world record top speed of 112 mph. [Link]

Jet-Powered Minivan: Traditionally, getting a minivan is a sign that your youth and freedom has given way to a fully suburbanized/domesticated lifestyle filled with PTA meetings, landscaping issues and grocery store coupons. At least one man, Chris Krug, decided to fight back by installing a Rolls-Royce Nimbus helicopter jet turbine engine with 1,000 shaft horsepower at 2,100 RPM into his Dodge Caravan. [Link]

Bonus: The previous ten gadgets dealt with jet engines being misused as a mode of transportation. Truth be told, it's probably not a good idea to use one to start a bonfire either. Although you can't argue with the results. [Link]

Just unveiled yesterday, Google's latest offering — google.org/flutrends — takes the results of millions of searches with phrases like "flu symptoms," mixes them with Google's special proprietary algorithm sauce and produces a real-time map (above) showing where in the U.S. it's hitting.

Miguel Helft's front page story in today's New York Times on the new new thing in infectious disease tracking follows.

Google Uses Searches to Track Flu’s Spread

There is a new common symptom of the flu, in addition to the usual aches, coughs, fevers and sore throats. Turns out a lot of ailing Americans enter phrases like “flu symptoms” into Google and other search engines before they call their doctors.

That simple act, multiplied across millions of keyboards in homes around the country, has given rise to a new early warning system for fast-spreading flu outbreaks, called Google Flu Trends.

Tests of the new Web tool from Google.org, the company’s philanthropic unit, suggest that it may be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In early February, for example, the C.D.C. reported that the flu cases had recently spiked in the mid-Atlantic states. But Google says its search data show a spike in queries about flu symptoms two weeks before that report was released. Its new service at google.org/flutrends analyzes those searches as they come in, creating graphs and maps of the country that, ideally, will show where the flu is spreading.

The C.D.C. reports are slower because they rely on data collected and compiled from thousands of health care providers, labs and other sources. Some public health experts say the Google data could help accelerate the response of doctors, hospitals and public health officials to a nasty flu season, reducing the spread of the disease and, potentially, saving lives.

“The earlier the warning, the earlier prevention and control measures can be put in place, and this could prevent cases of influenza,” said Dr. Lyn Finelli, lead for surveillance at the influenza division of the C.D.C. From 5 to 20 percent of the nation’s population contracts the flu each year, she said, leading to roughly 36,000 deaths on average.

The service covers only the United States, but Google is hoping to eventually use the same technique to help track influenza and other diseases worldwide.

“From a technological perspective, it is the beginning,” said Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive.

The premise behind Google Flu Trends — what appears to be a fruitful marriage of mob behavior and medicine — has been validated by an unrelated study indicating that the data collected by Yahoo, Google’s main rival in Internet search, can also help with early detection of the flu.

“In theory, we could use this stream of information to learn about other disease trends as well,” said Dr. Philip M. Polgreen, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa and an author of the study based on Yahoo’s data.

Still, some public health officials note that many health departments already use other approaches, like gathering data from visits to emergency rooms, to keeping daily tabs on disease trends in their communities.

“We don’t have any evidence that this is more timely than our emergency room data,” said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, assistant commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in New York City.

If Google provided health officials with details of the system’s workings so that it could be validated scientifically, the data could serve as an additional, free way to detect influenza, said Dr. Mostashari, who is also chairman of the International Society for Disease Surveillance.

A paper on the methodology of Google Flu Trends is expected to be published in the journal Nature.

Researchers have long said that the material published on the Web amounts to a form of “collective intelligence” that can be used to spot trends and make predictions.

But the data collected by search engines is particularly powerful, because the keywords and phrases that people type into them represent their most immediate intentions. People may search for “Kauai hotel” when they are planning a vacation and for “foreclosure” when they have trouble with their mortgage. Those queries express the world’s collective desires and needs, its wants and likes.

Internal research at Yahoo suggests that increases in searches for certain terms can help forecast what technology products will be hits, for instance. Yahoo has begun using search traffic to help it decide what material to feature on its site.

Two years ago, Google began opening its search data trove through Google Trends, a tool that allows anyone to track the relative popularity of search terms. Google also offers more sophisticated search traffic tools that marketers can use to fine-tune ad campaigns. And internally, the company has tested the use of search data to reach conclusions about economic, marketing and entertainment trends.

“Most forecasting is basically trend extrapolation,” said Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist. “This works remarkably well, but tends to miss turning points, times when the data changes direction. Our hope is that Google data might help with this problem.”

Prabhakar Raghavan, who is in charge of Yahoo Labs and the company’s search strategy, also said search data could be valuable for forecasters and scientists, but privacy concerns had generally stopped it from sharing it with outside academics.

Google Flu Trends avoids privacy pitfalls by relying only on aggregated data that cannot be traced to individual searchers. To develop the service, Google’s engineers devised a basket of keywords and phrases related to the flu, including thermometer, flu symptoms, muscle aches, chest congestion and many others.

Google then dug into its database, extracted five years of data on those queries and mapped it onto the C.D.C.’s reports of influenzalike illness. Google found a strong correlation between its data and the reports from the agency, which advised it on the development of the new service.

“We know it matches very, very well in the way flu developed in the last year,” said Dr. Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org. Dr. Finelli of the C.D.C. and Dr. Brilliant both cautioned that the data needed to be monitored to ensure that the correlation with flu activity remained valid.

Google also says it believes the tool may help people take precautions if a disease is in their area.

Others have tried to use information collected from Internet users for public health purposes. A Web site called whoissick.org, for instance, invites people to report what ails them and superimposes the results on a map. But the site has received relatively little traffic.

HealthMap, a project affiliated with the Children’s Hospital Boston, scours the Web for articles, blog posts and newsletters to create a map that tracks emerging infectious diseases around the world. It is backed by Google.org, which counts the detection and prevention of diseases as one of its main philanthropic objectives.

But Google Flu Trends appears to be the first public project that uses the powerful database of a search engine to track a disease.

“This seems like a really clever way of using data that is created unintentionally by the users of Google to see patterns in the world that would otherwise be invisible,” said Thomas W. Malone, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. “I think we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible with collective intelligence.”

Robert A. Guth's report in this morning's Wall Street Journal follows.

Sniffly Surfing: Google Unveils Flu-Bug Tracker




You can Google to get a hotel, find a flight and buy a book. Now you may be able to use Google to avoid the flu.

One month into flu season, Google Inc. on Tuesday opened a free Web service that the Internet company says can show if the number of influenza cases is increasing in areas around the U.S., earlier than many existing methods.

The service, called Flu Trends (www.google.org/flutrends), uses computers to crunch millions of Internet searches people make for keywords that might be related to the flu — for instance "cough," or "fever." It displays the results on a map of the U.S. and shows a chart of changes in flu activity around the country. The data is meaningful because the Google arm that created Flu Trends found a strong correlation between the number of Internet searches related to the flu and the number of people reporting flu symptoms.

Google built the service with the guidance of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. government's public-health watchdog that runs a range of flu-surveillance systems. Flu Trends can be a complement to those tools, health officials say.

Flu Trends "maps very closely to the influenza-like trends that we see in the U.S.," says Lyn Finelli, lead of the influenza surveillance team at CDC's headquarters in Atlanta.

The service adds Google to a growing number of Web sites that are trolling, culling and crunching Internet data in ways to better pinpoint and predict where diseases are hitting around the world. The sites use varying degrees of human and computer methods for detecting outbreaks and many have historically been aimed at doctors and health-care professionals. Google executives say their service could also appeal to consumers.

In any given year, between 5% and 20% of Americans can catch the flu, depending upon the strength of a particular flu virus and other factors, the CDC says. Around 145 million doses of flu vaccines will be available this flu season, which generally runs from October to May and typically peaks in February.

Finding a new tool to stave off infection is important to Maureen Rinehart, a 28-year-old kindergarten teacher in San Francisco. Ms. Rinehart says daily contact with her kids means she gets sick about once a month. She got a flu shot about two weeks ago and is armed with hand sanitizer in the classroom.

"They're really snotty and they want to hold hands with you; you know how it is with the little guys," says Ms. Rinehart. So if the Google service shows flu cases are rising, she says, "you could bulk up on vitamins and wash your hands more — all the necessary things you should do."

The Google service is the brainchild of Google.org, a three-year-old group at the Mountain View, Calif., company that works on areas for the public good — such as renewable energy — that may or may not have a direct financial benefit to Google. The company won't use advertising on the Flu Trends site.

The Google group examined flu-related keywords over five years, noting times when searches of those terms surged. It then compared those times to CDC records and found a strong correlation between when people searched flu keywords and when people have had flu-like symptoms. It spent the past year testing new search results against data from the CDC, tweaking its software to make its results more accurate, Google executives said.

The Flu Trends site displays results of its analysis in a five-tier scale of flu activity ranging from "minimal" to "intense," with a middle point of "moderate." The site includes CDC flu prevention messages, a flu vaccination locator and links to flu-related news items.

"It's still quite experimental," says Jeremy Ginsberg, Google's lead engineer on Flu Trends. "We feel it's an interesting, unique way to track disease outbreaks."

In 2003, the Canadian government and other organizations used versions of these data-collection and health sites to detect early signs of the SARS virus in China. The Canadian service — the Global Public Health Intelligence Network — automatically scans Web sites and news sources in seven languages for information on disease outbreaks, contaminated food and water, natural disasters and other health risks around the world. It charges a fee based on the type of organization that accesses it and its usage.

At Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital Boston, a site called HealthMap crawls through 24,000 Web sites looking for disease-related terms. Results appear on a world map, which has colored markers for dengue fever, avian flu and other diseases.

Google.org last month started funding HealthMap to find ways to collaborate with ProMED, a site that uses people to gather clues about diseases from the Web and from other sources.

The Web-based services have shortcomings. The most accurate way to measure a disease outbreak is by the number of actual cases confirmed by a laboratory. By tracking keywords in news stories and search results, the Web sites can't guarantee that they are finding actual outbreaks.

But what they lose in accuracy, the sites may make up in speed. Getting accurate data on real disease cases requires people to be tested for a disease and that data to be collected by public-health organizations. While the CDC and other organizations do this kind of research, it takes time.

Reducing that time is crucial for combating influenza, which can manifest itself one to three days after a person comes into contact with the virus. "If you get data that's not very timely one or two weeks old it's possible that the outbreak has already peaked," the CDC's Ms. Finelli says.

Still, some consumers question how helpful the new Google health service will be for them. Tony Deen, a 22-year-old recent college grad in San Francisco, says he hasn't had the flu since he was a kid and uses health Web sites only when he has a medical problem. "It's not like I can flee the city if the flu is coming," Mr. Deen says. But "it might convince me to get a flu shot if people are getting sick."

Do you want a nasty shock or a tree fire? Well do ya? Hell no you don't. So, watch out for "surprisingly low prices, unusual labeling or certification marks and a lack of sales tax on a receipt since counterfeiters generally don't report their sales. Consumers should also be aware of street vendors and unauthorized dealers." If this message scared only one of you straight, then I (and the National Electrical Contractors Association) have done our job.

Counterfeit Christmas Lights Pose Safety Hazard for Consumers
Decorations with Fake UL Labels Among Growing Range of Counterfeit Electrical Products

BETHESDA, Md., November 11, 2008 — Counterfeit Christmas lights—including those with fake Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. (UL) labels—pose a threat to consumers for their potential inability to meet electrical safety and fire codes. The traditional holiday decorations are part of the rapidly growing crime of counterfeit electrical products in the United States—90+ percent of which are imported from China. Now reaching epic proportions in a $130 billion industry, counterfeiting is a crime that threatens the lives and safety of all U.S. citizens and electrical workers.
"Underwriters Laboratories Inc., like many other Intellectual Property Rights and Trademark owners, has seen a dramatic increase in the amount of counterfeited products and trademark labels on those products in the past, several years," said panel participant Robert Crane, lead enforcement manager, Anti-Counterfeiting Operations, UL, Chapel Hill, N.C. "For several decades, UL has integrated security features in many of its labels."
Crane participated in the opening panel discussion last month in Chicago as part of the new Anti-Counterfeit Products Initiative hosted by the NECA-published Electrical Contractor magazine, Bethesda, Md., and The Electrical Distributor (TED) magazine, published by the National Association of Electrical Distributors (NAED), St. Louis. The joint industry initiative is endorsed by NAED, NECA and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA).
Crane said that more recently, holographic labels were developed to further thwart the piracy of UL labels with the first holograms introduced in 1993 for decorative lighting strings and outfits. Since the holograms were so successful, said Crane, in 1996 additional categories for products manufactured in China also required holographic labels. This year, he said more requirements have been implemented regarding the use of holograms along with a newer hologram technology including the newest gold holograms.
A few warning signals for counterfeit lighting include surprisingly low prices, unusual labeling or certification marks and a lack of sales tax on a receipt since counterfeiters generally don't report their sales. Consumers should also be aware of street vendors and unauthorized dealers.

###

Published by the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA), Bethesda, Md., Electrical Contractor magazine delivers 85,300+ electrical contractors and more than 68,000 electrical contracting locations, more than any other industry publication.

James Bond without Q is like toast without butter. Over more than three decades, Q’s work amazed audiences and saved Bond’s life. Q’s inventions confounded Bond’s adversaries and inspired engineers at the CIA—really—to stretch the limits of physics and adapt the most advanced technology to espionage needs. I used to run that department, the CIA Office of Technical Service.

“Q was an inspiration,” a long-time technical officer once told me. “When a new Bond movie was released, we always got calls asking, ‘Do you have one of those?’ If I answered ‘no,’ the next question was, ‘How long will it take you to make it?’ Folks didn’t care about the laws of physics or that Q was an actor in a fictional movie—his character and inventiveness pushed our imagination.”

Former Soviet intelligence officers have commented to American counterparts that Bond movies were carefully analyzed by KGB technicians. The Soviets believed that Q’s gadgets telegraphed the Western technical capabilities that Soviet counterintelligence would eventually face.

But Q’s devices, unlike those available to American cold war spies, always worked exactly as they were designed.

The late Richard Helms, former Director of Central Intelligence, noted this contrast with Bond in writing, “[Our] operational plumbing…included…versions of some of the gadgets James Bond always had at hand. It sometimes seemed the more impressive a device appeared in the workshop, the more fragile it was. It took some experience before case officers learned not to fling these prima donna utensils into the back seat of an automobile, but to treat them with the delicate hand they required.”

By the mid 1990’s digital technology was revolutionizing technical espionage just as the integrated circuit had done three decades earlier. IC’s made possible tiny bugs for clandestine audio, electronic communications devices and new sensors for collection and detection. But by 1999, software code—visually unexciting strings of ones and zeros—buried in a computer or a PDA, rather than sleek concealments, tiny bugs and miniature cameras, had became the heart of spy gear. In QoS, fast cars, exotic weapons, brilliant explosions and smooth seduction apparently remain, but the inestimatible Q and his amazing gadgets are gone, possibly forever.

Robert Wallace, a retired CIA officer, is the former director of the CIA’s Office of Technical Service and author of SPYCRAFT: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to al-Qaeda. Having appeared on Gizmodo many times in the past, he may be reached at www.ciaspycraft.com.

A technology well over a century old may soon revolutionize transportation. Robert Stirling's novel engine was an attempt to make steam technology safe. By repeatedly heating and cooling gas inside a sealed chamber, he was able to avoid the nasty explosions and scaldings that were the bane of steam engine technology.

While quite popular in the 19th Century, Stirlings were no match for the practical electric motors that appeared a few decades later. The technology languished as a laboratory curiosity for decades - the little $379.95 desktop Stirling engine above is a typical modern example.

However, Stirling technology might get a new lease on life thanks to Segway inventor Dean Kamen, who recently announced a prototype Stirling hybrid electric car. His development mule is built on the chassis of a Ford Think, a tiny 2-seat electric car that ceased production in 2000. The little car is driven by a lithium battery and can travel around 60 miles on a charge.

The futuristic Stirling engine is tucked into a compartment on the floor of the hatchback for easy access. It  can recharge the battery when needed and also powers the heater and window defroster directly. It's an approach that makes a lot of sense.

It remains to be seen how efficient Kaman's Stirling engine is in the real world, but it holds significant promise, especially since the Stirling engine has the ability to run on multiple fuels. Essentially, any liquid with sufficient energy density can serve as fuel.

Sadly, Kaman doesn't expect Detroit's Big Three to adopt his technology. "I think what Darwin really was saying was: It's not the fittest, not the smartest, not the strongest; it's the ones that can adapt to change. And big industries that have long histories, particularly successful long histories, and a lot of ingrained infrastructure become the least adaptable to change. And when a disruptive opportunity comes along, they are the last that are capable of dealing with it," he mused recently.

The Desktop Stirling Engine
Dean Kamen: part man, part machine
DEKA Research, Kamen's think-tank