Commodore 64 Re-Released!

Commodore USA has recently developed and released a re-make of the old-school Commodore system. The system has been designed with some new 21st century features in mind, such as a DVD/RW drive, or even a Blu-Ray drive [depending on which configuration you order], and also a multi-card reader!

The new system currently comes bundled with the Ubuntu 10.04 LTS Operating System, and the Commodore 64 OS that is currently in development for the system will be mailed to the buyer as soon as it becomes available. The system contains a modern mini-ITX PC motherboard, with a Dual Core 525 Atom processor and the latest NVidia Ion2 graphics chipset.

For more information on the new system, click here.

To look at the different configurations available, or to look into ordering one, click here.

Real Snail Mail: E-mails Delivered At The Speed of A Snail

You may have heard someone refer to their "snail mail" before, as they patiently waited for an e-mail to come through, but that was just a nickname. The folks down at boredomresearch took the phrase a bit too literally, and have created the internet's first ever E-mail service run by snails. 

At RealSnailMail, when you send a message, the message is immediately sent to their servers, and assigned a snail. Once assigned, the message is transfered over into a small memory unit attached to the back of the snail via a circuit and antennae. The Snail will be on the receiving side of the enclosure when the message is assigned to it, and once the message is copied over, the snail is released. Once it reaches the other side of the enclosure, the mail is transferred back to the servers, and delivered to the recipient; hence the speed of a snail.

The project has been an educational project to inspire creative minds to think beyond the norm in regards to technology. A good portion of the snails were collected by the children from Castle Hill Community Primary School in Folkestone, and the drawings from the children were used on the Snail Profile Page. This is definitely one of the more creative and funny projects I have seen in technology to date.

"Please tap your phone here to pay, sir."

With today's technology making a move towards mobility, and the market for smartphones growing everyday, cellphones are gaining new features, updates, and models at a higher rate than ever before. Apps are being developed everyday with new useful, entertaining, or even silly purposes. With all of these mobile technological advances, the promise of a new standard that may be implemented in the near future has revealed its-self; mobile payments. Not mobile payments as in buying something over an eBay app on your iPhone, and paying for it using PayPal over your 3G connection, but as in paying for something at a gas station or restaurant.

Yes, mobile phones are now looking to gain the technology to replace Credit and Debit cards!

Using a technology known as N.F.C. (Near Field Communication), the phone would be able to send a short-range wireless signal to the N.F.C. reader, which would then process the payment. The chip designed to send the N.F.C. signals are being designed by Qualcomm, a well known company that innovates in Wireless and Mobile technology. If you have a newer phone, and look on the back cover, there's a good chance you'll see the name Qualcomm etched right above "3G CDMA".

When can we expect to see this technology emerge? There is no official date, only the news that it is in the works; thus it may be some time before we will see it first hand. Right now, both Apple and Google are planning to develop and incorporate the technology into the iPhone, and Android devices.