PinkCarAuction

Pink Nissan figaro , a personal favourite of mine, is for sale on  ebay

Without scouring many listings, it gets my favourite vote for it’s innate charm and restyling, with baby pink glitter paint and refurbished interior.

The  rear loading 1969 Beach Bomb Kombi is one of the most valuable Hot Wheels collectors cars in the world.

When it was released back in 1969 you could get one for under $1.

Due to only a few being released by Mattel, there are believed to be only about 25 in existence around the world and they have significantly appreciated in value, becoming a hot collector’s item.

Now you would be forking out $1300 per millimeter, with the value of the above car estimated at $100K.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/drive-life/hot-wheels-of-fortune/2008/06/27/1214472737823.html

Who could forget the lovable robotic VW Junior?

How much easier would life be out there with a car that could park itself, suss out other cars, and make decisions for the driver? Once part of the popular imagination it is slowly coming closer to reality. Perhaps not in the form of walking , talking intelligent humanoids, but certainly the robotic devices that assist us in our daily living and in industry. Robotic vacuum machines and lawn mowers are commonplace. In fact the world of personal robotics for technology companies is big business!! There is a global race to develop smart machines based on robotic concepts.

Just like Victoria has a 2030 plan for sustainable development, the Korean Government’s target is that every household have a robot by the year 2020.

Intel have released details of their visionary products having various applications from self navigating cars with multicore processor based computers as a brain to futuristic projects in the field of health care, the environment and wireless networks.

Having foreseen the inevitable, that robots will continue to feature more and more in out daily lives, Intel is focusing on their utility, in particular building sensors so that robots have a better sense of touch.  Just as a shark uses electromagnetic fields to sense what is in their midst, Intel figure that using electromagnetic fields with robotic hands will enable machines to judge the optimum amount of pressure to pick up items without breaking them.

Concrete examples Intel give are a robotic bartender who knows how to handle glasses without breaking them and robots that are gentle enough to give grandma a helping hand out of the couch.

Intel’s innovative research is focusing on the way to multiply the number of cores in processing, by building tiny chips and adding customised core engines which are task specific, for example for encryption.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyName=development&articleId=9097218&taxonomyId=11&intsrc=kc_top

The Mule (a multifunctional utility/logistics and equipment), an armed robot the size of a Humvee, is Lockheed Martins machine which is capable of firing Javelin anti-tank missiles, featuring a turret-mounted machine gun, coupled with a digital eyeball with laser heat recognising and target acquisition systems in order to aim it’s weaponry with precision.

It uses GPS to navigate, has localised perception to enable it to avoid obstacles like buildings, and it’s versatility is enhanced by it’s six wheels on pneumatic legs to scale cars and barriers.

The Mule is destined to be shipped to conflict hotspots and the US government also plans to use them to clear minefields.

The military use of robotic systems is now widespread with thousands having been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, to conduct renaissance and disarm explosives, whilst also engaging in a futuristic kind of warfare. These uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) are reportedly being used to fire on insurgents. Clearly this kind of technology has the ability to outmaneovre and overpower enemy combatants.

Autonomous robot vehicles are however still by and large in the experimental phase with tactical decision making still requiring a human factor posing obvious challenges.

Medical compression socks  could become a new fashion rage. 

The Coalition to Prevent DVT is hoping that these socks will raise awareness of DVT in the same way that Pink did for breast cancer.

They don’t look a lot different than leg warmers, well not a lot anyway.

This is where fashion, medicine and marketing can converge to create a winner. Soon you will be throwing out your scrapbooking kits and buying a sock kit to create the funkiest socks on the block.

The formula is simple, a colour, a disease, and an item offering a  solution.
 

Body scanning machines  installed in major airports across America are revealing their most intimate body parts. These new security devices to be installed at 38 major airports are set to replace metal detectors and pat downs at airport checkpoints.

As pointed out by the ACLU  the controversial machines can see through a person’s clothes and this form of electronic strip search has enormous potential for abuse.  Everytime you need to jump on a plane you face the spectre of having your nude body inspected at random.  It has provoked an outcry from troubled women who feel that they are being assaulted by this invasive new technology.

 As Barry Steinhardt, Director of Technology and Liberty Group at the ACLU  has pointed out abuse of photographic technology under the pretext of security has been a reality in the past and it is invariable that the device will be misused.  As Steinhardt pointed out that the ‘active millimeter wave body scanners’ was justified given that there are less invasive technologies around and that the experts don’t seem to have successfully tackled cargo screening.

The efficacy of the technology must also be questioned as although the scanners can see items under clothing, it doesn’t look under the skin, so won’t be able to detect items surgically implanted or within body cavities. Neither can it see through rubber or plastic or items that resemble skin.

There are questions of informed consent and those who have refused to take the scans have been subjected to pat down searches.  Based on previous experience, it is conceivable that there will be warehouses of photos collected by employees for their circulation.  There have been no  details released on how tightly regulated and monitored the system will be to avoid this temptation.

Before long to get into the footy stadium or your employer’s building you might face this kind of test.

It is just as much the perception that you might be exposed to prying eyes than the reality of this occurring that is frightening and demonstrates that the Foucauldian panopticon is very much alive and well in this surveillance society.  What if the security camera picks up something innocuous? It is forseeable that pat down searches would quickly follow.  It evokes images of the abusive and degrading interrogation that Donald Rumsfeld allowed at Guantanamo Bay with prisoners being interrogated naked.

The move signals just the latest of incursions into the civil rights and privacy of domestic citizens in the name of national security. We know that without court permission the administration has been spying on groups from animal liberationists, Quaker peace activists and  anti war protesters, whilst the National Security Agency has been intercepting our emails, phone calls and snooping into the hard drives of our computers.

The pink feline overlord keeps clawing her way to the top, and has embraced the eco-friendly cultured. Introducing the Hello Kitty Solar Power Charger

Who would have thought that Hello Kitty was eco-friendly? You can power up any hand held device or gadget with this cute pop style pocket sized accessory. If the sun stops shining you can plug it into DC outlet for 6 hours of power to use from soaking up the sun. Hello Kitty is embracing the green lifestyle in a quest to conquer the planet or capture the sun. Next on the agenda will be the moon.

Once you have the Hello Kitty solar powered charger, go invest in one of these Hello Kitty power tools called the Hello Kitty Power Sander

Hello Kitty is getting into the construction industry.

A picture is worth a thousand words…and few would disagree that you can increase the chances of making a sale by posting a photo to your ebay listing.

Auctiva, MyEasyPics, BiggerBids and other picture services have flourished in offering services to ebay  sellers.

Now Vzaar is promising to take ebay photo services to new levels by offering online video ads of their items to prospective purchasers   youtube style.

The London based start up claims that  5,000 ebay sellers have jumped on board to use their online video services to their ebay auction listings. 

Ebayer buyers will now be able to see items from different angles through the use of online videos which also enables sound so you can hear whether a car engine purrs or rumbles.

What more could you want than to make free calls to other users?  Making them in hi-fidelity pink guaranteed to make an impact on your psyche.  Enter the pink skype 
Of course you can get a pink headset as an accessory, more pink head gear if you have enough room in your headspace for it.

Pink VOIP protocols …the answer to all your prayers. 

If you don’t fall prey to the pink skype phone, maybe your soul will respond more readily to unlimited access to eternity. If so, you might consider engaging in a  POIP (pray over the internet protocol) courtesy of an Israeli startup. 

 Create and broadcast your prayers to the holy land whether in pink or black, in any format.

The Checker Marathon was a car produced by Checker Motors Company in Kalamazoo Michigan between 1961 and 1982. It’s classic unmistakeable style remained virtually unchanged throughout it’s entire production.

You won’t find a great deal of information about the Checker but there are some Checker cultists out there (check out http://www.cow.net/checker/) who will be able to give you some tips.

Checkers used to manufacturer the New York Cabs.

There is also a 1980 black checker marathon
for sale on lemonfree.com.