Filed under: Car Tech, Video Games

In a sure sign that technology is working for us, Nissan has figured out how to make parallel parking easier. The company’s new Around View Monitor, available this month in Japan’s new Elgrand mini-car/van thing, synthesizes the images taken by the car’s cameras (located on all four corners of the car) into a single image. The result? A top-down view of your vehicle, helping you do things like parallel park and back over your ex-girlfriend’s stereo with the greatest of ease. It’s like an old-school video game display of your vehicle, making all those hours and quarters wasted playing Spy Hunter in the arcade seem suddenly seem incredibly worthwhile.

The tech will make its US debut in December, on the wheels of the new Infiniti EX35. What’s next, dental floss that flosses for us? Someone please say yes.

From Engadget

Related Links:

• Nissan’s Pivo 2 Concept Car
• Driverless Car Uses Lasers to Avoid Obstacles

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The typical growth of a web site might look a little like something this:

1. You build the first version of your site and deploy it into a shared hosting environment (Dreamhost, etc). All is well.
2. You need to build more features for your growing customer base. Performance and uptime are also concerns, so you move your site to a dedicated server. Freedom in a box!
3. More customers. They want more features and they want them right now! How do you cope with the load? You put your database onto it’s own dedicated server. We can breath again.

So here we are with the traditional 2 server 2 tier backend. One server is responsible for generating and serving web pages, the other server is responsible for storing data. Here are some of the problems you may be fortunate enough to encounter when running on a setup like this:

1. Availability: You now have 2 points of failure. If either your web server or database server dies you are in trouble. What’s your plan when this happens?
2. Performance: How are you measuring this? How many more concurrent users can your site handle before you’re no longer serving requests in a timely manner? More importantly, what do you do when you reach that point?
3. Backup: How do we accurately and quickly backup all our customer data without taking our entire web site offline?
4. State & Tangle: Where are you storing user and session data, on the file system? How easily can you partition off different areas of your site/application onto separate servers?

If you’ve reached this point in your web site’s growth but don’t have answers to these questions it’s about time you started thinking about tackling these problems.

Next week is guaranteed to be nothing but crazy at SitePoint HQ as we are moving to a bigger and better office. But I promise to post early in the week with some suggestions/ideas and other things to consider as you ready for the next phase of your site’s growth.

This article provided by sitepoint.com.

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Drama, New Line, Fandom, Family Films, Movie Marketing, Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Posters

New Line was cool enough to send Cinematical the final two posters for The Golden Compass, a film that’s sure to blow all our minds once it arrives in theaters on December 7. We’ve included the first poster above (click on it for a larger version), and you can view the second poster after the jump. Both are bursting with color, intrigue and cool-looking warrior bears. Based on Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass is the first big-screen adaptation to hit screens, with plans to adapt the other two novels in the series (The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass) already in the works. The film was directed by Chris Weitz (who I know will knock this one out of the park), and it stars Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Eva Green, Sam Elliott and Dakota Blue Richards.

Here’s a piece of the synopsis to whet your appetite: “The Golden Compass’ is an exciting fantasy adventure, set in an alternative world where people’s souls manifest themselves as animals, talking bears fight wars, and Gyptians and witches co-exist. At the center of the story is Lyra (played by newcomer Dakota Blue Richards), a 12-year-old girl who starts out trying to rescue a friend who’s been kidnapped by a mysterious organization known as the Gobblers - and winds up on an epic quest to save not only her world, but ours as well.” As I said, The Golden Compass hits theaters on December 7; you can check out the trailer over on Moviefone and the second poster after the jump. Enjoy.

Continue reading EXCLUSIVE: Final ‘Golden Compass’ Posters!

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Filed under: Action & Adventure, Comedy, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Universal, Remakes and Sequels

My sister and I used to watch Land of the Lost all the time. Even at the tender ages of 7 and 9 we could tell how amazingly chintzy the series was — and yet we watched it all the time. The sketchy dinosaurs and the slimy Sleestaks. That freaky little hairy dude and those strange little booths with the glowing buttons. Ah, that was fun junk. (I actually reviewed one of the LOTL season sets a few years back, and my opinion of the program is pretty much the same: Broad, silly kitsch that’s fun enough, but best consumed in small doses.)

Anyway, we’ve been hearing vague rumblings about a movie version for quite some time, and according to Variety, Universal is ready to get rolling now. Well, not exactly now, but they’ve hired a director (Brad Silberling) and they’ve signed Will Ferrell to star. Plus production begins in March, so I’m guessing it’s definitely a “go project” at this point. Fans of the goofy ol’ show may notice a few changes though: The adaptation “revolves around a disgraced paleontologist, his assistant and a macho tour guide who find themselves in a strange world inhabited by dinosaurs, monkey people and reptilian Sleestaks.”

A macho tour guide? An assistant? What about Rick Marshall? And Will and Holly and Cha-Ka? Eh, who cares? The show was cheesy stuff anyway. If you’re telling me that Will Ferrell is starring in a $100 million prehistoric comedy, that’s enough to get me (at least a little) intrigued. And I suppose some congratulations are due to TV producers Sid & Marty Krofft. I guess this means we’ll soon be seeing movie versions of H.R. Pufnstuf, Far Out Space Nuts, and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters. (Ugh, I just got a nasty chill up my spine.)

[ Amusing trivial tidbit: In Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Will Ferrell plays a character called Marshal Willenholly. This is an obvious reference to Land of the Lost. Well, it’s obvious if you’re a pop-culture nerd like Kevin Smith. And me. ]

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Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

In case you’re not tired of seeing high-speed promises for 4G networks, along comes yet another from South Korea that could “enable users to download data at 3.6-gigabits per second while moving at 3-kilometers per hour or slower. Dubbed NoLA, which translates out to New Nomadic Local Area Wireless Access, the technology should allow folks to “download a disc full of data in under two seconds.” Choi Mun-kee, head of the Daejeon-based institute, stated that NoLA data transmissions far surpass the “international 4G benchmark for slow-moving users,” and Minister of Information and Communications Yoo Young-hwan threw in his two pennies by suggesting that it could one day “be applied to home networking and internet protocol TV or IPTV.” Now, if only South Korea was closer to America…

[Via GizmoWatch, thanks Vikas]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Olevia has just unveiled a trio of full HD LCD TVs, namely the Olevia 265TFHD, Olevia 252TFHD and Olevia 247TFHD. Both the 65″ and 47″ models come in slim, updated bezels, built-in Clear QAM HD tuners and upgradeable firmware via USB. In addition, each set boasts a couple of HDMI connectors, two component, two S-video, an equal amount of composite and one VGA input in addition to RS232 control that allows you to control through a network or home automation. The 65″ model utilizes a Sharp LCD panel that makes it equal to Sharp’s line of AQUOS LCD sets. No idea on whether the 52″ set will have Sharp’s signature on it or not though. The 47″ and 65″ models will retail for $1,999 and $6,999 respectively.

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Filed under: Before the bell, Analyst reports, Analyst upgrades and downgrades, Forecasts, Good news, Google (GOOG), Apple Inc (AAPL), Wal-Mart (WMT), Coca-Cola (KO), Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Abbott Laboratories (ABT)

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) shares are up over 3.5% in premartket trading after the world’s largest retailer reported a 1.4% rise in September sales at U.S. stores open at least a year, toward the low end of its forecast. Analysts were expecting a 1.9% rise according to Reuters. Wal-Mart, however, raised its third-quarter earnings estimate to 66 cents to 69 cents per share, up from a previous forecast of 62 cents to 65 cents.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is up nearly 1.4% in premarket trading. Apple 2.0 reports on a Bernstein analyst note that claims Apple has 29% market share of the top priced notebooks. He points out to a few strengths — like the growth it has achieved in PCs — and vulnerabilities — like having a dominant market share in some areas without much room for growth.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) shares continue to set daily records. After finishing the day up 1.66% yesterday to $625.39, shares are trading up another 1% in premarket action. Google has surpassed Wal-Mart’s market cap!

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) J&J’s McNeil-PPC unit voluntarily recalled certain infant cough and cold products, citing “rare” instances of misuse leading to overdoses “particularly in infants under two years of age.”

Wachovia Capital Markets downgraded its rating on Abbott Laboratories Inc (NYSE: ABT) to Market Perform from Outperform, citing a large number of challenges facing the company’s key franchises, like possible delay of Abbott’s drug-eluting stent, Xience.

From the tlyonthewall.com: Citigroup reiterated its Buy rating on Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) and raised its target price to $67 from $60. Citigroup expects above consensus earnings results in Q3 and beyond due to the turnaround in KO’s Japanese business.

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Filed under: News

Sony has recently been sending out emails requesting that PSN members check out the new End User License Agreement. The new, updated, agreement includes a load of new content. Specifically, this new new agreement includes rules and regulations for upcoming PSN features; restrictions on uploading vulgar or offensive content, spreading viruses or posting spam to other users. Obviously, this is most relevent for Home, but can also be linked to other games and services.

The updated EULA goes into effect on October the 30th. There has been some confusion with the version number of the EULA, which has been upgraded to 2.0. This has nothing to do with firmware version 2.0 and anyone expecting the mythical firmware update to come at the end of the month is setting themselves up for disappointment. What the new EULA does mean is that more exciting functionality for the PSN is on its way and that Sony are building their legal barriers just in case someone decides to get a bit saucy whilst playing Singstar in front of the PlayStation Eye.

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It’s a surprise to see that Yash Raj films couldn’t do well. Bhool Bhulaiyya has done better than Laaga chunari mein daag in the overseas. Bhool Bhulaiyya is a Psychological thriller and it’s a very interesting story about a dancer’s ghost coming back to take revenge from the person who had killed her boyfriend. LCMD […]

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So far this year, artists have stuffed a dead frog into a computer and allowed themselves to be shot at, but nothing beats the latest project by Stelios Arcadious, at least as far as shock value is concerned. After ten years if trying, the Cyprus-born artist finally found a surgeon to implant a third ear into his left arm.

Cosmetically-speaking, it’s a real ear, grown in a lab from cells, but so far it doesn’t have any aural capabilities. Arcardious says he wants to add a Bluetooth transmitter and a tiny microphone to the ear, so that people “can listen to what my ear is hearing.”

Whether the sounds heard by an ear in an arm are all that different from the sounds picked up by regular ears on a head remains to be seen (or heard), but color us horrified — and fascinated.

From Daily Mail.

Related Links:

• Artists Stuff Dead Frog With a Computer
• Iraqi Artist Wants to Be Shot
• Video Game Picassos

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