360 DEGREES Weblog

ioSafe makes water, fire, and bomb-proof hard drives and they’ve just upgraded their SoloPRO device to support up to 3 terabytes of storage – enough for just about everything you could ever want to store. The drive is $499.99 and includes 12 months of data recovery service as well as eSATA and USB 3.0 connections.

The drive can withstand 1550° F for 30 minutes and live underwater at 10 feet for three days.

A choice of eSATA and USB 3.0 connections providing fast transfer speeds up to 3 to 4 times faster than USB 2.0.
Rugged disaster proof design. Both the USB 3.0 and eSATA versions of the SoloPRO protect against data loss at temperatures up to 1550° F for 30 minutes per ASTM E119 or being submerged to a depth of 10 feet for up to 3 days.
12 months Data Recovery Service Standard. Up to $2,500 towards the cost of third-party forensic data recovery, one time, for any reason including accidental deletion, hard drive failure, fires, floods, etc. Upgradeable to 3 or 5 years for $49 or $99 respectively.
Available in capacities of 1TB, 2TB and now 3TB.

Charlotte Motor Speedway and Panasonic held an event yesterday to celebrate the completion of the new world’s largest HD screen, which measures at 16,000 square feet (200 feet wide and 80 feet tall). Of course, the only natural thing to do when face with a screen this size is to play videogames on it, and CMS got very meta by bringing out NASCAR driver and simulation racing fan Dale Earnhardt Jr. to turn a few laps on the track in iRacing on the brand new display. The 720p display, located on the backstretch, is big enough for fans seated along the front stretch of the track between turn four and turn one to have a clear view of replays, standings and stats all the way across the track. Its official debut will take place May 21st during the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and will also take a turn as a massive HDTV airing clips of Top Gear USA during a History Channel sponsored race the week after

It’s a new era for personal robotics. Meet Luna, the fully-programmable robot companion platform that will retail for $1,000. As a platform, RoboDynamics — a Santa Monica-based company previously grounded in telepresence — is trying to position Luna as the 5-foot tall “beige box” of modern robotics. She comes with her own one-click Luna App Store, eight “Luna Expansion Ports” (think 12/5 volt USB for robots), and Luna CloudNet where third-parties can sell additional functionality like face recognition to app developers. The robot ships with a number of personality packs and features an 8-inch touchscreen, two cameras, wireless connectivity, a three-mic array, and a variety of sensors. Oh, and she’s portable. Remember, Luna’s not a prototype, but a real working robot that you can actually take home for the price of an entry-level laptop. Or at least you can once we get a release date.

Medigus has developed the world’s smallest video camera at just 0.039-inches (0.99 mm) in diameter. The Israeli company’s the second-gen model (a 0.047-inch diameter camera was unveiled in 2009) has a dedicated 0.66×0.66 mm CMOS sensor that captures images at 45K resolution and no, it’s not destined for use in tiny mobile phones or covert surveillance devices, instead the camera is designed for medical endoscopic procedures in hard to reach regions of the human anatomy.

The storms of spring often bring plenty of downed branches and trees in need of a quick trim, but if you’re like us, the idea of getting out there with a full-bodied chainsaw sounds about as smart as juggling venomous snakes. Enter the Worx JawSaw ($120). Capable of handling limbs and shoots up to four inches wide, the JawSaw holds its prey inside its jaws, ensuring stability while keeping the six-inch chainsaw away from your fingers and toes, and its electric design makes it more eco-friendly than its gas-powered counterparts.

Want to see how far we are into the future? That little dot there is a fully-functioning GPS unit, complete with ARM CPU and firmware. Its power draw is 58 milliwatts.

It’s the ORG4472, made by OriginGPS. It’s not in any devices yet, but it’s aimed at devices like digital cameras that have no room to spare but could use a few extra features. They’re not aiming at phones, which usually have their own systems in place, and newer hardware with GPS units included on the SoC.

The wheel may be one of mankind’s greatest inventions, but it’s an unfortunate fact of life for the wheelchair-bound that much of the modern world is built for the upright – from deli counter-tops and store shelves to stairs and escalators. When Israeli entrepreneur Amit Goffer was left paralyzed after a car accident in 1997 he set about creating “robotic trousers” to replace a wheelchair. The fruits of his labor are now set to help others with his ReWalk robotic exoskelton set to go on sale from the start of 2011.

Price somewhere around $100.000

There’s just no two ways about it: what Lufthansa has managed to accomplish here is nothing short of incredible. While avid jetsetters have been enjoying in-flight WiFi on (select) domestic routes for a few years now, the in-flight fun has been coming to an abrupt halt when boarding a flight requiring a passport. The dream of long-haul in-flight internet has felt like a distant one, but it seems that the future is indeed happening today. The carrier’s FlyNet service has been relaunched this week, and with assistance from Panasonic and the 802.11n gods that be, it’s now offering broadband internet access on intercontinental routes. At first, the service will be limited to select North Atlantic routes, but access should be available on “nearly the entire Lufthansa intercontinental network by the end of 2011.”

No specific performance figures are being released, but the company does call it “extremely fast” and quick enough to open large attachments “without delay.” Better still, the airline will be enabling cellphone data access (GSM and GPRS) in the spring of next year, giving highfalutin’ bigwigs the ability to send and receive the most expensive text messages of their life. Deutsche Telekom will be providing the actual internet service, with pricing set as such: €10.95 (or 3,500 miles) for one hour or €19.95 (or 7,000 miles) for a 24-hour pass that also allows patrons to access the web on “on all Lufthansa connecting flights equipped with a hotspot during the period of validity as well as after the flight in Lufthansa lounges.” Oh, and did we mention that it’s totally free through January 31st, 2011? It is

Laying down paving bricks is back-breaking, time-consuming work… or at least, it is if you do it the usual way. Henk van Kuijk, director of Dutch industrial company Vanku, evidently decided that squatting/kneeling and shoving the bricks into place on the ground was just a little too slow, so he invented the Tiger Stone paving machine. The road-wide device is fed loose bricks, and lays them out onto the road as it slowly moves along. A quick going-over with a tamper, and you’ve got an instant brick road. It takes only way day to lay 400 yards of road or wherever the road stops.

Virgin Galactic has come yet one more step closer to realizing its dream of flying passengers in space as its space tourism rocket, SpaceShipTwo achieved its first solo glide flight on Sunday. The entire test flight lasted for 25 minutes which comprised of the spaceship being carried by its mothership to an altitude of 45,000 feet and released over the Mojave Desert. After the separation, SpaceShipTwo, which was manned by two pilots, flew freely for 11 minutes before landing at an airport runway. This is definitely a great feat for SpaceShipTwo which until now has flown attached to the wing of its special jet-powered mothership – the WhiteKnightTwo. In this test the SpaceShipTwo which is designed to carry six passengers however did not fire its rocket engine to fly to space. A series of tests and glide flights will be conducted before SpaceShipTwo rockets into space.