selfing

Ford offers Lincoln 'Park Assist'

A new feature from Ford Motor will allow drivers to let their car do the steering when faced with a parallel parking space, the company announced Tuesday.

This latest car gadget, which Ford calls Active Park Assist, works slightly differently than the park assist feature on Toyota's self-parking Lexus.

On the self-parking Lexus, the driver can use an interface to adjust the space the car aims for, and only maintains control over the brake while it's maneuvering.

In Ford's version the driver pulls up alongside a space and pushes a button. The car then applies ultrasonic-based sensors … Read more

Seagate powers self-encrypting Dell PCs

UPDATED: Corrected the information that McAfee provides software security solution for Dell's self-encrypting PCs as previously suggested in the article.

According to credible sources, a notebook computer is stolen every 53 seconds--and 97 percent are never recovered. In most cases, the risk of losing data stored on the hard drive is much higher than the value of the notebook itself.

To address this issue, Seagate, Dell, and McAfee teamed up to announce on Monday data encryption solutions for PCs that work without you even having to know about it. The solutions include new self-encrypting hard drives, software managing systems, and computers that implements the two.

The new hard drives belong to the Seagate's Momentus FDE family. FDE stands for full-disk encryption, Seagate's self-encrypting method for 2.5-inch hard drives.

Dell is the PC vendor that implements the new hard drives in a variety of its business computers.

McAfee annouced that it has joined the list of security software providers that support Seagate hard drives' embedded hardware encryption. This offers customers another choice of enterprise management solutions required to secure notebook computers.

The new Momentus FDE notebook hard drives comes in two performance grades: one that spins at 5400rpm and the other at 7200rpm. Both are presently available in 320GB and 16GB storage capacities, with 500GB versions coming early next year. However, the 5400rpm Momentus FDE has only 8MB of cache as opposed to 16MB of the 7200rpm version.

These drives features SATA controller interface and built-in AES encryption, a government-grade encryption capable of encrypting a hard drive's entire content transparently and automatically. … Read more

Shocking research: Narcissists drawn to Facebook

A team of researchers from the University of Georgia has come to a conclusion that will undoubtedly turn the tech world on its side (ha): if you use Facebook to promote your lovely self, it shows through. Narcissists, or those psychologically defined as "excessively egotistical," will inflate their profiles on the social network with more photos, massive friends lists, and packed activity feeds.

As we used to say on the playground in third grade, duh.

"We found that people who are narcissistic use Facebook in a self-promoting way that can be identified by others," study leader … Read more

Self-promotion via out-of-office autoreply

I emailed a media friend today to ask if he'd have time to meet when I'm in New York next month. The reply? Classic.

Mindless sheep that I am, I'm now on his blog. :-)

Crazy Apple rumor of the day: New MacBooks already shipping

We usually hate acting as an echo chamber for the viciously self-inflating Internet rumor mill, but this one is so gloriously out there that we can't help but weigh in.

Usually respectable financial outlet Barron's (owned by Dow Jones & Company, after all), caught our eye with the following report:

Citigroup's Richard Gardner asserted in a research note this morning that..."field checks" have confirmed that shipments of new MacBooks have begun; he says the most distinctive features of the new MacBooks are "very thin aluminum casing, an LED-backlit display and an aggressive entry-level … Read more

Nissan announces G37 convertible, sedan

Infiniti announced some new additions to its G lineup this Wednesday. The 2009 G37 Convertible will be based on the current G37 Coupe and will feature a three-piece automatic retracting hardtop. Infiniti also states that it will be upgrading the audio and HVAC systems to compensate for this new exposure to the elements, but did not supply details as to how.

Infiniti's 330 horsepower, 3.7 liter V6 would be also be transforming the G35 sedan into a meaner G37 sport sedan. Joining the G37 coupe and convertible, all models will receive as options Infiniti's new 7-speed automatic … Read more

The 404 151: Where our names aren't f***ing Warren

Preshow report: Jeff challenges my manhood, so I do what any Manchild would do and drop trou to prove my point (literally). Shortly after, I blacked out for a bit and it's unclear what happened next. Did Ustream see my Super Soaker and kill the stream? Did Wilson secretly stop the broadcast out of respect for our underage viewers? No one is 100 percent sure at this point-all we know is that the camera cut out for awhile. Thankfully, we resolved the technical issues and started the show on time plus 15 minutes.

Since I'm the only one … Read more

'Biggest drawing' just a big hoax

A Swedish art student who claimed to have created the "biggest drawing in the world" using a GPS device and an international package delivery service has admitted that the drawing is a hoax.

Erik Nordenankar had claimed that he placed a GPS device in a briefcase on March 17 and then sent the case on a 55-day trip around the world with DHL. He originally stated on his Web site that he had given DHL specific travel instructions on the route that the briefcase should take to yield the drawing. After the package allegedly traveled over 6 continents … Read more

Self-portrait with GPS

Update, 5/27, 5 p.m. PDT: The student has admitted that his tale is a hoax. Read the follow-up here.

A Swedish art student has posted online what he calls the "biggest drawing in the world," though the picture would seem to be more accurately described as a drawing on a rather modest scale that came into being through a round-the-world technique.

Perhaps that's why a sort of subtitle on Erik Nordenankar's Web site, just above the image, is this: "GPS Generated Self Portrait."

The technique is described this way: "My pen … Read more