MOBILE COMPUTING
They haven’t quite created KITT —the chatty artificial intelligence built into the automotive star of television’s Knight Rider—but Dashboard Devices lets you give your ordinary car a dose of smarts with the $2,750 ENV-XC. This computer is built around a 1.66-gigahertz Intel Core Duo processor, with 1 gigabyte of memory and a 160-GB hard drive. It connects to an in-dash touch screen, which replaces your car radio controls, and features a DVD-read/write drive; a USB port to connect additional devices, such as a keyboard for writing e-mail; a GPS navigation system; and WiFi. It comes with Windows, but advanced users can install the Linux operating system instead. And yes, it will even talk to you. www.dashboarddevices.com.
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Nitrogen is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless chemical element with an atomic mass of 14.00674 u. Constituting of approximately 78 percent of Earth’s atmosphere, nitrogen is found in abundance on this planet, most of which, however, is of no use. Since its discovery by a Scottish physician by the name Daniel Rutherford, in 1772, nitrogen has come a long way to become one of the most important element for humans, plants, and animals alike. The credit of this goes to the various nitrogen uses and properties. Before we move on to nitrogen usage, let’s take a look at the various aspects of this element, in brief. (more…)
Coal, oil and natural gas are the three different forms of fossil fuels that are widely used. They are formed by the process of anaerobic decomposition of organic matter under the surface of the earth for millions of years. Large scale use of fossil fuels started since industrial revolution. Today, they are the most cheap sources of energy available for the use of both personal as well as commercial purposes. Petroleum is used to fuel our vehicles while coal and natural gas are used to produce electricity for our homes and offices. Statistics show that almost three-fourth of the demands of the energy in the world is fulfilled by fossil fuels. Let us find out the relationship between fossil fuels and global warming. (more…)
The image of disco is forever immortalized in the Saturday Night Fever movie poster as John Travolta struck the all too famous “disco pose”. The film glamorized the disco culture as an era where leisure-suit clad men danced their way from one discotheque to another, looking for romantic adventure. Disco received its name from these clubs that played nothing but dance music, with or without lyrics. Ignored by the most historians was that most of these discotheques were gay clubs. (more…)
Classical music is a term used to refer to music which stems from learned traditions and which is taught through institutions. Classical music is broken up into 6 eras. The music of these eras share common aspects of style in a time period. Further, it can be seen that classical music was influenced by changes in culture and society. The eras of classical music are: the Middle ages, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and twentieth Century. (more…)
Everyone is pretty familiar with the often satirized image of heavy metal. Speedy beat, strong electronic guitar riffs, and an over-emphasis on volume. As far as its name goes, some have attributed it to the works of William S. Burroughs, but most will say the origin lies in Steppenwolf’s classic song “Born To Be Wild” in a verse that said “Heavy Metal Thunder”. (more…)
The term grunge was coined by Mark Arm, who later formed the popular group MudHoney, in an attempt to describe this type of music. This term is often used synonymously with alternative music, but that is actually an entirely different style altogether. Grunge is characterized by its strong guitar, deliberate distortion, and angst-ridden lyrics. (more…)
Jazz has its influence from the blues, but with a speedier beat. It was a type of music that relies on its live shows due to its amazing ability for the artists to improvise over previously-written melodies. (more…)
Soul often refers to the sound that stemmed from the commercialization of the R&B industry. Record companies such as Motown Records capitalized on audiences wanting a distinct sound that consisted of harder rhythms. (more…)
