Friday, June 20, 2008

piclens add on for firefox 3

Full-Screen, 3D -- PicLens transforms your browser into a visually stunning experience for finding and viewing online photos and videos. Their "3D Wall" lets you effortlessly search and zoom your way around thousands of images, videos, news feeds, sports feeds, and more. See the demo at http://piclens.com/demo

Download it from https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5579

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Honda Announces FCX Clarity - hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles

With crude oil crossing $130 a barrel, everyone is thinking of alternate fuel. Though hybrid cars are becoming popular, people need more fuel efficient vehicles. Honda Announced FCX Clarity which is a hydrogen-powered fuel cell car. Honda claims that it gives three times the mileage of a petrol car or twice as much as hybrid car.
Honda FCX Clarity emits only water as a by-product. So, they claim that there is no global warming not pollution. These cars will take a long time to become commercially viable as there are no petrol bunks which fill hydrogen. It will take atleast 3-4 years when we will see a few of them on road. Again the car has to be rightly priced, if not, people will never buy it.

There is a nice article about the FCX clarity launch on http://www.autoindustry.co.uk/news/16-06-08
As per this article, they want to introduce the vehicle in the US in the following way

-Step 1 -- Based on respondents' residential location, the list of potential customers has been narrowed to approximately 500 people living in very close proximity to publicly-accessible hydrogen fueling stations, including planned or existing stations in Santa Monica, Torrance and Irvine.

-Step 2 -- Customers meeting the geographical criteria will receive an e-mail prompting them to take a customer selection survey if they are serious about wanting to lease an FCX Clarity.

-Step 3 - The survey will qualify customers based on driving patterns, vehicle needs, vehicle storage and financial criteria.

-Step 4 - Customers qualify for the next steps, including an interview with American Honda.

I think till Clarity becomes commercially available, Toyota Prius will dominate the US market

Have you downloaded firefox3 yet

Firefox 3 is out there for download. You can download it from
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/?p=downloadday

Firefox is trying to set a Guiness record by seting the record for the most software downloaded in 24 hours.
I am waiting to find the result myself

It is an just amazing how Firefox broke the monopoly over Microsoft's Internet Explorer. In 2004 MSIE had 95% market share and in 4 years Firefox has eaten 18.5% of it.