Smiling EV Debuts on Earth Day

The long-awaited, often-advertised Peapod will be available for order on Earth Day, April 22. Coincidentally, the 22nd also is Administrative Assistant's Day. We expect to see a lot of greenies and maybe some secretaries tooling around in their $12,500 Peapods at no more than 25 miles an hour.

While the Peapod prototype had clear driver and passenger doors that looked like a Dyson vacuum cleaner, the production version (shown above) of the neighborhood electric vehicle resembles George Jetson's Deux Chevaux. Company director and brand guru Peter E. Arnell, whose initials inspired the company's name, told Treehugger.com the car's appearance was inspired by "Japanese bullet trains, storm troopers from the film Star Wars, space helmets and turtles." There's also a very prominent "smile" to the car's grill, but what else would you expect from a man whose firm devised Pepsi's new logo with the Cheshire grin and laughably pretentious backstory?

The feel-good vibe continues with a glance at the in-dash iPod (sold seperately). Edmunds says every trip concludes with a carbon-footprint analysis, while another app tells you exactly how much money you've saved by leaving the family truckster at home.

Arnell says the Peapod isn't a neighborhood electric vehicle, even if the National Highway Transportation Safety Board and his company's own website do. Arnell callls it a Mobi, a new category he's "branded" in much the same way automakers branded 4x4s "SUVS." Regardless of what you call it, the Peapod tops out as 25 mph as required by law for NEVs.

This pod has been cast from Peapod Mobility. Originally a division of GEM, a Chrysler subsidiary that's been churning out small electric vehicles for more than 10 years, the new Peapod Mobility is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chrysler. While GEM's e-series NEVs are popular in retirement communities, as utility vehicles on college campuses and as runabouts for Republican presidential candidates, the entire Peapod experience is aimed at high-tech urban commuters. Edmunds reports the all-electric four-seater will be sold direct to consumers from the Peapod website and marketed extensively to college students. Zune holdouts need not apply: The Peapod requires an iPod or iPhone to start the car, which doesn't make much sense to us.

The first 'pods will be delivered to buyers by October.

Photos: Peapod

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Conficker Attacks Pakistani Internet Users

The PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited), on April 3, 2009, alerted Internet users in the country about attacks from the dangerous Conficker worm, saying that the virus was striking most of the Pakistani online surfers just as it was hitting surfers in other countries.

Dr. Sadik Al-Jadir, Senior Executive Vice-President, (Commercial) PTCL, stated that the worm had slowed the speed of the Internet bandwidth, as reported by The Nation on April 4, 2009. Al-Jadir further said that the Conficker virus had targeted the popular operating systems worldwide, affecting a massive number of personal computers.

He also stated that most of the Internet and broadband users in Pakistan were encountering browsing problems because of the virus, and were reportedly dialing 1218 to contact Technical Support. The executive VP reported that there was a fourfold increase in the number of incoming calls to 1218 Broadband Technical Support since April 1, 2009.

Moreover, the security specialists stated that the malware prevents users from accessing websites, which offer the worm's removal programs.

Notably, the Conficker virus is a highly complicated and prevalent worm in the history of Internet. In recent days, security researchers remained largely troubled with this malware. However, IT security experts hope that the volume of PCs infected with the worm would decline soon.

This decline stems from the fact that two security investigators belonging to the global, non-profit research organization Honeypot Project have invented a technique with which administrators can easily detect infected computers on their wider networks. The technique would aid in eliminating the infection from the PCs as well as diminish the possibilities of the spread of infection across the entire network. Meanwhile, this method is already being used as part of the popular commercial and free network scanners.

Suggesting precautionary measures, the security specialists said that users needed to regularly update their computer systems with the most recent updates of Windows operating software as well as the latest antivirus as it would prevent the worm from penetrating into the systems. Also, users needed to turn off the Autorun facility to remain guarded from the virus, they added.

New technology translates human thought into robot action

An Asimo robot raises its left hand in response to the thoughts of a test subject. (Photo courtesy of Honda Research Institute Japan et al)

A research team gave the public a glimpse of the future Tuesday as it demonstrated technology allowing a person to move Honda's Asimo robot simply by thinking about it.

The technology, developed by the Honda Research Institute Japan (a subsidiary of Honda Motor Co.), the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR) and Shimadzu Corp., allows a person to direct Asimo to raise its right and left arms, run, or "eat" by thinking of specific actions.

The system, a combination of electroencephalography (EEG) and near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), does not use electrodes in direct contact with the brain, but rather a helmet that reads brain activity. Specifically, the helmet processes patterns in brain waves and blood flow in the brain associated with each action and then transmits the appropriate commands to Asimo.

For example, if a person thinks about moving his or her tongue, then Asimo will raise its hand to its face as though eating. Among the three human test subjects to participate in the research, the system was successful in interpreting their thoughts and sending them on to Asimo about 90 percent of the time.

However, there is currently a 7-9 second delay between the human controller's thoughts and Asimo's reaction, and due to the wide differences in brain activity patterns between individuals, the system must be specifically calibrated to each user.

In the future, the research team hopes to apply the technology to hands and feet-free driving and household robots.