Newsgab

Which is more powerful: A computer in a traditional beige case, or a computer in a “ruby red” case? Well according to Dell, a “trendy” coloured computer is more powerful. Dell has released a new range of Inspiron notebooks for the colour conscious individual. So what’s so special about these notebooks compared to their normal line of notebooks? I compared the Inspiron 1520 coloured notebook with the equivalent “colourless” model, and the specs were identical. The only difference I found was the colour. And what a colour palette to choose from:

• Jet Black
• Alpine White
• Espresso Brown
• Ruby Red
• Mindnight Blue
• Spring Green
• Flamingo Pink
• Sunshine Yellow

Dark chocolate has been identifed as a growth area. It was historically chosen by the food oddie, or the foodie connoisseurs. All that is about to change as dark chocolate is about to become mainstream.

In general chocoalte sales in Europe have been static or even worse in decline, and new areas have to exploited to reamin in the market.

A recent report by Leatherhead on the global confectionery market noted growing demand for dark chocolate in Europe, North America, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

For the run of the mill eveyday chocolate makers, it has prompted a move into premium products, or the adaptation of old favorites or the hunt for acquisitions.

Nestle, the world’s largest food company, will launch the new KitKat 4 Finger Dark, and Cadbury, the world’s top confectionery group, introduces Flake Dark next month for the three million new dark chocolate fans it says have emerged in the past two years.

Japanese banks have traditionally had a reputation for poor service but an innovative idea may make the harsh reality easier to take.

A roulette wheel pops onto the screen of automatic teller machines when customers of Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank Ltd finish transferring funds.

If your spin os lucky you win A 1000 yen ($8.50).

“Using ATMs is impersonal and lacks communication,” said a spokesman for the bank which is based in Gifu prefecture, central Japan. “We wanted to add some fun.”

The new service will start from September 13 at 134 of the bank’s branches.

The roulette game is Ogaki Kyoritsu’s second shot at jazzing up its ATM services. It launched an on-screen slot machine game last August, in which customers may win prizes of an ATM fee waiver or 1,000 yen after withdrawing money.

The normally sedate Brooklyn Botanical Garden smelt to high heaven this week.

One of the world’s largest flowers, the cultivated amorphophallus titanum, gave out a rare rank smell this week.

The flowers of this plant smell like a rotting corpse.

The organic smell emitting from this plant led onlookers to believe that some sort of massacre had taken place.

The last time a titan arum, native to Sumatra, bloomed in New York was in 1939, garden officials said. Only a handful have flowered in the United States in the past few decades.

More than 10,000 people visited a blooming corpse flower at the University of Connecticut in Storrs in 2004.

It was discovered that the stench is vital to its reproduction, designed to attract tiny sweat bees and carrion beetles that live on carcasses. The insects carry pollen to other corpse flowers. “This is a very specific assignment, essentially,” Mr. Cullina said. “Some flowers are very insect-specific about what they want”

A young Dutch architect has created a floating bed which hovers above the ground through magnetic force and comes with a cool price tag of 1.2 million euros ($1.54 million).

Taking his inspiration from the mysterious monolith in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 cult film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Janjaap Ruijssenaars took six years to develop the sleek black platform, which can also double as a dining table or a plinth

“No matter where you live all architecture is dictated by gravity. I wondered whether you could make an object, a building or a piece of furniture where this is not the case — where another power actually dictates the image,” Ruijssenaars said in a cool, I’m a designer and I must talk like this, kind of way.

Magnets built into the floor and into the bed itself repel each other, pushing the bed up into the air. Thin steel cables tether the bed in place.

I’ve always been a closet fan of robots, ever since the days of the Transformers or R2D2 and C3PO from the Starwars movies I’ve always marvelled at the technology that sits behind these masked men of steel!

Now I’m a slightly more grown up kid, it looks like the next generation are going to be spoilt with some of the latest releases from Japans toy makers Bandai.

Check out this guy! The 1.5-meter (five-foot) tall version of the Gundam – whose adventures in far-away worlds have been a longstanding hit on Japanese and US television — sends red laser rays from its head and flashing lights through its eyes (click thumbnail for larger image - the robots on the right by the way).

Weighing 35 kilograms (77 pounds), the robot strikes poses, makes robotic noises and fires away with its “Vulcan” machine gun.

I hate spam and if your anything like me you’ll send most of this stuff to your waste bin via the delete Key.

Other folks, such as the Romanian-born computer wizz Alex Dragulescu sees the stuff as art however.

For the last several years, Dragulescu has applied techniques in computational modeling and information visualization to invent a new form of artistic expression.

One of his more notable projects involved creating what he calls Spam Plants.

He doesn’t use Photoshop but simply writes code to create computer art. For the Spam Plants, he parsed the data within junk e-mail–including subject lines, headers and footers–to detect relationships between that data. Then he visually represents those relationships.

The super-sized plasma war is hotting again up as LG launch it’s latest gigantic telly.

The widescreen wonder beats every other plasma in size…Measuring an eye-spanking 71-inches, the MY-71PY10 can be yours in one of two finishes, either slick black or if your feeling really flush, in genuine gold.

Yes…gold! as in a whopping 4 pounds of the shiny stuff.

Seriously stunning, it’s the world’s largest commercially available plasma, pumping out full Hi-Definition pictures and packing the latest HDMI connectors. (Click thumbs for larger images)

LG’s XD Engine also means standard-definition pictures look super sharp, while the included 600W speaker system means surround sound will be more than capable of making your ears bleed.

Popularity: 8% [?]

What do you get when you pull together 6,831 rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, four wheels and about $60 Million worth of investment from the likes of Paypals Elon Musk, Googles Larry Page and Sergey Brin and ex-eBay chief Jeff Skoll.

I’ll tell you what you get, an absolutely stunning looking battery powered, electric sports car capable of hitting 60 miles per hour in under four seconds, a top speed of over 130 mph and a fuel efficiency of 1 to 2 cents (less then 1 UK penny) per mile.

After three years of hard work Tesla Motors, the brain child of Martin Eberhard have launched their Lotus Elise inspired electric super car; the Tesla Roadster.

The car was designed by Lotus’s Barney Hatt and you can see the similarities with the Lotus’s Elise in these pictures. What’s amazing with this car though is the stuff that’s going on under the bonnet.

Joy of Joys for philatelists everywhere. The US postal service are celebrating everything super with a release of super hero stamps.

Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Supergirl all make an appearence on the new postage stamps being released this Thursday (20th July).

The new 39-cent stamps and 24-cent postal cards will be made public at a comic book show in San Diego, and will then go on sale throughout the United States on Friday.

The stamps are sold in a sheet of 20 (click thumbnail for a larger image), half featuring the individual superheroes and half showing covers of comic books starring them.

The Postal Service reports this is its first set of super hero stamps, indicating that more are likely to follow.

Superhero’s included in the collection of stamps include: