aero

TheAeroClock by Nenad Hrg is a simple but unusually attractive desktop analog clock display. You can change its size from tiny to full-screen and its transparency from practically invisible to opaque. It offers a wide range of colorful 3D textures that give it a unique and highly customizable look. It displays system time, and that's it--no date or text message. TheAeroClock is all about the look, and it's got that.

TheAeroClock is portable freeware that opens as soon as you click its extracted program file, displaying its clock face and its settings dialog. This simple pop-up has sliders … Read more

You willingly succumb to the seductive siren call of coffee, but all that bean shopping, grinding, and espresso machine twiddling is getting tiresome.

Never fear. Your morning pick-me-up is about to get a lot more portable when the caffeine-packing AeroShot hits the market in a few months.

Each AeroShot is about the size of a tube of lipstick and contains 100 milligrams of caffeine in the form of a fine powder. You can get between six and eight lime-flavored puffs from each cartridge. It's a little bit of molecular gastronomy in your pocket.

David Edwards, a professor at Harvard … Read more

There's run-of-the-mill ridiculous and then there's redonkulous. The AeroDream One from Jarre Technologies is pure redonkulous. It's an iPod, iPhone, and iPad dock. Big deal, right?

It's an 11-foot-tall, chrome-slathered, 10,000-watt iPod dock that requires a ladder just to get your device up to the top. It weighs more than 870 pounds. It also costs a wallet-shattering $560,000. Redonkulous.

Each AeroDream One is custom made and takes six months for delivery. This behemoth comes from a company created by Jean Michel Jarre, a man best known for electronic music, over-the-top shows with laser displays, and luxurious flowing hair.… Read more

If you're going to fight an Islamic insurgency, you'd think there would be more practical tools than an airship.

But that's just what Thailand has been using to track militants in its restive southern provinces. Its manned Aeros 40D Sky Dragon, manufactured by California-based Aeros, has again run into technical trouble, making an emergency landing in the south's Pattani Province recently.

The Sky Dragon developed propeller problems and began losing altitude. It sustained some damage in an emergency landing, but no one was hurt, the Bangkok Post reported.

The 350 million baht ($11.7 million) U.S.-built craft has been seen as a boondoggle in Thailand due to problems with equipment and delays in delivery. It was returned to Aeros last year following major leaks, according to the paper.

Because the warranty has expired, the Royal Thai Army will have to pay for repairs.

The airship has a rigid structure and is thus not a blimp, and it measures 11.6 yards wide by 51 yards long. It's supposed to fly up to an altitude of 10,000 feet with a top speed of 54.6 mph. Its operational range is 348 miles.

The military has been using the dirigible for surveillance in the insurgency, which has claimed thousands of lives. It's been equipped with high-def night cameras and communications systems. … Read more

For the past couple of months Pioneer DJ (a division of Pioneer Electronics) has been traveling the East and West coasts with the DJ Art Mix Tour, raising funds for VH1's Save the Music Foundation, to restore music education programs in public schools.

The event enlisted some of the top DJs, urban artists, and designers to create original works of art using a unique canvas: the Pioneer CDJ-2000 digital music player.

August 2 through August 23, everyone will have the opportunity to bid on one of the 12 original art pieces created by Steve Aoki, Tommy Lee and DJ Aero, BT, The Crystal Method, Jesse "Dean" Graves, Joe Hahn of Linkin Park, Bob Haro, Man One, Victor "Marka27" Quinonez, Ritzy Periwinkle, Rost Arr, and George Thompson.

Bidding will begin at $400, with final bids being accepted until noon ET, on August 23. All the information you'll need about each individual work of art and the artist(s) can be found on the Pioneer DJ Art Mix page on charitybuzz. To boot, 100 percent of the proceeds will be donated to the VH1 Save The Music Foundation.

We had the opportunity to check out the Pioneer DJ Art Mix show held at Twelve21 in New York on June 23.… Read more

Oregon is planning to install Level 3 DC fast-charging stations along a portion of Interstate 5, the Oregon Department of Transportation announced today.

AeroVironment was chosen to be the supplier for the electric-vehicle charging stations which will be sprinkled throughout a 150-mile stretch of highway.

Interstate 5 is the main interstate highway that runs north and south through the western U.S. The electric-vehicle charging stations will be placed starting at the California-Oregon state line and up to Oregon's Willamette Valley.

The 480-volt Level 3 chargers are CHAdeMO (Charge de Move) compliant, a standard that is compatible with the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi i-MiEV, and Subaru R1e. It's capable of fully charging an electric-vehicle battery in about 30 minutes, according to AeroVironment.

The exact locations for the stations have not yet been chosen.

AeroVironment has also been tasked with researching the best spots in conjunction with local utilities, based on an analysis of things like area traffic patterns and vehicle range. The stations should be in place and available to drivers by the end of this fall, according to the company.… Read more

To power its upcoming test fleet of electric vehicles, BMW announced AeroVironment as the preferred supplier and installer for the ActiveE's 240-volt home charging dock.

Based on the 1-Series, the BMW ActiveE has a 32-kWh lithium ion battery pack that provides a 100-mile range. The AeroVironment EVSE-RS charging station uses the industry standard SAE J1772 connector to deliver approximately 25 miles of driving range per hour of charging time. Using the EVSE-RS charger, a completely drained battery can be fully recharged in 4 to 5 hours.

BMWs aren't the only electric cars the EVSE-RS can charge--AeroVironment's weather-proof … Read more

Windows 8 will include a PDF reader, greater customization of the Aero interface, and a new version of Internet Explorer 9 that works like its Windows Phone counterpart, according to new details posted online by Microsoft partners.

Offering new tidbits and screenshots from a Windows 8 pre-beta build, "Windows 8 Secrets" co-authors Rafael Rivera and Paul Thurrott revealed some notable new features this week via the Web site Within Windows.

Windows 8 will reportedly offer a new interface dubbed Immersive as an alternative to the traditional Aero user interface introduced in Vista, according to Windows 8 Center and … Read more

We'll state up front that we are generally not very big fans of Windows desktop enhancements; too often they are clunky and buggy and end up slowing our system down instead of enhancing it. AeroSnap Plus aims to emulate the window dragging and resizing functionality of Windows 7 in other versions of Windows, and though it does work, we're afraid that it, too, falls victim to some of the problems that commonly plague applications of this type.

The program downloaded without issues and launched without installation. A six-tab menu appeared that was part options dialog and part Help … Read more