bits and bikes

The Innovate or Die pedal-powered machine contest was

designed to inspire innovation and environmental change by highlighting the benefits of cycling in an unprecedented way. The challenge is to invent and build machines that transform zero-emission human energy into new and useful purposes, one pedal stroke at a time

… Pedal-powered supercomputers aside, I was most excited about the projects that involved bicycles that move. Stationary is not my style. Of the entrants focused on bicycles as vehicles for transportation, my favorites were…

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In a new twist on Human Computation, a team of 10 MIT cyclists pedal-powered an energy-efficient SiCortex SC648 supercomputer for 20 minutes.

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The dual topics of interest here on Bits and Bikes — bicycle commuting and daily computing — seem to be on the rise in India, according to a BBC News article published today: India’s techies take to cycling.

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Web-based applications are becoming increasingly popular, offering a variety of compelling advantages over desktop-based applications, both to developers and to users. These applications are platform-independent, accessible from any Internet-connected computer, offer offsite data storage, and often provide integrated tools for collaboration and sharing. One major tradeoff, however, is a loss of privacy. But this doesn’t mean that we need to give up on privacy (or give up on web applications.) We just need to think more creatively…

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I want my bicycle commute to be as safe, practical, and as enjoyable as possible. This is, and will continue to be, the underlying theme of the bikes portion of Bits and Bikes. And this is also the criteria I use when deciding what to bring along while commuting. If the result weighs 70 lbs, so be it.

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Its original purpose was to let me run certain small scripts on my home computer from my very low-tech cell phone. From here, Berry (originally Hackberry) eventually grew a full syntax for requests, a nice GUI, an SDK, a security model, and many new ways to connect. In addition to the original SMS communication channel, six more input channels and nine more output channels were later added (e.g. IM messaging, Skype, Quicksilver.) Talk about feature creep.

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