Window washing robots, the Windoro

Robots are going to take over everything it seems.  This Korean product, the Windoro washes windows.. on both sides of the window.

It connects itself with its counterpart by powerful magnets and looks like it does a pretty nice job washing the windows.

http://player.vimeo.com/video/14791310

StyleCowboys.nl | Windoro Robot to Clean your Windows from Stylecowboys on Vimeo.

But really, can it do more than one window? I imagine that on large buildings, one would have to open each window and mount the robot for it to work. Perhaps it’s only viable for household use at the moment.

It’s still neat though, and I am amazed at how rapidly robot technology is progressing here in Korea.

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Seoul vehicles to go electric by 2020.

BEV SE-580, a Korean made electrical car.

A Korea Herald article says that the mayor of Seoul has pledged that by 2020, Korea will have 120,000 electric cars on the road.  This pledge is intended to show the world a model for clean energy.  This is pretty interesting.

As we know now, there are many cities (especially in the U.S.) where the use of cars is absolutely necessary.  It is especially apparent in countries with an underdeveloped railroad system.

Korea’s railroad is hardly lacking, but with the technology available and such a small country with a centralized population, Seoul is ideal for trying this type of technology out en masse.

There’s also an agreement to supply electric cars to the city of Los Angeles.  This is great, because L.A. has never had a subway.  Smog is a huge problem in L.A., and this may be just what the city needs.

Right now it’s impossible to make a direct switch to electric cars because there are so few charging facilities and other infrastructure, but if Seoul (or L.A) were to install that infrastructure, I imagine that the cars will increase in popularity.

Weaknesses at the moment include low speed and inability to travel far distances, but electric cars would be ideal for commuting.

I've seen the future and it's in Seoul!

SK!

Today I visited the T.um.

The what?

T is a marketing icon for SK Telecom.  They have several shops called T-world, you can get T internet and TV in your house, and cell phones from SKT all have T labels on them.  It’s basically SK’s brand for telecommunications products.

The .um part stands for “ubiquitous museum”.  So I went to the SK Telecom Ubiquitous Museum.  There SK has set up a showcase of possible future uses of its products.  It was really impressive.

I’m really not jerking your chain here.  It really did kind of blow my mind away with how awesome some of the stuff in there was!

Now, you can’t just show up and visit, you have to go to the website and make a reservation.  They only seem to have weekdays at 11:00 available, but if you can make it there, it’s well worth the trip.

So let me tell you about what I saw in there!

Samsung and Apple are not really competitors, but actually collaborators?

This graphic would have us assume that Apple, Samsung, and LG are actually in competition with each other... But are they?

One of my readers provided me with a link to this article, which suggests that Apple and Samsung benefit greatly from each other, rather than being in direct competition.

It’s certainly true that many of Samsung’s products appear to be copies of Apple products, with the Galaxy-S being Samsung’s version of the i-phone and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab being a copy of the i-pad. However, this article suggests that neither company would be what it is today without the other. After all, many of Apples products, including the i-pad, are made with Samsung parts.

The article further suggests that Samsung benefits from Apple’s innovation, and Samsung is able to deliver products to the general market, whereas Apple targets the high end market.

The ipod used to carry both Apple's and HP's logo...

It got me to thinking, if Apple products rely so much on Samsung, wouldn’t it be neat if Samsung were to put its label on Apple products and just license the Apple name? It certainly has happened before, when the ipod first came on the market, HP licensed the Apple name and produced a lot of the ipods themsevles. There’s probably a reason why neither group has suggested the idea. Perhaps calling Samsung products as Apple products would be too cost prohibitive for Samsung… but if Samsung were to do exactly that, it wouldn’t be the first time something like this has occured.

10 Korean products I would export to the U.S. (if I had an export business.) #6 Heated Beds

Just like ondol, only in bed form!

On the same theme as ondol, there is another winter weather product that I would like to export. It’s the heated stone bed!

In this article, you can find out why this product might actually be better than ondol itself!

Galaxy Tab!

The Galaxy Tab, next to the Samsung's other Apple-challenging Galaxy-S phone.

Via gizmodo.

Okay, so there’s been a lot of hype about Samsung’s new Galaxy Tab, which people have been comparing to the i-pad made by apple.

Just as the Galaxy-S phone was seen as a direct competitor to the i-phone, the Galaxy Tab is a direct competitor of the i-pad.

As I don’t have either one of them, I’m not qualified to make any kind of comparison between the two products, but I can tell you that Samsung knows that the i-pad is popular, and therefore needs to somehow make its product better. The one thing I do know is that Galaxy Tab can use flash, but the ipad can’t.

Android OS based gadgets seem to be gaining prominence, and in some markets where the i-pad isn’t even released, this Galaxy-Tab could take a market share.

Here’s a link to Samsung’s Galaxy Tab website.

Do I want one? YES!

Here’s a comparison with the i-pad:

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The train that never stops!

Okay, this is actually an idea that I thought of years ago. I’m sure that a lot of people have thought of it themselves. It’s a train that never needs to stop at stations. This particular one seems to have been designed by someone in China, but there’s no word on whether this will actually ever be made.

Now, there are problems with this design. One mechanical mess up and the carrier car could go flying, killing everyone inside. It will have to be perfected until there’s no chance of failure.