Why is it that a sedan will hold five adults - two in the front and three the rear seat, but if you have three small kids, you need to get a minivan or, worse, a 3-row SUV?  Either way, the parents are stuck with a huge, gas guzzling, no-parallel parking, non-handling pig of a vehicle.  And at least one of the little treasures has to sit way back in the third-row (hence the title of this post).

The problem is that there isn’t way to fit three car seats across in any normal sized car.  Which is fine if you only have one or two kids.  But, what if you have three?  Or want to fit another adult in the rear seat?  Nope, sorry, can’t do it.

So, why not create a two-kid car seat?  It would have much less wasted width than two separate seats, so you could still fit another narrow single-kid seat, or even an adult.  To make this work, they would need to use the LATCH system that’s on all newish cars, and it would probably need adjustment to accommodate various anchor positions.  It would have to be plenty strong to handle the extra weight of two kids and the longer distance between anchor points and child harnesses.  Heck, it would even be worth it to modify the car to accommodate new attachment points.  This stuff can be worked out.   This isn’t something that everyone would want (most people I know only have one kid).  But, for some it would be worth it’s weight in gold.  Look at it this way - pay $1000 for a two-kid car seat with custom installation, or trade the 3-series in for Dodge Caravan?

So, what say you Britax?  Graco?  Anyone?

Okay, the water meter shown above is decidedly not smart.  But, neither is wasting water in a world where overuse and global warming are driving many municipalities to extreme efforts to conserve.  On a personal note, my house is about 5 years old.  It was made by David Weekly, a highly-efficient corporation that optimizes every component of their supply chain.  So, in other words, all of my toilets are starting to waste water due to cheap fill valves.  It’s pretty subtle, and I suspect that the average non-obsessive engineering type probably wouldn’t think twice about it.  But then again, Lowes carries about a half-dozen products for replacing this kind of component, so clearly I’m not the only one in the world with a drippy commode.  But I digress.   Obviously, toilets aren’t the only way to waste water.  We’ve all heard anecdotes about leaking sprinklers, faucets and freeze-broken pipes.  But how do you know that you’ve got a problem?  Other than the obvious (there’s a geyser in my front yard), you might see an increase in your water use year to year (my utility, Austin Water doesn’t even indicate the previous year’s use on the bill - does yours?).  Or maybe not.  So, let’s fix this problem… (more…)

Everyone knows that hybrid cars are all the rage right now.  What’s not to love - reduce fuel cost and CO2 emissions by around 25%.  And, driving a Prius is a major fashion statement in some circles.   But, what if you don’t want to buy a new car?  Or, perhaps you want even more people to look at your car and know that you’re all about saving the world (but, not enough to ride the bus).  Well, have I got an idea for you.  Why not put the hybrid drive in a small trailer that you pull behind your car?  More after the break…

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Over the past 50 or so years, the world’s imagination has been captured by the futuristic dream (or nightmare) of the autonomous robot.  Even today, we have robots that clean our floors, build cars, and perform various other chores.  But, as anyone who has used one of these gadgets can tell you, today’s robots are not even close to being smart enough to even  become a household, much less take over the world.  Maybe in another 10 or 20 or 50 years, computer and software technology will improve and enable more interesting autonomous creatures.  But, in the meanwhile, we’ve already got the technology to build “robots” that change the world - for better or worse.  More after the break…

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We drove down to New Braunfels for their annual airshow.  It was pretty amazing - these guys just make it look easy, despite the 15knot crosswind during the show.

Click on each picture for a larger version.

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I originally came up with this idea with companies like Slacker.com, Last.FM and Pandora in mind. The goal is to enable one or more of those service providers to increase their market by driving it into the iPod ecosystem. This product would do two things - it’s a graphical iPod/iPhone remote and it’s a Virtual DJ. (more…)

The automotive GPS space is relatively large and has attracted a lot of development investment. As a result, the pace of innovation and cost reduction has been swift. I wouldn’t be surprised to see 4.3″ devices with 3D navigation and basic multimedia capability on the shelves at $199 within 6 months and down to $99 in 18 months. Good stuff, but this post isn’t about automotive nav. It’s about the dozens of other location based applications that aren’t receiving the same level of attention.

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Today, portable GPS units are focused on improving performance, driving down cost, adding points of interest and real-time traffic. That’s all good stuff but it’s being done so I’m not going to talk about it much here. I’m more interested in things that aren’t being done well, like adding much better support for multimedia. Earlier this year, Patience had a minor car accident… a guy took an unprotected left turn and broadsided her. No one was hurt, but the car was badly damaged. And, unfortunately, the other driver claimed that he had an arrow. Eventually, our insurance company took his to arbitration, where it was decided that it was most likely his fault. But, the car will never be the same (and we never got compensated for rental car, diminished value, etc). So, anyway, I was thinking that it would have been really handy if GPS’s had a front-looking camera and a bit of Flash to store the last, say 15 or 30 minutes. And once there’s a camera in there we can do a ton of things.

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Did you notice how Apple’s 3rd generation iPod nano is the same size (volume) as the 1st and second generation ones?  They improve features as silicon technology allows, but the fundamental architecture prevents them from making a major step forward.  I looked at this and thought that it would be a perfect application for an Atom.

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I’m not going to claim that this is the most innovative idea in the world. Tom Tom already has a PND with a built-in iPod control port. But, theirs doesn’t really work. This one will. More after the break…

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