Besides the elderly gentleman paying in nickels, the biggest holdup at supermarket checkouts is the cashier finding an item’s barcode and properly scanning. So Toshiba has developed a faster camera-based system that recognizes the food, packaged or fresh…
Continue reading… “Future supermarket checkouts could recognize the food, not the barcode”
New Mars photos show amazing activity.
For such a dead planet, Mars sure has got a lot of things going on. LIke this mini tornado, as captured by camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter:..
Continue reading… “Dust Devil on Mars”
Some honey bees, too, are more likely than others to seek adventure.
A new study in Science suggests that thrill-seeking is not limited to humans and other vertebrates. Some honey bees, too, are more likely than others to seek adventure. The brains of these novelty-seeking bees exhibit distinct patterns of gene activity in molecular pathways known to be associated with thrill-seeking in humans, researchers report…
The processors in smart phones and tablets leak radio signals that betray the encryption keys used to protect sensitive data.
Gary Kenworthy of Cryptography Research held up an iPod Touch on stage and looked over to a TV antenna three meters away at the RSA computer security conference last week. The signal picked up by the antenna, routed through an amplifier and computer software, revealed the secret key being used by an app running on the device to encrypt data. An attacker with access to this key could use it to perfectly impersonate the device he stole it from—to access e-mail on a company server, for example.
Continue reading… “Antenna’s can steal your smartphone’s secrets”
Propranolol
The common heart disease drug, Propranolol, may have the unusual side-effect of combating racism, a new study suggests.
Continue reading… “Heart disease drug reduces racial prejudice: Study”
Soaring rates of 2 to 5 year olds with tooth decay.
There has been “a huge increase” in little kids who need general anesthesia for dental procedures, including tooth extractions, crowns and even root canals as dentists are seeing so many preschoolers with cavities and severe tooth decay (6 to 10 cavities or more), according to a report from The New York Times.
Continue reading… “Tooth decay in preschoolers on the rise”
Pedestrian airbags on the Volvo V40.
Volvo always has the safety of the vehicle’s passengers in mind when it builds some of the safest cars on the road. But now the company has added an additional airbag to its V40 that could save the life of a pedestrian.
Continue reading… “Volvo V40 builds first car to feature pedestrian airbags”
Tak Ball
The rules are simple : throw a ball into the goal to score a point. But what makes this game unlike any other is that all the players are armed and ready with stun guns. (Video)
Continue reading… “Ultimate Tak Ball – players use stun guns in this extreme sport”
Russian photographer Andrey Pavlov uses real ants to create amazingly cool photographs in the series “Ant Tales”
Continue reading… “Ant Tales by Andrey Pavlov”
A little more in back!
It’s been said that the most important lessons in life are not learned in the classroom, and perhaps in no place is that more true than in the Netherlands where the act of heading to school is itself so enriching. In an age of rising gas prices and skyrocketing cases of childhood obesity, Dutch educators have devised a wonderfully positive way to get kids to and from school — by letting them pedal there themselves on a brand new fleet of bicycle buses…
Continue reading… “Bicycle buses let Dutch kids pedal together to school”
Wine snobs, you are behind the times if you’re still using a wing corkscrew. Rob Higgs’s hand-cranked machine uses gears, pulleys, chains and weights to open a bottle of wine, then carefully pour its contents into a glass…
Continue reading… “Overly complex corkscrew weighs 771 pounds of steampunk awesomeness”
Who wants to eat anything and stay thin?
A diet pill that someday allows people to eat as much as they want without gaining weight seems possible, based on new research into certain brain chemicals that influence how quickly we burn fat.
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.