Worldspace Radio: This is the most significant new technology
we have come across since the internet. It allows you to receive
web data from a special radio anywhere in the world via special
digital radios that cost less than $200 and do not require a telephone
connection and no ISP service. Incredible implications for
researchers working in third world locations. You can now
access NOA weather data anywhere in the world. Connect
your radio receiver to you PC and get MPEG 3 data from the web!
Satellite Baby-Sitting Service
Two companies have announced plans to launch personal GPS “location devices” this year, which will act as a kind of LoJack for everyone from meandering children to nervous executives in kidnap-prone countries.
One is a bracelet, which parents can lock on their kids’ wrists to track their location and movements over the Internet, that is made by Wherify.
Another — and the most sci-fi application by far — an implantable GPS device that Applied Digital Solutions of Florida plans to develop within the next eight months.
Continue reading… “Satellite Baby-Sitting Service”
Smart Card Drivers Licenses
Two Virginia congressmen unveiled a bill on Wednesday that would direct states to turn their drivers’ licenses into computerized “smart” cards, which would be more difficult to forge.
Seeking to deter hijackers, criminals and underage drinkers from obtaining false identity cards, Democratic Rep. Jim Moran and Republican Rep. Tom Davis introduced a bill that would establish standard security features for the state-issued cards.
Scientists Turn Skin Cells into Nerves
Scientists in Norway have managed to turn one sort of human cell into another in a novel way.
Conventional scientific wisdom has been: once a skin cell, always a skin cell.
All the evidence has been that nerve cells can only produce other nerve cells, muscle cells only produce other muscle cells, and so on.
But the experiments of researchers at the University of Oslo appear to show that adult cells are great deal more flexible.
‘SmartWater’ Used to Mark Falcon Eggs
Birdlovers in the UK have found a hi-tech solution to the perennial problem of egg stealing.
They are marking new-laid peregrine falcon eggs with a dye which in normal conditions is virtually invisible.
The dye, known as SmartWater, will also be used for marking the chicks once they have hatched.
More here.
Continue reading… “‘SmartWater’ Used to Mark Falcon Eggs”
Cyborg ‘Roborats’ to the Rescue
Rats steered by a computer up to 500 yards away could soon help find buried earthquake victims or dispose of bombs, scientists said on Wednesday.
The remote-controlled “roborats” can be made to run, climb, jump or turn left and right through the use of electrical probes, the width of a hair, implanted in their brains. Movement signals are transmitted from a computer to the rat’s brain via a radio receiver strapped to its back.
One electrode stimulates the “feelgood” center of the rat’s brain, while two other electrodes activate the cerebral regions which process signals from its left and right whiskers.
World’s Biggest, Smelliest Flower Puts on Sex Show
The biggest, smelliest flower in the world was putting on the sexual performance of its life on Thursday after bursting into rare crimson blossom at London’s Kew Gardens.
The 165-pound titan arum, the rotten-smelling giant of the plant kingdom, unfurled its single stinky flower after beginning a dramatic growth spurt last week,” a Kew spokeswoman said.
“Last week the yellow shoot began to swell dramatically. It has now reached a height of almost three meters,” she added.
“The huge phallic flower has now unfurled to reveal its blood-red interior…and the plant has begun to heat up, giving off a pungent aroma described as a mixture of rotting flesh and excrement.” More here.
Continue reading… “World’s Biggest, Smelliest Flower Puts on Sex Show”
Turning Sewage into Hydrogen
The New Scientist website reports that British scientists are working on a more efficient way to convert sewage and other wet waste into hydrogen fuel.
The process involves extracting hydrogen from “wet” waste, i.e. that which contains large amounts of water, such as sewage or paper mill waste. Although this sort of waste is abundant, extracting hydrogen from has required a large amount of energy, making it inefficient.
The work sounds fairly promising.
Continue reading… “Turning Sewage into Hydrogen”
NASA: Designing the Next Generation Space Shuttle
According to an article at Space.com, NASA yesterday released a status report on the first year of NASA’s Space Launch Initiative; the search for a space shuttle replacement, currently planned to begin operating ten years from now. The competing contractors – Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and a team consisting of Northrop Grumman and Orbital Sciences Corp. – have their work cut out for them. NASA is looking for both a ten-fold improvement in per-pound launch costs (from $10,000 per pound to $1,000) and massive improvements in crew survivability.
Continue reading… “NASA: Designing the Next Generation Space Shuttle”
Bizarre Patent of the Week
Mattress with a Concavity for the Breasts
Inventor Allyn, Timothy James
Patent No 6,052,847
Filed 28 April 1998
Awarded 25 April 2000
A mattress having a wedge-shaped mattress body with an inclined upper surface, the upper surface divided by a transverse breast concavity into a head-supporting portion and a body-supporting portion. More here.
Disposable Cellphones
The disposable cellphone was invented by Randice-Lisa Altschul, who came up with the idea during a particularly frustrating car trip. Her phone signal kept cutting out and the only thing holding her back from throwing it out of the window was the cost of the phone. She decided a disposable cellphone was the answer, and approached the senior vice president of research and development at toy company Tyco, Lee Volte, to help her develop the patent.
In November 1999 Altschul was awarded a number of patents for the disposable cellphone, which she trademarked the Phone-Card-Phone. She formed a company, called Dieceland Technologies, to manufacture and market the phone, which is the thickness of three credit cards stacked on top of each other and made from recycled paper.
Patent Watch: AT&T is Listening
Who’s listening to your internet phone call?
AT&T Corp. has received a patent for the monitoring and surveillance of internet telephone voice calls. The patent was one of 56 issued to New York City area inventors and organizations this week by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
To view all patents issued, click here.
Continue reading… “Patent Watch: AT&T is Listening”
