CeBIT: Video Conferencing Technology Just Like 'Being There'
Like the paperless office, good video-conferencing -- the kind that makes business travel unnecessary -- has been promised for years. One major but difficult requirement for compelling video-conferencing is eye contact. People need it psychologically, or they don't feel they're making a connection with the people they're talking to. This year at CeBIT, the German Heinrich-Hertz-Institute demonstrated two really good conferencing technologies. The first, called Im.point, uses multiple cameras, microphones and speakers to create the experience of being in the same room with people who may be on the other side of the world. Each participant can look others in the eyes and hear voices from the same direction as their live-size projected images. Only live video of the people are transmitted; the background and even the table in the foreground are simulated -- generated locally rather than remotely. Im.point isn't available commercially, but should be in the next year or two. Participants who don't have the fancy camera setup -- say, you slackers "working" from home -- can take advantage of another technology, which creates a lifelike, life-size 3-D avatar that can be placed at the table in the conference and sits there nodding, blinking, and mouthing your words. A cheap PC web cam captures enough information about your appearance and mouth movements to control the avatar like a puppet in real time. Your avatar can be dressed smartly in a dark suit, while your're sitting there in your choners with three days of growth on your beard. Both technologies rely on MPEG-4 video.
Panasonic Mobile Communications Co., Ltd., introduced here at CeBIT the unique X300 mobile phone. The camera phone records still pictures and video and -- like most video cameras -- features a pop-up display. This is important because, well, everybody likes gadgets that have things that pop up.
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd., today here at CeBIT announced that it will introduce a $500, one-gigabyte SD card. The product will become available in Japan next month and elsewhere in May.
Attachment Turns Camera Phones Into Remote Spy Cams
The Japanese Company Chubutokkisangyo Corp. now sells a gadget that plugs into a camera mobile phone, automatically taking pictures triggered by its motion-detector or at a user-determined frequency and sending them to the e-mail address of your choosing. The device is compatible with 12 Japanese phones.
First Time Ever: Over 200 Million Americans On Internet
Nielsen/NetRatings says its February rankings revealed that some 204.3 million Americans, which is about 75 percent of the population over the age of two, use the Internet. What are those one-year-olds waiting for?
A Few Bloggers Post Pro-Democracy Opinions; China Shuts Down 15,000
A few Chinese bloggers have posted opinions supporting a doctor calling for the Beijing government to come clean about what happened during the Tiananment Square mowing down of protesters, and in response the government shut down the entire Blogbus service, affecting some 15,000 bloggers. I guess they disagree.
Multi-Lingual Turn-By-Turn Directions Just a Phone Call Away
A software-and-service combination called gpmobile from gpware, understands what you say when you ask directions in any of several languages and gives you turn-by-turn directions anywhere in the U.S. or Europe. You can also use the service to let people track your location over the web.
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has created a portable atomic clock they believe will free military gadgets from relying on wireless communication with remote clocks and GPS satellites, make weapons systems more accurate and speed up wireless communication. Current atomic clocks are friggin' huge, taking up entire rooms.
Video, Computer Games -- Not TV -- Associated With Childhood Obesity
A recent study showed that TV is not associated with childhood obesity, but -- among girls -- video and computer games are. Though both are sedentary activities, computer games may be more likely to replace outdoor physical activity than TV for some reason. Researchers also leave open the possibility that being overweight makes kids play video games, not necessarily the other way around. In other words, this new study tells us nothing.
HUBER+SUHNER is showing off its disguised Wi-Fi antennas, some of which come in the shape of foods like hamburgers for restaurants. They also have other generic designs like film containers for photo stores and books for bookstores. (I hope they don't have one for adult novelty stores...)
I told you on March 10 that Victorinox (the Swiss Army Knife people) and Swissbit (the USB memory people) planned to unveil at CeBIT a USB Swiss Army Knife. I've learned here at the show that the knife also comes with an LED pointing light and a pen. And here's the best part: The company will also sell an airport-security friendly version without all the pointy bits.
Epson Bolts Handle to Printer; Says It's For Women
Epson has bolted a handle to a printer, which is also easy to use for those mentally challenged females, apparently, and calls it a printer for women. I guess women aren't getting enough condescension from the car industry.
NASA Invents Gadget That Understands Words Not Spoken
NASA has created a computer program that can read nerve commands send by the brain to the throat. The invention could lead to a gadget that speaks for people who can't vocalize speech, such as astronauts in space or people whose tongues have been cut out by the Taliban for uttering blasphemies.
Philips Phone For Narcissists -- Screen Turns Into Mirror
A new mobile phone called the Philips 639 sports an Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) display that, with the push of a button, magically becomes a mirror.
NEC's new i-Mode phone, which will be unveiled here at CeBIT, can shoot movies and take pictures in the dark. The phone will be available in The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and, presumably, the Paris Hilton.
Taiwan Holds Its Own 'DARPA Grand Challenge' For Bicycles
If you thought the Pentagon's DARPA Grand Challenge robot contest produced exotic, bizarre and downright scary vehicle designs, wait until you see what Taiwan's International Bicycle Design Competition is bringing out of the woodwork. Sponsored by Taiwan's Department of Industrial Technology, Ministry of Economic Affairs, R.O.C. and managed and produced by the Cycling & Health Tech Industry R&D Center, the eight-year-old event attracts some of the craziest bikes you've ever seen. And unlike the Grand Challenge, safety is at the bottom of the priorities. Some don't have seats. Others don't have brakes.
A team of engineers supported by the US National Science Foundation and led by a Purdue University engineer working at the University of California, Berkeley, have managed to build a centimeter-wide microprocessor that can detect everything from airborne toxins to DNA. The chip radically miniaturizes larger devices currently used by industry, police and others.
The January issue of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics details new neural network software being developed for helping doctors tweak drug dosages for heart patients based on a long list of factors, including race, sex, age, weight, diabetes, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, smoking, coronary artery bypass graft, statins, beta blocker, nitrates, calcium antagonists, diuretics, whether they use Windows or Linux and a host of other relevant criteria. What's interesting about the software is that it can "learn" with experience.
THE PENTAGON'S MILLION-DOLLAR CONTEST between autonomous robots in California's Mojave desert Saturday proved a brilliant success that achieved even its loftiest objectives. All the problems relating to autonomous military vehicle development were largely solved by participants, validating the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) approach of using an open competition to accelerate the technologies required for unmanned land navigation. That's my take on the whole thing. But that's not the story you heard from the mainstream media over the weekend. All the reports I read were laden with disappointed reporters, who snidely focused on the fact that no entry finished the course, or even made it to the eight mile mark in the 142-mile race. This from a bunch of journalists barely technical enough to find the Mojave Desert using Mapquest. Here's why the Grand Challenge was a grand success.
Mini Cooper Robot Site Hoax Associated With 'I, Robot' Movie?
A web site that appears to reveal photos, videos and some details on the creation of a "transformer" type giant robot by one Colin Mayhew out of a Mini Cooper is simply too amazing to be true. I think this very sophisticated faux "enthusiast" web site -- sophisticated in its perfect lack of sophistication -- is part of a promotional tie-in between the Mini Cooper people and the makers of the upcoming "I, Robot" movie. Just a guess. Check Mike's List for the links.
The U.S. has "fired an opening salvo" in the upcoming war with China over Wi-Fi standards. China is actively creating arbitrary, non-compatible technology standards, then forcing foreign companies to partner with Chinese companies in technology-sharing arrangements that transfer technology from the U.S., Europe and Japan into China, and Wi-Fi is the first battleground.
'Big Brother Bus' Fingerprints Kids, Monitors Driver By Satellite
Lee County Florida has introduced what some are calling "Big Brother Buses" for kids' safety. Kids place their thumb on a fingerprint scanning when boarding and disembarking the yellow school buses. The buses are tracked by GPS, and the speed, stops, starts and other movements of the buses are monitored. Ignorance is strength!
Japan's Nissin Electric plans to debut its Light Emitting Stick technology next month at the International Gift Show in Tokyo. The devices glow with colored light with a slight shock, such as dropping them on a table. The technology is perfect for the development of, er, plastic things that, uh, glow when you drop them on the table...
Apple Newton enthusiasts (yes, they're still out there) have been polled recently asking why they feel the Newton failed in the market and if they would be interested in Apple "re-launching a new, improved Newton." (Scroll to bottom of article)
Comedy Central copied Apple's iPod-ad look (person silhouetted on basic bright color with object -- in Apple's case, an iPod, in Comedy Central's case, a bottle of booze and a cigarette) to advertise its "Redneck Weekend" comedy tour show. Yeeeeeehaa!
BEA Systems, 'Male Enhancement' Ads Use Same Stock Photo
Silicon Valley-based BEA Systems accidentally used a stock photo used also by Berkeley Premium Nutraceuticals to advertise its Enzyte, "the once-a-day tablet for natural male enhancement." BEA pulled the ad.
News You Can Lose: Russian Nuclear Warheads Supply 10% U.S. Electricity
Uranium from Russian nuclear warheads supplies some 10 percent of the electricity used in the U.S., according to a report. As part of the U.S.-Russian 1993 nonproliferation agreement, the Maryland-based company USEC gets to buy uranium from scraped nukes from the former U.S.S.R. and use it in the production of electricity.
Lebanese Search Engine Targets Google with Engine That Finds Less
A search engine developed in Lebanon strives to displace Google as the search engine of choice for millions of web users around the world. Called Coneteq, the web service is designed to find fewer results, and thereby help the user deal with information overload. They feel that they'll be able to beat Google in the market because, they say, their patented technology is superior (translation: We know we don't have a prayer of actually displacing Google -- but we're fishing for them to license our technology or get acquired so we can all move to Mountain View and get in on the Google IPO...)
Like the paperless office, good video-conferencing -- the kind that makes business travel unnecessary -- has been promised for years. One major but difficult requirement for compelling video-conferencing is eye contact. People need it psychologically, or they don't feel they're making a connection with the people they're talking to. This year at CeBIT, the German 
HUBER+SUHNER is showing off its disguised Wi-Fi antennas, some of which come in the shape of foods like hamburgers for restaurants. They also have other generic designs like film containers for photo stores and books for bookstores. (I hope they don't have one for adult novelty stores...)
I told you on 
A team of engineers supported by the US National Science Foundation and led by a Purdue University engineer working at the University of California, Berkeley, have managed to build a centimeter-wide microprocessor that can detect everything from 
THE PENTAGON'S MILLION-DOLLAR CONTEST between autonomous robots in California's Mojave desert Saturday proved a brilliant success that achieved even its loftiest objectives. All the problems relating to autonomous military vehicle development were largely solved by participants, validating the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) approach of using an open competition to accelerate the technologies required for unmanned land navigation. That's my take on the whole thing. But that's not the story you heard from the mainstream media over the weekend. All the reports I read were laden with disappointed reporters, who snidely focused on the fact that no entry finished the course, or even made it to the eight mile mark in the 142-mile race. This from a bunch of journalists barely technical enough to find the Mojave Desert using Mapquest. Here's why 
New Light-Emitting Tech to Debut
