Judge Orders Streisand to Pay Opponent's $177,000 Legal Bills in Aerial Photo Suit
A California judge has ordered the singer Barbara Streisand to pay the $177,000 in legal fees of her opponent in a recent privacy invasion lawsuit, which she lost. Streisand had sued California Coastal Records Project founder Kenneth Adelman because he published on the web photos of the entire California coastline, including Streisand's beach-front house, which she said was an invasion of her privacy.
Sony Plans 2005 Rollout For Laser-Projection Movie Screen
Sony Corp. is working on a display technology capable of a high-definition picture over a movie-size screen -- 10 meters by 50 meters. The company's CEO, Nobuyuki Idei, said this week that Sony will unveil it next year. Light is projected onto the screen using projectors based on "grating light valve" technology, which involves passing red, green and blue laser light across a grate. The display will be used for very, very high-quality movie screens or very, very large PC monitors.
Cruise Control for Heavy, Stop-and-Go Traffic Invented
The European and Israeli DenseTraffic project has created a new "Adaptive Cruise Control" system that automatically stops and starts with traffic. WHO has created working prototypes that handle all normal speeds from zero to way above the speed limit, and controls braking and accelerating using a multi-beam radar sensor and sophisticated antenna system.
'You Lookin' At Me?' -- New Sunglasses Detect Eye Contact
Canadian propellerheads have invented sunglasses that can tell when someone is making eye contact with the person wearing them. One application would be to enable the automatic recording of video, but only when the person is having a conversation that involves eye contact.
A company called Azure is showing today at TeleManagement World 2004 in Nice, France, technology for telecoms that enable them to use artificial intelligence to instantly identify customers who are using their phone system to commit fraud. Azure Fraud Control is what the company calls "call-fingerprinting technology," which monitors what numbers are dialed and how and compares it to a database of patterns by known crooks.
3D Display Combines Weird Lens and Tricky Software
Royal Philips Electronics quietly unveiled multi-view 3D display technology for consumers that uses patented slanted lenticular lens technology with "real-time 2D to 3D conversion software" that can toggle between 2D and 3D instantly. And no funky glasses! The technology lets users look around objects without a reduction in brightness. A software-based conversion algorithm locates and calculates depth from any standard 2-D video to provide a 3-D video experience in real time -- no special applications required!
The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association is planning a directory of mobile phone numbers that they say will contain some 75 percent of the 163 million mobile phones in the United States.
First Ever: KDDI to Launch 3.2-Megapixel Camera Phone
Japan's KDDI Corp announced the world's first 3.2-megapixel camera phone. Called the A5406CA, it can take photos ranging from 120 x 160 pixels to 2,048 x 1,536 pixels and features auto-focus.
The U.S. Army has reportedly reached a deal with the french video game company Ubisoft to create titles like the 2002 hit "America's Army," designed to both entertain and recruit. New PlayStation and Xbox games could hit the stores as early as next year.
A new virus tries to trick you into clicking on a link to a fake yahoo.com page. Called the Wallon virus, it apparently emerged in the wild in Europe last week and executes some of the standard actions that a lot of worms do these days: 1) it sends itself to addresses in your e-mail software's address book; 2) sends your contact info to someone (probably the spammer/author; and 3) reminds you of how idiotic you are for being conned by this same old bag of tricks.
Family of Professor Who Coined Term 'Googol' Want Piece of Google IPO
Columbia University professor and mathematician Edward Kasner stole the word "googol" from his 9-year-old nephew in the 1930s to represent the number 10 to the 100th power. A few years ago, the number was stolen again by the founders of Google, who respelled it as the brand of their web search engine. Now the Kasner family wants in on the Google IPO.
L.A.'s anti-terrorism plan reportedly includes the selective jamming of cell phones at LAX and major sports and entertainment venues. The move results from the use of cell phones as detonators in the March 11 train attacks in Spain and in the attempted assassination of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Dec. 14 (he's alive today because security agents jammed the cell phone used to detonate a bomb.
Royal Philips Electronics quietly unveiled 
