A company called Eleksen is working on what it calls "smart fabric." Applications include sheets that can tell if someone is lying in the bed, fold-up cell phones and airplane seat upholstery that has "integrated control elements," whatever they are.
An underwater robot called "Spray" is currently swimming across the Gulf Stream. Launched Sept. 11 about 100 miles south of Nantucket Island, Mass., the 6-foot-long intelligent "underwater airplane" has been making its way toward Bermuda traveling 12 miles per day. Like a whale, the robot surfaces every seven hours to check in with researchers and zap data about ocean conditions. OK, whales don't do all that, but they do surface...
Movie Pirate Dream Machine: Burn 30 DVD-Rs Per Minute
Tohoku Pioneer and TDK have created what they say is the world's fastest DVD-R burning machine. The device can churn out one 16x DVD every two seconds. Pricing, availability and model name have not been announced - or leaked.
Microsoft and Intel are teaming up on TV advertising for the first time ever. Their new "Digital Joy" campaign hits the idiot box this Sunday on ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and ESPN Sunday Night Football and Tuesday Night Vertical Roadblock on ABC. The ads will later run on A&E, Biography, E!, Lifetime, Style and other TV shows. You thought the "Intel Inside" campaign was annoying? Just wait until Sunday...
Eggheads at MIT have created a "manned-to-unmanned aircraft guidance system" that enables the pilot of an airplane to control a second airplane using spoken English. I'd love to see this one rolled out for cars...
John Ashcroft's Department of Justice wants to develop rugged, intelligent police cars. Two prototypes will soon be tested by the campus police at the University of Houston. The university will also get a $1 million National Institute of Justice grant (presumably to pay for gas). These "smart" police cruisers and SUVs will serve as "mobile command centers" with ruggedized, superconducttive storage, vibration isolation and a host of test equipment still in development.
Some of the nation's best minds at MIT are hard at work developing a solution to the problem of, er, well, I'm not sure what problem this solves. In any event, they've developed a voice-controlled blender called the Blendie 2000. To use it, simply make the kind of sound you'd like the blender to make -- growl, and the blender is set to "low" -- a high-pitched whine kicks the blender into high gear. Personally, I'd like to see these at Jamba Juice. Here is the secret blueprint for building a Blendie. Here comes the video. (props to Engadget)
Microsoft has received a U.S. patent for "an immersive rear projection display capable or providing aspect ratios of 2.66:1 or 4:1, or even greater." Will Microsoft go into the gaming monitor business?
The New York Times reports that Indian companies, including big Indian outsourcing joints like Wipro, are increasing looking to China for better, cheaper talent. To whom will China outsource?
Pioneer has created a biodegradable Blu-Ray optical disk made of corn starch resin. Of course, nothing biodegrades in a landfill, where 99% of discarded disks end up, but who cares? Corn Blu-Ray discs store 25 gigabytes of data and they're crunchy and delicious. The farming lobby is solidly behind Pioneer's technology.
Sharp Launches 8-Megapixel CCD - For Camera Phones
Sharp Corp has launched a new eight-megapixel CCD for camera phones poetically called the RJ21V3BAOET. It's the largest-resolution camera phone CCD ever introduced to the market. Wonderful. Soon your phone will take pictures that are 10 megabytes each...
