Quarter of a Million Gadgets Left In Cabs in Past Six Months - Survey
According to a survey by software security company Pointsec, more than 11,000 notebook PCs, 31,000 PDAs and 200,000 cell phones have been left behind in taxicabs worldwide. (Have you noticed that cabbies these days are always yacking on a cell phone? Hmmmmm...)
Rise of the Machines: Tiny Robots Grow Own Muscles
Nanotech scientists have invented tiny, self-assembling machines that can steal cells from living animals and use them to grown their own muscles. UCLA researcher Carlo Montegagno brags: "I can make hundreds of thousands as easily as I can make one." Soon they'll gain self-awareness and start growing humans in pods in order to harvest our flesh.
'I Scan Dead People' - Bar Codes, RFID For Cadavers
In an effort to reduce the selling of body parts on the black market, University of California officials may bar-code or insert RFID tags into cadavers. When I was at UCLA, I worked at a restaurant. Working as an "Organ harvester" just never occurred to me...
Canada's Bioware is planning open auditions for cast members to appear in an upcoming computer game. Those selected will be photographed, and their images superimposed on a 3-D character in the game -- and paid performers fees for the use of their faces.
The FBI confirmed late today that its fbi.gov e-mail system had been hacked and, in response, shut down while the crack is investigated. The system is supported by AT&T.
Sex Offender Uses Online 'Megan's Law' Database As Dating Service
A convicted sex offender was caught recently using the Megan's Law sex offender database -- which contains information and the home addresses of people convicted of sex crimes -- as a kind of dating service, and sending letters to the ex-cons explicitly proposing trysts and daliances.
Whoops! There It Is! - Student Personal Info Posted Online
A John Hopkins University student conducted a Google ego search recently and discovered that information she provided for the campus's "J-CARD" student debit card system was posted online -- along with data from some 4,000 other students. An official with the school told a reporter with a campus newsletter that the file containing the private data was "in a very obscure place" and that in order to discover it "you would have had to gone looking for them." Or, Google could look for them for you...
Here's a product nobody wants: A mirror that reflects your face, but weathered by time, drugs and ill health. Researchers at Accenture Technology's lab in Sophia Antipolis, France, are using a flat-screen LCD TV linked to cameras and an image-processing computer that rapidly and digitally ages your picture before throwing it up on the "mirror." The older, uglier you is created based estimates of what your current lifestyle (drinking, lack of exercise, smoking, etc.) will do you your face in a few years.
As you sit and read this, one propellerhead out there is toiling night and day to perfect his vision for the future: The Wi-Fi detection ring. His prototype, shown here, can detect 802.11b/g signals and also reflect a certain style and elegance. Well, it can detect Wi-Fi, anyway...
Proof You Can Buy Anything On the Web: Wind-Up TV Remote
Finally, a product for people too lazy to get up and change the channel, but not lazy enough to want to avoid winding the remote control. The EZPower Universal Remote works for seven days on a single winding. No batteries needed!
If you don't like surprises, check out Adland's list of Super Bowl ad spoilers, which summarize the "plots" of commercials you'll see this Sunday (including a throw-back to the 90s: dot-com ads!)
