Notebook computers are increasingly powerful, portable and affordable. As a result, sales are catching up to desktops. The dark side to the rise of laptops is that they force you into an unhealthy posture that ages you prematurely.
Cheap New Home Planetarium Gives Your House More 'Space'
A new $193 home planetarium projects the night sky onto your ceiling with high accuracy. You'll never have to go outside again. The tentatively named "Homestar" ships in July. (props to Gizmodo)
Raytheon is working on a user interface for the U.S. military that works like the one Tom Cruise used in the movie Minority Report. Data appears to float in mid-air, and is manipulated with the hands. A special camera watches for "gestures" that tell the computer what the do with the data.
Thieves Stealing Library Magazines, Hope to Cash In On Intel Bounty
Intel said it would offer $10k for the April 19, 1965, copy of Electronics magazine in which Intel founder Gordon Moore first expressed his "Moore's Law." The next day, copies of the magazine started disappearing from libraries.
University of Evansville students traveling to Connecticut to compete in a robot competition were prevented from boarding a flight because Northwest Airline employees were afraid of their robot.
Nokia's overpriced 7280 phone, which features an LCD that doubles as a mirror so users can gaze lovingly at themselves when not using the phone, shipped today. The $600 phone also sports an iPod-like "wheel pad" and other annoying features.
New Humanoid Robot Lets You Watch Its Cam Via Cell Phone
The first-ever home humanoid robot will soon go on sale for $5,450. The robot, called nuvo from Japan's ZMP Inc., responds to voice commands, walks, dances and makes all kinds of noise. You can use your cell phone to view it's built-in cam. The robot is 15-inches tall and weighs 5.5 pounds.
What is the Matrix? The U.S. Army's Stryker Brigade plans to deploy in Iraq bombs that can be detonated by remote control via a laptop. The system is called "Matrix," and it's designed to prevent accidental death.
The famous "Moore's Law," whereby the transistor density of microprocessors was predicted to double every 18 months, made its debut in the April 19, 1965, issue of Electronics magazine. The prediction was made by Intel's founder, Gordon Moore. Now Intel wants to find a mint-condition copy of the magazine, and is offering $10,000 for it.
I told you October 19 and April 2 about the coming age of robotic camel jockeys. The United Arab Emirates banned human jockeys because too many of those humans were kidnapped or purchased slave children. The first remote-control jockeys were tested recently, so we're going to start seeing more press on this.
Found Video: Live Baseball On Mobile Phones as a Cartoon!
A company called Craftmax is using its Digital Stadium service to broadcast "live" baseball to mobile phones -- as a cartoon! All the action is transformed into an animated version after only a 30-second delay. The sounds of the game (roar of crowd, crack of bat, etc.) accompany the cartoon. Users can have their phones alert them when their favorite players are at bat, or get stats and other information via their phone handset. The service is available in Japan to DoCoMo 3G phones, although both American and Japanese baseball games will be shown. Here comes the video!
Found Photo: Anakin Skywalker After Being Char Broiled
A still from the upcoming "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" leaked on the Internet shows Anakin Skywalker being rebuilt by robots (into Darth Vadar) after being burned by lava. Get it fast before the Lucas empire strikes back. Here comes the photo.
Cannibal Hobbit Elijah Wood will unveil Microsoft's next-generation Xbox worldwide on MTV May 12 and 13 in a 30 minute program titled "MTV Presents: The Next Generation Xbox Revealed." The program will feature demos of new games and "exclusive insider footage of the making of the... console," according to Microsoft. The global broadcast will premiere Thursday, May 12, at 9:30 p.m. EDT in North America and on Friday, May 13 in other regions around the world.
In 1999, when thousands of irrelevant startups in Silicon Valley were drunk on venture capital and planned to get rich by going public, the region was viewed as a huge success story in the general media. Now, five years after the crash, the press treats the valley like a miserable failure -- even while its biggest companies are shattering revenue and profit records by selling actual products and services.
