Scientists to Boost Hollywood Portrayal of Scientists
Professors have set up a consultancy agency in Hollywood in a futile attempt to fight negative stereotyping of scientists in movies and TV, and also help studios portray math and science in a way that isn't completely idiotic.
New Wheelchair Sports GPS, Lasers, TV and Auto-Pilot
Not satisfied with hogging all the best parking spots, the wheelchair-bound may soon get souped up, high-tech wheelchairs complete with four-wheel drive, auto-pilot, GPS navigation, laser-based obstacle avoidance, video cams and even a built-in TV screen. The mega-wheelchair is the brainchild of Australian university professor Ray Jarvis.
In a new marketing ploy -- breathtaking considering that that has devoted enormous engineering resources to perfecting the all-in-one gadget -- Kenneth Wirt, senior vice president for worldwide marketing at palmOne, says everyone needs two palmOne gadgets: One for work (a Treo) and another for play (a LifeDrive).
The good news: The Hollywood rumor mill says that filming for a Knight Rider movie, based on the 80s TV series, starts in six months. The bad news: It may star David Hasselhoff.
Virtual Reality Therapy Tested for Public Speaking Phobia
Georgia State University plans to test the use of virtual reality therapy for people who are afraid of public speaking. The idea is to simulate a crowd of people eyeballing you while you mumble through your inane presentation. Eventually, they hope, you'll get used to it and can do it in front of actual humans. (props)
A "BabySIM" interactive robot, designed to mimic a real baby for doctors and nurses to practice on, has been deployed at a hospital for the first time. It blinks, pees, breaths, has a heartbeat and cries. If doctors screw up, it even "dies." Here comes the video! (props)
Most Annoying Gadget Ever: Machine Makes Crying Sounds, 24x7
Finally, someone has created a machine that creates the sound of someone crying. A computer inside generates, as the site says, "endless random crying combinations." (Click on the "Video" button for a demo.)
Vodafone's new Toshiba v501t and Sharp v501sh phones, released in Japan, feature crazy interchangeable covers. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first mobile phones covered with Astro-turf.
The Chinese government has formed an army of undercover online commentators to post pro-Beijing opinions on the internet. Obviously this is going to backfire because, once word gets out that they're doing this, every pro-government comment will be viewed with suspicion. (props)
Italian researchers have created a real-life R2D2, complete with squeaks and pops. It even runs away when it's "afraid." (Minor side note. In researching this item, I used Babelfish to translate the article from Italian to English, and it translated the name of the latest Star Wars movie as "Episode III - the Vendetta of the Sith.") (props)
Microsoft revealed at a recent IEEE conference that researchers there employ what are internally called "honey monkeys" to discover spyware, viruses, worms and other forms of malware. "Honey monkeys" are "active" honeypots -- virtual PCs that sit on the Internet and wait to get attacked. When they're hit, an alarm sounds, and Microsoft researchers investigate.
A Korean company called Sunyang DNT unveiled a prototype cell phone that projects a 12-inch image. It's slated for shipping in September. They're calling it a "heads-up" display, meaning that it creates the illusion of projecting something into space, but the photo seems to show conventional projection. Whatever. I want one.
Italian tire maker Pirelli reportedly plans to launch a tire cap that communicates problems with the tire by actually calling your cell phone via Bluetooth.
Repetitive Stress Injury is plaguing the thumbs of rabid text messaging enthusiasts worldwide. The trend is rising, and teenagers are increasingly seen walking around with casts on their thumbs.
Not one but two copies of "Star Wars: Episode III -- Revenge of the Sith" has been leaked onto BitTorrent already, even though the film opened just this morning.
Bill Gates, who wrote "Business @ at the Speed of Thought" in 1996, and "The Road Ahead" in 1995 is working on a third masterpiece. Personally, I'll wait for the movie.
Apple and Pixoria both really cool products that place what both companies call "Widgets" on user desktops. These "Widgets" can serve just about any purpose and can be built by end-users. It's a great idea now, and it was a great idea when Microsoft came up with it in the early 1990s.
A new invention called Square Eyes monitors the amount of excercise kids get and stops them from watching TV if they don't get enough. The shoe zaps walking distance to the TV wirelessly.
A Minneapolis store called Cub Foods this week started testing a biometric payment system. You just scan your fingerprint at the checkout counter, and the store will send you a bill in the mail.
A lucky group of bonobo chimpanzees are getting an $10 million, 18-room high-tech dream dormitory outside of Des Moines, Iowa. The crib has touch screens for the occupants to "chat" with human researchers, a "web cam" to see who is outside their front door, flushing lavatories, an indoor waterfall and climbing walls. The experiment aims to see if this kind of stimulation will help them develop skills in language, art and music -- and pass those skills on to future generations of chimps. I would like to see this experiment performed on American public school children.
The awesome Toyota Prius -- full disclosure: I'm a Prius egghead -- performs its hybrid magic through the orchestration of four onboard computers. And like all computers, the Prius runs software. Well, it turns out that the software houses a nasty bug that can cause some Toyotas to stall or shut down while driving fast (it's only happened 13 times). Naturally, Toyota is doing what all software companies do -- it has issued a software patch.
