SHOCK!! iPod Owners Hate Cell Phones -- And Advertising
Bad news for Motorola, Apple and others who want to integrate iPods and cell phones: A British sociologist has found in a survey that iPod owners hate cell phones -- and talking to people in general -- and just want to be left alone with their music. Even more shocking is that they don't want to be bombarded with advertising, either.
Los Angeles Times Opens Editorial For Reader-Editors
The Los Angeles Times published an editorial today called "War and Consequences" and invites readers to edit or re-write it using a wiki. UPDATE: The L.A. Times has now taken this down, citing abuse. (Are they totally unfamiliar with the Internet?)
System Automatically Reads License-Plates, ID's Stolen Cars
The L.A. County Sheriff's Department is testing a system from Remington-Elsag Law Enforcement Systems that sits on top of a squad car, scanning every license plate in site and informing officers inside which cars are reported stolen. Based on an OCR system developed in Italy for sorting mail, it can scan up to 500 plates per hour.
RAZR Smart Phone Recalled In Korea; Motorola Lies About It - Report
Telecoms Korea is reporting that the ultra thin RAZR smart phone is being recalled in Korea because of numerous problems with keypads and screens. Only phones with serial numbers below 22400 have been affected. But the article also accuses Motorola of falsely denying the recall.
Silicon Valley Startup Building Thought-Control Headset For Cell Phones, PCs
Silicon Valley startup NeuroSky is working on a headset that you can plug into a cell phone or PC enabling you to control it with your thoughts and eye movements. The headset will use electrodes to detect electrical activity in your skull. Eye movement also generate an easier-to-control electrical zap. A built-in digital signal processor analyzes brainwave activity. Using biofeedback, you learn to control its output -- and your gadgets.
Psychiatric Patients' Emotions Tracked With Wireless Vest
Gadget minded head-shrinkers at Massachusetts General Hospital have launched a trial to see if a vest packed with sensors and wireless gadgets can successfully monitor the emotional state of psychiatric inpatients. All day. Every day. The LifeShirt vest gathers data like heart rate, voice dynamics, movement and amount of sweat, then transmits it to the doctors. Question: How do they tell the difference between anxiety and sex? (props)
A school district in Redlands, California, is planning install PlayStations in classrooms running physical games like Konami Digital Entertainment's "Dance Dance Revolution" and Sony's "EyeToy: Play" in an effort to work some of the lard off of fat kids.
Evil scientists toiling away in China have successfully produced remote-controlled mice that can be made to "move forward," "turn left" and "turn right." It's amazing what science can accomplish in a Communist-party controlled state where you can jail PETA protesters.
A Swedish web site called 99Mac has posted a huge gallery of products demonstrated at Taiwan's Computex trade show recently that conspicuously stole design concepts from Apple. No one company -- not even Apple -- has enough lawyers to go after all these design thieves. (props to Cult of Mac)
While some Computex exhibitors were busy ripping off Apple with iPod-like designs, others were finding new ways to -- ahem! -- enhance your iPod lifestyle.
Drivers in Coral Gables, Florida, can now use their cell phones to call a number and pay for parking instead of feeding coins into a meter. Whoever wants to use the service must leave a credit card with the parking authority. Then they can open the payment when they park, then make another call to close the billing cycle.
Philips Creates Conversation Piece. No, Really - You Converse With It
Philips has created a system called "Dimi." It looks like a 4-foot high home decoration, but you can talk to it and ask it questions -- and it seems to know all the answers. It not only "understands" what you say, and speaks back to you in spoken language, but also "reads" your body language and facial expressions. It will even do things for you. Just tell it to do anything your computer can do -- "Dimi, launch Mike's List" -- and Dimi will obey. I want one.
Fujitsu Recalls Quarter Million Flammable Notebook Batteries
Fujitsu Siemens Computers announced today an exchange program on batteries in specific models totaling a quarter of a million. The batteries are fine, except they might suddenly burst into flames at any moment. (props)
The Economic Times of India is reporting that people in India and around the world are transforming their cell phones into expressions of religious devotion, with holy wallpaper, SMS prayers and spiritual ringtones.
Samsung believes you can never be too rich, too thin or offer too many cell phones. The company is showcasing 50 new mobile phones at the CommunicAsia trade show in Singapore. (props)
Augmented Reality A.I. In Development For Future Mars Astronauts
Researchers in Spain are working on an augmented reality system to be used by future astronauts to Mars to narrow down where to look for life. Locations in the user's field of vision that are "unusual," are identified and highlighted by a wearable computer running a specialized artificial intelligence program.
Medical Robot Goes Nuts At Hospital, Doctor and Patient Flee
A medical robot named Waldo, whose job is to deliver drugs the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, reportedly freaked out recently. The robot burst into an examination room and refused to leave, which motivated the doctor and patient in the room to run for their friggin' lives.
A Taiwanese company called Compro has announced a tiny TV tuner on a USB "stick." Compro's new VideoMate U880 USB 2.0 Tuner Box, which is about the size of stick of gum (just 9.0 x 2.6 x 1.1 cm), plugs into a USB 2.0 port on a PC to transform the computer into a TV set. The company calls it the "world's smallest USB 2.0 analog TV box." Unexpectedly, it's packed with features, including TiVo-like timeshifting and recording.
UK Scientists at at Cranfield Impact Research Centre (CIRC) and Nissan Technical Centre Europe have invented an ultrasound scanner designed to be installed in car dashboards of the future. The idea is that you stick your finger into a hole so the car can scan your finger to determine bone density. Based on that information, the safety system -- seatbelts and airbags -- are customized to give you maximum protection without crushing your bones during a crash.
A company called Anyuser Global is coming out in August with a $36 USB phone that, when plugged into a Windows 2000 or XP PC, enables phone calls over IP. It's the ultimate gadget for cheapskate geeks.
The Children's Identification and Location Database Project is donating $25 thousand iris-scanning machines to law enforcement offices nationwide. The noble aim is to help find "missing kids," but the end result will be a national database of biometric data that can be used by anybody (including The Gap, a.k.a. "Minority Report") at a distance. "Good afternoon, Mr. Yakamoto!"
