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Showing posts from November, 2006

New Chip That Converts Heat to Electricity

From IT Week Speaking in a hotel conference room near Tower Bridge late last week Dr Lew Brown, president and CEO of Eneco , is trying to convince a roomful of sceptical investors that its new chip technology will revolutionise the way we generate electricity. It has to be said that he is doing a pretty good job. "This chip compares with the invention of the transistor, or the TV, or the first aircraft," he says. "It is a genuinely disruptive technology." Now if a claim like that won’t get investors' attention I'm not sure what will. As reported last week , Eneco is a development stage company that claims to have invented and patented a "solid state energy conversion/generation chip" that will convert heat directly into electricity or alternatively refrigerate down to -200 degrees celsius when electricity is applied. As one potential investor who has flown all the way from Scotland for the two hour presentation confides: "I had to come...
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Archiving Digital Data an Unsolved Problem

It's a huge challenge: how to store digital files so future generations can access them, from engineering plans to family photos. The documents of our time are being recorded as bits and bytes with no guarantee of readability down the line. And as technologies change, we may find our files frozen in forgotten formats. Popular Mechanics asks: Will an entire era of human history be lost? [US national archivist] Thibodeau hopes to develop a system that preserves any type of document — created on any application and any computing platform, and delivered on any digital media — for as long as the United States remains a republic. Complicating matters further, the archive needs to be searchable. When Thibodeau told the head of a government research lab about his mission, the man replied, 'Your problem is so big, it's probably stupid to try and solve it.'"
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And the next-gen winner is ... IBM?!

Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are all in a battle to get their product in your living room. Slice it how you may, there will be one definite winner in the next-gen marketplace; that winner is IBM, which designed and makes the microprocessors for all three units. Regardless of which console, IBM will be getting a cut of the profits. Read on... read more  |  digg story
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Learn While You Sleep

A team of researchers in Germany has found that a certain type of memory improves when a person's brain is stimulated with a mild electric current during a particular phase of the sleep cycle. Neuroscientist Jan Born , of the University of Lubeck, has been studying the role of sleep in human memory for the past decade. In recent years, there's been evidence to suggest that REM sleep and non-REM sleep serve to strengthen neuron connections for different kinds of memories. While the scientific community is split on just how these phases influence memory, Born and his colleagues have recently focused on non-REM sleep, specifically the initial, drowsy, slow-wave phase. They're interested in its role in strengthening declarative memories, otherwise known as fact-based memories, as opposed to other types of memory such as motor-skill, or procedural learning. "You remember the things consolidated during sleep better than not during sleep," says Born. "Our research i...
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Every Vista PC to get a domain name?

According to APC magazine, every new Windows Vista computer will be given its own domain name to access files remotely. There is a catch though: to use it one must be using IPv6. Is the push for Vista also going to be the push finally to switch everything from IPv4 to IPv6?"Microsoft, meanwhile, is trying to convince businesses to adopt both Vista and Office 2007 at once. An analyst is quoted: 'In all likelihood, enterprises will tie deployment of both Vista and Office 2007 with a hardware upgrade cycle.' His reasoning is that it will be easier for companies to handle one disruption to IT systems than two. Or three. read more  |  digg story
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Bush's Odd Behavior

This 16 minute video clip shows that Bush was acting VERY strangely on the morning of 9/11. The video was made by veteran journalist Barrie Zwicker, who wrote for numerous mainsteam publications, won several writing awards, and was a part-time media professor. This is "must-see TV". read more  |  digg story
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Top 10 Bushisms: The best funny Bushisms and stupid quotes by George W. Bush l Bush bloopers

1. 'I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport.' —Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 2001 2. 'Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country.' —Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004 3. 'Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.' —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 4. 'There's no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world worst leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our peace, to threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons.' —South Bend, Indiana, Sept. 5, 2002. 5. 'There's an old...saying in Tennessee...I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee that says Fool me once...(3 second pause)... Shame on...(4 second pause)...Shame on you....(6 se...
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Six Arab States Join the Rush to Go Nuclear

The spectre of a nuclear race in the Middle East was raised yesterday when six Arab states announced that they were embarking on programs to master atomic technology. The countries involved were named by the International Atomic Energy Agency as Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Tunisia and the UAE have also shown interest. read more  |  digg story
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Saddam Hussein Is Sentenced to Death by Hanging

Iraq's High Tribunal found Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity on Sunday and sentenced him to die by hanging.Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death along with his half brother. Three Baath party officials charged with Hussein in the killings of 148 Shiite civilians have been sentenced to 15 years in prison, while a fourth has been cleared. He is to be hanged inside 30 days from now. Saddam Hussein has been given 10 days to appeal against the decision. His lawyer has warned to a bloodbath if the sentence is carried out. read more  |  digg story
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Record everything you see

By the look of the Wearable Gaze Detector — with its many protruding wires and Cyberman -esqe design — it would have to do something pretty amazing to be worth committing the fashion felony of actually putting it on your head. Well, you see those rectangular thingies on top of each ear cup? Those are tiny video cameras, each tracking your eye movements by detecting the changes in electrical potentials that happen when they move. The idea is the Gaze Detector would record everything you're looking at, so later on you could watch a movie of your day with an accompanying "attention marker" pointing out exactly what held your gaze. Paired with a Web browser, the program could automatically call up information on the objects you looked at. Saw a nice painting as you walked through a building lobby? Review the video and find out who's the artist. Caught a glimpse of a cool car? Call up its make and model and where you can get the best price. Creator Manabe Hiroyuki would o...
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Bush challenges Democrats to offer plan for Iraq

The battle for control of the U.S. Congress headed on Friday to a tense finish, with Democrats threatening to sweep Republicans out of power and President George W. Bush trying to stoke turnout among the party faithful. Two years after a decisive election victory for Bush and Republicans, polls indicated Democrats were poised to recapture control of the House of Representatives on Tuesday for the first time since 1994 and make big gains in the Senate. 'What's your plan?' he asked of Democrats, encouraging the Springfield, Missouri, audience to repeat the phrase. 'Truth is the Democrats can't answer that question. Harsh criticism is not a plan for victory.'
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When the war in Iraq comes home

Alone and in clusters, collars up to block the rain, thousands of people lined the streets on a gray October day in 2005 to welcome their warriors home. For 13 miles, they rose to wave, a few to salute, as the buses rolled slowly past. More than one tough Marine, homeward bound after a brutal tour in Iraq, shed a tear. When they reached solid ground, still wearing their desert camouflage, the Marines embraced their families and embarked on the most jarring of transitions. They would discover in the following year that seven months in Iraq had changed them more than they could have imagined, guiding and afflicting them in ways they are still struggling to understand. Marines who expected duty so light that boredom seemed probable instead saw almost daily combat and 23 men killed in action, more casualties than any U.S. company in Iraq. When it was over, they traded an edgy, exhausting regimen of forced alertness and sudden brutality for sheer ordinariness. Nothing at home felt as urgent...
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Windows Users Start My Dream Windows App

"My Dream Windows App has just opened its doors, created by one Stefan Miganowicz of Leominster, Massachusetts. Stefan praises My Dream App as his source of inspiration, and gives 'kudos to [us] for pioneering an innovative way to bring applications to market', then immediately rips into the creativity of the Macintosh community…" read more  |  digg story
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One Soldier Against the Empire

It's hard even to remember anymore the true state of the U.S. military as the Vietnam War ground toward its bloody end. By the late 1960s, the statistics flowing back to Washington about the American war machine were enough to give any general nightmares. Drug-taking was rampant. (By 1971, up to 60% of returning soldiers admitted to some use.) Desertions stood at seventy per thousand, a modern high; small-scale mutinies or "combat refusals" were at critical levels; incidents of racial conflict had soared; and strife between officers ("lifers") and soldiers ("grunts") was at unprecedented levels; reported "fraggings" – assassination attempts – against unpopular officers or NCOs had risen from an already startling 126 in 1969 to 333 in 1971, despite declining troop strength in Vietnam. According to military count, as many as 144 underground newspapers were then being published by, or aimed at, soldiers. ("In Vietnam," the Ft. Lewis-Mc...
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