Radar on a smaller-than-penny chip
"The high-frequency beams that the system generates and receives may one day handle many functions, including the usual radar jobs of ranging and location. In cars, for example, the chip might be used to detect other vehicles looming in the fog.
The chip may also be used for wireless communications, since it has a broad bandwidth or range of frequencies at which it communicates. And it produces a bit stream at roughly the rate of fiber optics, more than enough for quick downloads of movies and other digital data."

posted by Farookh at 10:54 AM Comment (0)

Behind the singing rodents in the Quiznos ad.
Some of you have probably seen this ad and the character - spongmonkey. The first time I had seen the character was like a year back and had a hearty laugh since it was so infectious. Though, when I saw the ad I was a little surprised that they chose this weird character for selling a sub. But, I did have a chuckle.

Not as good a mascot as the chalupa-loving Taco Bell chihuahua though. A funny take on the dropping of the mascot by Taco Bell.

posted by Farookh at 7:11 PM Comment (0)

Conjugate Verbs in 100 Languages
Allows you to conjugate verbs in 100 languages, including Klingon.

Saw it at: ResearchBuzz

posted by Farookh at 6:55 PM Comment (0)

A Visual Dictionary of Fashion

Not comprehensive. Though, it is nice to be able to see fashion by period, geography, etc.

posted by Farookh at 6:39 PM Comment (0)

Tom Peters' Observations on offshoring.

Interesting points like:
3. The automation of business processes is as big a phenomenon in job shrinkage as off-shoring.
6. Americans' "unearned wage advantage" (Born in the U.S.A.) could be erased ... permanently.
9. Big Companies are off-shoring/automating almost exclusively in pursuit of efficiency and shareholder value enhancement. (This is not new or news.)

etc.

posted by Farookh at 6:20 PM Comment (0)

Kurt Wenner: Master Street Painter

Wenner's unique and innovative use of anamorphic perspective creates a special pictorial geometry that corrects the distortion caused by viewing images on the pavement form an oblique angle, giving a 3D effect.



posted by Amit at 5:36 AM Comment (0)

Pune-Mumbai NH-4 privatised; expressway too This is the first time a national highway has been privatised. The winning bid was for Rs 2060 crores, and the contract is for 15 years.

BTW, did you guys know that Times of India has an epaper version online? You need to have an IndiaTimes id (which is free), but it shows you the daily newspaper in the layout that it is printed. You can even get a PDF version.

posted by Kaushik at 2:08 PM Comment (0)

India to Trial IP-TV: Reliance Infocomm Ltd, one of India's largest private-sector enterprises, will become the first in the region to prototype and trial a next-generation IPTV (Internet Protocol television) solution from Microsoft TV. This new system will allow cable and telecommunication operators to deliver new and existing TV services over broadband Internet connections.

posted by Kaushik at 1:18 PM Comment (0)

Cell Protein Gives Monkeys Innate Immunity to H.I.V., Researchers Discover: "The monkeys were protected from the virus by a mechanism that resides within cells and that is independent of the antibodies and white blood cells of the immune system. The mechanism appears to have evolved to protect animals from specific viruses."

posted by Farookh at 12:28 AM Comment (0)

GSM Reaches One Billion Subscribers: "The number of people using GSM mobile phones is roughly equivalent to one-sixth of the entire world population. "

posted by Farookh at 10:18 PM Comment (0)

posted by Farookh at 9:57 AM Comment (0)

Mitsubishi Electric Develops 'Reversible' LCD Showing Images on Its Surface, Back Side
In addition to mobile phones, Mitsubishi plans to use the new LCD panel for other products, including PDAs and laptop PCs. This technology can be applied to any transmissive or semi-transmissive LCD panels, Mitsubishi said.

posted by Farookh at 10:31 PM Comment (0)

Frequently Asked Questions - BugMeNot.com: "BugMeNot.com was created as a mechanism to quickly bypass the login of web sites that require compulsory registration and/or the collection of personal/demographic information (such as the New York Times). "

posted by Kaushik at 11:39 AM Comment (0)

Allen Brain Atlas
Saw this while browing Vulcan.com off the previous post.

Paul has funded this org with $100 million in seed capital with the following mission:
"...will combine the disciplines of neuroanatomy and genomics to create the most comprehensive map of the brain at the cellular level, illustrating the functional anatomy of the brain through a collection of gene expression maps, brain circuits and cell locations."

It has Steven Pinker and James Watson as advisors.

posted by Farookh at 9:16 PM Comment (0)

FlipStart.Vulcan.comPaul Allen's new adveture -- a palmtop computer running Windows XP.

posted by Kaushik at 9:02 PM Comment (0)

posted by Farookh at 1:09 PM Comment (0)

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | New world found far beyond Pluto: "Astronomers have found a large world of ice and rock circling the Sun beyond the most distant planet, Pluto. "

posted by Kaushik at 12:59 AM Comment (0)

Stephen Wolfram: A New Kind of Science Is this old news? Wolfram's opus is now online in its entirety.

http://www.wolframscience.com/nksonline/

-K

posted by Kaushik at 12:55 AM Comment (0)

posted by Farookh at 11:07 AM Comment (0)

Fermionic Condensates In school, we learnt about three forms of matter: solids, liquids and gases. There are at least six: solids, liquids, gases, plasmas, Bose-Einstein condensates, and a new form of matter called "fermionic condensates" just discovered.


posted by Anonymous at 10:56 AM Comment (0)

The DARPA Grand Challenge

A cash award of $1 million goes to the team whose fully autonomous ground vehicle completes a course between Los Angeles and Las Vegas (225 to 250 miles) in the fastest time and in less than 10 hours. Only publicly available signals (e.g., GPS) may be used for navigation. Otherwise, the vehicle must be fully autonomous, receiving no other signals for navigation, path planning, obstacle avoidance, and terrain differentiation.

The race takes place on March 13, 2004.



posted by Amit at 9:27 PM Comment (0)

Python on Nokia

Nokia CTO Pertti Korhonen confirmed at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference that we would be seeing Python rolling on Series 60 handsets (specifically the 6600 and family).

posted by Amit at 9:29 PM Comment (0)

posted by Farookh at 12:02 PM Comment (0)

posted by Farookh at 1:11 AM Comment (0)

Sun to buy Opteron server maker: Andy Bechtolsheim returns to Sun with this acquisition.

posted by Kaushik at 12:45 AM Comment (0)

Nasa says 'no' to Hubble reprieve: "Nasa has given a final 'no' to requests for it to change its mind and grant a reprieve to the Hubble Space Telescope. "

posted by Kaushik at 9:32 PM Comment (0)

AFoveon's first consumer digital camera 4.5 megapixels, $399.


posted by Kaushik at 7:51 PM Comment (0)

BBC NEWS | UK | Pigeons reveal map-reading secret: Homing pigeons are finding their way around Britain by following roads and railways, zoologists claim.
They say the birds' natural magnetic and solar compasses are often less important than their knowledge of human transport routes.

posted by Kaushik at 7:55 PM Comment (0)

Ecopaint absorbs and neutralises noxious gases from vehicle exhausts which cause respiratory problems and trigger smog production.



posted by Anonymous at 12:32 PM Comment (0)

Gapminder Some interesting charts and interactive applets for visualizing statis about world health, education levels etc.

posted by Kaushik at 10:05 PM Comment (0)

US bans Courier

The US State Department has issued an edict banning its longtime standard typeface from all official correspondence and replacing it with a "more modern" font -- Times New Roman.


posted by Kaushik at 6:24 PM Comment (0)

UrbanMapping

A low-tech way of superimposing differnt logical and geographical networks over one another. Reminds me of those footrulers I had as a kid that displayed different cartoons when tilted! :)

posted by Amit at 5:34 AM Comment (0)

Wired News: Netherlands Nabs Nigeria Scammers: "Dutch police have arrested 52 people suspected of defrauding gullible Internet users in one of the largest busts of the infamous 'Nigerian e-mail' scam. "

Thank goodness!

posted by Kaushik at 5:18 PM Comment (0)

Wired News: Ring Tones Bringing in Big Bucks

$3.5 billion last year!

posted by Kaushik at 4:47 PM Comment (0)

Last month pet stores began selling genetically engineered fluorescent zebra fish, called GloFish. Never mind that California has banned transgenic pets, and animal-rights activists nationwide cry foul: What's the point? The fish are technological marvels -- that's the point. Scientists began adding fluorescence genes plucked from jellyfish and coral to zebra fish during the late '90s to make them glow in the presence of toxins, and thus help keep our waterways clean. The $5 gen-mods also happen to look spectacular beneath a black light; they fluoresce neon red. In this case, environmentalism delivers a bankable fringe benefit.



posted by Anonymous at 3:55 PM Comment (0)

Bend it like paper

Electronic paper is getting almost as bendy as real paper, thanks to a new way of making the plastic electronics that drive the display. The material has a flexible plastic base, rather than the thin steel or glass of other e-papers.
Philips of the Netherlands this week unveiled the e-paper, which is only 0.3 millimetres thick and flexible enough to wrap around your thumb. Previous e-papers broke if wrapped around a drinks can. The ultimate aim is to have a display that can be rolled up into a cylinder the thickness of a ballpoint pen for use in tiny pull-out displays.

posted by Anonymous at 3:47 PM Comment (0)