Laser mouse conquers new surfaces
Logitech releases a mouse that uses a laser instead of optical tracking. Also, didn't know that Doug Engelbart is with Logitech.

posted by Farookh at 10:47 PM Comment (0)

Anthropologist helps Intel see the world through customers' eyes: "During her travels, Ms. Bell found people in China who take their mobile phones to a temple to be blessed, Muslims who used the GPS capabilities of their phones to locate Mecca for their prayers and Asian families who burned paper cell phone offerings for their ancestors to use in the next world. "

posted by Farookh at 6:53 PM Comment (0)

Message-spraying bike
Neat contraption that this guy uses to spray paint sidewalks with anti-Bush slogans and was arrested yesterday. Check the video and his blog as well. You can send messages to be printed via his blog.

posted by Farookh at 5:07 PM Comment (0)

Docs Grow New Jawbone for Cancer Survivor
"The researchers filled this cage with bone mineral blocks, a bone-inducing chemical called BMP7, and some of the patient's bone marrow. Next, the cage was implanted in a back muscle called the latissimus dorsi to allow real bone to form inside the metal mold."

posted by Farookh at 9:01 AM Comment (0)

The Science of Word Recognition
An interesting paper on how we recognize what we read.

"The goal of this paper is to review the history of why psychologists moved from a word shape model of word recognition to a letter recognition model..."

posted by Farookh at 11:05 AM Comment (0)

File-Sharing Sites Found Not Liable for Infringement
You folks probably read about this. It is an interesting and good ruling. Though, my colleague made an interesting remark (I thought). He said, how come we expect the creators of the tools - in this case, Grokster, Morpheus, etc. - to be not liable for the crimes committed (illegal file swapping), while in the case of gun manufacturers we expect the manufacturers to be liable. Is it the nature of the crime? Or, is it because we think the RIAA has been committing the crime for so long?

posted by Farookh at 11:59 AM Comment (0)

Human Locator, targeted billboards: "The Human Locator analyses a camera feed in real time%2C sending detailed information about people%27s location%2C size%2C and movements. This data is then used as input to control projections%2C video%2C graphic animations%2C and sound. The Human Locator offers a complex analysis procedure and precise controls for accurate tracking in a variety of conditions. The variables it outputs can be used in an infinite variety of ways%2C limited only by your imagination."

Human Factor web site

posted by Farookh at 11:24 AM Comment (0)

Bear guzzles 36 beers, passes out at campground: "It turns out the bear was a bit of a beer sophisticate. He tried a mass-market Busch beer, but switched to Rainier Beer, a local ale, and stuck with it for his drinking binge."

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

Stunt pilots to hook falling stardust sample: "A piece of the Sun is set to fall to Earth and be captured by Hollywood stunt pilots in a tricky mid-air manoeuvre..."

posted by Farookh at 11:16 AM Comment (0)

Life without numbers in a unique Amazon tribe
The Piraha tribe apparently can't learn to count and have no distinct words for colours.
...
More than 60 years ago, amateur linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf argued that learning a specific language determined the nature and content of how you think.
...
"The question is, is there any case where not having words for something doesn't allow you to think about it?" Prof. Gordon asked about the Piraha and the Whorfian thesis. "I think this is a case for just that."

posted by Farookh at 11:08 AM Comment (0)

End of the line for HP's Alpha: "Despite lackluster sales, the chip--and the engineers who worked on it--directly and indirectly influenced the industry. The original Athlon chip from Advanced Micro Devices used a bus initially created for the Alpha. The subsequent Opteron chip features a high-speed chip-to-chip interconnect called HyperTransport and an integrated memory controller--technologies similar to those touted earlier by Alpha development teams. Dirk Meyer, AMD's top processor executive, worked on the chip as well.

Last year, many of the Alpha architects left HP to join Intel. Research performed by Digital's Alpha team in the '90s on multithreading also strongly influenced HyperThreading, a technology incorporated into current Intel server and desktop chips. "


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

University of Waterloo Solar Race Team
"The team is trying to break the world distance record for a solar car by driving 19000+ miles around North America. They've made it from Waterloo through the Great Plains and across the Rocky mountains. Now they're starting on the American leg of their tour."


posted by Farookh at 5:39 PM Comment (0)

Wired News won't capitalize 'I' in Internet any more

(from Kaushik)

posted by Farookh at 2:50 PM Comment (0)

A Slice of Time and Space MS research project for turning digital video into animated cartoon. Nice!

posted by Amit at 4:50 AM Comment (2)

Lawyers Unearth Early Patents: "In its first 46 years of existence, the Patent Office, as it was known then, issued the first patent received by a woman, and the first by an African-American. But all its records were lost when a fire gutted the building where the patents were being stored temporarily while a more modern, fireproof headquarters was under construction. There was a fire station right next door, but it was December, and in the frigid early morning hours the volunteer firefighters discovered their leather hoses were cracked and a pump did not work."

posted by Farookh at 8:15 PM Comment (0)

From More Than 4,500 Sources, Just a Dozen Account for Most Google News Stories?: "Although Google spiders more than 4,500 news sources, only about dozen account for the vast majority of stories on Google News. And two of those dozen predominant sources are owned and operated by the U.S. and Chinese governments."

posted by Farookh at 1:45 PM Comment (0)