Technology

A GROUP of German privacy hackers have come up with a portable device that can wipe a passive RFID-Tag permanently.

While it is known that RFID tags could be wiped, it usually took some fairly cumbersome microwave gear to get the job done, and the result could damage whatever the tag was installed on.

But, according to the group’s website here, two developers have managed to make a functioning prototype and produce plans that everyone can use to build their own RFID-Zapper.

Mikey Sklar opposed RFID.

Then, he requested that the technology be implanted in his hand.

He's now among a small, but apparently growing, group of hobbyists who have voluntarily implanted themselves with RFID chips.

"I guess a lot of people like to go home and watch TV," he said during an interview Saturday. "I like to make stuff."

A new robot can recognize the difference between a mirror image of itself and another robot that looks just like it.

This so-called mirror image cognition is based on artificial nerve cell groups built into the robot's computer brain that give it the ability to recognize itself and acknowledge others.

The ground-breaking technology could eventually lead to robots able to express emotions.

The last time the city had a transit strike, in 1980, a fax machine was considered cutting-edge. Fast forward 25 years, and it is a world of wireless laptops, Internet-enabled cell phones and telecommuting from your living room.

And that, some say, is a big reason the bus and subway strike has not caused the utter chaos that many people had expected.

Personal computers, cell phones and high-speed Internet are considered essential to getting by for millions of Americans who are showing early signs of addiction to the next wave of high-tech toys, an AP-Ipsos poll found.

The latest wave includes MP3 players like iPods -- popular with everyone from the kid next door to President Bush -- high-definition television and digital video recorders like TiVo.

Some people freely admit to being high-tech junkies.

Computers may have got better and better at chess, but human players can still find chinks in their defense, the world chess champion says. Just don't try to break them down psychologically.

Ever since IBM's Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov -- retired champion and reputedly the best player ever -- in 1997, humans have failed to regain dominance over increasingly powerful computers. (But it hasn't been all bad news: Read about Kasparov's draw with Deep Junior in 2003.)

Earlier this month, BusinessWeek ran a review of Comcast's Digital Voice service. The company, like the rest of the cable industry, is looking at VoIP as its next big thing.

The review is essentially positive, which no doubt made the operator happy. The better news for the operator--and the rest of the cable industry, for that matter--is that the review appeared at all.

US defence contractor Alliant Techsystems has successfully tested a rocket-launched scramjet at Mach 5.5. The project, in association with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Office of Naval Research (ONR) - and which forms part of the Freeflight Atmospheric Scramjet Test Technique (FASTT) programme - did not reach the heady Mach 10 achieved by the hydrogen-fuelled X-43A back in November 2004, but it is the first "freeflight of a scramjet-powered vehicle using conventional liquid hydrocarbon jet fuel".

In recent years, Global Positioning System navigation, commonly known as GPS, has rapidly migrated from oceangoing vessels and adventurers' backpacks to the dashboards of luxury sedans.

In yet another leap into the mainstream, GPS technology, cheaper yet more sophisticated than ever, is increasingly finding its way into the palms of everyday users.

In an array of devices, many new and some newly enhanced, the use of orbiting satellites to orient and guide travelers has never been simpler, more accurate or, well, cooler.

Eyeballs, a severed hand, or fingers carried in ziplock bags. Back alley eye replacement surgery. These are scenarios used in recent blockbuster movies like Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" and "Tomorrow Never Dies" to illustrate how unsavory characters in high-tech worlds beat sophisticated security and identification systems.