IBM has filed a patent (US 7484451) for Bionic Body Armor, that could essentially allow us to dodge bullets like Neo in The Matrix. The armor would scan areas for incoming projectiles and when one is detected the system would deliver a shock to the muscles causing a swift reflexive action away from the projectile. Here's what the patent describes the body armor as:
Ready to party like it's 1234567890? Computer lovers certainly are.
That’s because at precisely 11:31:30pm tonight (Friday), the ten-digit clock used by Unix computers - which includes the servers that run everything from the internet to air traffic control - will display all ten decimal digits in sequence.
For computer geeks everywhere, this seemingly dubious milestone deserve celebrations just like those that greeted the end of the millennium. Parties are planned around the world from London to New York, to Yerevan in Armenia and Asunción in Paraguay.
Social-networking company Facebook is hoping to connect with more mobile-service providers.
Facebook already has deals in place with BlackBerry smartphone maker Research In Motion, as well as the iPhone's creator, Apple. Now, Facebook is hoping to seal a deal with Nokia, a Finland-based mobile-phone giant.
The deal would include embedding features of Facebook into specific Nokia phone models or integrating Facebook contact information with Nokia phones' address books, someone familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal.
So-called "whole-home" audio systems that allow users to rock out to their music in multiple rooms via remote controllers have, so far, not quite caught on with the public. While a variety of options have existed for some time between the high end, like Sonos, and the low end, like the Roku SoundBridge or even Apple's AirPort Express, a new study claims that 2009 may be the year that whole-home systems get their groove on.
Google Latitude is either very, very cool, said Patrick Edaburn in The Moderate Voice, or very, very scary. The service, connected to mobile phones, allows users to keep track of friends and family. In theory, you can only pinpoint someone's location with his or her permission. But we all know how quickly hackers and security leaks can lead to abuse.
Just because the Internet has broken down geographic barriers, don't assume that Google doesn't care about geography.
The company plans to launch software called Latitude on Wednesday that lets mobile phone users share their location with close contacts. Google hopes it will help people find each other while out and about and to keep track of loved ones.
Four Toronto college students have accomplished a technological feat that their teachers are calling a first. The Humber College seniors made contact with the International Space Station Monday with a radio system they designed and built themselves.
School officials say that, to their knowledge, that's never been accomplished by students at the college level. The project got off the ground about a year ago as the students looked for a way to apply knowledge gained from their radio communication courses.
A clear trend is emerging that favors applications designed to run in web browsers. Even Microsoft is looking at extending their office suite to the web, and of course Google has had an offering for some time now. By designing their programs to run inside a browser, developers can effectively avoid the issue of platform compatibility. With careful coding, any computer that can run a web browser will be able to run those web based applications.
When Debbie Gordon and her fellow health-care mission workers go to Belize, there's just so much they can do to treat people in the remote village of Gales Point. Her group, which includes two or three doctors, can only treat the town's 300 villagers based on the symptoms patients describe or what the doctors observe.
"If we had the ability to take a device that could do field tests and get back the results in a few days, that would be very helpful," said Gordon, a health educator based in North Carolina, who teaches doctors and nurses about care for sick newborns.
Proof of the existence of GDrive, Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s long-rumored online storage service, has been found once again.
