Using cheap acoustic sensors the surface of any 3D object can be instantly made into a touch-sensitive interface capable of tracking two objects at once. Its creators are planning to make hospitals more hygienic — keyboards and mice will be replaced by desks wired to perform as keyboards and touchpads
The NSW state government will in early 2007 go shopping for suppliers to establish universal coverage
of free Wi-Fi in Sydney’s central business district (including North Sydney), in addition to the suburbs of Parramatta, Penrith and Liverpool and outlying cities Newcastle, Wollongong and Gosford
IE and Firefox might vie for dominion in desktop browsing, but Opera, makers of a browser that comes in desktop, smartphone, and mobile phone versions, wants to control the mobile space
Starting next year, French deputies will use desktops and servers running Linux, Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser, and OpenOffice.org, an open-source alternative to Microsoft Office
Here’s yet another way to dodge the irksome requirement of presenting a valid e-mail address to register for a Web site: 10 Minute Mail, a Seam-based Web application that fills the bill just long enough to get you onto the site… and then disappears. No fuss, no muss, and best of all, no spam
YouTube is coming to mobile phones — or, to be more precise, a small slice of YouTube is coming to some Verizon Wireless phones. While its explosively popular Web site is free, YouTube’s phone-based version will require a $15-a-month subscription to a Verizon Wireless service called VCast. And instead of choosing what to watch from a vast library of clips, VCast users will be limited to an unspecified number of videos selected and approved by the companies
24-year-old Sainul Abideen thinks he’s come up with an alternative to CDs and other data storage options that’ll allow for greater storage capacities and be cheaper and biodegradable to boot, using a fancy printing technique he’s devised to cram loads of data onto a plain old sheet of paper. The system appears to be somewhat similar to QR Codes and other newfangled bar code-type technologies currently in use in parts of the world other than here, but Abideen’s Rainbow Versitile Disc
can apparently store far more amounts of data than those — between 90 and 450GB — via Engadget
A new telescope has been unveiled in Mexico by President Vicente Fox. The Large Millimeter Telescope will be used to pick up electromagnetic radiation known as millimetre waves emitted 13 billion years ago, when the first stars burst into existence, astrophysicists say. The $128M telescope is a joint project between Mexico and the US. With an antenna diameter of 164 feet, the LMT dwarfs existing millimetre-wave telescopes and should be able to pick up signals from the faintest objects in outer space
Mozilla’s Firefox 2.0 has long been considered a safer Web browser than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, but a new flaw in the Firefox Password Manager could let hackers steal login data
It’s been more than 100 years since the discovery of the 2,000-year-old Antikythera Mechanism, but researchers are only now figuring out how it works. Since its discovery in 1902, the Antikythera Mechanism — with its intricate and baffling system of about 30 geared wheels — has been an enigma… During the last 50 years, researchers have identified various astronomical and calendar functions, including gears that mimic the movement of the sun and moon. But it has taken some of the most advanced technology of the 21st century to decipher during the past year the most advanced technology of the 1st century BC
From 8 December, it will be once more legal to own and operate an MP3 Transmitter in the UK, primarily used to convey music between an MP3 player such as Apple’s iPod to your home or car stereo. The device was originally banned because their transmissions can override and interfere with legal radio stations, which is prohibited by the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949. Strong consumer demand for the devices and pressure from Liberal Democrats were among the primary motivators for the amendment
Mobile phone owners will be allowed to break software locks on their handsets in order to use them with competing carriers under new copyright rules. Other copyright exemptions approved by the Library of Congress will let film professors copy snippets from DVDs for educational compilations and let blind people use special software to read copy-protected electronic books. All told, Librarian of Congress James H Billington approved six exemptions, the most his Copyright Office has ever granted. For the first time, the office exempted groups of users. The new rules will take effect Monday and expire in three years. In granting the exemption for mobile phone users, the Copyright Office determined that consumers aren’t able to enjoy full legal use of their handsets because of software locks that wireless providers have been placing to control access to phones’ underlying programs
Toshiba plans to release another marvel next year, an SD card that can hold a whopping 8GB of data. That’s 2,000 songs or 2,500 pictures from a 6-megapixel digital camera
Rubber tyres, the kind that lie at the bottom of rivers and at the back of junkyards the world over, could be ideal water filters says an environmental engineer at Penn State university in the US. Yuefeng Xie says his crumb rubber
suffers none of the problems of traditional water filtration systems and as a result can filter wastewater up to four times faster
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?
After three years of delays, a massive database containing personal information on every Australian with a phone number could soon be protected. A Bill before federal Parliament includes fines up to $66,000 or two years imprisonment for anyone misusing personal information in the Telstra-managed phone directory. It is three years since the Australian Communications and Media Authority raised concerns about misuse of data in the Integrated Public Number Database, a complete and always up-to-date electronic directory of all listed and unlisted phone numbers and contact details. It is used by emergency services, telcos and producers of public number databases, but only emergency services are authorised to access silent lines
A law is being rushed through the Australian legislature that will criminalise great swaths of the citizenry. The Internet Industry Association of Australia is posting warning scenarios spelling out how far-reaching this law would be
Local broadband TV provider ReelTime Media is negotiating with at least two US studios
to enable Australian consumers to download episodes of US TV series 24 hours after transmission there. If negotiations are successful, it will shake up free-to-air TV, which holds back broadcasting many US TV program seasons for the Australian ratings season between February and November. Any deal would allow consumers to download episodes for 72 hours only. Any such partnership will be keenly contested by the Australian commercial networks
Universal Music Group has filed a lawsuit against MySpace for infringing copyrights of thousands of its artists’ works. Universal, owned by French media giant Vivendi, filed the suit at the US District Court Central District of California, Western Division. The lawsuit accuses MySpace of allowing users to upload videos illegally and taking part in the infringement by re-formatting the videos to be played back or sent to others
Lauren Weinstein raises an alarm about a new Google service, Click-to-Call. The service seems ripe for abuse of several kinds. One red flag is that Google falsifies the caller-ID of calls it originates for the service. Up to now, the typical available avenue for manipulating caller-ID has been pay services that tended to limit the potential for large-scale abuse since users are charged for access. Google, by providing a free service that will place calls and manipulate caller-ID, vastly increases the scope of the problem. Scale matters
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