A new battery — lauded as the smallest implantable battery in the world — may soon be powering tiny bionic neurons, devices that emit electrical micropulses to stimulate damaged nerves and muscles
A Dutch consumer watchdog demanded Nokia conduct an in-depth investigation after two Nokia mobile phones exploded, injuring their owners, in the Netherlands within a few months
Found this article about a new MP3 player from Dell on Daring Fireball.
In short it looks as though Dell are trying to do the whole Apple iPod thing including the music store.
Mr Gruber is unimpressed and so am I. (Mind you my experience with Dell machines are hardly pleasant. So far the only good thing I can say about this manufacturer is that they make computers in black.)
A Princeton University student has published instructions for disabling the new anticopying measures being tested on CDs by BMG — and they’re as simple as holding down a computer’s Shift key
LookSmart, one of the dodgier search engines, has been hit hard by news its biggest customer, Microsoft’s MSN, would not renew an agreement which accounts for most of LookSmart’s revenue
Coles Myer has followed Telstra’s lead and begun flirting with open-source software, such as Linux, as the retailer rationalises its IT operations. Even Microsoft is toying with a licensing scheme similar to an open-source arrangement for one of its code libraries
Philips has found a way to burn a dual layered DVD+R. Unlike other dual layered disks that have been developed, this one is also designed to be backwards compatible with current DVD players. The DVDs will hold 8.5GB of data — 4 hours of video — and are set to be released as soon as next year
Google’s new AdSense terms of service, not only allow them to terminate you without notice, cause or recourse (withholding any sums owed to you at the time), but also bind you to a number of restrictive confidentiality terms, including one that prohibits you from criticising the service. This is definitely on the wrong side of the ‘Don’t Be Evil’ line
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission has formally taken court action against Domain Names Australia and its director for alleged breaches of the Trade Practices Act related to mailouts to domain name holders
Adelaide-based telco Agile Communications has circumvented the limits of Telstra’s ADSL network by building its own broadband infrastructure in a small South Australian town
Bert Hickman, a retired electrical engineer living outside Chicago, enjoys using magnetic force to smash coins to roughly half their normal size.
Bert’s high-voltage equipment takes up most of his screened-in porch (from the looks of things, his wife drew a line at the sliding door — there’s a clear border between tidy suburban house and chaotic suburban lab). Bert begins the coin-shrinking process by wrapping a quarter in copper wire and bolting the leads to copper bus bars, which are connected, by way of a triggered spark gap, to a 600-pound bank of 12,000-volt capacitors. A bulletproof blast shield encloses the coin and coil, and a high-voltage power supply charges up the capacitors. The only thing holding back the several thousand joules of energy stored in the capacitors is the tiny space between the spark gap’s two brass discs.
Pressing a switch triggers the spark gap, which releases the entire charge through the coil in 25 millionths of a second. This creates a huge magnetic field, which induces a current and then a magnetic field inside the coin, which in turn pushes back against the field outside. The repulsion force between these two fields crushes the metal, instantly taking a quarter down to the size of a dime. A large amount of energy discharged in a short amount of time usually entails an explosion, and in this case the copper coil is blown apart with a brilliant flash and a satisfying bang.
Intel’s Vanderpool is a computer chip designed to run more than one operating system at a time could break Microsoft’s stranglehold on PC software
A flaw critics have warned of in the RIAA’s series of lawsuits against consumers — the possibility that ‘innocent’ file-sharers could appear ‘guilty’ — is the subject of a newly released anonymous paper; Entrapment: Incriminating Peer to Peer Network Users
Conceding that its strategy of patching Windows holes as they emerge has not worked, Microsoft plans next week to outline a new security effort focused on what the company calls ‘securing the perimeter‘, which is likely to be little more than the same dodgy tactic with a shiny new name
Every time a software program locks up and you want to start over, every time you need to change your password or log on or off your computer, you can thank David Bradley. The same David Bradley who saved Bill Gates’ derriere before the Windows operating system became the monster it is today. Bradley is the man who gave the world control-alt-delete
One of Moby‘s fans is being sued by the RIAA, and Moby is far from impressed
A truck, a sat dish and a sunburnt country. When you absolutely positively need to connect to the Internet, why not carry your own broadband connection with you? Onno Benschop and his wife are doing just that — packed up the lot and have gone on the road, so far roughly 3000km
One of the more artistic case mods, the Spider Case, it’s pretty lights make up for its hefty footprint
Andy Markley‘s domain and professional reputation were effectively hijacked by a spammer. After facing complete indifference to his plight from his own ISP, he was forced to track the bastard down himself
Some technologies are so blatantly obnoxious that the human race would rejoice if they were summarily executed. Bruce Sterling offers some candidates for destruction including; land mines, prisons and DVDs
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