Technology

Want to patent a moustache protector? Or perhaps you’ve hit upon the idea of improving chickens’ lives by giving them eyeglasses. Well, don’t bother — they’ve already been invented. These are just some of the bizarre ideas that have trickled into the UK Patent Office on a regular basis since it opened 150 years ago. According to Steve van Dulken, who oversees the patent archive at the British Library, For every 100 applications lodged, I’d say that 10 are a bit wacky

Two days after city inspectors ripped up illegal Nike advertising decals glued to sidewalks along Central Park West, Microsoft unleashed a swarm of large adhesive butterflies in Manhattan

Anyone wondering why MS executives Steve Ballmer and Brian Valentine are so bent out of shape about Linux should check out SuSE 8.1, for insight. For a desktop PC or small business network it’s already miles ahead of Win98SE and ME and closing fast on XP for ease of installation and use by first-timers

With customers methodically switching mobile services and upgrading to newer models, discarded mobile phones are hitting incinerators and landfills in record numbers, contaminating the environment. But now users have the option of donating unwanted phones to non profit groups, developing nations, or for recycling the components in environmentally safe ways

A world first scheme to underwrite the cost of PlayStation 2 development kits for local developers will boost Australia’s games development industry. Meanwhile Microsoft intends Xbox to be a closed system and to stay that way, and will use both technical and legal avenues to protect it

Sharp, Japan’s largest maker of liquid crystal displays, unveiled a screen with microprocessor circuitry applied directly onto the glass, enabling it to function like a computer. It uses Sharp’s continuous grain silicon technology and should be used on some products in 2005 — via Slashdot

According to officials at key online backbone organisations, starting late Monday the heart of the Internet sustained its largest and most sophisticated attack ever. Had it lasted longer, could have taken the Internet down

HardCoreWare.net have built a silent PC that’s well over twenty times quieter than their comparison PC (40 dB versus 65). It’s quite the zippy machine; P4 2.80 GHz, 7200 RPM hard drive and an overclocked GeForce4 Ti 4200 — the only fan in the entire system is in the PSU

The Direct Marketing Association has said that unsolicited e-mail has become so noxious that a federal anti-spam law is finally necessary

Roomba, supposedly the first intelligent floor vacuum, as in a cross between vacuum cleaner and a robot — via Slashdot

Lucent Technologies said its research arm Bell Labs designed two prototype chips that will allow 3G users to surf the Web via mobile phones and other mobile devices at speeds more than seven times faster than the fastest 3G connection today

Prolific e-mailer, Jason Hecke, has been ordered to pay more than US$98,000 for flooding Washington computers several years ago with dubious offers to make money through the Internet

A developer of bulk mail software has figured out how to blast computers with pop up spam over the Internet through a messaging function on many Windows operating systems

Steve has built a Lego version of Dean Kamen’s Segway Human Transporter. It was constructed using only Lego, two cheap custom sensors and some smart programming using the open source BrickOS for the Lego RCX. The LegWay, as the creator calls it, can balance itself on two wheels and follow a line

Jim McKenna and John Lieberman from California are trying to give AOL a taste of its own medicine. They’re asking people to send them AOL CDs, and they’re going to drop them off at the company’s doorstep once they collect one million CDs