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POPSYour cell phone is a "roving bug" According to this report, the FBI can activate a remote tracking and listening device built into every recently-made cell phone without having to modify or handle the phone physically. The only way to defeat the bug is to remove the phone's battery.
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POPSThe 10 Most Puzzling Ancient Artifacts What are we to make of these finds? There are several possibilities: * Intelligent humans date back much, much further than we realize. * Other intelligent beings and civilizations existed on earth far beyond our recorded history. * Our dating methods are completely inaccurate, and that stone, coal and fossils form much more rapidly than we now estimate. In any case, these examples - and there are many more - should prompt any curious and open-minded scientist to reexamine and rethink the true history of life on earth.
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POPSIs Time disappearing from the universe? At an everyday level, the change would not be perceptible. However, it would be obvious from cosmic scale measurements tracking the course of the universe over billions of years. The change would be infinitesimally slow from a human perspective, but in terms of the vast perspective of cosmology, the study of ancient light from suns that shone billions of years ago, it could easily be measured Difficult to fathom.
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POPSSay Goodbye to power cords and battery packs This sounds really interesting. It's not in the practical stages yet, but how convenient would it be to charge your cellphone, mp3 player or laptop without having to plug it in? I know in my house, free outlets are hard to come by, so this is something I can really get behind.
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POPSHow to save a wet cell phone I could have used this bit of info last year. Hopefully this will save some of you from having busted cell phones. Gotta wonder who first did this to find out that it worked.
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POPSWill "Th!nk" Ignite an Electronic Car Revolution in the U.S.? Think City is one of two models that are out already, together with the Think Ox, with a choice of either lithium or a sodium battery, it's range is enough to take a suburban dweller to the downtown office and back, with zero carbon footprint. The car is thoughfully fully computerized and allows a key-less entry. It features real time navigation, web, e-mail and open source interfaces, intelligent and sustainable driving and route calculations. The DNA-key gives the user feedback on charging status and sends messages, for example, for pre-heat or pre-cool options via GPRS. Pricing has yet to be announced, but the company's current vehicles cost less than $25,000.
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POPSAre You REALLY A Woman? "The tests never unmasked a man posing as a woman, but they did turn up several athletes who were born with genetic defects that made them appear — according to lab results, at least — to be men. In 1967, the Polish sprinter Ewa Klobukowska was barred from the sport because she failed the chromosomal test, even though she had passed the nude test a year earlier. In the 1980s, the Spanish hurdler Maria José Martínez Patino was disqualified because the test revealed, to her surprise, that she was born with a Y chromosome. Her eligibility was reinstated in 1988. The practice came under increasing criticism in the 1990s by doctors, scientists and athletes who argued that the tests were not just invasive, but were also bad science."
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POPSCold Fusion is Hot again (CBS) 60 Minutes wondered what Richard Garwin would think of the Defense Department's appraisal. "The experiments leave 'no doubt that anomalous, excess heat is produced,'" Pelley told Garwin. Watch the video !
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POPSThe World's First Flying Saucer: Made Right Here on Earth Using an onboard source of energy (such as a battery, ultracapacitor, solar panel or any combination thereof), the electrodes will send an electrical current into the plasma, causing the plasma to push against the neutral (noncharged) air surrounding the craft, theoretically generating enough force for liftoff and movement in different directions (depending on where on the craft's surface you direct the electrical current). The concept sounds far-fetched, but U.F. mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Subrata Roy plans to have a mini model ready to demonstrate his theory within the next year.
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POPSMIT Team Use Viruses to Build Nex-Gen Batteries Bio-battery technology could open up a whole new field of science with exotic new applications. The study was partly funded by the Army Research Office Institute of Collaborative Biotechnologies, and the Army Research Office Institute of Soldier Nanotechnologies, which suggests that the Army has some interest in this type of research. One can only imagine the strange and/or nefarious possibilities of fusing batteries into living organisms. However, Belcher diffuses any excitement over possible cyborg applications.
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POPS Robots and Humans: Intel say equal by 2050
Robots: From the Factory Floor to Your Kitchen - Robots today are primarily used in the factory environment, designed to perform a single task repeatedly and bolted down. To make robotics personal, robots need to move and manipulate objects in cluttered and dynamic human environments, according to Rattner. They need to be cognizant of their surroundings by sensing and recognizing movement in a dynamic physical world, and learn to adapt to new scenarios. Rattner demonstrated two working personal robot prototypes developed at Intel’s research labs. One of the demonstrations showed electric field pre-touch that has been built into a robot hand. The technique is a novel sensing modality used by fish but not humans, so they can “feel” objects before they even touch them. The other demonstration was a complete autonomous mobile manipulation robot that can recognize faces and interpret and execute commands as generic as “please clean this mess” using state-of-the-art motion planning, manipula
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