technology

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Pentagon Backs iPhone, iPod Apps for Combat Troops

Pentagon develops apps for ubiquitous Apple devices

(Newser) - With more than 30,000 third-party applications now available for the iPhone and iPod touch, a new organization is getting into the game: the American military. As the Independent reports, the Pentagon thinks Apple's gadgets are ideal for "network centric warfare" and is funding projects for everything from translation...

Tech Breathes New Life Into Ancient Manuscripts

Digitization, scanning of crumbling manuscripts preserves history

(Newser) - Ancient documents have long odds of making it to the present intact, between fires and bugs and the other ravages of time. But today’s technology can tease information even out of charred papyrus scrolls, thanks to CT scans, infrared imaging, and X-ray fluorescence. And from there, digital images can...

20% of Americans Drop Landline for Cell: Study

20% of households only use cell phones

(Newser) - As Americans trim their spending, more are getting rid of landlines. In the second half of last year, 20% of households had only cell phones, outnumbering for the first time the 17% who had just landlines. The 3% jump from the first half of 2008 is the largest increase since...

Bigger E-Readers Ride In to Save Newspapers
 Bigger E-Readers Ride In
 to Save Newspapers 
ANALYSIS
May 4, 2009 12:24 PM CDT

Bigger E-Readers Ride In to Save Newspapers

(Newser) - Amazon is set to introduce a tabloid-sized version of the Kindle tailored to display newspapers—just one of many e-readers in the pipe that just might toss a life-preserver to print journalism, the New York Times reports. In fact, Engadget expects the new Kindle to debut Wednesday at a press...

Invisibility Cloak Takes 'Big Step Forward'

'Carpet' technique bends and flattens light around objects

(Newser) - Two teams of researchers say they're getting close to making a perfect invisibility cloak a reality, the BBC reports. The scientists—using a silicon-based material that eliminates the flaws of earlier, metal-based efforts—successfully made objects invisible at optical wavelengths by bending light around them and producing the illusion of...

Think Hard: Telekinetic Toys On Their Way

Concentration 'magically' lifts ball in tube

(Newser) - Two companies are set to release toys this fall that kids can operate using only their minds—and that’s just the beginning of a telekinetic revolution, experts say. To use one toy, intrigued individuals wear a headset and concentrate on anything. The toy senses the brain’s electrical activity...

UK Privacy Cops Won't Block Google Street View

Privacy groups overruled in favor of technology

(Newser) - Google Street View can keep capturing everyday British embarrassments, the nation’s information commission says, rejecting privacy groups that hoped the tech giant would be stopped. The agency ruled such a drastic step “disproportionate to the relatively small risk of privacy detriment.” British law allows filming from public...

Long-Distance Love Light Shines in New Gizmo

(Newser) - Tired of texting your long-distance lover to say how much you care? A Scottish research lab hopes to connect couples with something a bit more poetic: "painted" light. Users of Mutsugoto wear touch-activated rings tracked by motion-sensing cameras mounted above their beds; caress your own arm and a matching...

India's Medical Innovators Have Much to Teach US

Experts search for better, cheaper methods

(Newser) - Sure, US hospitals lead the world in the latest technology—but they could learn a thing or two from India’s improving health care system, where pioneers are demonstrating how to give superior care without unnecessary costs, the Economist reports. “In our country’s patient-centric health system, you must...

Conficker Worm Threat Lingers
 Conficker Worm Threat Lingers 
ANALYSIS
Apr 2, 2009 11:58 AM CDT

Conficker Worm Threat Lingers

27 tech giants have banded together to fight it

(Newser) - April Fools’ Day passed without major incident, but the Conficker computer worm is still contacting 500 websites daily from millions of infected computers, reports PC World. A conglomerate of 27 tech heavyweights—including Microsoft, Facebook, and AOL—have managed to limit the peer-to-peer worm’s communicability. But Conficker is still...

BlackBerry Users Get an App Store

RIM hopes it'll draw more customers

(Newser) - RIM's latest effort to quench their Blackberry users' iPhone envy is an application store, the Wall Street Journal reports. The company expects about 1,000 applications to be posted at the new App World this week—still a trickle compared to Apple's 15,000. Those now available include apps for...

Honda Unveils Mind-Reading Robot

(Newser) - Honda today demonstrated new technology it hopes will make the Jetsons look old-fashioned. The company unveiled a special helmet that allows its wearer to control a robot by thought alone, the Guardian reports. The helmet scans brain activity and relays it to a computer, which then instructs the robot what...

Soaring Iraq Stock Market Gets Electronic Trading

Booming exchange will do away with writing prices on whiteboards

(Newser) - Stock traders in Baghdad are preparing for a bonanza: the introduction of electronic trading, which will replace the current system of writing prices on whiteboards, reports the Times of London. Iraq's market has risen 30% this year as improved security and dirt-cheap prices—the most expensive stock costs about 9...

Tiny New Fibers Draw Power From Wind, Flowing Blood

(Newser) - Scientists have developed electricity-generating fibers that can be embedded in clothing and other materials and draw power from the smallest of movements, LiveScience reports. The zinc oxide nanowires are as small as 1/5,000th the width of a human hair and produce energy when they vibrate, even from blood flowing...

Tech Industry Falls for 'Cloud Computing'

It's all the rage, but does the fuzzy term really mean anything?

(Newser) - Today's hottest tech term is "cloud computing": Google, Amazon, Yahoo, and Intel have all begun projects with such nebulous names as OpenCirrus and Elastic Compute Cloud. But while the projects behind the names all have something in common—storing data on far-off computers—nobody can agree on what cloud...

In Classroom, Twitter Trumps the Queen

Proposed UK curriculum focuses on learning skills, flexibility

(Newser) - Why learn about World War II or Queen Victoria in elementary school when you can always look them up on Wikipedia? That seems to be the rationale behind a new proposed overhaul of the British school system. Because secondary schools teach plenty of history, the reasoning goes, early schooling should...

High-Tech Jacket Makes This More Vivid

'Virtual touch' jacket will stimulate film viewers in new ways

(Newser) - Moviemakers have a new tool to make your viewing experience more intense: a jacket wired with devices that use touch to stimulate the wearer, Fast Company reports. But the jacket is more than just the latest incarnation of smell-o-vision—rather than reproducing sensations being experienced by characters on screen, it...

Robot Fish Will Help Battle Pollution
Robot Fish
Will Help
Battle Pollution
Mar 20, 2009 10:51 AM CDT

Robot Fish Will Help Battle Pollution

High-tech 'carp' find chemical contaminants in Spanish harbor

(Newser) - Robots will soon be patrolling the harbor of Gijon, Spain, and if all goes well, the local sea life won't notice a thing, reports the Financial Times. The pollution-detecting bots cost $30,000 each and are modeled after carp, complete with shiny scales and an undulating swimming motion. "We...

New Search Engine Won't Delete Google

(Newser) - A British math whiz plans to roll out a revolutionary search engine this year, but that doesn't mean Google is doomed, Saul Hansell writes in the New York Times. “Google is a company,” while the search engine "is a technology," Hansell writes, responding to a blog...

Tech Stocks Fall; Dow Down 80
 Tech Stocks Fall; Dow Down 80 
MARKETS
Mar 9, 2009 3:19 PM CDT

Tech Stocks Fall; Dow Down 80

Google remains below $300

(Newser) - Withering tech stocks tugged the broader market down today, the Wall Street Journal reports. Hewlett-Packard fell 4.6% while IBM closed down 2.9%, Cisco dropped 3.95% and Google 5.9%—after that stock closed below $300 on Friday for the first time since January. The Dow fell 79....

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