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Monthly Archives: January 2008

What Navy Armed-Robot Lab?

Thursday, January 31, 2008

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Most of the problem-solving we do in order to get through a day involves the use of what’s referred to as “working memory.” It acts a bit like RAM; we store information we need for the task at hand temporarily, but don’t necessarily commit it to permanent memory. A recent study has probed the qualities [...]

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No Need to Re-Invent the Wheel

Thursday, January 31, 2008

The PC industry is wasting little time getting in line behind Apple to use Intel’s spiffy new notebook chip. Both Lenovo and Fujitsu are apparently in the process of putting together systems based on the special Core 2 Duo chip that Apple is using in the MacBook Air. The new laptops should be out shortly, [...]

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Commuter Snitches

Thursday, January 31, 2008

The East Coast by summer will have real-time traffic reports, available free, using a sophisticated network of in-vehicle transponders that should in theory – remember, we’re talking evolving technology here – be far more accurate than traffic choppers and embedded roadway sensors. It’s a joint venture between Inrix Corp., a Microsoft spinoff, and the I-95 [...]

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So Is Apple a Gartner Client?

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Apple Inc. will see its share of the US personal computer market increase twofold over the next three years from 6.1 percent to over 12 percent, according Gartner. The market research firm made the assumption as part of a report issued Thursday titled “Key Predictions for IT Organizations and Users in 2008 and Beyond.” It [...]

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Dish Gets Left Hook and Right Uppercut

Thursday, January 31, 2008

An appeals court has upheld a lower court’s ruling that Dish Networks’ DVRs infringe on software patents held by TiVo. In a unanimous opinion issued earlier today, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a district court jury’s verdict that DVRs made by Dish Network infringed on patent 6,233,389 for a “multimedia [...]

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Garmin NuviPhone

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Garmin’s Nuviphone promises to wed GPS and cellphone with finesse and flair. It’s the talk of town, a mid-week surprise: a company with a bankload of credibility in a nearby technological niche muscling in on the cellular game. More

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If It Was a Good Idea It Wouldn’t Need a Subsidy

Thursday, January 31, 2008

When you think of the words “hydrogen highway,” your mind tends to conjure up images of silent cars whizzing down the road in an environmentally friendly manner. You don’t think about trying to squeeze into a seat between a 300-pound man and a woman with 18 grocery bags. But this scenario might be more realistic. [...]

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The Hills of Mercury

Thursday, January 31, 2008

The striking new images released Wednesday show giant, steep cliffs, fault lines and double craters surrounded by starburst patterns, among other surprises. More

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Yule Log Japanese Style

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Leave it to the Japanese to create a heater that’s as ingenius as this. It may look like a cross between an LCD display and a space heater, but the display part of the gadget actually shows a “real” fireplace. More

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Acer Bell

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Through a rather circuitous route, Acer finally brought home the prize it had long been eyeing: European PC vendor Packard Bell. The Taiwan-based computer maker officially purchased 75 percent of Packard Bell parent company PB Holdings for $48.5 million, according to a statement made to the Taiwanese Stock Exchange Thursday, PC World is reporting. More

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Poly Meyers

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Scientists at UC Berkeley have developed a nanoscale polymer material that mimics the directional adhesion of a gecko’s feet. Known not only for being the charismatic spokes-animation for popular car insurance companies, gecko lizards are also renown for their almost magical ability to scale smooth vertical surfaces and even run along ceilings with gravity defying [...]

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Fine Print

Thursday, January 31, 2008

A new technique for printing extraordinarily thin lines quickly over wide areas could lead to larger, less expensive and more versatile electronic displays as well new medical devices, sensors and other technologies. More -oldster-

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Loyalty Card?

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Grocery store chain Stop & Shop, which has 389 locations in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey, has been running a trial of a new checkout service since October that could make standing in checkout lines a thing of the past. The system, called Modiv Shopper from Modiv Media, [...]

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Do You Want Your E-TV?

Thursday, January 31, 2008

Asustek Computer’s plan to fuse a TV and low-cost PC to create the E-TV may seem doomed to failure. After all, companies have been trying, and failing, to get PCs into the living room for several years. Why should Asustek succeed with a cut down Linux-based solution, when the likes of Intel, AMD, Microsoft and [...]

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