Chad’s News

A company named NeuroSky has developed brainwave reading technology that can detect when a person is focusing on a fixed image. They created a prototype toy lightsaber that lights up when the user concentrates on it. When his/her attention wanders, it turns off. Apparently this is just the beginning of what they can determine from reading brainwaves. The initial market will be toys and games, but I think it could be used in a wide range of applications.

Link: http://www.businessweek.com/…
(via TheForce.Net)

A company named Zink has developed a photo printer that uses no ink. The secret is in the paper.

Link: http://crave.cnet.com/…

The high-definition DVD format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD is still in progress, but manufacturers are coming up with some useful solutions. The South Korean firm LG has announced a player that will accept both types of discs, while Warner Bros. has simply decided to release its movies in both formats on one disc—one side is Blu-ray and the other is HD-DVD. Yet perhaps both formats will be a moot point, as we may see flash cards replace optical discs completely.

Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/…

SanDisk is rolling out a 32GB notebook hard drive that uses flash memory instead of spinning platters. Chad’s News has covered this previously, but (as expected) the prices are coming down. On the same general topic, hard drive manufacturers are banding together to develop hybrid hard drives that combine a flash memory buffer with traditional spinning platters.

Link: http://arstechnica.com/…

Fresh on the heels of the Functional Utility Bar, the folks at Stanley/Bostich have developed a better nail. Popular Science has named the Hurriquake® nail as its innovation of the year. The nail is designed to help prevent the roof from lifting off a house during a hurricane, and it also works against the shear forces caused by earthquakes. It looks like a good thing, but I can’t believe they actually patented the idea of a larger nail head.

Link: http://www.popsci.com/…
(via Slashdot and Neatorama)

This article explains how the new Wii and PS3 motion-sensing game controllers work. The hardware can pick up spring deflections measured in tens of hydrogen atoms.

Link: http://www.cnn.com/…
(via Slashdot)

The linked article is primarily about Nokia’s Wibree wireless standard, but there is a section that nicely summarizes five other standards. Look for “The Wireless Zoo,” about a quarter of the way down the page.

Link: http://www.tfot.info/…

Researchers for the Cambridge-MIT Institute’s ‘Silent’ Aircraft Initiative have developed a conceptual design for a “silent” aircraft, which will greatly alleviate airport noise. As an added bonus, the design will increase fuel efficiency by about 25%. Because the initiative has quite a few partners from the aircraft industry, I think we may actually see this plane developed at some point.

http://www.physorg.com/…

Details on how it works: http://news.bbc.co.uk/…
(via Neatormama)

Can’t decide between DVD, Blu-Ray, or HD-DVD? Researchers have developed technology that can combine all three on one disc.

http://today.reuters.com/…

This Florida county is going to turn its 28-year old landfill into energy and construction materials. They will vaporize the trash using plasma arcs, producing gas (to run turbines) and a rock-like material that can be used in construction projects. They expect to fully consume the landfill in about 18 years. We need more of this kind of stuff!

http://www.usatoday.com/…

Samsung has developed a potential replacement for flash memory, Phase-change Random Access Memory (PRAM). It’s 30 times faster than flash, lasts 10 times longer, and is less expensive to manufacture. Expect to see it in 2008.

http://www.samsung.com/…

From the linked article: “BMW officially announced the Hydrogen 7 today. The car is touted as the first hydrogen-drive luxury performance automobile for everyday use.” It runs on hydrogen or gasoline.

http://www.autobloggreen.com/…