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POPSClip Title Deleted It's for "National Security." :) Screw our own rights and liberties and security and privacy, as long as the tyrannical, paranoid, fear-driven Empire is happy. Right? America's behaviour is alarming, annoying, paranoid and ridiculous, to say the least, and very unbecoming of a so-called "free and brave" nation. "It's one thing to say it's reasonable for government agents to open your luggage. It's another thing to say it's reasonable for them to read your mind and everything you have thought over the last year. What a laptop records is as personal as a diary, but much more extensive. It records every Web site you have searched. Every e-mail you have sent. It's as if you're crossing the border with your home in your suitcase." ----- One law firm has instructed its lawyers to travel to the United States with "blank laptops" whose hard drives contain no data ----- Lawyers cannot fully advise people how they may exercise their rights during a border search.
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POPS"Wireless" Electricity Next step: wireless calories, wireless memory inputs directly into our brains who knows... maybe that Demolition Man fantasy will someday come true and we'll have "wireless" sex
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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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POPSGirls Make History At Science Contest More: Dr. Hopkins helped start a national discussion about girls and science two years ago when she walked out of a talk by Harvard University’s president, Lawrence H. Summers, after he suggested that innate differences between men and women might be one reason that fewer women than men succeed in math and science careers. Dr. Summers apologized during the ensuing furor; he announced his resignation as Harvard’s president 13 months later James Whaley, president of the Siemens Foundation, which oversees the competition for Siemens AG, a global electronics and engineering company, said the competition results send a great message to young women Alicia Darnell, 17, a senior at Pelham Memorial High School in Pelham, N.Y., won second place and a $50,000 scholarship in the individual category for research that identified genetic defects that could play a role in the development of Lou Gehrig’s disease Pretty good for 16 and 17 year olds don't ya think?
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POPSThe truth about recycling Far too much valuable info here to fit in a clip, so go to the source for interesting discussions of the history of recycling, current status, innovations and concerns about what happens to recyclables being shipped to China and other developing nations. China is now the largest importer of recyclable materials in the world! The explanation of how single stream collection of recyclables works is fascinating. I was not aware of all the new technology being employed to sort and separate recyclable materials. The section on the future of recycling discusses the need for product design to take into account recycling of the product materials to create "closed-loop" cycles where there is no waste. Sustainable packaging emphasizes the use of renewable, recycled and non-toxic source materials to benefit the environment and cut costs. Wal-Mart is jumping on this bandwagon. "Waste is really a design flaw."
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POPSComputer memory gives booting up the boot If you turn the computer off, the programs, files and applications stop at the same time, as they are. They don't have to be loaded every time the computer starts. Looks like all of the electronics textbooks will have to be rewritten. This new circuit element seems almost the electronic equivalent to finding another color. It's properties will mean it will probably play a big part in the design of circuits that will give the tech revolution another twist.
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POPSGordon Moore's Next Act The man behind Moore's Law is tackling biodiversity, the future of engineering education, and the secrets of the galaxies
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POPSAnother Beatles Legacy - CAT Scans Interesting little story how the Beatles revenues for EMI allowed a scientist to invent CAT Scans. And here I thought their only contribution to the world was great music...
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POPSFirst paper based transistor Furthermore, electric characterization of devices showed that the hybrid FETs’ performance outpace those of amorphous silicon TFTs, and rival with the actual state of the art of oxide thin film transistors. These results suggest promising new disposable electronics devices, like paper displays, smart labels, smart packaging, bio-applications, RFID tags, among others. te
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POPSNew Telescope Array Could Help Detect Possible Signals From Advanced Civilizations Employing this new equipment in a unique, targeted search for possible civilizations enhances the chances of finding one, in the same way that a search for a needle in a haystack is made easier if one knows at least approximately where the needle was dropped, said Henry, who is speaking about the proposal at the American Astronomical Society annual meeting in St. Louis. According to the researchers, the critical place to look is in the ecliptic, a great circle around the sky that represents the plane of Earth's orbit. The sun, as viewed from Earth, appears annually to pass along this circle. Any civilization that lies within a fraction of a degree of the ecliptic could annually detect Earth passing in front of the sun. This ecliptic band comprises only about 3 percent of the sky.
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POPSArtificial eye implant sits mostly outside the eye. The coil around the iris receives wireless power and image data from a microcontroller that can be carried on a belt. The coil transmits data to electronics inside a waterproof titanium case. The electronics controls an electrode array (not visible) connected to nerves in the back of the retina. This device would be more bio-compatible than others, because it sits mostly outside the eye and therefore carries a reduced risk of inflammation and of a decline in performance with time. So far it has only been tested in pigs but human trials are planned for 2010.
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POPSPioneering Research in Neuromorphic Electronics that Function Like the Biological Brain The HRL team's ultimate goal is to build a low-power, compact electronic chip combining a novel analog circuit design and a neuroscience-inspired architecture that can address a wide range of cognitive abilities--perception, planning, decision making, and motor control. In the initial two phases of the SyNAPSE program, the team will translate the neuronal and synaptic functions of the biological cortex into similar microelectronic functions.