Bloodless Diabetes Monitoring

A new noninvasive tool uses electromagnetic waves to measure glucose levels.

To track their blood sugar levels, patients with diabetes typically prick their fingers at least three times a day and feed blood samples into glucometers. It's a tedious and sometimes painful process, and a patient will often need to run a second test due to "insufficient blood" in the first sample. Now, researchers at Baylor University, in Waco, TX, have engineered a thumb-pad sensor that measures glucose levels via electromagnetic waves--no finger pricking required.

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Emotiv's headset gives users mind-control over digital objects

Emotive Systems made a demo and showcased their brain signal reader helmet during this week Game Developers Conference, in San Francisco. Emotiv also said that the company is working on a partnership with IBM to integrate the brain control interface technology with IBM's virtual worlds projects.

The headset is designed to fit snugly on a user's head. The data it produces can, in theory, be plugged into a wide variety of software.

Emotive plans to ready the product for this Christmas for about $299. Many regard the product as part of the future of video game industry...

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Useful tools for Pocket PC

FREE:
Google Maps - Self explainatory.
Map 2 Mobile (www.map24.com) - An alternative to Google Maps
Spb GPRS Monitor - great for monitoring network traffic from mobile device
Divx Mobile - Easier/Better to re-encode divx lower than try and rely on WMV.
PHM Registry Editor - Good, free registry editor
Foxit Reader for Windows Mobile - Better PDF reader than Acrobat, IMHO
PocketSNES - PocketSNES recompiled for landscape support.

NOT FREE:
Opera for Windows Mobile - A decent web-browser.
Spb Pocket Plus - Really useful for filling the holes in the WM5 interface.
Spb Mobile Shell - Enables a better phone based experience using all Pocket PC features..
TJ Pocket Dictonaries - English-English + 12 foreign dictionaries

DreamSpark - Microsoft to give free software to college students...

Microsoft unveiled the DreamSpark student program, which is a software giveaway that will ultimately provide millions of college and high school students worldwide with free access to the latest professional-grade Microsoft developer and designer tools. The program is available to all students whose studies touch on technology, design, math, science, and engineering.

DreamSpark program includes Visual Studio 2008 (professional), Expression Studio and Windows Server 2003.

To register and download: https://downloads.channel8.msdn.com

10 Emerging Technologies of 2008

Technology Review published the list of 2008:
Atomic Magnetometers
NanoRadio
Cellulolytic Enzymes
Offline Web Applications
Wireless Power
Probabilistic Chips
Modeling Surprise
Reality Mining
Connectomics
Graphene Transistors

Brain blanket boosts mind control

Researchers at Albany Medical College, Washington University, the University of Washington, the University of Wisconsin have developed a more effective brain-control interface device, using a sheet of closely spaced electrodes placed over the brain. In recent experiments, five patients learned to control a computer cursor in two dimensions on a computer signals in less than 30 minutes, a performance similar to those achieved using electrodes implanted directly into the screen using their brain.

[ Original article published in newscientist.com ]

Machines to match man by 2029

Machines will achieve human-level artificial intelligence by 2029, a leading US inventor has predicted.

Humanity is on the brink of advances that will see tiny robots implanted in people's brains to make them more intelligent said engineer Ray Kurzweil. Mr Kurzweil is one of 18 influential thinkers chosen to identify the great technological challenges facing humanity in the 21st century by the US National Academy of Engineering.

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NIH Curriculum Supplement Series

National Institute of Health (NIH) released a new public ebook that contains information about scientific perspective to common concepts such brain, sleep, alcohol, cancer, etc. Recommended, available here.

Other public ebooks on NCBI bookshelf are available for free of charge here.

Designing Interactions

A book by Bill Moggridge (Author)
www.designinginteractions.com

In Designing Interactions, award-winning designer Bill Moggridge introduces us to forty influential designers who have shaped our interaction with technology.

About the Author
Award-winning designer Bill Moggridge is a founder of IDEO, one of the most successful design firms in the world and one of the first to integrate the design of software and hardware into the practice of industrial design. He has been Visiting Professor in Interaction Design at the Royal College of Art in London, Lecturer in Design at the London Business School, member of the Steering Committee for the Interaction Design Institute in Ivrea, Italy, and is currently Consulting Associate Professor in the Joint Program in Design at Stanford University.

Handheld printing without Ink

Thermal-printing technology developed at Polaroid spinoff Zink Imaging was demonstrated earlier this year. [ see here ] This technology is now built into a pocket-sized printer that can fit into a hand (see pictures left)

Polaroid, the company famous for cameras that print instant pictures, unveiled an ultrasmall photo printer at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Along with being mobile, it would also dispense with the inconvenience of ink cartridges that unexpectedly begin to run out of ink, and which have to be replaced. Polaroid, says that the printers will be available to consumers by the summer, and they will be priced at less than $150.