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Books with photos that move - Harry Potter-style - may soon be with us. But before that, get ready for boxes of cereal that extol their own virtues via a built-in video display and chocolate bars that flash and flare to attract your attention.
Siemens has announced a new type of color display screen so thin and flexible it can be printed onto paper or foil, and so cheap it can be used on throwaway packaging.
A spokesman for the company, Dr Norbert Aschenbrenner, said the screens would be able to do everything a conventional TV could, albeit with slightly lower quality.
The first examples would be on the market by 2007, Dr Aschenbrenner said.
The technology uses "electro chromic substances … that change their color when an electrical voltage shift charges in their molecules" and the German technology company suggested uses could include medicines displaying instructions in various languages.
"It is also conceivable that small computer games will be on packages or that equipment boxes will display animations that give users step-by-step operating instructions."
However, it is marketers who have shown the most interest.
Tom Harris, CEO of the industry association Point of Purchase Advertising Australia, said if such screens delivered everything promised it would be "absolutely brilliant". "The major brands are always looking for a competitive edge.
"How cheap is cheap going to be is the interesting thing, and there are a few other questions, such as does the packaging keep moving when you get home?"
Dr Aschenbrenner said glossy magazines could incorporate the flexible screens in advertisements, with the cost being from about $53 a square meter. Newspaper supplements (on a slightly heavier stock than normal newsprint) could follow.
How will such a screen get its power? From batteries that are also printed onto the paper, Siemens said.
SMH
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The discovery of additional bones in an Indonesian cave support a stunning claim made last year that a new species of a very small hominid existed at the same time as modern humans.
When Michael Morwood and Peter Brown of the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, and their team announced last October that they had found the partial skeleton of a meter-tall human in the cave of Liang Bua on the island of Flores, they raised a few eyebrows. Although the bones were tiny--particularly the skull, which had the brain volume of a chimpanzee--the teeth, jaw and cranium were described as similar to those of members of our own genus, Homo. The evidence, including stone tools, signs of fire and the bones of a dwarfed elephantlike beast, dated to about 18,000 years ago and prompted the scientists to assign the human remains to a new species, Homo floresiensis. Rebuttals ensued. Some proposed that the mini-human was a pygmy; others suggested that the skull came from a modern human who had suffered from microcephaly, a birth defect that results in a very small head.
Now Morwood, Brown and their colleagues say that various arm, leg, jaw, toe and finger bones as well as a scapula and vertebra were excavated in 2004, bringing the estimated number of individuals represented thus far at Liang Bua to nine and casting doubt on those alternative interpretations. Analysis of the second jaw shows that it is very similar to the first one. Both notably lack a chin, which is a unique characteristic of Homo sapiens, even those that suffer from microcephaly. And further study of the leg and arm bones confirm that H. floresiensis was about a meter tall and had long arms. Modern adult pygmies have legs and arms that are proportional to their short stature. "We can now reconstruct the body proportions with some certainty," the researchers write in the October 13 issue of Nature.
When the team published their first report on H. floresiensis, they proposed that it was a dwarfed descendant of Homo erectus, which may have arrived on the island hundreds of thousands of years earlier and evolved into a smaller being thanks to the lack of predators and limited resources. Flores already boasts species that have undergone this kind of evolution, such as giant rats and miniature elephant cousins that are now extinct. The new finds, however, have revealed similarities to the much older Australopithecus afarensis, which lived in Africa, underscoring the possibility that the tiny Flores people instead descended from an as yet unknown hominid more primitive than H. erectus. Thus, although H. floresiensis does appear to be a new species, the authors admit that its genealogy remains a mystery. But only a small portion of the site has been excavated and the scientists hope that further digging will reveal more answers.
Interesting.
Scientific American
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As their average commute time rises, Americans are making their vehicles increasingly homelike, with cushy seats, multiple zones of climate control and DVD players. So it's no surprise that the next big thing in vehicle accessories is satellite television.
''People want the same entertainment and services they have at home in their car,'' said Chris Watson, a spokesman for Rhode Island-based KVH Industries Inc., which first introduced satellite TV in vehicles two years ago. ''It really is becoming an extension of the living room.''
Cadillac is now offering KVH's TracVision satellite system as a dealer-installed option on its Escalade sport utility vehicle, an industry first. GM is considering prewiring its SUVs for satellite TV starting with 2007 models, Watson said.
This summer, Avis Rent A Car began offering TracVision on Hummer H3 rentals in Phoenix as part of a test program.
It takes about three hours for a dealer or electronics retailer to install satellite TV on vehicles already equipped with flip-down screens for DVD players or navigation systems. With the TracVision system, a 3-foot-wide circular antenna is affixed to the top of the vehicle, and a cable is inserted through the roof. The antenna is about 5 inches high.
Screens can be placed all over the vehicle, including the dashboard, headrests and the trunk, where some tailgaters are now installing large-screen TVs. A few sports stars and celebrities have as many as six screens in their vehicles, Watson said.
Once the system is installed, viewers can watch more than 140 channels through DirecTV. Vehicle owners can continue to use navigation systems or DVD players on their screens.
Safety advocates question whether the technology is just one more dangerous distraction. Already, 40 states have banned drivers from putting video screens in a place where they can see them, although there are exceptions for navigation systems.
''Drivers need to be reminded that driving is a very complex task requiring full attention,'' said Col. Jim Champagne of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which has said it's not encouraging use of the technology.
Consulting company Frost & Sullivan has estimated that 3 million vehicles will have satellite TV by 2011.
Right now, the cost is prohibitive for many consumers. TracVision costs $2,295, and customers pay extra for DirecTV access. If they get DirecTV in their homes, installing it in their vehicles costs $4.99 a month. It's $41.99 a month if they don't get DirecTV.
So far, TracVision is most popular in Florida, Texas and California, where there are long stretches of open road. The satellites don't work as well in urban areas where tall buildings often block the signals.
Does anyone else spot the rather obvious flaw in letting people watch TV as they drive
Happynews
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An unmanned vehicle has successfully navigated a forbidding 132-mile section of the Mojave Desert. The next stop for the technology may be Afghanistan or Iraq.
A souped-up VW Touareg, designed by Stanford University, zipped through the course in six hours and 53 minutes Sunday, using only its computer brain and sensors to navigate rough and twisting desert and mountain trails.
The robotic vehicles had to navigate a course designed to mimic driving conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan, including winding dirt trails and dry lake beds filled with overhanging brush. Parts of the route forced the robots to zip through three tunnels designed to knock out their GPS signals.
The race is part of the military's effort to fulfill a congressional mandate to cut casualties by having a third of the military's ground vehicles unmanned in 20 years.
The Stanford team — which spent $500,000 on the race, some of which was provided by sponsors — celebrated by popping champagne and pouring it over their mud-covered car called Stanley.
"This car, to me, is really a piece of history," Stanford computer scientist Sebastian Thrun said Sunday after receiving an oversized check for the $2 million prize, funded by taxpayers. He said he did not know how he would spend the money, but jokingly said he needed to buy cat food.
The race, called the Grand Challenge, displayed major technological leaps since last year's inaugural race, when none of the self-driving vehicles crossed the finish line.
In second place was a red Humvee from Carnegie Mellon University called Sandstorm, followed by a customized Hummer called H1ghlander. Coming in fourth was a Ford Escape Hybrid named Kat-5, designed by students in Metairie, La., who lost about a week of practice and some lost their homes when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.
The race began Saturday with a field of 23 autonomous vehicles. Eighteen failed to complete the course because of mechanical failures or sensor problems.
It's unclear how the Pentagon plans to harness the technology used in the race for military applications. But Thrun said he wanted to design automated systems to make next-generation cars safer for everyone, not just the military.
"If it was only for the military, I wouldn't be here today," Thrun said.
news.yahoo.com
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Japan's space agency on Monday completed the first successful test of a prototype jet that can fly at twice the speed of sound, three years after an earlier test ended in a fiery wreck in the Australian Outback, an official said.
Kenichi Saito, a spokesman for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA, said Monday's unmanned test flight went "as planned."
"Everything was very good and the aircraft landed ... normally," Saito said in a telephone interview. "We are going to conduct the (data) analysis, but currently we think this flight was a success."
A breakthrough in supersonic flight could help Japan leap ahead in the aerospace field. The country, which manufactures high-tech components for U.S.-based Boeing Co., has only a limited domestic airplane industry.
Saito said the prototype 38-foot-long, arrow-shaped craft, developed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., was launched on a rocket and reached a flying altitude of 11 miles before floating back to Earth by parachute.
The test follows a three-year hiatus after the first experimental flight of the unmanned aircraft separated prematurely from its booster rocket and crashed into the desert.
Monday's $10 million experiment marked a crucial step in Japan's plans to develop a larger supersonic aircraft that can carry 300 passengers between Tokyo and Los Angeles in about four hours.
It also underpinned a June agreement between Japan and France to jointly research a possible successor to the Concorde over the next three years.
The Concorde first flew in 1969 and became a symbol of French and European industrial prowess. In July 2000, a Concorde crashed in flames after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris, killing 109 people. The sleek but costly planes were retired from commercial service in 2003, never having recouped the billions of tax dollars invested in them.
Japan hopes to have a successor making regular flights by around 2025, Saito said.
news.yahoo.com
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A rich entrepreneur scientist who bought his own ticket to the international space station said from orbit Tuesday that the trip was worth the millions of dollars he paid, and his only fear on launch day was not going.
"I'm having a great time. I mean, this is a dream come true," Gregory Olsen said at a news conference broadcast from the space station.
"This is my fourth day and I'm really enjoying it," he added. "Just to look out and see the Earth from about 230 miles up is just great."
The best part, Olsen said, is "just being here." As for the reported $20 million he paid for the 10-day trip, "It's like the price and value argument. This is something I wanted to do, I love doing, so to me, yes, it's worth the money."
With his launch aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket on Saturday from Kazakhstan, Olsen became the world's third paying space tourist. He made his fortune with Sensors Unlimited Inc. of Princeton, N.J., a company that makes devices for fiber-optic communications and infrared imaging. He is chairman of the board of directors and a co-founder.
Olsen said he was not afraid during liftoff.
In fact, "as soon as that rocket launched, I was the most relaxed I've been in two years. I've had some ups and downs on this thing," the 60-year-old said, referring to his lengthy delay in flying for unspecified medical reasons.
"The only thing I was nervous about was maybe I wasn't going to go. And once I felt that rocket push off from the ground, I just felt that sense of relief and joy. The Russian Space Agency has a great safety record and they're great at space, and with a crew like this, how could you go wrong?"
He said he has not suffered any of the typical space motion sickness.
Olsen arrived at the space station Monday with NASA astronaut William McArthur and Russian cosmonaut Valery Tokarev, who will spend the next six months aboard the orbiting complex. The scientist, who holds a doctorate, will return to Earth early next week with astronaut John Phillips and cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev, who have been in orbit since April.
Phillips said he can't wait to devour "a hot steaming pizza and a big cold mug of beer," once he's back on Earth. Krikalev said a good cup of coffee, and fresh fruit and vegetables, sound good to him.
California money manager Dennis Tito visited the space station in 2001 and South African Internet entrepreneur Mark Shuttleworth in 2002, in similar deals negotiated with Russian space officials.
I'm guessing that ticket prices will drop after some terrorists crash a few planes into the side of the Moon...
Yahoo
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A housing development of futuristic, digital homes went online and on sale this week in St. George. The homes are fiber optic-ready and let an owner control everything from heating and cooling to phone service and security through a home network.
The homes are in a community called SunRiver for people 55 and older. Developer Darcy Stewart said the idea was to give residents the latest technology to help make living there fun and convenient. Some 850 of 1,800 planned homes have been completed.
"There is an intelligent environment inside these homes," said Aaron Myer, co-founder of In2 Network, a hardware andsoftware firm in Murray providing the technology used to control the home's networked systems. "We've found people are very comfortable having a Web server environment inside the home," he said.
A home's networks also let residents control lighting and entertainment system, access security systems from remote locations and be alerted by e-mail to any problems. A community Intranet also keeps residents informed of local news and events.
Stewart says the homes are equipped to evolve to the next level of technology as it becomes available.
Companies like Honeywell, Lutron Electronics and Utah-based TriAxis are major partners in the endeavor.
"One thing we're seeing with builders and homeowners is that they want simple, easy to use, reasonably priced homes that they can control remotely with the touch of a button," said Phil Scheetz of Lutron, which supplies the lighting control system. "Darcy's solution is literally years ahead of the curve."
To access their home network, residents can either use a touch screen mounted inside the home, or connect to it from any personal computer, laptop, personal digital assistant or other device that can display a Web page.
"It's all about convenience," said Kevin Marquess, builder sales manager with Honeywell. "You have remote access to everything."
About 90 percent of the homes were pre-sold, at prices between $186,000 and $400,000.
"It's like the George Jetson cartoons, only it's here today," Marquess said, referring to the popular 1960s cartoon set 100 years in the future.
I must own one of these, oh yes, I must....
Yahoo
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Living microbes found in what could be 1 million-year-old ice on a remote Arctic island support the theory that the frozen planet Mars could also sustain life, researchers said Tuesday.
An international team drilled ice core samples on the remote Svalbard islands at the extinct Sverrefjell volcano. They said that is the only place on Earth with the same minerals — called magnetite crystals — as those found on a meteorite from Mars that was discovered in the Antarctic in 1996.
"We have discovered a microbiological oasis in natural tubes of blue ice on Svalbard. This is an extremely tough environment in which we would not have expected to find life," said team leader Hans E.F. Amundsen, of the University of Oslo.
Space probes sent to Mars by NASA from the United States and by the European Space Administration have showed evidence of water in the form of ice on the Red Planet.
Water is a key building block for living organisms, although many scientists believe the planet is now too cold to sustain life, a theory the Norwegian-led team's findings could challenge.
Mars is cold and dry with large caps of frozen water at its poles. However, it shares features with the Arctic Svalbard archipelago, such as permafrost, volcanoes and possibly hot springs pushing water through the frozen surface, the team said.
Yervant Terzian, an astronomy professor at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, said the findings were interesting, but added it was not enough to conclude that there is life on Mars. "You need to have much more evidence of many different sorts," said Terzian, who was not involved with the project.
The team, called the Arctic Mars Analog Svalbard Expedition, began probing the islands in 2003, taking core samples at sites that include the ice-filled volcanic tubes of the Sverrefjell, which erupted through thick ice about 1 million years ago.
"Such ice-filled volcanic tubes are probably also found on Mars, and could be a refuge for life there," said the team's scientific leader, Andrew Steele, of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. The Svalbard Islands are about 500 kilometers (300 miles) north of the Norwegian mainland, and are largely covered with glaciers and permafrost.
The team took core samples with specially designed sterile drills, to avoid contamination by surface bacteria, a statement said. The living microbes were detected in the ice by special biological sensors, developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Steele's team then used a series of instruments to determine the number and type of microbes, partly by scanning protein microarrays, which are created by putting molecules in specific order on a glass plate so they can be studied by microscope.
"These protein microarrays, which will be used on board the space shuttle in 2006, are specially designed to show any contamination by humans. Our results show that we managed to maintain sterile conditions," Steele said.
The samples were also studied in laboratories at Carnegie, the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Oslo, Penn State University in Pennsylvania and the University of Leeds in Britain.
"Microorganisms in ice are tough survivors," said Liane Benning, of the University of Leeds. "Small ecosystems in the ice had apparently adapted to extremely cold conditions."
The team is also developing biosensor technology that could be used to help detect any life on Mars.
Come on and find the little grey men already...
Yahoo
