Nybble Issue No. 206

N Y B B L E   M O N T H L Y   N E W S L E T T E R
A Free Ezine about Anything Tech and Everything Else
2008.12.14 Issue No. 206

Another car-related innovation I thought of. Aside from rear parking
sensors, why not have front driving sensors as well? This is how it's
supposed to work. You're driving along. The traffic light turns red.
You stop behind a car. You feel like napping a bit, but you can't. You
don't want the car behind you to start blowing its horn when the light
turns green, and your car is stuck in suspended animation because your
eyes are closed. The solution? Front sensors. The moment the car in
front of you starts moving, the front sensors detect this increasing
distance and starts beeping to wake you up. You open your eyes and
drive on. This is definitely a welcome feature for sleepy drivers like me.

Have an answer, comment, suggestion, or violent reaction? Send them my
way by clicking on Reply or join nybbletalk@yahoogroups.com to discuss
a topic. If you think Nybble is good enough, do tell the napping
drivers about it. Thanks.

_________TABLE OF CONTENTS_________
* Thinkpads with SMS Security
* True Waterproof Clothing
* Lasers that Heal
* Water from Air
* Finger Veins as ID
* World's Heaviest Robot
* Likeable Links
* Questionable Question
* Quotable Quote
* Trivial Trivia
* Laughable Laugh

_________THINKPADS WITH SMS SECURITY_________
http://tinyurl.com/5tylt6

Lenovo is adding a new layer of security to its ThinkPad notebooks
that will allow users to disable their laptop by simply sending a text
message through a cell phone. Called Constant Secure Remote Disable,
this new security offering was developed in conjunction with Phoenix
Technologies and embedded within the notebook's BIOS. This new
security feature allows a user to send an SMS (short message service)
text message from a cell phone to a Lenovo ThinkPad that has been lost
or stolen. Once the kill command is sent, the lost or stolen ThinkPad
is either disabled immediately or the notebook is disabled after the
PC has been turned back on. Since hard disk drive encryption will not
work properly if the PC is running or in hibernation mode, this
disable feature ensures that the data is secure by shutting the
machine down and allowing the hard disk drive encryption to work. If
and when the ThinkPad laptop is recovered, the user can restore the
notebook, its settings and the data contained on the PC by entering a
password. To work, however, the stolen or lost ThinkPad must be in
range of the user's GSM network. And obviously, you have to have a WAN
card in the PC (including the SIM) and you must be paying a data plan
for it.

The Lenovo Constant Secure Remote Disable will be a free download and
BIOS upgrade that will be available in either late December or the
first quarter of 2009.

_________TRUE WATERPROOF CLOTHING_________
http://tinyurl.com/5tlqrf

Chemists at the University of Zurich have created the most
water-repellent clothing-appropriate material ever. Drops of water
stay as spherical balls on top of the fabric and a sheet of the
material need only be tilted by 2 degrees from horizontal for them to
roll off like marbles. A jet of water bounces off the fabric without
leaving a trace.

The secret to this incredible water resistance is the layer of
silicone nanofilaments, which are highly chemically hydrophobic. The
spiky structure of the 40-nanometre-wide filaments strengthens that
effect, to create a coating that prevents water droplets from soaking
through the coating to the polyester fibres underneath. The silicone
nanofilaments also trap a layer of air between them, to create a
permanent air layer. This fine layer of air ensures that water never
comes into contact with the polyester fabric. It can be submerged in
water for two months and still remain dry to the touch. In addition,
the plastron layer can also reduce drag when moving from water by up
to 20% according to preliminary experiments.

The new coating is produced in a one-step process, in which silicone
in gas form condenses onto the fibres to form nanofilaments. The
coating can also be added to other textiles, including wool, viscose
and cotton, although polyester currently gives the best results.

_________LASERS THAT HEAL________
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/21687/

Physicists at Tel Aviv University have developed a laser system that
can be used to heal wounds. In principle, "laser-bonded" healing
offers certain advantages over classic needle-and-thread sutures,
including faster healing, decreased risk of infection, and less
scarring. Researchers have been working toward flesh-welding lasers
for more than a decade, and a number of human trials have shown
promise. But what was lacking, until now, was consistency. Flesh,
blood vessels, and nerves are delicate tissues that can easily be --
for lack of a better word -- overcooked.

To overcome this problem, Abraham Katzir and his colleagues developed
a laser-based system with a feedback loop that prevents overheating.
The group created a pen-sized tool that incorporates optic fibers: one
that channels a carbon dioxide-powered infrared laser to the wound
with pinpoint precision, and another that leads from the pen to an
infrared sensor, which measures the temperature and ensures that the
heat remains within the ideal range, between 60 and 70 degrees. All a
surgeon has to do is move the pen's tip along the cut, strengthening
and sealing the weld with a solder of water-soluble protein.

Until recently, the researchers worked to perfect their technique on
pigs, whose skin is most similar to that of a person. Those studies
told them that their method was sound: the laser-healed wounds were
just as strong, mended faster, and resulted in less inflammation and
infection than normal sutures, since a cut that's welded closed is
better at keeping bacteria out. Now, the group has finished their
first clinical trial on human patients. The researchers are waiting to
see how the closures perform 12 months after surgery before publishing
their results.

_________WATER FROM AIR_________
http://tinyurl.com/6rg73x

Eco-inventors from Canada claim to have found the solution to the
world's worsening water shortages by drawing the liquid of life from
an unlimited and untapped source - the air.

The company called Element Four developed a machine called the
WaterMill, which uses the electricity of about three light bulbs to
condense moisture from the air and purify it into clean drinking
water. From the outside, the mill looks like a giant golf ball that
has been chopped in half: it is about 3ft in diameter, made of white
plastic, and is attached to the wall. It works by drawing air through
filters to remove dust and particles, then cooling it to just below
the temperature at which dew forms. The condensed water is passed
through a self-sterilising chamber that uses microbe-busting UV light
to eradicate any possibility of Legionnaires' disease or other
infections. Finally, it is filtered and passed through a pipe to the
owner's fridge or kitchen tap.

For the environmentally conscious consumer, the WaterMill has an
obvious appeal. Bottled water is an ecological catastrophe. In the US
alone, about 30bn litres of bottled water is consumed every year at a
cost of about $11bn (£7.4bn). According to the Earth Policy Institute,
about 1.5m barrels of oil - enough to power 100,000 cars for a year -
is used just to make the plastic. The process also uses twice as much
water as fits inside the container, not to mention the 30m bottles
that go into landfills every day in the US. But the mill also has
downsides, not least its $1,200 cost when it goes on sale in America,
the UK, Italy, Australia and Japan in the spring.

_________FINGER VEINS AS ID_________
http://tinyurl.com/6au56q

Companies in Europe have begun to roll out an advanced biometric
system from Hitachi that verifies a person's identity based on the
lattice work of minute blood vessels under the skin. Finger vein
authentication, introduced widely by Japanese banks in the last two
years, is claimed to be the fastest and most secure biometric method.

The pattern of blood vessels is captured by transmitting near-infrared
light at different angles through the finger, usually the middle
finger. This can be done in a small instrument attached to a wall or
as part of an ATM machine. The light is partially absorbed by
haemoglobin in the veins and the pattern is captured by a camera as a
unique 3D finger vein profile. This is turned into a simple digital
code which is then matched with a pre-registered profile to verify an
individual's identity. Even twins are said to have different finger
vein patterns. Hitachi claims that because the veins are inside the
body, invisible to the eye, it is extremely difficult to forge and
impossible to manipulate. While fingerprints can be "lifted" and
retinas scanned without an individual realising it, it is extremely
unlikely that people's finger vein profiles can be taken without them
being aware of it. The gruesome possibility that criminals may hack
off a finger has already been discounted by Hitachi's scientists.
Asked if authentication could be "forged" with a severed finger, the
company says: "As blood would flow out of a disconnected finger,
authentication would no longer be possible."

Hitachi says finger vein authentication is less expensive than iris
scanning or face/voice recognition and that the false rejection rate
is much lower than with fingerprinting.

_________WORLD'S HEAVIEST ROBOT_________
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/11/06/monster-robot-truck.html

The largest truck in the world is about to become the largest robotic
vehicle in the world. Computer scientists from Carnegie Mellon
University have teamed up with engineers from Caterpillar to automate
the 700-ton trucks, which are made to haul loads up to 240 tons from
mines. That's nearly two million pounds of metal, fuel and stone
powered by a 3,550-horsepower, 24-valve engine moving at up to 42
miles per hour, with software and a robot at the wheel.

The Caterpillar trucks will be equipped with numerous high-tech
gadgets and software to keep them on the road. GPS receivers would
continuously monitor the location and direction of the trucks. Laser
range finders would sweep the road in front of the trucks to identify
large objects. Video equipment would then determine if the object is a
hazard, such as a rock, or not. All of the information would then be
run through a computer program that would tell the robotic driver to
avoid the obstacle or not and by how much. The software to run the
trucks will be adapted from CMU's part in the DARPA (Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency) Urban Challenge, a competition that required
unmanned vehicles equipped with sensors and artificial intelligence
systems to navigate through an urban environment filled with obstacles.

Fully automated mining trucks promise to reduce maintenance costs
while increasing productivity. By running at peak capacity 24 hours a
day, seven days a week, the trucks could be up to 100 percent more
productive. Fully automated consumer vehicles aren't likely to arrive
any time soon. Bits and pieces of the technology, like self-parking
cars and backup warning systems, already exist. More devices will be
added as costs come down, the sensors become better refined, and
drivers come to rely on them more. But drivers are still needed, at
least for now.

_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
Compact Calendar Creator
http://www.chrisryu.com/compact_calendar_creator/en/

Wikitude
http://www.wikitude.org/
Use Wikipedia as location based service.

Gmail Backup
http://www.gmail-backup.com/

_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
How does a Thermos know whether to keep a liquid hot or cold?

_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight.
~ Georg C. Lichtenberg ~

_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
How did they get the ocean in that seashell?
The sound heard by a listener when holding a seashell to his ear does
NOT come from the shell itself. It is the echo of the blood pulsing in
the listener's own ear.
Source: Arcamax Trivia

_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
A man was sitting alone in his office one night when a genie popped up
out of his ashtray.

"And what will your third wish be?"

The man looked at the genie and said, "Huh? How can I be getting a
third wish when I haven't had a first or second wish yet?"

"You have had two wishes already," the genie said, "but your second
wish was for me to put everything back the way it was before you made
your first wish. Thus, you remember nothing, because everything is the
way it was before you made any wishes. You now have one wish left."

"Okay," said the man, "I don't believe this, but what the heck. I've
always wanted to understand women. I'd love to know what's going on
inside their heads."

"Sheesh! I wish you'd make up your mind," said the genie as it granted
his wish and disappeared forever, "That was your first wish, too!"

_________DOWNLOADABLE DOWNLOAD_________
DVD Flick
http://www.dvdflick.net/index.php
Freeware, opensource DVD authoring tool

Free DVD Creator
http://www.minidvdsoft.com/dvdcreator/index.html
Freeware DVD authoring tool

TreeSize Free
http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

That's all for this week. Nybble is and will always be a work in
progress. Please do send me your comments and suggestions on how to
improve Nybble. Just hit the reply button to you know, reply.