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
2009.10.11 Issue No. 214
It's been almost a month since we bought the
Samsung LA32B650 LCD TV. After all the hype and excitement, I'm now starting to have a feel of what this TV can (and cannot) do. First off, the unit has two USB 2.0 ports. One to handle USB sticks, and the other to handle USB hard disks. If it finds mp3 files, it will play them. If it find photos, you may view them in a slideshow. If it finds DivX movies, you can watch them. Then there's Content Library. The TV has pre-installed Flash content, which includes a recipe book, an art gallery, a game and a fitness video. According to the manual, one can get new content from the Internet, which I did, but I was never able to get the TV to display. The functionality is there, but doesn't seem to support aditional modules. Next I tried to Internet widgets. You get the local weather, news from USA Today, and videos from YouTube. Obviously, you have to connect the TV to your broadband router first. That YouTube widget is really a good way to use up your excess bandwidth quote. As for DLNA Wireless, I still can't get that to work. Not with
Windows Media Player 11 or
Tversity. The DLNA server can see the TV, but not vice versa. Workaround for now is to use UPnP auto-discovery on the Xbox to talk to the DLNA/UPnP server on my laptop, and stream content over to the TV. More work needed.
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 Samsung about it. Thanks.
_________STEEL VELCRO_________
German engineers have taken inspiration from the simple Velcro and created a version of the hook-and-loop concept with enough steely strength for extreme loads and environments.
Called
Metaklett, a square metre of the new fastener is capable of supporting 35 tonnes at temperatures up to 800 ºC, according to the inventors at the
Technical University of Munich, Germany. The fastening is made from perforated steel strips 0.2 millimetres thick, one kind bristling with springy steel brushes and the other sporting jagged spikes. And just like everyday Velcro it can be opened up without specialised tools and used again.
Conventional hook-and-loop fasteners are used for everything from bandages to cable boots in aircraft and securing prosthetic limbs. The inventors reckon the spring-steel fastener is tough enough to be used for building facades or car assembly. Metaklett can support maximum weight when pulled on in the plane of the strips, and a square metre can hold a perpendicular load of 7 tonnes.
_________VIDEO ADS IN PAPER MAGAZINES_________
The first-ever video advertisement was published in the September 18 editions of the US show business title Entertainment Weekly distributed in Los Angeles and New York. The technology is likened to the Daily Prophet - a newspaper with moving pictures described in the Harry Potter books.
The slim-line screens are about the size of a mobile phone display. The chip technology, used to store up to 40 minutes of video, is activated when the page is turned. The screens come with rechargeable batteries.
Obviously this new technology will cost more than normal print ads. Although in an increasingly competitive market, advertisers have realised that it is more important than ever to create attention for their product.
It is not the first time that publishers have experimented with digital technology in magazines. Last year, for example, men's lifestyle magazine Esquire published the first using e-ink technology, with a cover that flashed in alternating patterns. E-ink is the technology used in the Sony Reader and Amazon Kindle electronic books. Americhip, the developer of video-in-print, has also created magazine technology that appeals to various senses, including smell.
_________NOKIA'S PAY-BY-PHONE SERVICE________
World's top mobile phone maker
Nokia said it would launch a mobile financial service next year targeting consumers, mainly in emerging markets, with a phone but no banking account. Called
Nokia Money, the service was based on the mobile payment platform of
Obopay, a privately-owned firm that Nokia invested in earlier this year, and it is now building up a network of agents. Obopay, which uses text messaging and mobile internet access, charges users a fee to send money or to top up their accounts.
Mobile money is one of the hottest topics in the wireless world, but so far take-up of services has been limited mostly to a few emerging markets, as in developed countries, the popularity of online banking has been a brake on mobile money. The
Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP), a U.S.-based microfinance policy and research centre, has said the market for mobile financial services to poor people in emerging markets will surge from nothing to $5 billion in 2012. Nokia Chief Development Officer Mary McDowell also noted that there are 4 billion mobile phone users globally but only 1.6 billion bank accounts and 1 billion credit cards.
The announcement is the latest push by Nokia to diversify its business as global handset sales have gone from slowing down over the past few years to contracting due to the recession. Nokia did not announce any partnerships with operators or financial institutions, only saying that Nokia Money would be rolled out gradually to selected markets starting in early 2010.
_________ROADS PAVED WITH SOLAR PANELS_________
What about replacing petroleum-based asphalt on the road with solar panels? Solar road technology that promises to produce clean electricity, replace power transmission and information infrastructure, requires no plowing and lights up to provide navigational and safety information. The technology looks so promising the US Department of Transport has seen fit to award
Solar Roadways $100,000 to construct the first 12' by 12' Solar Road panel.
The panels that make up the road consists of three layers. The base contains power and data lines and is overlaid by the electronics strata that contains solar cells, LEDs and supercapacitors which would produce and store electricity while the LEDs would "paint" the surface with light. This layer also holds the microprocessors and communications device that would make highways "intelligent". The top layer is made of glass that should supply the same traction as asphalt, is strong enough to handle whatever traffic can dish out and protect the electronic goodies below. There will also be embedded heating elements in the surface to prevent snow and ice buildup, providing for safer winter driving.
Replacing asphalt roads and parking lots with Solar Roadway panels will be a major step toward halting climate change. Fully electric vehicles will be able to recharge along the roadway and in parking lots, finally making electric cars practical for long trips. Scott Brusaw, the guy who came up with the Solar Roadways idea, estimates that is will take roughly five billion (a stimulus package in itself) 12' by 12' Solar Road Panels to cover the asphalt surfaces in the U.S. alone. If every street, driveway and parking lot was replaced with his invention, it would supply three times as much electricity as was used in the U.S. in 2003 - almost enough to power the entire world.
_________CANCER BREATHALYZER_________
Researchers in Israel have invented a new type of breath test for detecting lung cancer in patients using carbon-based sensors embedded with gold nanoparticles. Lung cancer accounts for more than a quarter of all cancer-related deaths with an estimated 1.3 million people dying from the condition worldwide each year. Breath testing is an established, non-invasive method that works by linking "volatile organic compounds" (VOCs) with specific forms of lung cancer. The drawback of this method at present is that it requires collecting samples and analysing them using techniques such as mass spectrometry and infrared spectroscopy. Hossam Haick at the Israel Institute of Technology and his colleagues have now developed a new device for detecting cancer in breath, which could provide an almost instant diagnosis of a patient's health.
When a patient breathes into the device, particulates in the breath accumulate on the carbon layer and the sensor swells, pushing the gold nanoparticles further apart, which in turn, alters the resistance of the film. Each type of particulate has a unique effect on the resistance, which can be measured by having a current flow through the sensor. Having inserted the new sensor into a breath-test device, the researchers then carried out a series of tests for calibration purposes. By recruiting 96 volunteers – 40 lung cancer patients and 56 controls – the team built up a catalogue of VOCs based on the electrical signals that were present in the breath of lung cancer sufferers but not in the breath of controls.
In a break from the convention in medical innovation, the researchers claim that full clinical trials may not be necessary to take this new technology to a stage where it is hospital-ready. They believe instead that they could prove the device's accuracy using a series of "artificial mixtures" of particulates that could simulate cancerous and healthy breath. In addition to lung cancer, this new device has also been used to promising effect in the diagnosis of other diseases including renal failure.
_________SEEING WITH TONGUES_________
A new device called the
BrainPort aims to partially restore the experience of vision for the blind and visually impaired by relying on the nerves on the tongue's surface to send light signals to the brain. About two million optic nerves are required to transmit visual signals from the retina—the portion of the eye where light information is decoded or translated into nerve pulses—to the brain's primary visual cortex. With BrainPort, the device being developed by neuroscientists at Middleton, Wisc.–based Wicab, Inc., visual data are collected through a small digital video camera about 1.5 centimeters in diameter that sits in the center of a pair of sunglasses worn by the user. Bypassing the eyes, the data are transmitted to a handheld base unit, which is a little larger than a cell phone. This unit houses such features as zoom control, light settings and shock intensity levels as well as a central processing unit (CPU), which converts the digital signal into electrical pulses—replacing the function of the retina.
From the CPU, the signals are sent to the tongue via a "lollipop," an electrode array about nine square centimeters that sits directly on the tongue. Each electrode corresponds to a set of pixels. White pixels yield a strong electrical pulse, whereas black pixels translate into no signal. Densely packed nerves at the tongue surface receive the incoming electrical signals, which feel a little like Pop Rocks or champagne bubbles to the user.
Wicab will be submitting BrainPort to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approval, and the device could be approved for market by the end of 2009 at a cost of about $10,000 per machine.
_________LIKEABLE LINKS_________
Give Me Something to Read
ScreenSnapr
How a construction crane is erected
Google Fast Flip
TxtNinja
Converts text to image
FastCopy
_________QUESTIONABLE QUESTION_________
Just what is baking soda made of? Is it really safe to make cookies with a product promoted to clean carpets, refrigerators, and de-stink your shoes?
_________QUOTABLE QUOTE_________
Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.
~ Mark Twain
_________TRIVIAL TRIVIA_________
What makes 111,111,111 so special?
If the number 111,111,111 is multiplied by itself, the result is all of the digits in ascending to descending order, or 12,345,678,987,654,321.
Source: Arcamax Trivia
_________LAUGHABLE LAUGH_________
A cabbie takes a woman to her destination, but when they get there, she doesn't have any money. The cabbie tells her he has to get paid, so she pulls up her skirt, and says "What about this?" The cabbie says "Don't you have anything smaller?"
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.
Quite a few events lined up for today. There's Breakfast on the Bridge as the opening act for Crave Sydney. There's the Seven Bridges Walk. The Sydney Opera House is having an open day today, and so is the Chinese Garden in Darling Harbour. And also the Danks Street Festival.
Too bad we missed out. From 190,000 applicants, only 6,000 people were selected to take part. The whole Bridge was closed to traffic, and 10,620 sq. m. of kikuyu turf laid out for the lucky few to have picnic on. As the Harbour Bridge is part of the Seven Bridges Walk, I thought I might have a chance to walk on the grass. No such luck. Workers were busy rolling up the turf, while we had to walk on the sidelines.
From The Rocks, we went straight to the Opera House to queue up for Open Day. There are three self-guided tours available, each covering a different section of the Opera House. Tour 1 covers the Concert Hall, the Opera Theatre, and Utzon Room. The wife wisely suggested we go for tour #2 as it covers the Opera Theatre scenery dock, backstage of the Drama Theatre, Administration areas, Rehearsal rooms and the Green Room. During the tour, we saw a couple of guys in full-body costume walking about, a lone guy playing a strange stringed instruments, and some ballerinas dancing to Swan Lake. 
Very interesting. With time to spare, we queued up again for tour #3, which covers the Drama Theatre (currently playing the God of Carnage), Playhouse, and The Studio where some gynmasts were practising.
We can't even get a decent parking spot. The whole street is packed! We had to drive a few hundred meters further to find a spot. By the time we got to the church, the massive hall is full. Even the front lot has a queue 10 or so lines deep. Ah, we truly are in desperate times. Father Fernando Suarez (a.k.a. the Healing Priest) arrived promptly at 2pm and Mass started. Father Suarez told us how happy and nervous every time he sees a packed church. Just the other day, he was in Melbourne. There's this guy who had been blind for 20 years. A few days later, he received a call from the man's daughter, saying that after he prayed over him, the man can now see again. Wow. Then, there's this woman who talked too much (according to the husband) and got tongue cancer. The doctors had to cut a portion of the tongue off, so the woman can't talk and can't taste anymore. During a healing mass, the husband prayed that his wife be healed. And guess what? The woman's tongue grew back, and she can speak again. In the words of the Pussycat Dolls, be careful what you wish for 'cos you just might get it (hey!) you just might get it (hey!) you just might get it (HEY!)
