If you ever watched an episode of Star Trek and wondered when we were going to finally get our hands on some cool medical gadgets like the tricorder, you will be happy to know that a primitive version already exists. Researchers knew that current medical scanners were too bulky and expensive to reach their full potential. So, in order to remedy the situation, they developed a simple portable scanner that can be plugged into a standard cellphone. The phones would send the raw data to remote processors, which would interpret that data and relay it as a image that is viewable on the cellphone screen.
The result is a medical scanner that is ultra-portable and inexpensive enough to make an impact in developing countries. Tests have also determined that the amount of data sent should not prove problematic for the system. In fact, the size of the data in a recent study amounted to less than 6 kilobytes. That having been said, the researchers behind the project hope to go a step further and couple ultrasound scanners with cellphones, which could potentially reduce the cost of a typical $70,000 machine to $1000 or less. Ultrasounds for everyone! [LiveScience]
Pioneer's stylish HTIB costs a lot and doesn't include that Blu-ray player in the picture.
Home-theater-in-a-box systems are usually geared toward budget buyers that don’t want to deal with the hassle of separate components. Pioneer’s new high-style HTIB, the HTS-LX70 takes a decidedly different …
Eco-friendly is the a word thrown around a lot these days, and an ever-increasing number of people are going out of their way to conserve power. Combine that with a desire to increase the longevity of our hardware and you have the basis for a question that has been floating around forever: do you leave your computer on or turn it off when not in use?
Most consumer drives aren’t rated for 24/7 use, and even if your drives are set to sleep, you’re going to wear out fan bearings and suck dust into the case. Then again, those torrents aren’t going to download themselves.
No doubt, Adobe System’s Flash is popular: it’s installed on 99 percent of all PCs, according to the company.
But when it comes to mobile devices and other non-PC platforms, Flash is an also-ran. One reason for that situation, according to Adobe, is the lack of good development …
We’re still hearing reports of MacBook Air overheating woe, well after an EFI update in April that was meant to address some of those problems. While hot computers are nothing new, the MacBook Air starts shutting down cores and offloading processes when things get bad, which means users are faced with aggravating stop-start freezing until they can manage to cool the computer off — or just put it to sleep and let it “rest.” Apparently some people have traced this back to the age-old misapplied thermal grease problem, but that’s hardly a solace for the average consumer trying to convince Apple to fix this thing for them. We took a MacBook Air that was acting up into the Genius Bar and Apple claimed it couldn’t reproduce the problem, though we have heard cases of Apple replacing the computer for users. We’d be curious to know just how many Air users are having trouble, and if the X300 is experiencing anything similar, so let us know in the comments.
As a natural progression from Google Earth and Google Sky, the Mountain View monolith now plans to create 3D maps of the Earth’s oceans and seas and make it available via Google Ocean. The software will allow users to navigate the aquatic bottom and see the topography that exists down there. Google also plans to include interactive data about various subjects such as weather patterns, coral reefs, shipwrecks, and currents. The goal for Google ocean is to use as much high resolution photography of the underwater terrain as possible, offering more than just a map. But researchers say such a process could take upwards of 100 years. And Google, if you’re going to include an easter egg similar to Google Earth’s flight sim, could we get a guided tour with a virtual Team Zissou? [CNet News]
This fine piece of flip phone is Blackberry’s very first clamshell, codenamed Kickstart. It’s not overly attractive—it’s got a RAZR-esque silhouette. The inside is Pearly, with a trackball and SureType keyboard. Boy Genius says that the internal LCD is “decent looking,” but the shot of the external has a weird sheen over it, so it’s hard to tell there. Sort of an odd choice from RIM, I think—was there an untapped demand for a flip Blackberry? No other specs, but expect it by the end of the year. Profile shot after the jump or hit BGR for the full five. [BGR]
It rains every day and the birds won’t shut up — yeah, spring’s here, and Samsung’s celebrating by dressing up the T10 in this fetching black and purple floral number. Details are scarce, as the “La Fleur Special Edition” of the well-regarded PMP isn’t official yet, but we’d expect to see it pop up rather soonish.
The RC-12 Mini Camera is essentially a 1.2 GHz wireless camera with a 30 meter range, a 2.7 MP CMOS sensor and waterproof housing. It looks about as big as a lego brick and can shoot 45 minutes of video on a single charge. This camera isn’t anything I have any practical use for, but it’s the type of gadget I would find a non-practical use for (and no, I won’t drop some lame girls’ locker room reference here — wait…shit). I’d probably have this thing express shipped to my doorstep if it didn’t cost $270. That hurts. [Killian Nakamura via Ubergizmo via Oh Gizmo!]
The format war over, and Blu-ray safely enthroned as the victor, Warner can now turn its sights beyond—to downloads and the infinite format war. Time Warner’s chief executive announced today that Warner Bros. will release movies for on-demand systems like Comcast’s and Apple TV on the same day they are released on DVD from now on.
Warner’s been toying around with it for a little while and been increasingly open to internet distribution, so it doesn’t come as a major surprise. Interestingly, according to their numbers, offering same-day releases on the internet only eats into DVD rentals by 3-5 percent, and actually increases sales. Plus, online rentals/sales double bring them more than double the profit margin of physical discs, so everybody wins, except for Blockbuster. (So Hollywood really does have nothing to fear from online distribution.)
The best news though? Head of Warner’s home video said that they’re trying to make online rentals “at least as lenient” as grabbing a DVD from Blockbuster, breaking open that 24-hour window. Now that would be a deathblow for Blockbuster. [Bits]
If you ever watched an episode of Star Trek and wondered when we were going to finally get our hands on some cool medical gadgets like the tricorder, you will be happy to know that a primitive version already exists. Researchers knew that current medical scanners were too bulky and expensive to reach their full potential. So, in order to remedy the situation, they developed a simple portable scanner that can be plugged into a standard cellphone. The phones would send the raw data to remote processors, which would interpret that data and relay it as a image that is viewable on the cellphone screen.
Eco-friendly is the a word thrown around a lot these days, and an ever-increasing number of people are going 
As a natural progression from Google Earth and Google Sky, the Mountain View monolith now plans to create 3D maps of the Earth’s oceans and seas and make it available via Google Ocean. The software will allow users to navigate the aquatic bottom and see the topography that exists down there. Google also plans to include interactive data about various subjects such as weather patterns, coral reefs, shipwrecks, and currents. The goal for Google ocean is to use as much high resolution photography of the underwater terrain as possible, offering more than just a map. But researchers say such a process could take upwards of 100 years. And Google, if you’re going to include an easter egg similar to Google Earth’s flight sim, could we get a guided tour with a virtual Team Zissou? [
This fine piece of flip phone is Blackberry’s very first clamshell, codenamed Kickstart. It’s not overly attractive—it’s got a RAZR-esque silhouette. The inside is Pearly, with a trackball and SureType keyboard. Boy Genius says that the internal LCD is “decent looking,” but the shot of the external has a weird sheen over it, so it’s hard to tell there. Sort of an odd choice from RIM, I think—was there an untapped demand for a flip Blackberry? No other specs, but expect it by the end of the year. Profile shot after the jump or hit BGR for the full five. [
The RC-12 Mini Camera is essentially a 1.2 GHz wireless camera with a 30 meter range, a 2.7 MP CMOS sensor and waterproof housing. It looks about as big as a lego brick and can shoot 45 minutes of video on a single charge. This camera isn’t anything I have any practical use for, but it’s the type of gadget I would find a non-practical use for (and no, I won’t drop some lame girls’ locker room reference here — wait…shit). I’d probably have this thing express shipped to my doorstep if it didn’t cost $270. That hurts. [
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