Plantronics Unveils Industry's First Bluetooth® Stereo Headset that Switches Between Music Devices, Laptops and Mobile Phones

Plantronics, Inc. introduced the Pulsar^TM 590, a Bluetooth stereo headset that lets users listen wirelessly to music and movies with excellent audio quality and switch seamlessly to mobile phone calls with the single touch of a button.

Available with a universal Bluetooth audio adapter, the Pulsar 590 provides immediate wireless compatibility for any device with a headphone jack, such as laptops, home stereos, MP3 players, including Apple iPods, and multimedia devices, such as Sony PSP.

"The Pulsar 590 demonstrates the desirable look of Plantronics' new design initiative and underscores our commitment to providing diverse Bluetooth offerings that deliver quality sound, are easy to use and provide long-wearing comfort," said Renee Niemi, vice president of Mobile and Entertainment at Plantronics.

Robot Snakes

SnakeRobots.com shows the work of inventor Dr. Gavin Miller who is studying snake locomotion. He wants to use snake robots for search and rescue missions.

"By attempting to build robots that emulate and perhaps match the capabilities of their biological counterparts, it is possible that we will create useful tools capable of carrying sensors, taking samples, and making physical changes in a wide variety of environments."

Fuel Cells for Mobile Phones

One of the limiting factors for mobile phone technology has been the power supply.
Advanced smart phone features like audio, video, and text messaging drain lots of power and future features will use even more power. Mobile fuel cells may be the power supply of the future for mobile computing and smart phones.

According to a NanoMarkets report, the mobile fuel cell market could be $2.7 billion by 2012.

NTT DoCoMo and Fujitsu Laboratories have developed a methanol fuel cell prototype portable recharger for 3G FOMA handsets that will allow eight hours of continuous talk time. We should see fuel cell portable rechargers on the market soon.

Smart Dust

Autonomous sensing and communication in a cubic millimeter

The Smart Dust project is funded by DARPA.

One possible application of smart dust is a virtual keyboard:

"Glue a (smart) dust mote on each of your fingernails. Accelerometers will sense the orientation and motion of each of your fingertips, and talk to the computer in your watch. You can imagine much more useful and creative ways to interface to your computer if it knows where your fingers are: sculpt 3D shapes in virtual clay, play the piano, gesture in sign language and have the computer translate."

"Combined with a MEMS augmented-reality heads-up display, your entire computer I/O would be invisible to the people around you. Couple that with wireless access for surfing the web."

New algorithm found for learning languages

"The algorithm -- the computational method -- for language learning and processing that we have developed can take a body of text, abstract from it a collection of recurring patterns or rules and then generate new material..."

-- Shimon Edelman

Original Physorg.com Article >>>

MIT Technology Review on Social Machines

"When computing devices are always with us, helping us to be the social beings we are, time spent "on the computer" no longer feels like time taken away from real life. And it isn't: cell phones, laptops, and the Web are rapidly becoming the best tools we have for staying connected to the people and ideas and activities that are important to us. The underlying hardware and software will never become invisible, but they will become less obtrusive, allowing us to focus our attention on the actual information being conveyed. Eventually, living in a world of continuous computing will be like wearing eyeglasses: the rims are always visible, but the wearer forgets she has them on--even though they're the only things making the world clear."

Original MIT Technology Review Article >>>

Deceit of the Raven

Deceitful ravens teach humans a thing or two.

"It turns out that even birds know how to cheat and read minds."

"Science is chipping away at the case for human uniqueness, showing that animals and machines are more like us than we believed."

"What happens, as these trends continue, to the familiar guideposts for deciding what is human?"

Original New York Times Article >>>

Is The Singularity Near?

"The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology" is futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil's newest book. He believes that "technological change is exponential" and that we may see 20,000 years of progress in the 21st century.

Psychedelics, Einstein, and Elves, Oh My!

Clifford A. Pickover's latest book will expand your mind with wide-ranging topics from sushi and zombies to quantum immortality, psychedelic Shakespeare, Tinkertoy minds, parallel universes and much more.