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Q101 (formerly on Chicago radio @ 101.1 FM) The Alternative - Chicago's New Rock Alternative - Everything Alternative - Chicago's Alternative - Gen X - Generation X
Just imagine a world where you no longer had to shake it to get the last drop. Banging it on counter tops would be a thing of the past. Finally, the need to stick a long object down the narrow neck would no longer be a necessary challenge.
Behold, the non-stick ketchup bottle.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD candidate Dave Smith and his group of Varanasi Research Group mechanical engineers and nano-technologists appear to have struck a revolutionary advancement in the challenging field of total condiment extraction.
The result? LiquiGlide, a slide-inducing spray that ensures you will always get that last glob of ketchup, mustard or dressing gathered at a bottle’s neck, clung to its side or otherwise impeded from reaching its desired destination.
The MIT guys say their solution to a classic culinary quandary is perfectly safe.
“We found a way to make the coating from edible, FDA-approved food materials that won’t mix or leach into the contents of the bottle,” boasts the FAQ page on the LiquiGlide website.
READ MORE
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-talk-liquiglide-ketchup-bottles-0525-20120524,0,3723898.story
In the near future, you may be able to cancel your cell phone insurance that covers cracked screens from dropping the darned thing. Why? Your new phone may not have any glass to break.
Believe it or not, your next gadget is probably going to have a flexible screen. No, you probably won’t be able to wrap your phone around your body, which sadly precludes a whole bunch of really awesome/gross pranks. That’s not for years, possibly decades.
How soon for the phone? Perhaps by the end of this year.
http://guyism.com/tech/gadgets/expect-bendy-screens-on-your-next-phone.html
A brilliant place to test this new scanner is San Francisco. And that is precisely where SceneTap has introduced its newly launched app this weekend that will scan the faces of patrons in 25 bars across the city to determine their ages and genders.
Would-be customers can then check their smartphones for real-time updates on the crowd size, average age and men-to-women mix to decide whether the scene is to their liking.
SceneTap’s ability to guess how old people are and whether they’re men or women relies on advances in a field known as biometrics. A camera at the door snaps your picture, and software maps your features to a grid. By measuring distances such as the length between the nose and the eyes and the eyes and the ears, an algorithm matches your dimensions to a database of averages for age and gender.
Whether or not you think this is creepy, it portends a near future when any camera-equipped smartphone will have the ability to recognize faces with a click of the virtual shutter.
Already the iPhone’s camera app will highlight a person’s face on the screen with a green box before the picture is even snapped. And Apple’s iPhoto software will try to recognize the faces of the people in users’ pictures to categorize photos automatically by who’s in the shot.
Facebook also uses facial recognition software that tries to identify any friends in a photo a user uploads.
Along with the visual images being deleted nearly as soon as they’re snapped, SceneTap’s sensors aren’t sophisticated enough to recognize individual faces in any case. Detecting basic characteristics like gender and age takes much less digital work than identifying individuals.
SceneTap is already in use in six other cities across the country, including Chicago and several college towns.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/20/scenetap-app-bar-scans-faces-of-b_n_1530850.html?ref=technology
Back to the wild, primates, you are now out of a job. A successful experiment has been conducted using the human brain and willing volunteers.
Being able to drink a cup of coffee without assistance has been accomplished just by thinking about it by a woman who lost the use of her limbs after a devastating stroke nearly 15 years ago.
The 58-year-old used a brain implant to control the robot and bring a flask of the coffee to her lips, the first time she had picked up anything since she was paralyzed and left unable to speak by a catastrophic brain stem stroke.
Doctors hailed the feat as the first demonstration of an implant that directly controls a reaching and gripping robotic arm by sensing and decoding the patient’s brain signals.
The work is part of a US clinical trial of an experimental implant called BrainGate that doctors see as a first step towards devices that can bypass damage to the nervous system and allow paralyzed people to regain control of their limbs or amputees to move prosthetics.
The BrainGate device plugs directly into the brain, but protrudes through the skull where it is connected to a computer by a cable. More advanced devices are planned that can operate wirelessly and be implanted out of sight, beneath the skin.
One concern with brain implants is that they steadily lose their ability to sense neural signals as scar tissue forms around the ultrafine electrodes. An encouraging sign from the latest trial is that doctors could still record useful signals from the woman’s brain five years after her implant was fitted.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/may/16/brain-implant-paralysed-woman-robot-thoughts
The Drudge Report
This is ONE way to avoid paying capital gains taxes. Evidently, the desire to keep a few extra billion dollars is a small price to pay for Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin.
Saverin has renounced his U.S. citizenship, according to an Internal Revenue Service report, just days before the company’s initial public offering.
He now lives in the Asian city-state of Singapore, which has no capital-gains tax. That compares with a minimum 15 percent rate for long-term capital gains in the United States for people in higher income brackets.
The Brazil-born Saverin was educated in the U.S. at Harvard, where he co-founded Facebook with Mark Zuckerberg and others.
Giving up citizenship is an irrevocable act, the State Department says. I hope it’s worth it to Severin.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-facebook-cofounder-renounces-citizenship-before-ipo-20120511,0,3837012.story
Growing up, we are taught to take care of ourselves. Do this! Don’t do that! Whatever you do, WEAR PROTECTION! Your ears are irreplaceable. Temporary hearing loss can happen after you’ve been exposed to loud noise for any duration. If you have temporary hearing loss, you won’t be able to hear as well as you normally do for a while. Don’t worry, it will go away (usually after a good night’s sleep).
If someone is exposed to loud noise over a long period of time, like cranking up Q101.com to setting 11 on a scale of 10, permanent hearing loss can occur. This means the person’s hearing won’t ever be as good as it once was.
Coldplay’s Chris Martin revealed that he suffers tinnitus, along with Plan B. Both singers are now speaking out about their condition as part of the launch of a new campaign to encourage people to wear earplugs when exposed to loud noises.
Martin revealed that he has suffered from the disease, a condition defined by sufferers hearing a permanent ringing or buzzing in their ears, often caused by exposure to loud noise, since he was 25. His advice as given to Ryan at Alternative Addiction:
“If you’re listening to music a lot, producing music or performing live, then always wear earplugs. You’re not Superman! When I first developed it, I thought it was trains rushing by my house as I live near a railway line. There’s no doubt it’s been caused by years of being on stage and subjected to very loud decibels of music.”
Source:
http://www.alternativeaddiction.com/musicnews/article/2544/Coldplays-Chris-Martin-Admits-He-Suffers-From-Tinnitus
An Intel 3rd generation i7 processor, graphics processing, a Blu-ray drive, crazy storage capacity and JBL speakers with a subwoofer, the Series 5 550P delivers an exceptional multimedia experience even while on-the-go. 15″ and 17″ screen sizes are offered for these sleek, thin powerhouses that have been released to the masses, but only in the U.K. so far. But that doesn’t stop techno-philes from drooling over the Series S 550p Samsung laptops.
You dig it? Wanna know more? Check out Samsung’s press release below for the whole deal.
SAMSUNG DELIVERS MAXIMUM MULTIMEDIA PERFORMANCE WITH NEW NOTEBOOK
8th May 2012 London, UK – Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd, a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies, today announced the launch of its new Notebook Series 5 550P with 3rd Generation Intel® CoreTM i7 Processor, designed to give users an immersive multimedia experience.
The Series 5 550P – available in 15″ and 17″ sizes – is designed to meet consumers’ increasing demands for high-quality multimedia content with a range of powerful features. With Intel’s latest 3rd generation CoreTM i7 Processor, dedicated graphics processing, a Blu-ray drive, generous storage capacity and JBL optimised speakers complete with subwoofer, the Series 5 550P delivers an exceptional multimedia experience even while on-the-go.
“With its fully integrated multimedia features and lightweight slim design the Samsung Series 5 550P notebook offers an unsurpassed ‘look, listen and feel’ experience that no other notebook will match,” said Damian Cusick, General Manager, Computing, Samsung UK and Ireland.
Multimedia content powerfully delivered
Powered by Intel’s 3rd generation CoreTM i7 Quad Core processor, the Series 5 550P features a 25% improvement on performance when compared to 2nd generation CPUs. The notebook also consumes 20% less power, ensuring twice as fast 3D gaming and media experiences. This is complemented with an NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 650M 2GB graphics card, a Blu-ray drive and expandable storage up to 2TB, providing easy access to multi-format content as well as seamless creation, playback, editing and storage of multimedia content.
Best AV quality in its class
The Series 5 550P features Samsung’s superior LCD technology for a next-generation viewing experience. An incredibly rich, vivid and crisp visual experience is further enhanced with integrated JBL optimised speakers and a Max Bass Boost subwoofer, for ultimate sound quality when watching movies or listening to music.
Boosted usability for ease-of-use
Ideal for creating and enjoying content on the go, the Series 5 550P features a full-size keyboard with isolated numeric and direction keys and an improved touchpad with separated left and right clicks. These functional advantages ensure no further attachments-such as an additional keyboard or mouse-are required.
The notebook also boasts a compact design. The 15″ model weighs just 2.5 kg with a height of 29.9 ~ 30.4 mm. The 17″ model weighs 3.05 kg with a height of 29.2 ~ 32.2 mm.
The Samsung Series 5 550P will be available in the UK from May from a range of retailers including PC World and Currys.
n.b. All are based on factory specifications. Product design specifications and colors are subject to change without notice and may vary from those shown. Errors and omissions excepted. Battery life based on MobileMark test scores that will vary based on configuration. Warranty service availability and response times may vary from country to country and may also be subject to registration requirements in the country of purchase. OS reveals lower HDD capacity than the specification as the difference of the calculation way and recovery partition.
We all love technology, don’t we? The beeps, the boops, the touchscreens, the Bluetooth, everything that makes our world wireless, our data given to us at high-speeds, and the form & function the arouses our eyes, and opens our wallets. Does anyone even remember the days before mass e-mails, Facetime, and digital signatures? It seems like ages ago, the stone age. Video conferencing? Quad-core CPUs? Witchcraft! Shenanigans!
But no, the amazing leaps and progressions with digital technology has been one of the most amazing feats and advances the human race has seen in the last 40+ years. To be the age of someone who was alive during World War II must be mind-boggling, to see the changes in the world. To hold something like an iPhone in your hand, and all the things from even 10 years ago, all in one device that size, still blows me away. To see computers with 1 Terrabyte (TB) Hard drives or more compared to when I was 5 years old, and my dad’s computer was a Tandy with a 5MB hard drive that was the size and weight of a cinder block is something I still cannot wrap my head around. Thinking about it almost doesn’t make sense, Does it?
Navy Robots? Testing? Brian Heater of Engadget tells us about the United States Navy’s autonomous robot testing facility:
All the fun of the desert and the rainforest from the (relative) comfort of home? Sign us up. That’s the promise offered by the admittedly awesome named Laboratory for Autonomous Systems Research(that’s LASR, for you abbreviators out there), first announced last month. The robotics lab, housed in a $17.7 million building at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington DC, offers up around 50,000 square feet, a portion of which is aimed at reproducing some of the Earth’s more extreme ecosystems to test out naval robotics. The facility is home to firefighting robots, swimming ‘bots and hydrogen fuel cell-powered unmanned aircrafts, to name but a few.
The Naval Research Laboratory opened the doors of the massive facility up to members of the media today, and Engadget was on-hand along with a moderate sized gathering of fellow reporters. Included in the tour were two simulated environments. The Tropical High Bay is designed to mimic rainforest terrain, with flowing water, fog and climate controlled temperature and humidity. The Desert High Bay is a bit let complex in its environmental simulation, limited to a sand pit, rock way, and adjustable light, smoke and wind.
To read more about the robot uprising, click here to check it out @ Engadget.
Have you ever been sitting on a “pile of cash”? How long did it take you to decide what to do with it? Psh. It doesn’t matter. You never had 97 Billion dollars in reserves, like technology conglomerate and design masters Apple. Yep, you heard it right. building for cheap, and selling for what a lot consider high has made Apple this unbelievable amount of cash reserve. You really need to think Scrooge McDuck’s money bin.
This is quite a bog deal in the technology, and sales/retail industry in general. Tomorrow morning, bright and early there’s a press conference at 8:00 AM central time that you can listen in on, where Apple CEO Tim Cook, and their CFO Peter Oppenheimer will discuss what they’re gonna do with this big fat bag of cash. Acquiring companies or technology? Passing it out among stockholders? Donating to worthy causes? It has all been speculated, but nothing will be sure until the phone conference. Are you interested in hearing from the mouth of the men themselves where the greenbacks are going? Here’s the info you need to listen in:
The live phone press conference starts at 8am central time/6am pacific.9am eastern. Call (877) 616-0063 toll-free or (719) 219-0041 local. Conference code is #592016. What? You’re too lazy for that? There will be a phone conference “replay” at 10am central time/12pm eastern time, and 8am pacific time at (877) 616-0063 toll-free and (719) 219-0041 local. Punch in 6274937 to listen in on the rebroadcast of the call. Stay tuned for the innovating, and probably surprising decisions!
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