A round-up of the latest technology news from around the globe.
AIRHEAD: Chuck out your bicycle helmet and replace it with a Swedish Hovding Chieftain airbag. It's worn as a collar - it weighs less than 700 grams - and inflates instantly in a crash. There's even a black box inside the bag. Accelerometers and gyro-meters send a signal to a small helium canister if abnormal movement is detected. Except, what about the worldwide concern about helium running out? More at RedFerret and video on YouTube.
ROBOCUP: Robots work so hard, so why not let them have some fun? The robot football world cup, RoboCup, attracts teams from more than 40 countries. These competitions spur researchers to develop movement, communication and visual processing system skills in their robots. Who's developing the robot football crowds for skills in cheering, bottle throwing and fighting? More at the BBC.
TUWRONG: A Turing test discriminates artificial intelligence from human. In this year's Loebner Prize competition one judge was so confused by a chatbot named Suzette that gave angry and bored responses that she was judged to be a human. Uh oh, bored and angry marks out humans? More at SlashDot.
SMALL SCALE: Need a new microscope? How about the subpixel resolving optofluidic microscope? A sample is channeled across a $1.50 digital camera light-sensor that has pixels 3.2 microns on each side. The sensor makes a movie at 20x magnification. Researchers are aiming for 40x, to diagnose malaria with a cellphone. That would be a hit with
travellers. More at Kurzweilai.
KINDLE RISING: In the 30 days to 25 October 2010 Amazon.com customers purchased more Kindle books than hard or soft cover print books for the top 10, 25, 100, and 1,000 bestselling books on Amazon.com. Which just goes to show that people who read are smart. Read the press release.
- Miraz Jordan knowit.co.nz
