Tech Universe: Wednesday 6 April

Coffee Joulies are small 'beans' made from polished food-grade stainless steel. Photo / Supplied

JUST RIGHT COFFEE: Is your coffee always too hot or too cold? Coffee Joulies are small 'beans' made from polished food-grade stainless steel. Inside is a phase change material that melts at 60C. That means the beans quickly cool your coffee when it's very hot. But as it cools the beans slowly release the heat again keeping it at a drinkable temperature for longer. Goldilocks would have loved these magic beans. More at KickStarter and video on YouTube.

HEAVY, MUCH?: You thought you couldn't see gravity. Well, the European Space Agency's GOCE satellite has provided enough gravity data for researchers to produce a geoid map. The geoid is the surface of an ideal global ocean in the absence of tides and currents, shaped only by gravity. The globe shows regions of blue, orange and red, reflecting how gravity is distributed. And it looks like we're in a red zone. More at ESA.

IN THE HEADLIGHTS: Genesis Illumination have created a StunRay intended for law enforcement. A brief flash of high-intensity light generally causes someone to freeze, allowing a police officer to easily apprehend a suspect. Lenses focus the light from a 75 watt lamp into a targeted beam that can be aimed right at suspects. Better than bullets, but what a handy tool for criminals! More at ScientificAmerican.

SICK STICK: In Malaysia a new law aims to prevent people malingering and taking sick days when they're not sick. To verify their claim of being sick workers will no longer get a certificate from a doctor, but instead will lick a piece of cottonwool. Then they put the cottonwool into a SickVerify USB stick. When they plug the USB stick into a computer software starts a 3 minute test of the saliva for antibodies and cortisol, indicative or recent pain or illness. The device is claimed to be 98.9% accurate. I see a market for forgery here: earn extra cash when you're sick by supplying saliva samples. More at MSN Malaysia.

THINK IT UP: Students at Ryerson University, Canada, have created a new prosthetic, the Artificial Muscle-Operated Arm. It's relatively inexpensive, easy to use and doesn't require invasive surgery. The user wears a headset that records their brain signals and sends them wirelessly to a microprocessor in the arm. If the signal matches a command in the onboard database the arm moves accordingly - the wearer thinks 'up' and the arm moves up. The next step for the team is to make the fingers work independently. Just beware the out of memory crashes. Details at GizMag.

- Miraz Jordan knowit.co.nz