Robo-Mommy

Scientists have developed a robot that simulates a woman giving birth.  This full sized robot will emit pulse rates, breathe, urinate and deliver a small plastic baby.  She can be configured to deliver normally or have special complications such as breech birth or an abnormally long or short labor.  All of this allows medical staff to train on something realistic, without using women as guinea pigs.

Of course nothing beats actual hands on training (ask youself if you'd rather have an ob-gyn who delivered 1000 babies, or had used this machine 1000 times - or a pilot who flew vs. flight simulator, etc), but this is a big help to good training.  It would really help in special circumstances, where nurses and doctors would be more relaxed the first time they see a real complication, because they had seen it simulated before.

And I would be remiss if I didn't mention a funny comment on the WorldMagBlog thread where I saw this story; commenter Llama says "They really need this 'Birthing Robot' in Europe and other developed countries where real births are too low in number to do adequate training for medical practitioners."  Ouch

MacIntel machines Massively parallel under Leopard?

Appears to be a strong rumor. See the following link for details:

   http://www.macosrumors.com/20060402B.php

If true, this will certainly blow away in tiny hope that Vista would be able to save the now ailing Microsoft.

Andrew

Brant adds: This could be a very interesting development. PPC Macs had short, but wide processing, which attempts to make computing faster by distributing the processing across the wide pipe - the drawback being that you can't dial clock speeds as high and your lookaheads are short. Intel PCs had long, but thin processing, which allows for much higher clock speeds and deeper look ahead, but things like bubbles (where you can't determine the next instruction, or your look aheads were rendered useless by a branch) are much more costly.

Think of it this way - at the McDonald's you can go in, where there are 5 cashiers and shorter lines, but slower service at each one. Or you can go to the drivethru, where their is a longer line and only 1 cashier but they are trying to push people through faster. All things being equal, they are probably about the same. But if you have a slow cashier or some guy in front of you takes forever with his order, if you're inside you can just move over to another line. Conversely, some McDonald's put a lot of focus on their drivethru and can move people through it much more faster because its their only focus. So each has its benefits and downsides.

But now, we arrive at the peanut butter meets chocolate moment. Having both a huge parallel core, and really fast pipelines could very well give you the best of both worlds. You could process a lot of stuff at one time, and make the time it takes to process it much faster. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

The beginning of self-generated organ transplants?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4871540.stm

US scientists have successfully implanted bladders grown in the laboratory from patients' own cells into people with bladder disease.

Brant adds: Is it just me or is it kind of hard to believe that we live in a world like this? It's like all of the crazy things that people said we would have in the far off expansive "future" is actually here. I'm also glad to see this because it will perhaps eliminate the desire to create clones and harvest them for organs - a practice both creepy and immoral.

NanoTech Viruses

UK scientists from Norwich have used a plant virus to create nanotechnology building blocks.

The virus, which infects black-eyed peas, was employed as a "scaffold" on to which other chemicals were attached.

The researchers tell the journal Small that their work could be used in the future to make tiny electrical devices.

The work is yet another example of how scientists are now trying to engineer objects on the scale of atoms and molecules.

Bionics

Scientists have developed artificial, super-strength muscles which are powered by alcohol and hydrogen.they say these artificial muscles are 100 times more powerful than the body's own.

They said they could even be used in "exoskeletons" to give superhuman strength to certain professions such as firefighters, soldiers and astronauts.

Plot a course for tomorrow

As I've said before, I don't know if I should love Google or fear them because they seem to be slowly taking over everything by making it cooler.  It all seems to make sense if you think of them as a bad comic book villian who desires to take over the world.  The reader will no doubt note the clever irony of typing this into a blogger blog....  And now comes this - the marriage of GPS to Google Earth.  So. Freakin. Cool.

This article also mentions a couple other internet connectedness possibilities - getting current traffic conditions, current gas prices at nearby stations, or even searching for cool stuff to do where you are.  All of which only makes the different Google apps (local, earth, search, etc) even more prominent.

No word on how much a service would cost to have your car internet connected, which will be the sticking point... for now.  But it won't be long until the ol' free market brings that down to the rest of us.

Monkey Business

Monkey Controls Robot Arm with Thoughts

(h/t Jesse Ezell)

Brant adds : a little formatting and a title, for our more blogging-challenged friends. Just teasing Joe, glad to see your first post.

US 'plans stealth shark spies'

Pentagon scientists are planning to turn sharks into "stealth spies" capable of tracking vessels undetected

Brant adds : While technologically interesting, this strikes me as rather morally questionable. Animal rights activists will flip out because they equate sharks with humans in terms of intrinsic value. While I disagree with that, I can't see how ramming electrodes into a shark's brain to turn it into some sort of cool new sub is fulfilling the dominion mandate. Either way it strikes me as a bit sick.

MultiTouch Demo

Well, here's a great set of videos sent over by Jeff Wright. It's an excellent example of what Apple's patents could look like in the future: 

   MultiTouch Demo

As you all may have seen in my earlier posts regarding Apple's recent patent filings regarding gesture control of tablet devices, this video SHOWS it in action. It appears to be from NYU, and represents a UI that I would LOVE to have on my desktop!!

I can feel just how much more productive I would be with something like that going on!!

So, this further bolsters my prediction that Apple will release a new kind of tablet device this year. Perhaps in August at the next MacWorld Expo. Talk about blowing away the competition!!

Andrew

The Housing Bubble

The Housing Bubble burst stories continue to ebb and flow. Personally, I think we're in for a doozy. Those that bought in the last couple of years and borrowed money at interest-only rates with a baloon, will be in trouble soon.

On the positive side, based on all the stories and research I read, the market will be in for a delicious correction that will actually make it possible for normal people to buy houses again. On the way down, there should be plenty of opportunities for flips as well as dream home buys.

Only time will tell...

In the meantime, check out these recent posts:

Digital Rules by Rich Karlgaard
Investor Insight

Andrew

iPod Video 6G?

Okay, so this might be a total fake. So many skilled artists out there now, that using a technique similar to the HP commercials, this might be spoofed.

But, if it's real, it looks REAL cool!

  Video of Sixth Generation Video iPod?

Andrew