Tag: technology

A new way to control high blood pressure?

Like millions of other people, I have mildly high blood pressure: nicely controlled with drugs, thank you, but still a concern. Which is why this item caught my eye: Surgeons recently implanted the RheosR System into the first clinical trial patient. When the device was turned on, the patient’s blood pressure measurements significantly decreased. The …

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The mood pen

Remember the mood rings of the ’70s? Now Phillips has come up with the mood pen. Why struggle with finding just the right words to express how you feel when you can use a pen that will sense your mood and express it for you through the thickness of line and colour of ink? (Phillips) …

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Airships, airships, airships!

I’ve blogged before about my fondness for airships. Popular Mechanics has a roundup of some of the latest developments, should you share my odd obsession. (Via Instapundit.)

Airships, airships, airships!

I’ve blogged before about my fondness for airships. Popular Mechanics has a roundup of some of the latest developments, should you share my odd obsession. (Via Instapundit.)

Cars that drive themselves

This evening in the car my six-year-old daughter, Alice, commented out of the blue that she wished our car could drive itself. “I’d like that, too,” I said, and explained that scientists were, in fact, working on cars that could do exactly that, thinking of the Grand Challenges for driverless cars held by the Defense …

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Roboethics

Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast. *** A couple of weeks ago I wrote about research aimed at making robot-human interactions more comfortable for humans. With more and more robots finding more and more uses in society, that kind of research is important. But there’s something else we’re going to …

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Gadget blogs

Today’s CBC web column… I love gadgets. I wrote my last novel on a gadget, my Pocket PC cell phone, using a fold-out wireless keyboard. The only thing that keeps me from drowning in gadgets is that I can’t afford them all. But I can do the next best thing, and read about them on …

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Memory? We don’t need no stinkin’ memory!

I’ve occasionally referred to my Pocket PC and, by extension, the Internet, as “my other brain.” Turns out I’m not alone: Almost without noticing it, we’ve outsourced important peripheral brain functions to the silicon around us. And frankly, I kind of like it.Yeah, me too.

Happy belated Sputnik Day!

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the launch of the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. Alan Boyle at Cosmic Log has a long post packed with links about the possibilities for the next 50 years in space.

This could have come straight out of my next novel…

It’s a floating dwelling, perfect for a water world like Marseguro. And it only costs $2.5 million! (Via Gizmodo.)

Robot and human surgeons compare micro-gravity operating skills

Good news for future space travelers: the world’s first demonstration of robotic surgery in a simulated micro-gravity environment takes place this week, in a collaborative effort between SRI International and the University of Cincinnati. On four parabolic flights September 25 to 28 aboard a NASA C-9 aircraft (nicknamed the “Weightless Wonder“), a human surgeon will …

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Pulp-based computing

In computers, we have software and hardware. Jokingly, the human brain is sometimes called wetware. Up next: pulpware! OK, technically it’s hardware–wires, sensors and computer chips–embedded in paper or cardboard. A spiral of conductive ink can be a speaker, or a touch sensor. Two layers, and a page can tell when it is being bent. …

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