Web Chatting in a Bar? Make Yourself Seen and Heard Over the Din

With Webcams, what you hear is what you see — plus, much of the time, extraneous noise the microphone picks up. That noise makes it harder for people to hear what you’re saying, especially if you’re in a coffee shop or airport. Two microphones allow the Webcam to pick up sound more selectively. A new model from Creative Technology, the Live Cam Voice ($100 from www.creative.com or through major retailers), adds that second microphone and special software to minimize unwanted sounds and echoes. (A cordless headset is provided for chatting privately or to use in noisy surroundings.) If you move outside the field of view, “smart face tracking” can keep the camera and its mikes aimed your way. That field of view is a wide 85 degrees, so you can fit more of your friends in the picture, while the 4X digital zoom lets you focus in on just a face or two. With 1.3-megapixel resolution, the image will be clear even when zoomed.

source: ny times

LASER HEALING

Good news for sports stars with torn tendons. Research carried out by the US Department of Defense (DoD) shows that laser light can help heal such injuries. It could provide an alternative to glues, sutures or staples, which can all cause disfigurement and infection. And it might even be used to repair damaged eyes, its inventors claim.
DoD experts found that rose Bengal sodium, a dye commonly used to stain biological samples, absorbs light with a wavelength of 550 nanometres. In addition, instead of simply getting hotter as light is absorbed, the dye releases oxygen and catalyses the cross-linking of nearby amino acids.
So, if the dye is painted onto the sides of a torn tendon, and illuminated while the tear is held closed, collagen will bind it together and give natural healing a kick start. A lengthy patent application details numerous successful experiments carried out by the DoD's Medical Free Electron Laser Program

ROBOT THAT ARE ALL THE SERVE

To improve at racket sports, steady practice with a skilled partner helps, but it’s not always easy to arrange. But if Ping-Pong is your game, there’s a partner you can count on who is tireless, always shows up promptly and has absolutely no ego.
That perfect partner is a robot, specifically any one of several dozen robots now on the market that “play” Ping-Pong — or table tennis, the generic term. These robots don’t have the physiques of human champs — they look more like R2-D2 from “Star Wars.” And out of their robot mouths come not charming beeps and whistles, but fast-moving table tennis balls.
When friends or family are too busy to join you in the basement, you can roll one of these robots over, plug it in and set it to hurl one ball after another in successive shots across the net, providing not only intense practice, but an aerobics workout.

More...

Source: NYtimes

Plenty of Space to Sell on HD DVDs

Some car chases in movies are so over the top that you might find yourself mentally trying to add up the cost of all the wreckage.
Now Progressive Direct, a unit of the Progressive Corporation, the nation’s third-largest auto insurer, will do the math for you. It teamed up with Universal Studios Home Entertainment to insert a running tally of the destruction into the recent release of “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” on high-definition DVD. As cars smack into one another in Tokyo, a display in a small window keeps track: “Roof repair: $209; taillights: $451; fender: $618.”
The calculator is labeled Progressive Direct: Insurance Damage Estimates. This digital gauge is the first in what Universal and other studios hope will be a stream of branded interactive features on their new DVDs. Like those released in the rival Blu-ray format by Disney, Fox and other studios, the HD DVD discs issued by Universal, Paramount and Warner Brothers have up to six times as much data capacity as standard DVDs.
The extra space gives the studios room not only for high-definition video and enhanced audio, but also for a bevy of interactive features, including games, picture-in-picture commentaries and Web links. In their constant search for more movie revenue, studios see these interactive features as a new source of money to tap.
“Product placement is hard because it doesn’t all fit, but this gives us new opportunities,” said Craig Kornblau, president of Universal Studios Home Entertainment. “In the early days, it was a movie on a disc. Now we can take it anywhere,” he said, referring to product mentions.