Few things to post today, going to do them all at the same time.
Apple is at it again. My friend Brit has posted recently about the Palm/Apple wars currently going on. Well, Apple seems to enjoy screwing people over on multiple fronts. Apple censored a DICTIONARY app created by Ninjawords because of vulgar content. Apple has already had several cases of rejecting apps for no good reason, although critics believed with the release of the 3.0 OS for the iPhone the censoring would stop. With 3.0, Parental Controls were finally put into place, which started to allow more adult oriented programs to come out. I just can’t understand Apple. It’s pure propaganda.
Onto less aggravating news. A group at the University of Tokyo has recently unveiled an amazing piece of technology. Dubbed “Touchable Holography“, it utilizes two Wiimotes as trackers for any movement and an airborne ultrasound tactile display created in the university’s lab to create the sensation of touch. It’s literally a hologram you could feel, but won’t affect the main image. Amazing piece of work. Video at the link.
Apparently Western Digital made an advancement a while back, releasing the first ever 2TB 3.5” SATA HDD. While this sort of news is quite impressive and mind-blowing, Hitachi just released a similar model, except this one runs at 7200RPMs vs. the 5400RPMs of the WD model.
Continuing its tradition of being first-to-market with industry leading hard drives, Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) today announced that it is now shipping the world’s first, two terabyte (2TB), 7200 RPM hard disk drive (HDD). The new, colossal, 2TB Deskstar™ 7K2000 blends high performance and high capacity with low power and other eco-friendly features designed to enable Energy-Star rated computers and other high performance desktop systems.
Leveraging a solid track record for reliability, the new Deskstar 7K2000 is now in its fourth-generation using the company’s unique five-platter design with relaxed bit density and proven perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) technology. Couple this with an ultra-quiet operation, a 32MB cache and a 3Gb/s SATA interface, and the new Deskstar 7K2000 is the ideal desktop drive for power users, gamers or anyone looking for a big, fast hard drive.
Lastly, Phillips will be the new hate monger amongst the DUI groups. Philips has developed a roadside drug test device.
It uses nanotechnology and instead of blowing like you’d do for the alcohol test, you spit. Then after 90 seconds it gives a color coded read out. It will detect any cocaine, heroin, cannabis, amphetamines and methamphetamine.
Fortunately, this is set to come out in December, and only has a planned release for Europe. So the American public is safe for a while longer, but I think this has two sides to it. One the one side, drug use is obviously going to be much more difficult to “sneak” if mobile tests are cheap and quick. However, one of the biggest blocks to legalizing marijuana, in my opinion, has been a lack of ability to test for use in someone. Having to go to the Police station or to the hospital is a terribly time-consuming task, and previously this was the only legal method for testing for such drugs. Now that mobility is an option, legalization seems much more plausible, especially if the device has any sort of scale to the results.
That is all.