Hello all. Almost time for a sunny weekend. But before you go, I thought you might want one more edition of The Daily Grind
Before you star the grind though, take a minute to check out the review of Life of Brian posted today. Some needed information in there as you await the release of this classic in your town. Go on, read it. I’ll wait…..
…………
Done? Good, and now onto the Grind……
But will it only play ATRAC format? Regular readers of The Grind know that I suffer from gadget lust almost daily. But when I came across reviews for the new Sony U70 Tablet PC I was smitten even more than usual. Billed as the smallest full functioning PC available, the U70 sports some modest but effective hardware in a form factor that can be easily hauled all over and back again. With a 1GHz processor, 512 Mb of memory and a 20Gb hard drive, the pen based tablet PC should be able to handle almost anything the Road Warrior might want to do. And with a form factor of less than 8" x 6" it should fit neatly into almost any bag.
And if you buy this, I’ve got a bridge to sell you. It seems that the folks at Audio Advisor are big fans of wishful thinking and Defense Department contracts. How esle can you explain a $744 AC power cord? At that price I expect it to come with a 19" plasma screen attached to the far end.
Still one of the most interesting people I never want to meet. It seems that one of my favorite bloggers, Jawa has been pondering the need for mythical heros for todays youth. And as always, he has some off beat but thought provoking suggestions.
Face it. Youth have the attention spans of puppies. If you want to communicate with them, you have to be quick, clear and concise. Especially nowadays. ￜJust Say Noￜ is quick, itￜs to the point. You start on that ￜIt takes a lot of gutsￜ and youￜre screwed because kids are already tuning out. What they hear is ￜIt takes a lot of guts to talk to a friend about I wonder if thereￜs any pudding left.ￜ
The Cyborgs are coming. But maybe its not a bad thing. In the quest to control machinery with the mind alone, the folks at Washington University, St Louis Mo have taken a big step. They have managed to allow patients to play video games with their minds by embedding sensors on the surface of the brain.
They then asked the patients to play a simple, one-dimensional computer game involving moving a cursor up or down towards one of two targets. They were asked to imagine various movements or imagine saying the word "move," but not to actually perform them with their hands or speak any words by mouth. When they saw the cursor in the video game, they then controlled it with their brains.
I am still waiting for my hands free keyboard, but in the mean time, this shows real promise for people with disablitites.
Lassie! Bring me last week’s Sunday Times. Seems a well trained border collie is giving researchers some new things to ponder when it comes to animal intelligence. Rico, a 10 year old pooch can apparently identify over 200 objects by name and retrieve them, even when they are out of site. What’s even more amazing is the dogs apparent ability to associate a previously unseen object with a new word and retrieve that object from amongst a pile of its other toys.
When they put a new object into a room filled with old objects, Rico was able to fetch it 7 out of 10 times, evidently figuring out that the new word he was given must refer to the new object.
Four weeks later, he apparently remembered this new word about half the time. "This retrieval rate is comparable to the performance of 3-year-old toddlers," the researchers wrote.
Next you’ll be telling me that three year old children can be trained too!
Well, that’s all for today. Enjoy your weekend and remeber if you drop your keys on the interstate, just leave them there.
