Technology

These days, it seems as if cash payments are settled using every medium but cash itself. Gone are the days of fumbling around in a purse or wallet to find the exact change needed to make a purchase. While cash is always an accepted tender, many now ... prefer to use debit or credit cards to alleviate wasted time and hassle. Several major banks and mobile operators all over Europe have come together to ensure that one more method of payment will be offered to consumers in the near future. The group assembled to talk about the possibility of enabling future cell phone models to act as a wireless ... (view more)

Wouldn't it be great if air conditioning didn't suck the life out of your car (and your wallet)? Well, hybrid energy is getting a major face lift, all in the name of finding a separate power source for the air conditioning in hybrid vehicles. Rumors ... in the Japanese media are swirling that the next generation Prius may be the first hybrid car to include solar panels. Although Toyota has not made an official announcement, the media has jumped on the story. (Source: efluxmedia.com ) Thus far, the Prius has sold over 1 million vehicles and is due for its third edition soon. The new solar-panel ... (view more)

Engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have introduced a new kind of technology that could dramatically increase the independence of people living with severe disabilities. The technology powers a system that allows individuals with ... limited or no use of their extremities to operate a computer, power a wheelchair, and interact with the world around them without any assistance. How does it work? Individuals with severe disabilities would be equipped with small magnets (each the size of a grain of rice) attached to their tongue. The system, called Tongue Drive, would allow users to ... (view more)

IBM's latest work, the Chocolate Genome Project, isn't a wacky codename for a new game: it's a genuine attempt to uncover the DNA of the cocoa bean. The firm is teaming up with confectionary giant Mars and the US Department of Agriculture to track ... the genetic coding which makes up the bean used for chocolate production. The idea is to learn enough to isolate variants of the bean which can survive the growing problems of dry climates, fungi and insect attacks which have driven prices up by half in the past year, threatening many farmers' livelihoods. Around 6.5 million farmers depend on cocoa ... (view more)

T-Mobile recently announced a new home phone plan that will eliminate the age-old attachment we have to landlines. The new T-Mobile@Home plan will use a wireless router to send and receive calls: "calls are transmitted from a handset to the Internet ... through the T-Mobile router; then, the call is completed through the use of voice-over-Internet-protocol technology." (Source: enews20.com ) Many cell-phone users prefer to retain their home phone and use their cells merely for convenience. Some also feel safer knowing that they have a fail-safe phone line at home, that won't have the problems of ... (view more)

Chrysler is planning to introduce a new feature in most of their 2009 models which will transform their vehicles into a traveling hot spot for mobile web access. This will be the first time WiFi will be available in vehicles on a mass scale. If you ... have even been stuck waiting for a train to pass or parked in front of those early-morning, never-ending red lights, you know what a frustrating time-waster each of these interruptions are. In these situations people may very well turn to cursing, playing the bongos on the steering wheel, or honking their horn at no one in particular. But what if ... (view more)

In a strange but visionary move, the city of Philadelphia re-started a plan to offer free out-of-doors wireless access throughout the city. The project was initially planned for 2005, but stopped production last week after complaints of signal ... weaknesses. The original project, run by EarthLink, also suffered from "cost overruns, spotty coverage, rapidly rising expenses, and unenthusiastic acceptance by paying subscribers." At that time 6,000 of the city's 1.4 million citizens had registered for the service. (Source: wirelessphiladephia.org ) The current project consists of wireless ... (view more)

It seems every polling day sees pundits hyping up "the first real Internet-era election", but the 2008 US Presidential race really has brought us close to that point. A study of 2,251 adults suggests that 46% of Americans have followed the elections ... either through the Internet or via text message. That's up from around 33% in 2004. However, that figure is a little vague as it incorporates gathering information, sharing opinions and influencing others -- three activities which most likely cover very different numbers of people. (Source: cnet.com ) And yet, the study did also find 35% of adults ... (view more)

The competition between microprocessing developers has reached new heights, as each attempt to cram the most power into the tiniest possible space. IBM is looking to cool down their vertically-stacked chips by using one of the most abundant and ... natural sources on earth: water. The company is certain that water would be a much more efficient source than air at absorbing heat, even if the amount of water being used is minute. One potential danger associated with downsizing chips is that the circuits in these processors, although miniature in size, still generate a considerable amount of heat. ... (view more)

A collection of entrepreneurs are now hoping to do for billboards what clicks have done for Internet advertisers. Billboards are slowly becoming equipped with small cameras that record the age, gender and duration of time consumers stare at ... advertisements. The information is then transmitted to a central database for analysis. Advertisers measure the success of their products by paying close attention to the demographics of their audience. This data can easily be collected if extracted via Internet, television, and print resources, but what about seemingly immeasurable advertisements like ... (view more)