Technology

Imagine not being able to recognize your mother's face -- or even your own. It sounds like the plot of the next big Hollywood science fiction movie -- but for 48-year-old Bill Choisser, it's real life. From Wired.com: "During the 1970s, as a ... small-town lawyer in the Illinois Ozarks, [Bill Choisser] struggled to convince clients that he was competent even though he couldn't find them in court. He never greeted the judges when he passed them on the street -- everyone looked similarly blank to him -- and he developed a reputation for arrogance. His father, also a lawyer, told him to pay more ... (view more)

U.S. soldiers must now be fearful of invasion, even when back in the comfort of their own homes. Unlike the fears of physical invasion experienced on the battlefield, soldiers must now be weary of an invasion of privacy coming from the very same ... military they represent during times of war. A Virginia-based military surveillance company, Army Web Risk Assessment Cell, is monitoring all soldier blogs and Internet posts to avoid the leaking of vital information that may jeopardize the security of the U.S. military. Among the most detrimental items being pursued are official military documents, ... (view more)

An Australian-based software company has developed an innovative health program that aims at targeting employees with unhealthy habits. After seeing the stereotypes of computer programmers and software developers on a daily basis, Altiris has ... decided to motivate their employees with special incentives in an effort to help make better choices in the daily lives of their employees. (Source: networkworld.com ) The company hopes to encourage employees to avoid long hours in front of a computer, eating large amounts of junk food, and getting very little sleep at night. (Source: networkworld.com ) ... (view more)

Hoping to set an example of environmental responsibility for American corporations, Google Inc. is converting its California-based headquarters to run partly on solar power. Google's solar power project was announced during a solar energy conference ... in Silicon Valley last week. Largest Corporate Solar Power Endeavor Being hailed as the largest solar power endeavour by a U.S. corporation, Google is planning on installing over 9,200 solar panels on its Mountain View campus by next spring. The installed solar panels will deliver 1.6 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power ... (view more)

T-Mobile has recently unveiled the new "Dash" phone, set for release on October 25th. The Dash, which has been compared to the already popular Motorola "Q," is ready to enter the market as the hot new must-have phone for high-end tech users. The ... Dash is an offspring of T-Mobile's MDA and SDA phones: it includes a keyboard, WiFi connectivity, and runs on the Windows Mobile Smartphone 5 operating system. The 4.2 ounce Dash boasts a 2.5 inch screen with 320x240 resolution and a cursor pad above the soft-key keyboard. Other features include a 1.3 megapixel digital camera, 68MB of free storage ... (view more)

Microsoft recently announced its plan to include advertisements via MSN's Windows Live Search for Mobile service. The interactive advertisements will appear after a relevant search; when the ad is clicked, the phone will place a call to the ... requested destination. Users will not be charged to run a search, but advertisers will be charged on a pay-per-call basis. (Source: redherring.com ) To provide this service, the Microsoft is partnering with San Francisco-based company Ingenio. In 2004, Ingenio launched the industry's leading pay-per-call advertising network. In a nutshell, the network ... (view more)

Recent research conducted at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California suggests that you can be accurately distinguished by your "clickprint" while surfing the web. So... What is a Clickprint? Professor Balaji Padmanabhan, a ... clickprint researcher, defines a clickprint as a "unique pattern of web surfing behavior based on actions such as the number of pages viewed per session, the number of minutes spent on each page, the time or day of the week the page is visited, and so on." Like a fingerprint, a clickprint is unique to you and only you. (Source: technology.guardian.co ... (view more)

Late last week, Microsoft unveiled the newest update to its 12-year old Microsoft Home -- a conceptual model that showcases possible future technologies and how they would be integrated into the everyday home and family life. What is the Microsoft ... Home? Since its launch in 1994, the Microsoft Home has been a jump off point for new ways of thinking about how technology potentially impacts our the day-to-day existence. Developers from the software giant's Consumer Prototyping and Strategy Team have partnered with research staff and product groups to generate revolutionary and future-focused ... (view more)

Moviegoers may always have Paris -- to quote the famous line from Casablanca -- but will they always have access to their cell phones once the theater lights go down? Many of the people who voted in a recent UK newspaper poll actually hope not. The ... reason is obvious: no one likes being interrupted by an annoying "ring tone" in the middle of a movie. (Source: arstechnica.com ) Sadly, most theater owners don't seem to be doing much to combat the problem -- at least not enough to ease the frustrations of their fed-up customers. Over 80 percent of the poll-takers chastised managers for being ... (view more)

Announced earlier this week, a group of technology companies are planning to provide a vast wireless network that will give the entire Silicon Valley free high-speed Internet access. The free WiFi service will be available as early as next year and ... will be provided by Silicon Valley Metro Connect: a group that is comprised of IBM, Cisco, SeaKay, and Azulstar. (Source: abcnews.com ) Silicon Valley Metro Connect will provide the service for 38 cities in California's San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda, and Santa Cruz counties -- an area covering roughly 1,500 square miles. This move takes advantage ... (view more)