Rachael Griffin

The next few years in the auto industry may bring about some interesting changes in the world of hybrid energy. Rather than worry about making gas-guzzling standard SUVs cheaper to operate, industry powerhouse Honda will seek an edge in the hybrid ... market by focusing exclusively on compact and subcompact hybrid vehicles. While competitors are trying to lure customers by making their desired large sedans and SUV's hybrid, Honda has decided to ignore that part of the hybrid market. The reason: Honda believes hybrid compacts and subcompacts are where the real energy savings are. By comparison, ... (view more)

They're the stuff of Disney fantasy and childhood dreams, but invisibility cloaks are something University of California scientists stay they are one step closer to developing. The scientists at the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center, lead by ... Xiang Zhang, are creeping closer to perfecting 'metamaterials', artificially engineered structures that have properties not seen in nature, such as negative refractive index. These metamaterials have recently undergone successful tests allowing scientists to cloak 3-D objects. The technology works when the metamaterials scatter the light that ... (view more)

It's no secret that the Olympics are big business. Big for development, tourism, and of course cable networks. Not to be outdone NBC, Microsoft, and Google have joined the drive to bring Olympic coverage to as many people as possible. The trio have ... launched initiatives allowing simplified searches of Olympic events and results. This plan should be welcomed by people on-the-go, who can watch events on their smartphones. It's also handy for those who don't have access to cable TV, and rely on their computers for news and entertainment. How does it work? By downloading a Microsoft web browser, ... (view more)

The Nikon Coolpix fleet just expanded. Six new cameras were recently introduced by the company, some of which include pretty exciting features like WiFi, GPS, and even touch screens. Starting in September, the S60, P6000, S610C, S610, S560 and S710 ... will become available to consumers. Nikon is releasing six new cameras in an attempt to target different areas of the point-and-shoot market. All, however, include standard features such as "Scene Auto Selector," which pre-judges what setting your camera should be on for the environment you are shooting in, as well as smil detection and Blink ... (view more)

Now that Blu-ray has defeated HD-DVD, the technology has scored yet another victory. Beginning in the fall, LG will begin distributing its new BD300 Blu-ray player, a device with features that should mean it flies off shelves once available. The ... BD300 includes 1080p up-conversion, but the kicker is for those customers with a Netflix subscription: movies streaming from the company. (Source: arstechnica.com ) Netflix is part of the new generation of movie rentals. Users can choose a set price per month and enjoy unlimited movie rentals. The price gradations depend on the number of movies rented ... (view more)

CSI cast members take note, a new technology called DESI (desorption electrospray ionisation) can tell much more from fingerprints than someone's identity. The system, pioneered by chemists at Purdue University in Indiana, "involves spraying a tiny ... (0.15x0.15mm) area of a fingerprint with an electrically charged mixture of methanol and water. When these charged droplets come into contact with the surface of the print they collect any substances deposited on it, creating a thin liquid film. As more drops are sprayed on the same spot, some of this film is scattered and sucked into a mass ... (view more)

Google has upgraded its Google Search Appliance, making it better and smaller. The "Google for the office" appliance is a box (previously a rack of 5) that can store and search through 10 million documents. Usually sold to large businesses and ... government in a refrigerator-sized rack, the new version offers the same punch in a smaller package. The boxes run on Dell storage hardware but use Google software for searching. New features include greater security encryption and the ability to search in 27 languages and deliver results in 40. The system can also provide notifications when documents ... (view more)

Chinese Internet use is notoriously restricted, which may explain why Google -- a North American cultural icon -- is not the major search engine used by the nation's Internet-connected public. Instead, Baidu is to the Chinese what Google is to the ... rest of the world. Within China, Google has only 26 percent of the search market share, while Baidu holds 63 percent. (Source: crn.com ) Google may be edging in through the launch of a free music search program. How? Baidu is the main gateway for Internet music piracy in China, where less than 1 percent of music downloads are legal. Google's new ... (view more)

Your turn on Scrabulous? Too bad. As of July 29, 2008 the popular application will no longer be available to Facebook subscribers in Canada and the US. Before it was disabled, the app closely resembling Hasbro and Mattel's board game Scrabble had ... over half a million players daily. The battle began in January as legal dispute between the Agarwalla brothers (Scrabulous' Indian developers) and the two distributors of Scrabble (Hasbro in Canada, Mattel in the United States). Both toy companies accused the Agarwalla's RJ Software company of intellectual property infringement. Currently, it is ... (view more)

According to a recent Chinese government tally, 253 million people in the country regularly use the Internet, giving China the largest Internet using population in the world. This number is more than double the 137 million users counted just two ... years ago. China has for some time been considered the world's next economic powerhouse. As western nations like the United States slow in production and development, rising countries like China and India are expected to be next in line for huge industry booms. But industry is not the only indicator that these countries are steaming into the twenty- ... (view more)