Science

Interested in taking advantage of your that expensive high definition TV by watching movies in the increasingly popular high-def Blu-ray movie format, but still not sure if it's worth buying a player that can't display your massive collection of ... standard DVD discs? An answer may be on the way from Infinity Storage Media, which has released the first hybrid Blu-ray/DVD disc in the Land of the Rising Sun. Although it limped out of the gates in its race against HD-DVD several years ago (primarily because its competitor's hardware offerings were much cheaper), by gobbling up the majority of major ... (view more)

How much do you love robots? Enough to max out three credit cards building one? Well, Le Trung has done just that in creating Aiko, a 'femme-bot' boasting a vocabulary comprised of 13,000 English and Japanese phrases and capable of distinguishing ... 300 faces per second. Trung, a native of Brampton, Ontario, has been building robots his whole life. He built his first for a science fair in grade four; it couldn't do much, just shoot fake bullets and move about a little bit. Teachers weren't pleased when one of those fake bullets hit another child, either. "You get disqualified if you make a ... (view more)

Need $10,000? Who doesn't? A University of Calgary student might be in luck after making a once-in-a-lifetime find on the Canadian prairies. On November 20th, a meteor careened through the sky and crashed into a frozen pond not far from ... Lloydminster, Saskatchewan. At the time, property owner Ian Mitchell was helping his son get ready for a hockey game, and didn't hear about the event until other players began to show up, excitedly discussing the otherworldly event. Neither they nor Mitchell knew the rare lightshow had come to and end on the hockey Dad's ranch. (Source: edmontonsun.com ) ... (view more)

Have you ever wondered how we will purchase things in the future? TiVo and Domino's Pizza have joined together to provide yet another alternative to traditional retail shopping. In the very near future, users can order a new release with their ... digital remote and use their TiVo to order a pizza to compliment the movie. Sounds far-fetched? It's actually pretty neat. Analysts predict that within 3 years, a number of major companies will experiment with digital television retail. The move shows that Domino's hopes to establish themselves as a pioneer in this emerging field. Many believe that ... (view more)

Remember the 1991 film, "The Rocketeer", where a young pilot uses a jetpack prototype to become a masked vigilante and win the heart of Jennifer Connelly? That scenario isn't as far-fetched as it once was, given that an American stuntman recently ... used a jetpack to soar over Colorado's Royal Gorge. The stuntman in question is one Eric Scott, who recently appeared on CBS' Early Show and a variety of local cable channels after making his daring leap. Scott has been testing jetpack devices for some 16 years, and was confident that he wouldn't plummet to his untimely death when he straddled the ... (view more)

Are you disappointed with those graphics in your favorite PC games? Not pleased that you have to turn down the resolution on games like Crysis or Far Cry 2? Well, if you've got $3,500 to shell out, Nvidia has a product for you: the Quadro FX 5800, ... the most powerful graphics card ever made. Nvidia truly has revealed the Lamborghini of graphics cards. The Quadra FX 5800 boasts an astounding 4 GB of graphics memory and up to 240 Cuda programmable parallel cores. Interactive 4D modeling is also one of its best new features, in addition to a memory bandwidth of 102 GB per second. Fill rates for ... (view more)

Ever had your car stolen? The feeling one gets when approaching an empty parking space is of almost unsurpassed revulsion and horror. Well, now police are starting to fight back against car thieves, and they're doing it with a combination of ... technology and hard-nosed detective work. Car theft is certainly a rampant problem. In 2006, nearly 1.2 million cars were stolen in the United States, and although that's down about 3.5 per cent, the problem is still one of America's most concerning and popular crimes. (Source: auto-theft.info ) However, the popular "bait car" program might be ... (view more)

Tests at the University of Washington have shown it's possible to reroute brain signals to move paralysed limbs. The results could eventually lead to treatment for spinal injury victims. The study works on the idea that, although spinal injuries ... damage the connections which carry nerve signals, victims usually retain both the muscles in the affected limb and the use of the motor cortex, the part of the brain which controls movement. Unlike some parts of the brain, which work on a 'use it or lose it' basis, studies have shown people can retain full control over the motor cortex even after ... (view more)

While none of us look forward to growing another year older, there are some birthdays that are better than others. Among the most prolific is our "sweet sixteen" where for many of us, the dream of being able to operate a vehicle on our own terms ... becomes a reality. The first few years are all the same: the constant begging to use the family car on any given weekend is matched with stressed warnings by our parents to reduce our driving speed, turn down the radio and buckle up for safety. While we always practice "safe driving" when our parents are riding with us, the rules all change when we ... (view more)

At first glance, the Fitbit Tracker looks like an ordinary exercise device used for counting steps, recording calories burned, etc. However, the small gadget has received a great deal of attention from many of the tech industry's major players. What ... makes the Fitbit Tracker so special? It is the first of its kind to use accelerometers for data extraction purposes. In a nutshell, accelerometers are chips that measure acceleration, movement and gravity forces. This is what fuels popular motion-sensitive products like the Nintendo Wii and Apple iPhone. The cost of implementing an accelerometer ... (view more)