Mix the flip form factor with the classic iPod look and you get what GE CEO Jeff Immelt calls the “stethoscope of the 21st century”. Like it’s emplacement-worthy cousin, the Vscan features an ultrasound scanner connected via cord to the main unit, transmitting what it sees into the display. It’s easy to see why GE’s marketing wants to push Vscan as the stethoscope of the future: while the marketese “roughly the size of a smart phone” is a bit of a stretch, the Vscan is small enough to hold with one hand, with the other operating the scanner. The whole …read more

Turns out creating the most useless gadget ever is easy: simply build a machine designed to turn itself off. Flip the on switch and machine dutifully pushes the switch back to “off”.
As you can see, the machine will insist on turning itself off even after as the user repeatedly pushes the switch back to “on”. Why is this the most useless gadget ever? Simply because it uses up energy without providing a foundation for any productive activity whatsoever. You probably think that criterion applies to all of your most-hated gadgets, but here’s a machine that makes the concept literal.

Wow, Asus was really active last year! According to the Wall Street Journal, Asus released a new Eee model every six weeks. A little too much you might say? Asus chairman and founder, Jonney Shih agrees with you:

“We might have offered too many models because of our competitive engineering culture,” Mr. Shih said, adding that the company won’t repeat this mistake. This year, Asustek plans to release three new versions.
Aside from competitiveness, another reason cited for this rapid pace of release makes sense: Asus realized that customers weren’t really going for the original Eee’s relatively miniscule keyboard and lack of …read more

There are plans in the Philippines to offer a PHP 100 million reward (a bit over $2 million) to anyone who can find holes in the automated election system for the country’s 2010 elections. This Monday, Philippine Senator Alan Peter Cayetano will file a resolution seeking to allocate that much money from the automation project’s $230 million budget.

As Technograph reports:
Cayetano, at a press conference Friday, said that if any IT expert can establish that the system to be used in the 2010 polls is not secure from fraud and tampering, “Comelec should cancel the contract, save the P11 billion and …read more

Crank up your volume a bit, so you can hear what’s going on here:
So what do you think of the above? Personally, I don’t think the scanner actually played the Imperial March from Star Wars. My “proof”? Watch the beginning of the sequence again: the scanner moves consistently, yet the “note” changes to accommodate the melody.
Although I do think some modding was done to make the scanner assembly follow a routine. And the planning and hard work that made that necessary—even though ultimately useless—deserves some credit.
(PS: If you’re wondering what the Imperial March is, let me first pity you, then …read more

Current Earphone Controllers Don’t Work with 3G iPod Shuffles
Quad-Core Toshiba X305-Q725 Notebook Reviewed
V-Moda and Scosche Working on iPod Shuffle Compatible Earphones
Calling on All For-Sale Sites: Require Serial Numbers!
AT&T to Offer Unsubsidized iPhone 3G

Lawmaker John Manangsang, seeking to curb his province’s high-rate of HIV infections, has proposed a law where HIV/AIDS patients will be implanted with microchips to facilitate their tracking. The plan is to stay on top of their location, and “punish” them if they infect a healthy person.
How knowing someone’s location will help curb the spread of AIDs isn’t clear, unless you use that information to maintain constant surveillance, in which is very wrong. It’s easy to understand Manangsang’s reasons for pushing this program, but before we know it people could be implanted with RFID chips simply because they suffer from …read more

Check out these iPhone-themed cupcakes, which recently won some cupcake decorating contest. A little rough on the edges, but you can be forgiving when pastries are involved. Besides, they look so yummy, it’s to imagine competitors wishing they could eat Apple’s “significant” competition away. (laughingsquid.com)

Goldsmiths, of the University of London, has developed a software system that translates sound into radiating concentric circles on a screen. The Lumisonic theoretically allows the deaf to “see” sounds and hopefully react and interact with them, and controls how it presents the circles based on the pitch of the input audio.

Ok, check out the video below of Obscura Digital’s VisionAire technology, which allows real-time manipulation of holograms:

But wait, wasn’t Minority Report’s slick 3D interface (which the above is very reminiscent of) listed as one of the Top 10 Movie Usability bloopers by expert Jakob Nielsen? His point was that “it’s very tiring to keep your arms in the air while using a computer”. And, as this post gets typed out, it’s easy to see that the keyboard is still the fastest way to do things. (dvice.com)