Mulled Marc

CNN is running a three-part series on what the future entails. Their first article includes predictions from veteran futurist Ray Kurzweil who believes that the very near future will resemble the Christian Heaven. Due to the rapid advancement and adoption of new technologies and the exponential growth of computer processing power, humans and machines will merge into a new all-knowing, perhaps body-less being.

By the end of the twenty-first century humans will have no need of bodies — they will be software based, able to change their form at will, even adopt the ethereal form of a swarm of nanobots and download whatever they need from the Internet. They will have become like angels.

ScienCentralNews has a story about a liquid nanoparticle mixture that is being developed into armor for troops. The liquid can be infused into fabrics to provide protection to any body part while only increasing the weight by 20%. Under normal conditions the fabric would flow like normal, but when impacted it would stiffen in less than a millisecond to spread the force of the impact and protect the wearer from the projectile. Demonstrations have shown that the treated fabric can prevent bullets from penetrating.

via Digg

The CEA has responded to the entertainment industry’s attempts to eliminate them by alienating their customers with an ad in Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper. The ad highlights some of the notable attempts to cry wolf in the past, none of which reigned destruction on the planet as predicted.

via BoingBoing

Engadget has an article (with pictures) of how to wire your VOIP adapter to your existing landline phone wiring. You have to watch out for how many phones you put on the loop since they draw power from the line, but it’s a relatively simple hookup.
via Engadget

OK…..it sounds crazy, I know, but how else could you word the Title? A Waterloo-based company, RenewABILITY Energy Inc, has a patent-pending invention to warm cold water by wrapping the cold water pipe around the warm drain water pipe to effeciently warm the cold water. He estimates that cold water temperature could be raised 10-25 degrees Celsius, which would require less hot water for showers, dishwashers, etc.

Read more at the University of Waterloo Alumni Site.

via Gizmodo

ScienCentralNews has an article about MIT’s efforts to create a next generation battery using nanotechnology capacitors. The nanotubes allow them to increase the surface area of the battery’s electrodes, which increases the storage capacity of the batteries.

The advantage of using capacitors rather than a chemical reaction is that these new batteries could be recharged in seconds without the degradation over time that plagues traditional rechargable batteries. The MIT group is working on a prototype and hopes they will be in the marketplace within five years.

via Gizmodo

According to the JadeIntegration website:

Jade Integration will be providing hands-on demonstrations of the world’s first computer that’s so small it fits in a network wall port! This is the first time the ‘Jack PC’ has been exhibited in the UK so see it here first!

The Jack PC is a thin client PC running Windows CE, with an ICA client, RDP client, and IE 6. It can be powered through a plug on the front or via Power over Ethernet.

via Gizmodo