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Biotech

Brain Controlled Virtual World for the Disabled 57

Galactic_grub writes "New Scientist Tech has a story about a virtual world that paralyzed patients can explore using their thoughts. The set-up connects a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) to virtual reality so that a person can 'walk' through it, simply by thinking of moving their legs or their left or right hand. Electrodes are attached to their scalp and electroencephalogram (EEG) readings are used to navigate, or control an avatar. The story includes a video of the experiment."
Power

Ford Airstream Electric Concept Car 202

Not to be upstaged by GM's plug-in electric concept vehicle, Ford has unveiled its own concept. The twists are design by Airstream and a hydrogen-powered fuel cell to charge the battery. From the AutoblogGreen article: "The fuel cell, made by Ballard, turns on automatically when the battery charge dips below 40 percent. With the on-board charger (110/220 VAC), the battery pack can be refilled at home. Ford says the HySeries Drive is 50 percent smaller and less complex than conventional fuel cell system and should have more than double the lifetime."

DS Sells 20 million, 17 Million More by March 2007 115

Wowzer writes "Nintendo announced today that sales of its hand-held, dual-screened video game player, the Nintendo DS, have topped 20 million worldwide (guesstimates say 21,270,000). Nintendo expects DS (Lite) sales to be 17 million between April 2006 and March 2007. From today's financial report: 'The company raised its full-year sales forecast of the DS handheld game players to 17 million units for the year ending March 2007, up from 16 million unit sales projection made in May. Sales of DS game titles are projected to rise to 75 million units, from 70 million.' The report refers to PSP owners as just combat-game fans, while the DS is said to target a wider audience with more diverse games such as the 6 million seller Nintendogs." I will say, I was very skeptical when I first heard about the DS and the split screen — but having played a number of different games, I've found I like it. But I have not played Nintendogs, unlike some other people I know.

AMD Slashing Prices Still Not Enough? 159

PeterN writes to tell us that after hearing the announcement that AMD was slashing prices on their processors by 47%, TG Daily looked a bit deeper and found that it still might not be enough. From the article: "For AMD's planned price drop for its dual-core processors to enable the company to regain its aggressive price/performance competitive position against Intel as it has promised, the company would have to reduce its existing Athlon 64 X2 and Athlon FX prices by between 38% and 56% for its various models, with cuts averaging about 51%. This estimate is based on a comprehensive price/performance review of Intel's soon-to-be-released Core 2 Extreme and Core 2 Duo processors, along with its existing Pentium D dual-core line, pitted against AMD's FX-62, FX-60, and Athlon 64 X2 processors in Tom's Hardware Guide tests."

ATI and AMD Seek Approval for Merger? 229

Krugerlive writes "The rumor of an ATI/AMD merger/buyout has been out now for sometime. However, this morning an Inquirer article has said that a merger deal has been struck and that the two companies will seek shareholder approval on Monday of next week. In the market, AMD is down as a result of lackluster earnings announced last evening, and ATI is up about 4% on unusually high volume." This is nothing but a rumour at the moment, a point that C|Net makes in examining the issue. From the article: "AMD has always boasted that it only wants to make processors, leaving networking and chipsets to others. AMD does produce some chipsets, but mostly just to get the market started. Neutrality has helped the company garner strong allies."

Microsoft to Support ODF via Plug-In 269

Apache4857 writes "It appears that Microsoft has finally caved. BetaNews is reporting that Microsoft is sponsoring an open source project to enable conversion between Open XML in Office 2007 and OpenDocument formats. The project, hosted on Sourceforge.net, made its initial release today. The Word 2007 conversion utility is expected to ship ship by the end of 2006, and similarly conversion utilities for Excel and PowerPoint are expected early next year." See the announcement in Brian Jones' blog (Jones is the Microsoft program manager responsible for Office file formats).

Downloadable Film Commentaries Becoming Popular? 101

FilmFan writes "Now that Kevin Smith is offering a downloadable commentary for Clerks 2, will other Directors follow in his footsteps? Some studios think so and are already offering similar content for shows such as Battlestar Galactica, Dr. Who, and Star Trek: Enterprise. Other websites offer fan-created content and even offer a free DVD player capable of playing these downloaded commentaries in sync with a DVD."

Microsoft Loses Appeal in Guatemalan Patent Claim 174

Spy der Mann writes "A year ago, Guatemalan inventor Carlos Armando Amado sued Microsoft for stealing an Office idea he had tried to sell them in '92. They were found to be infringing on his patent and had to pay him $9 million in damages, but they refused and appealed the decision. Today, just a year after they appealed, the Court confirmed the verdict: Microsoft loses. If that wasn't enough, the amount was raised to $65 million for continuing infringement."

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