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Feed Air Force taps Microvision to develop wearable displays (engadget.com)

Filed under: Wearables


HMDs may be slow to catch on with the general public (despite some companies best efforts), but the U.S. Air Force certainly seems to be sold on them, awarding Microvision a $3.2 million contract to build 'em some custom gear. Under the deal, the company is promising to deliver a "lightweight, see-through, full-color eyewear display prototype" that's a good deal more "wearable" than some of the displays now in use (as seen above). Eventually, the company says the displays will be as small as protective eyewear or "high-fashion sunglasses." Not surprisingly, the company also foresees a few advantageous side-effects to the deal, saying that it won't only accelerate the available of displays for the military, but for consumer, industrial and medical markets as well.

[Via I4U News]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!


Google

Submission + - Google search by employer not illegal, say judges

An anonymous reader writes: A court of appeals for the federal circuit has upheld a ruling (PDF) against a man who sued his former employer for Googling his name before firing him. He had accused his former employer of participating in "ex parte" communications — off-the-record communications that are used to play a part in the final outcome of a decision — that ultimately affected the decision to fire him from his job. However, the three-judge panel ruled that an ex parte communication did not occur in the case when the employer used Google.

The man in question, David Mullins, was a government employee at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Weather Forecast Office in Indianapolis, IN. Through a series of events, Mullins' employer found that he had misused his government vehicle and government funds for his own purposes — such as sleeping in his car and falsifying hotel documents to receive reimbursements, withdrawing unauthorized amounts of cash from the company card, traveling to destinations sometimes hundreds of miles away from where he was supposed to be (and using his company card to fill up on gas there), and spending company time to visit friends and/or his children. Mullins' supervisor provided a 23-page document listing 102 separate instances of misconduct.

Mullins took issue with a Google search that Capell performed just before authorizing his firing. During this Google search, Capell found that Mullins had been fired from his previous job at the Smithsonian Institution and had been removed from Federal Service by the Air Force. Mullins argued that his right to fundamental fairness was violated when Capell performed the search and that she committed perjury when she stated that the search did not influence her decision to fire him.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070510-goog le-search-by-employer-not-illegal-say-judges.html

Comment California Democratic Party v. Jones (Score 1) 363

Read the Supreme Court decision: basically, states are only allowed to regulate the internal business of political parties (such as how a Party chooses its nominees) up to the point where those parties are "state actors" -- which is a pretty strict test. Parties are private organizations; if the state of Florida decides it wants to hold a Primary election on January 29th, so be it, but it has *absolutely no expectation* that those of us who are Democrats from the rest of the country will honor the results. In fact, we have rules ( http://www.demconvention.com/a/2007/03/delegate_se lect.html ) to the contrary.

It's not unusual at all. Idaho has a Primary on May 27th; because the Idaho Primary is *not* restricted to people who are willing to commit to being Democrats (again, in response to the Jones decision), we have a *binding* caucus which has recently been moved up to Feb. 5th. I believe the Republicans here actually observe the Primary for Presidential delegate selection (that's *their* business), but the only part of it that is binding for Democrats is the election of down-ballot candidates (and the overwhelming majority of those Democratic Primary races are generally uncontested anyway).
Security

Shredded Secret Police Files Being Reassembled 222

An anonymous reader writes "German researchers at the Frauenhofer Institute said Wednesday that they were launching an attempt to reassemble millions of shredded East German secret police files using complicated computerized algorithms. The files were shredded as the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and it became clear that the East German regime was finished. Panicking officials of the Stasi secret police attempted to destroy the vast volumes of material they had kept on everyone from their own citizens to foreign leaders."
Power

Big Red Button Disasters? 508

FredDC asks: "The Daily WTF has a story about a Big Red Button disaster. What Big Red Button disasters have you experienced? Which ones have you caused? Are there any that you've heard about, or do you know of any that can happen any day now?"

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