IBM Reveals Five Innovations that Will Change Cities in the Next Five Years

IBM unveiled a list of innovations that have the potential to change how people live, work and play in cities around the globe over the next five to ten years:

· Cities will have healthier immune systems

· City buildings will sense and respond like living organisms

· Cars and city buses will run on empty

· Smarter systems will quench cities’ thirst for water and save energy

· Cities will respond to a crisis -- even before receiving an emergency phone call

An estimated 60 million people are moving to cities and urban areas each year - more than one million every week. The fourth-annual “IBM Next 5 in 5” focuses on cities because the world is experiencing unprecedented urbanization. Last year, our planet reached an important milestone - for the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population resided in cities.

IBM’s Next 5 in 5 is based on market and societal trends expected to transform cities, as well as emerging technologies from IBM’s labs around the world that have the potential to turn these predictions into reality.

Cities must simultaneously address increasing populations and deteriorating infrastructure. IBM is already working with cities around the world to make them smarter so they can sustain growth.

Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m7ticc7jnE

Read more at: http://www.physorg.com/news180296667.html

Visit: http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ideasfromibm/us/smartplanet/cities/index.shtml

Mobile Video Yellow Pages technology innovation

Bay Talkitec recognized by Dialogic USA

Targeted at 3G subscribers, the mobile video yellow pages application allows advertisers to get user feedback on products & services besides the ability to provide mobile coupons for interested users. It adds the crucial viral marketing capability which helps advertisers get more brand coverage & leads. Developed using SmartCall ADT and Dialogic HMP software for Linux, the application uses TDM based technique which cuts video streaming costs by 70% per call over packetized delivery. The mobile video yellow pages will catalyze new vistas in mobile VAS enabling mobile shopping and mobile advertising among others.

Bay Talkitec, a leading provider of next-gen unified contact center and 2.5G/ 3G VAS platform technology has been recognized by US-based Dialogic Corporation for its ''Mobile video yellow pages application". The application developed by Bay Talkitec was chosen as among the most innovative applications worldwide built on Dialogic components, in the first ever 'Innovator Award contest' organized by Dialogic. Bay Talkitec is the only Indian company to find recognition for its unique and path breaking application that responds to a SMS message by pushing a video to the senders' 3G mobile phone over a video call.

Read more at: http://pctelecoms.blogspot.com/2009/12/bay-talkitec-recognized-by-dialogic-usa.html

No Frizz

Breakthrough:
One of the most prolific inventors in medical history discovered a polymer that will tame frizzy hair, saving women thousands of dollars in hair straightening products.

Frizzy hair is the wild, seemingly out of control locks that are a major hair care problem for women. The two causes are humidity and surface friction; hair loses shape because water seeps into the hair shaft and expands it. Many women find big hair embarrassing and so to get to the root of the problem Professor Robert Langer’s team studied one thousand already available products that claim to be able to tame the tresses. The scientists discovered that traditional anti-frizz solutions rely on silicon to weigh down the hair, but it is not completely effective, as it is unable to keep out much of the moisture.

Beauty Breakthrough

So Langer searched for a molecule that would act as a water repellant. His approach was to bring an outsider’s perspective to the challenge, one without any preconceived ideas of what could or could not be done. For three years a team of scientists under his direction studied a whole suite of molecules that had been used previously in medical applications but never in the beauty industry. And that’s how Langer came across PolyfluoroEster, a man-made water-resistant compound that’s also used as a protective coating for DVDs and contact lenses. It is much smaller than traditional frizz-fighting ingredients and forms a micro-thin shield that sticks to the hair and seals the gaps in the shafts, thereby preventing water from entering. It also reduces surface friction.

In studies sponsored by the company scientists reported that a single use of No Frizz resisted moisture 30% more than the best silicon serums. That percentage went up to 60% when the product was used daily for five days.

Robert Langer’s brain is probably one of the most powerful on the planet. The MIT professor has approximately 750 worldwide patents to his name, ranging from oral contraceptives to heart valves, packaging devices and ultrasound drug delivery systems. He has authored more than 1,000 scientific papers, and is the most cited engineer in history. He has received no fewer than 170 major awards, and products developed from his technologies have saved a countless number of lives. And he has played a leading role in founding more than two dozen companies.

One of Langer’s inventions is now turning heads in the beauty world as he has come up with an innovation that will tame frizzy hair; it’s a water–resistant polymer called PolyfluoroEster. Professor Langer figured that if he could find solutions to tough medical and biotechnology challenges then he should certainly be able to do something about frizzy hair.

Check out their website: http://livingproof.com/product/nofrizz/#

Hydrogen based mobile charger

Taiwan unveils hydrogen-powered mobile phone chargers

Taiwanese researchers said Friday they have developed hydrogen-powered mobile phone chargers, in a development that could boost the island's efforts to become a player in green technologies.

The device can recharge a mobile phone battery in two hours without being plugged, according to scientists at the Industrial Technology Research Institute in north Taiwan's Hsinchu city.

"Hydrogen is a recyclable material. The device is energy-efficient and will help protect the environment," said Tsau Fanghei, a researcher at the institute. "We will continue to improve the invention. We hope the hydrogen-powered device can replace current cell phone recharge systems in 2012." Ma Hwong-wen, an environmental scientist at the National Taiwan University, said the invention appeared to be breaking new ground. "It is new," Ma said. "Hydrogen, in theory, will produce no hazard to the environment."

The charger will be key to the Taiwan government's endeavour of carving out a space for itself in future energy generation, according to Yeh Hui-ching, director of the economics ministry's Bureau of Energy.

"The government hopes to acquire a slot in the global green energy industry's production chain with the hydrogen fuel cell technologies," Yeh said, according to Taiwan's Central News Agency.Taiwan is under pressure to develop new energy sources, as it imports about 98 percent of its energy.

FireFound tracks your stolen computer

FireFound tracks your stolen computer, nukes your personal data

The worst thing about losing your laptop isn't the cost of replacing your gear; it's the loss of personal info and saved passwords. Firefox extension FireFound tracks your lost laptop's location and nukes your personal data in a few clicks.

Once you install the add-on for Firefox or its mobile version Fennec, FireFound uses geolocation to track where you are every time you open your browser, sending that information to a secure server (or your own server, if you prefer.) If your laptop is ever lost or stolen, log into FireFound's Web site from any computer and find out where your laptop's being used -- handy information to pass on to the cops, though not necessarily info that'll get your laptop back. You also can choose to nuke the personal data in your browser, including history and saved passwords, to protect it from prying eyes until you get your computer back.

FireFound lets you tweak several settings according to what level of security you desire, including the option to receive e-mail notifications if your computer is used more than a certain number of miles from its last location. The data protection feature instantly annihilates some or all of the personal information contained in your browser if someone can't provide a password to use it.

We've seen a fair amount of similar tools for Windows users on a whole in the past, but FireFound is the first Firefox-specific version we've seen, and it's got some solid features of its own.

Keep in mind that none of these tools are guaranteed to keep your data safe or recover your hardware, and remember that your best bet to safeguarding your data is encrypting your data. What other steps do you take to protect your laptop's data besides securing your browser? Talk about it in the comments.

Check their website: http://www.firefound.com/

Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPtD9eVgSQ

A Robot Performs Science

By any standard, it was an elementary discovery — the identification of the role of about a dozen genes in a yeast cell. But what made this finding a major breakthrough was the unlikely form of the scientist: a robot. In April, "Adam," a machine designed at Aberystwyth University in Wales, became the first robotic system to make a novel scientific discovery with virtually no human intellectual input.

Robots have long been used in experiments — their vast computational power assisted in the sequencing of the human genome, for example — but Adam was the first to complete the cycle from hypothesis to experiment to reformulated hypothesis without human intervention. Interviewed after Adam's experiment appeared in Science, inventor Ross King argued that artificial intelligence had almost limitless scientific potential — and that a computer would one day make a discovery akin to Einstein's special theory of relativity. "There isn't any intrinsic reason why that wouldn't happen," he said. "A computer can make beautiful chess moves, but it's not doing anything special. In my view, that's what's going to happen in science."

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7979113.stm