The Pentagon will soon be issuing new hand-held lie detectors this month to U.S. Army soldiers in Afghanistan. The new device, known by the acronym PCASS, for Preliminary Credibility Assessment Screening System, uses a commercial TDS Ranger hand-held personal digital assistant with three wires connected to sensors attached to the hand. An interpreter will ask a series of 20 or so questions in Persian, Arabic or Pashto: "Do you intend to answer my questions truthfully?" "Are the lights on...

Heidi Rühle, a member of the EU Parliament who represents Germany's Green Party, has formally tabled a question - which is actually more of a suggestion - asking if Microsoft ought to be deemed to have failed to meet the EU conditions required to participate in public procurements in European Union countries. Should we be doing business with a convicted monopolist?...

Hirokazu Hamamura the head of Japanese gaming mag Famitsu's parent company is predicting that Nintendo will unveil the next-generation DS at E3 2008 this summer. So why are we positive on this rumor? Well it is not made by some anonymous and self proclamatory Nintendo employee but by a businessman who heads Famitsu the leading gaming mag in Japan. Hirokazu has not commented on the hardware or cost. So how would you like to change the Nintendo DS? I...

Cyclists by far have way less safety devices for themselves. Automobiles on the other hand have countless safety devices to keep motorists safe. What’s with the partiality I wonder. Making stuff to keep cyclists safe just makes sense as for one they are a lot more vulnerable if an accident does take place and also with this whole world going on this “keep the world green” trip, cycling is becoming the environmental friendly thing to do. Anyhow, the point...

Brother, Japan has developed an eyeglass-shaped retinal scanning display. The main unit installed on the eyeglass frame measures about 20cc and weighs about 25g. Compared with the prototype unveiled for the first time at the Aichi Expo (Exposition of Global Harmony) in 2005, the size and the weight of the latest model are significantly reduced, in particular, to less than 1/1000. The retinal scanning display irradiates low-intensity light on the retina and scans it with the light at a...

Love it or hate it Macs have made some great scenes in Hollywood movies. Maclife.com has made an interesting compilation for some remarkable scenes where the involvement of a Mac has been crucial to the plot or just to make our hearts sink. Here are just 3 of the best. 3. Final Destination 2: This however is one of those 'Oh! my God!' moments in cinema when we realize how stupidly unlucky the character is. Right after purchasing a...

A hover board is on my most wanted list ever since I can remember. The ability to hover over anything without actually feeling the friction of the surface below will be a dream come true for all automobile manufacturers too. Now, Cornell University researchers propose that superconductors paired with permanent magnets could fit the bill by suspending vehicles in space unpowered. In the photo, a permanent magnet is being held stationary above a superconductor--magnetically pinned at its current orientation...

Equipment and systems with hard drives inside are continuously being retired, relocated or repaired and there's often little thought given to properly disposing of the data they contain before they leave the data center. Seagate is set to change that with its new HDD the world's first self-encrypting hard drives for mission-critical servers and storage arrays. As part of the award-winning Cheetah family, the new Cheetah 15K.6 FDE hard drive now also encrypts data as well. Moreover, that encryption...

The homeland security teams are not happy with the effectiveness of the color-coded panic inducing system, so they have now come up with the ultimate threat alert system, namely SMS. The plan stems from the Warning Alert and Response Network Act, a 2006 federal law that requires upgrades to the nation's emergency alert system. The act tasked the Federal Communications Commission with coming up with new ways to alert the public about emergencies. Participation in the alert system by...

On the eve of the RSA Conference a San Francisco gallery unveiled an exhibit called Infected Art. It's a collection of images created from the code of various viruses, worms, spam, and other malware....

Italian company Hantarex is out with a new line of TVs which boast of some interesting features. The Hantarex WMC VIIV 40 features Windows XP Media Center and has dual tuner DTT, which allows you to view a channel while recording another. The 32" model is HD ready and if you want Full HD the you will have to chose from the 40", 46" 57" 70" or 82" model. Guilty pleasures don't come cheap, the 32" retails for 2,156...

I simply love covering the concept car section. The beauties that the stalwarts dish out are simply amazing, the Prius for example. The new kid on the block is the 1/X plug-in hybrid concept from Toyota. This light-weight beauty is almost a third the weight of most concept cars thus saving energy and using half the juice of the Prius. The car maintains a slim form thanks to Bio-plastics; the frame is made of a polymer using renewable plants...

If you are fond of decorating your house with many picture frames, and indulge in buying a few masterpieces here and there, you sure will love the Sony Bravia E4000 HDTV. This TV comes with a unique picture frame-look and blends in with the other art work hung on the wall. The frames are available in several colors to match your décor. It comes in 26", 32" or 40" LCD 10-bit display. Specs include 1080p, Analog/Digital TV Tuner, 3x...

If you call yourself a geek, a hardcore internet expert that surfs the internet waves, then this is an open challenge for you. Find Waldo (or Wally) who is hiding on top of a high riser in Vancouver, using only Google Earth. For those who don't know Where's Waldo is a series of children's books created by the British illustrator Martin Handford. The aim is to find Waldo, in a busy picture full of people. He dresses in a...

Picture this conversation between Batman and Superman in a crowded mall, "Quick Batty, remove the Micro SD Card Projector that I gave you this Christmas, I want to load this file and project my new look; so that the people can know that I have changed my style…I no longer wear red underwear outside my suit. I wear a pink one!" The point is, projectors are getting cheaper and plebeian by the day; it's no longer a fancy gadget...