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How has Britain changed in the past 10 years? Prospect Magazine has an interesting infographic detailing the transformation of Great Britain from 1997 to 2009:
Richer, fatter, living longer, more indebted, drunker, better connected, politically disillusioned: there’s no metric that can describe whether we are happier or living better lives after 13 years of Labour. But there are plenty to show how we have changed during a period of fulsome spending, borrowing and technological transformation;
The snipped above is from the Media and Technology section and shows that cell phone ownership has gone from 17% to 93% of household, Internet access has grown from 4% to 73% whereas music sales have declined from nearly 10 million singles to just 4 million. Similiarly, newspaper circulation has contracted by 25%.
Link | The infographic in PDF format – via metafilter
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Considering how much we use technology in our lives, it’s scary just how easily our gadgets can be turned to spy on their owners. Consider the amount of information that passes through your computer or cell phone – the ability to log every keystroke or read every single text message gives someone the knowledge of your ongoings. Of course, these are only the most basic ways of spying, on you, through your technology.
Japanese company KDDI has developed technology for cell phones that uses something called accelerometers to track precise movements, then beams all that info back to a central location. And we’re not throwing the word “precise” around willy-nilly here. These guys can tell if whoever wearing the phone is sweeping versus scrubbing, walking versus running, doing number two in the bathroom versus doing number two in the secretary’s filing cabinet. It’s that sophisticated.
Link – via mentalfloss
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
Scientists have developed a way to make T-shirt fabric reinforced with boron carbide, which is the same material used to strengthen military tanks. Boron carbide has a hardness just short of diamonds. Imagine that strength in a regular lightweight shirt!
To turn cotton bulletproof, researchers from the University of South Carolina and their collaborators from China and Switzerland dipped sections of regular T-shirts (Fig 1a) in a special mix of nickel and borate. After allowing the cotton to absorb the mix for 2 hours (Fig 1b), the textile was dried quickly in an oven and cured at a high temperature for 3 hours. Once ready, the pieces of cotton were placed in a furnace and headed at 1160°C for 4 hours while continuously aerated with argon. Finally, the resulting fabric pieces (Fig 1c) were cooled and analyzed using electron microscopes and a barrage of strength tests.
So far, the performance of the material is not up to Kevlar standards, but with some tweaking, body armor may soon be as easy to wear as any other clothing. Link
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
Wired takes a look at new technologies for delivering nutrients to our bodies, from meat grown in laboratories instead of farms to ocean-grown crops. And there’s a possibility we won’t even need food in the future! Scientist Robert Freitas imagines humans ingesting nanorobots that could supply each cell with energy as it is needed.
This would only replace food’s caloric aspect, so we’d still need to take vitamin and nutritional supplements in order to provide the body with new matter as cells die off, according to Patrick Tucker, director of communications for the World Future Society. Still, there’s a certain cold comfort in knowing that if worse comes to worst, nanotechnology might give us a food pill that, taken every 10 years or so, would power our bodies if the planet loses the ability to do so — or if we’re forced to leave the planet, as Stephen Hawking suggests.
(image credit: Flickr user GE Healthcare)
A joker named Matt posted his own Youtube tutorial [above] revealing some very practical applications for this new tool, and demonstrating its awsome progressive learning capability.
Have you recently met someone you like through an online dating site? Now you can date in virtual worlds before dating in person! (And it’s free!) Check out weopia.com.
Photo: GM/NASA
This week’s developments in technological advances, like General Motors and NASA’s Robonaut2 (cleverly and deviously nicknamed R2), and Google’s decision to team up with the NSA got GeekDad‘s Curtis Silver wondering about truth mirroring the best of science fiction- and its predictions of an eventual machine takeover that will plunge humanity into mass enslavement.
While I was writing this I read an article about how Google has teamed with the NSA in order to help tighten up Google’s infrastructure when it comes to cyber-security. The layman would view that partnership as a natural evolutionary response to fight off the ever increasing cyber-attacks on companies such as Google. The slightly paranoid individual might view that as a sure sign big brother is looking over your shoulder. The slightly paranoid geeky individual simply views that as Skynet in the making.
Curtis cites the sci-fi classics Hyperion by Dan Simmons, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein, and The Ship Who Sang by Anne McAffrey as prime examples “to uncover what other possible technological threats we might face in the future.” Read the article, and tell us what other stories might become reality soon.
Neatorama has featured a number of stories about animals who have received prosthetics before, including Beauty the Bald Eagle, who lost her beak when it was shot by a hunter. WebEcoist has a great collection of these stories including many you probably haven’t seen yet.
Can you imagine telepathically sending messages to those around you, seeing out of a tooth or discovering a volcanic crater filled with all types of new species never before seen by man? Scientists can and while many of the new discoveries listed on this WebEcoist article have been featured on Neatorama before, they are all fascinating enough to deserve a second look.
What’s your favorite recent discovery? I personally like the volcanic crater the best because I’m a sucker for animals.
A new “anti-rape” condom could protect women in dangerous areas from being attacked. The device is a female condom filled with sharp, microscopic barbs that will attach themselves to flesh. The theory is that while the attacker is stunned and doubled-over with pain, the woman will have a chance to flee the scene before the rapist has a chance to do further damage to her. Once it latches on to the skin, the condom can only be removed surgically, which will mean that attackers will have to go to the hospital and risk getting caught.
While I can certainly see value in this device, I can’t help but think of all those situations where things could go wrong. What do you think readers? A great idea or a huge mistake waiting to happen?
Global Thoughtz Technology has a cool list of the latest tech that’s due to blow up this year, including augmented reality. It’s recently debuted on certain phones that can integrate GPS and object recognition to enhance navigation.
Further, the core of the technology will be the mobile camera and the placement of processed information on top of live streaming content from the camera.
We are already seeing some of it with mobile GPS applications, but 2010 will be clearly put these applications on the top shelf of mobile apps. This will allows users to get every information by integrating physical reality and virtual world.
Apple’s Tablet, the rise of online TV and more at the Link. (Photo: Wikipedia)
For prying into lives around the globe, the Google Street Viewmobile finally gets its just desserts. Thank you, Anonymous Winged Avenger!
Via Gizmodo
Wow, some of the stuff people are coming up with these days are amazing. A fake, batterized eye? REALLY!? Come on!
Rob Spence, a filmmaker from Canada, had his eye wounded in a shooting accident as a child. Presumably furious at its weak character and lazy work ethic, Spence asked doctors to just completely remove it a few years ago, and now he’s getting it replaced with a small camera (of the type normally used for colonoscopies,) a battery, and a wireless transmitter – effectively turning him into a human documentarian capable of recording, broadcasting, and relaying literally everything he sees, as he sees it.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
Dorothy Miller, an 87-year-old grandmother, uses Twitter every day to keep in touch with her family, but she uses no computer. Instead, she uses a fax machine and a service called Cellery that posts the messages to her Twitter page.
I don’t usually write to my daugher that much because she talks to much. And that she takes up too much of our time, but she can read my twitterings here and she can see what her mother’s doing and know that her mother’s okay …
Go grandma, go … or better yet, tweet, grandma, tweet!
– via mycelery
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by DCC42.
The contract has been signed for the Shepherds Flat wind farm in Oregon, which will cover 30 square miles, and is expected to generate 2 billion kilowatt hours of energy every year. That will provide 10% of the power California needs! Good to see we are finally moving forward with green technology.
Independent power producer Caithness Energy has awarded GE a $1.4 billion contract for 338 of the company’s most advanced wind turbines to build a 845-megawatt wind farm in Oregon — a size that outstrips all others currently operating worldwide.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by digimouse.
There’s a blog devoted exclusively to the autocompletion feature in Google search. It reveals what will happen if you start to type in a phrase such as “Google won” or “How to ra”. Answers below.
Try it yourself and see.
Thanks to Nag On The Lake for finding this.
Writer Evan Ratliff pondered the same question while writing an article for Wired magazine about people who for various reasons had tried to start over with completely new lives . A few months later he found himself a willing volunteer to find out firsthand what the experience entailed. With a 24 hour head start, $2000 cash stuffed in his belt and a fake office to set up in Las Vegas he drove his Honda Civic across the Bay bridge, then out of California in a bid to disappear entirely. Leaving behind family, a girlfriend, and any semblance of a normal life for a month while assuming an entirely new identity.
The magazine periodically published clues and made accessible to their online community all the information a private investigator might be privy to, as well as placing a $5000 bounty on Evan’s head. His travels took him across the country a few times, his disguises changed almost daily and online groups spontaneously emerged to track and document his every move. Amateurs and professionals from coast to coast took to the chase disseminating all the details they could uncover, staking out airports and bars, even trying to glean details from acquaintances as varied as his cat sitter.
In the end it wasn’t nearly what Evan had expected when he began.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by renderanything.
SwissMiss discovers that Google Reader offers several sorting options, including this one:
Here’s another story about abandoned man-made structures, but this one may have a happy ending.
Instead of using aboveground ponds to grow algae for biofuels, researchers at the Missouri University of Science and Technology have proposed growing algae underground in abandoned mines. What are the advantages? Underground mines are cheap, maintain constant temperature, solve the aboveground evaporation and contamination problems, and the site preparation has already been done by the mining companies.
But don’t algae need sunlight to grow? Not necessarily, says mining engineering professor David Summers.
It happens that algae work best when they use only the blue and red parts of the light spectrum, which can be provided by LED lights, and they need periods of darkness in which to process the photons.
An added benefit: Mine owners like the idea because it eliminates the need for them to clean up the sites, as algae are particularly good at sequestering metals.
Win + win + win? I guess we’ll find out.
More information at Scientific American.
Ever wondered just how much surface area you would need to supply the entire world with all of its power needs using only energy collected from solar panels? Luckily for us the Land Art Generator Initiative have done all the math. Crunching the numbers based on our current and projected energy usage and using statistics grounded on the solar technology that is available to us today, they have created this handy map of what 2030 could look like. The map shows use distributed roughly proportional to use and weather patterns.
A related link in the article shows an alternative map based on offshore wind power.
Link – via coolinfographics
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
RunPee is a handy site that let’s you know when it’s the best time to run to the bathroom during any given movie. Then they tell you what happens during the 4-5 minutes you were away.
“This way you not only know when to go, but can also find out what you’ll be missing. You will no longer miss those ultra-important scenes, or need to come back to your seat and ask someone, ‘What did I miss?’”
They have new releases and classics, and now there’s even an iPhone app that alerts you when a good opportunity is coming to answer Nature’s call.
Link | Image courtesy Elizabeth O. Dulemba
A ‘telepathy’ chip that allows people to control computers, televisions and light switches by the power of thought is being developed by British scientists. The idea was conceived by Dr. Jon Spratley while he was studying at the University of Birmingham.
The tiny sensor would sit on the surface of the brain, picking up the electrical activity of nerve cells and passing the signal wirelessly to a receiver on the skull.
The signal would then be used to control a cursor on a computer screen, operate electronic gadgets or steer an electric wheelchair.
This type of technology would allow disabled people such as Stephen Hawking to have more control over their environment. Link
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by 
Invasive Asian carp are populating the Great Lakes and forcing native species out of their traditional habitats. Scientists are taking steps to contain the invaders without affecting other species. They’ve developed an underwater “wall of sound” that takes advantage of the physical differences between Asian carp and native fish.
In a tributary near Havana, about 200 miles from Chicago, ecologist Greg Sass is testing a barrier that injects beeping sounds into an effervescent wall, which captures and magnifies the noise. The chirping bothers only the carp because it hears higher frequencies than native species do; a series of tiny bones connecting the carp’s swim bladder to its auditory system amplifies sound. In hatchery trials, the acoustic “fence” stopped 95 percent of the invasive fish.
If you’re like me, you have a major problem with cables taking over your home life. Here’s a great, visually interesting way to overkill the solution -a whole wall of outlets.
Festo, has been shown here on Neatorama several times in the past and each time their robotics and bizarre creations blew our collective minds…our Neatorama Hivemind to be exact…but that’s a story for another time.
In this video you’ll get to see creepy blue LED robotic penguins swimming about in a large pool. Also, you’ll see it’s more lighter cousin who probably is the envy of every penguin in being able to fly/float and much more in terms of various robotic creations. Really fascinating stuff!
More info here – Link
For older Neatorama Festo links:
Festo’s Upside-Down Hot Air Balloon
AquaJelly and AirJelly
Air Ray: The Blimp With Wings
Meet Aqua Ray
Festo Airic’s Robotic Arm
Floating Fish Blimp
I think this is as close to a nightmare scenario to computer companies and gadget makers everywhere: not that their new stuff aren’t any good – it’s that the old stuff are good enough so that except for hardcore enthusiasts, people just don’t see any point in upgrading.
TechRadar UK explains:
The problem of ‘good enough’ is a huge headache for the tech industry. When your computer isn’t good enough – when a slow processor, meagre memory and tiny hard disk struggle with even everyday tasks – you’ll buy a better model as soon as it becomes available.
Now, though, the weakest link isn’t your PC: it’s you.
Will a 200-core processor make you type an email more quickly, make you work more productively or make your Facebook status updates any more amusing?
Pothos has thousands of followers and gives regular updates. Pothos … is also a plant. A built-in moisture meter relays messages about the plant’s current state in order to remind its owner when it needs watering. This is, one has to admit, a potentially wonderful innovation for those of us with thumbs that are anything but green. Still, Twitter is all the rage these days, sure, but plants Twittering? Has this fad gone too far?
Are you slowly killing your houseplants? Is it because you’re too busy Twittering? THEN HAS THE INTERNET GOT THE SOLUTION FOR YOU!
link -via huffingtonpost
Green roofs have become about more than just sustainable architecture – they have become new, long-unused canvasses for artistic expression and creative design.
This collection of green roof designs shows the possibilities of not only environmental architecture but of making something beautiful out of one of the most ubiquitous bare surfaces in the world – the roof – as we move into the future of sustainable design.
We’ve always thought we had roofs covered. They had to be barren, hostile places the rain and the wildlife slid from before they could do any damage. Nature had no place on our roofs. Except…we couldn’t have been more wrong. A green roof may required a little extra engineering behind the scenes, but it’s far better than its non-living counterparts for regulating house temperature, filtering out pollutants, scrubbing the surrounding air, controlling stormwater run-off, absorbing sound and many more factors that impact our quality of life. A green roof is a healthy roof.
Comedian Louis CK was on Late Night with Conan O’Brien explaining how amazing everything is, and yet nobody is happy. You’d think with all this technology and instant gratification, we would at least realize how lucky we are.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by JKirchartz.
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