Read the rest (with lots of engineering explanations, diagrams, and pictures) at Cracked

The X PRIZE Foundation and Qualcomm are partnering to try to make the Tricorder—Star Trek’s famous health-diagnosing gadget—a reality. They are offering up $10 million in purse money. This may be the most practical X PRIZE yet. via Gizmodo

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It’s good smoked, straight up on the grill with a little lemon and butter, or rolled into sushi. And now, thanks to researchers at Taiwan’s Tsing Hua University and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, salmon is also good sandwiched between two electrodes. Using silver nanoparticles, a couple of electrodes, and a thin layer of salmon DNA, those researchers have developed a “write-once-read-many-times” (WORM) data-storge device that they … Read More → "Scientists build a data storage device out of salmon DNA"

The physicist César Hidalgo is not a late-night TV host, but he plays one on the Internet.

In October, with support from two Media Laboratory videographers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Paula Aguilera and Jonathan Williams, Dr. Hidalgo began posting online a series of video interviews with local scientists. He began with Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, a physicist and network scientist who was Dr. Hidalgo’s faculty graduate adviser at Notre Dame, and then quickly added seven more interviews crossing back and forth between the natural and the social sciences.</ … Read More → "M.I.T. physicist gives scientists an online interview outlet"

I knew it!

Women are more likely than men to purchase tablets, laptops and smartphones – three out of the four top consumer electronics categories, according to a new study.

Retailer HSN asked 2,000 consumers, ages 18 and older about their buying habits in the consumer tech space. The study, which was conducted in late 2011, asked men and women which products they intend to buy before January 1, 2012.

Women expressed more interest in tablets (18%), laptops (20%) and smartphones (20%). Only 15% of men planned to buy a tablet, while 14% sought a … Read More → "Stereotype debunked: women buy more technology than men"

MakerBot just took the wraps off the Replicator, a new 3D printer that solves one of the technology’s biggest problems at the moment — printing large. Of course, you still can’t, say, print yourself up a car just yet, but the Replicator does, at the very least, take a baby step in that direction. It also offers up the company’s Dualstrusion technology, making it possible to print in two colors. The … Read More → "MakerBot goes big with Replicator 3D printer"

Dish Network just introduced its new multi-room DVR, weirdly named Hopper, which can record three shows at one time (while playing back a fourth show), has a 2TB hard drive which can store 250 hours of HD programming, a Slingbox adapter, which will let certain users watch what’s on Dish Network from anywhere in the world AND a super neat PrimeTime Anytime feature that I’m not even sure is legal.

The way the Hopper works is that the Hopper acts as the main DVR for your entire home other ‘Joeys’, which are client receivers, access … Read More → "Dish Network’s Hopper DVR might be the best DVR for your home"

Very interesting article here at NY Times about 3D printing and copyright.

Downloading — quite often stealing, in the eyes of the law — music, movies, books and photos is easier than bobbing for apples in a bucket without water. It has kept legions of lawyers employed fighting copyright violations without a whole lot to show for their efforts in the past decade.

You think that was bad? Just wait until we can copy physical things.

It won’t be long before people have a 3-D printer sitting at home alongside … Read More → "The 3-D printing free-for-all"

The year is sure starting off with a bang, bringing with it a whole slew of new green tech to be unveiled at the 2012 Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas. While past years have been a little thin when it comes to eco-friendly tech, this year’s show promises to be packed with innovative green gadgets. After a little bit of sleuthing, we’ve managed to get a sneak peek of some … Read More → "Top 7 green gadgets to debut at this week’s 2012 CES"