Human Washing Machine ready

This next machine is a real sign of the times. It is a washing machine that is designed to wash you instead of your laundry.
This human washing machine, known as the Avant Santelubain 999 allows the user to lie down and let the machine spray him or her with soap and water, along with infrared light for steam heat. It will even use aromatherapy and sound, then has an option of a seaweed wrap.
Say what? I’m not really certain how that seaweed wrap part works, but I have heard that the Human Washing Machine will sterilize itself after a wash is completed.
So what are we looking at here? A replacement for the shower and the bathtub? It looks like it takes up just as much space. It combines the spraying of the shower, and the relaxation of the tub. That might make a good slogan if anyone ever wants to market this thing.
I imagine that you could probably stick yourself in a washing machine and accomplish the same thing, but you don’t want be around for the spin cycle. Now, if only someone could invent a human washing machine that could also clean the clothes that you are wearing.

Source

Sony Dropping PS2 Price To $100

Sony (NYSE: SNE) on Tuesday cut the price of the PlayStation 2 to $100, offering a low-cost entry into video games.
The new price, which takes effect on Wednesday, represents a 23% drop and is likely to extend the life of Sony's previous-generation console. In addition, the cut makes it more likely Sony will drop the price of the PlayStation 3, Dow Jones Newswire reported. The PS3 sells for $399 and lags in sales to rivals the Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii.

Hands On With the New Nokia 5800

The touchscreen 3G Nokia 5800, set to launch in North America later this month, will give the mobile world a pleasant surprise. This iPhone rival brings plenty of hardware goodies, but can it compete with Apple's crown jewel?

The 5800 will launch on February 26th, and will be available in an unlocked version, which can be used on either AT&T's or T-Mobile's network, for $399. I've been using the Nokia 5800 as my primary phone for the past few days to see how well it performed--and how well it compares with my iPhone.



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Build a USB Digital Microscope in 60min and 15$

Build a USB Digital Microscope in 60min and 15$
How to turn a 10$ microscope and a 5$ USB camera into a cool digital microscope in 60 minuets.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Build-a-USB-Digital-Microscope-in-60min-and-15/

How much data does Skype on my mobile use?

The amount of data used will vary depending on the size of your Skype contact list and your Skype activity.

Let's look at an example user (approximate usage only):

Tom has 20 Skype contacts and signs in twice a day for a total of 90 minutes. He instant messages for about 25 minutes each day and makes 20 minutes of Skype calls. Tom would use just under 1 MB of data in one month.

If you have a large number of contacts, or you IM for long periods of time, your data usage will be higher. You should check with your operator to see how much you will pay per megabyte, and we strongly recommend you sign up for an unlimited data plan with your operator.

Download: http://www.skype.com/intl/en/download/skype/mobile/

Single drive wipe protects data, research finds

A single wipe will make drives impossible to read.

In research published on Thursday, auditor Craig Wright tested the ability of a special type of electron microscope, known as a magnetic force microscope, to read data that has been erased. While overwriting the data multiple times with a random series of 0s and 1s makes it harder to recover, Wright found that it is nearly impossible to recover any meaningful amount of data after a only single pass. Recovering a single byte of data, for example, on a used drive is successful less than one percent of the time, he found. Accurately recovering four bytes, or 32 bits, of data only works nine times out of each million tries.

(Editor's note: SecurityFocus is currently investigating the veracity of the research paper mentioned in this article. Peter Gutmann of the University of Auckland, an expert on secure deletion, has criticized the work in the epilogue to his paper on secure deletion.)

"Although there is a good chance of recovery for any individual bit from a drive, the chances of recovery of any amount of data from a drive using an electron microscope are negligible," Wright stated. "The fallacy that data can be forensically recovered using an electron microscope or related means needs to be put to rest."

Many software products designed to wipe hard drive allow for multiple passes to erase the data. Common wisdom holds that the more sensitive the data, the more times you should overwrite the drive. However, Wright's research suggests that a single pass is all that's necessary to protect the data on a hard drive.

Wright did find that multiple passes do make it harder to recover data and that data written to a pristine drive is much easier to recover. Yet, in the most common case, where the drive has been used and written to multiple times, a user can be assured of their privacy by a single pass.

"In many instances, using a MFM (magnetic force microscope) to determine the prior value written to the hard drive was less successful than a simple coin toss."

USB 3.0 is ten times faster

USB 3.0 is being demonstrated at CES. It is ten times faster that USB 2.0 but will not be available on products until next year.
The annual Consumer Electronics Show is a showcase in one sense and an indicator of future trends in another. The show is held in Las Vegas and getting around all the stands puts a serious strain on the physical and nervous systems. This year you can do it quite a lot as press conferences on the Internet are streamed live.
There are still many improvements needed but there is little doubt that, say, five years from today few journalists will bother with all the hassle and expense of being at these shows. They will sit and watch the presentations at home.
Every year CES shows something which points the way to the future. This year one of the pointers is the new USB 3.0.
Seagate and Symwave are jointly demonstrating the first consumer applications of USB 3.0, showing a Seagate FreeAgent drive running through a Symwave USB 3.0-compatible storage controller device. According to a Symwave press release, this will result in ’speeds previously unattainable with legacy USB technology.’ Which means, if you understand PR-write, it will be much faster.
How much faster is that? A serious amount. Probably ten times faster.
This is a very quick move from specification to working model. The USB 2.0 Promoter Group only completed the USB 3.0 specification in November. Now it is being demonstrated. However, that speed will not mean the product will be on sale real soon now. In fact, although it works it will not become mainstream until 2010.
The new standard, also known as SuperSpeed USB 3.0, will manage transfer speeds of up to 5 Gbps — more than ten times the transfer speed of USB 2.0. Which was thought was very quick when it was first introduced, ten years ago.
But the public demand for quicker, better is ever with us and this new standard is a major step forward. Not just in terms of speed of data transfer but in it ability to send more electricity to devices, and control them intelligently. For instance, USB 3.0 will not poll devices, which will allow them to enter a sleep-like mode.
USB 3.0 will be backward-compatible with USB 2.0 and 1.1.
Not connected with CES but related is the fact the Chinese government has declared its intention to force all digital phone makers to use a standard USB connector from the charger. That would mean that a single charger would do for all of your devices and would save an immense amount of wastage and frustration.
The mobile phone companies are fighting it tooth and nail. They are saying if the Chinese government implements these changes then they will take their bat and ball and play elsewhere. ‘Twas ever thus.
Note carefully the illustration is USB 2.0. You will have to wait a year before you can see the new standard in real life. Worth the wait.