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3G Cellphone Signals May Cause Headaches, Nausea: Study

According to a new study, the radio signals from new 3G cellphones may cause headaches and nausea in users. This comes on top of last month's news that cellphone microwaves cause brain cells to fail to regenerate in old-age and may cause early-senility. The mobile industry is conducting the biggest uncontrolled biological experiment on the human species in history.

Watch Out for Lover-Spy Trojan E-Cards

A company is now selling a trojan-horse e-card service to jealous lovers. The idea is that you send a "missing you" or "thinking of you" e-card to someone you want to spy on, and when they open it a trojan is installed on their computer that then secretly sends you every keystroke they type. As if long-distance relationships weren't hard enough!!!

Crop Bio-terrorism Using Genetic Weapons: Horrifying Scenario

The New Scientist published this scary article in reaction to new reports from the US Agriculture Department about unorthodox terrorist risk scenarios. It's one more example of why uncontrolled genetic engineering is perhaps the greatest present long-term threat to the human species -- far more dangerous in fact than nuclear weapons. If we regulate plutonium technology and know-how with extreme security, why aren't we regulating genetic engineering technology and know-how just as carefully? Until we have effective means of quickly detecting and stopping genetic weapons we should be extremely careful about disseminating knowledge and technology that would potentially help terrorists or rogue states to cause harm. This is of course a very hairy ethical issue that could be debated endlessly. My point is not to limit scientific progress -- but on the other hand, not all scientific progress is "good" -- it's only good if humanity is ready to handle it responsibly.

All About Machinima: Shooting Movies in Virtual Reality

Couldn't sleep. Woke up at around 4 AM. Channel surfing, I end up at a show about Machinima -- a new form of moviemaking. Here is what Wordspy says about Machinima. It's really cool stuff. Basically the idea is to use game engines such as Quake etc. for a purpose they were never designed for -- to create and produce recorded or even live dramas. Quake and other game engines allow you to create your own worlds and characters, so why not use them to make entirely virtual movies? Now there is even an Academy of Machinima Arts and Sciences that sponsors a Machinima film festival. Interesting new trend...the future of film?

Potentially HUGE Discovery: Molecule from Milk and Red Meat Found in Tumors

This is really big. Scientists have discovered that a molecule that is not normally found in humans -- but IS found in tumors -- comes from milk and red meat. They also found that the human body reacts to this molecule with an immune response. In other words, drinking milk and eating red meat can cause an immune response in humans AND seems to result in this molecule showing up in tumors. Now the question is, does the molecule cause tumors, or is this just a coincidence? Very very big discovery!

Reverse Speech, the First 20 Years...

According to Reverse Speech theorists the mind embeds reverse messages in ordinary speech. This is not so outlandish a claim -- it is known that the brain uses reversal at a very fundamental level in language and perception. Check out this summary of reverse speech results to see some very interesting cases -- in particular relating to speeches done by political leaders. I don't know whether this phenomenon is scientifically legit, but I have been following it for about 6 years. It is quite interesting.

New Electronic Paper Displays Video

Next-generation e-Paper technology can now display color video -- with even better brightness than conventional LCD displays! The applications of this range from wearable computing interfaces, wearable TVs, to digital newspapers and even to wearable entertainment, new computer-controlled fashion,and adaptive camoflauge.

Sun Says More PC Makers to Include Java in Their Products

Good news for the Java platform -- Sun has announced that several major computer makers including Acer, Gateway and Toshiba will be including Java in their computers.

Are You Capable of Retropsychokinesis?

This online experiment enables you to test whether or not you can influence random number generators in the past. It's fun. Try it.

Rare 7-year Buddhist Endurance Ritual Completed

A Buddhist monk of the Tendai Zen sect in Japan just completed a rare 7-year running ritual. Many who attempt this die in the process. Those who fail to finish were traditionally required to commit suicide. Fortunately, this monk finished! You've got to read this article to see what this guy went through -- it's amazing!!!!

Are Brains Really Necessary?

It turns out that some people who have almost no brain tissue are able to perform as or more intelligently than people with normal brains. This article discusses some documented cases. I personally met someone who graduated from Harvard graduate school and then went on to be a senior strategist in the computer industry. Later during an unrelated x-ray of his head they discovered that he had less than half of a normal brain! I'm not kidding -- this is true. He was highly intelligent and well-respected in his field; nobody would have ever suspected that he was pretty much brainless. Of course the obvious social commentary here is irresistable -- maybe there are many more brainless people who graduated from Harvard??? In any case, the interesting point here is not that you don't need a brain to graduate from Harvard, but rather that it appears that in some documented cases people with little to no brain tissue are able to demonstrate full cognitive abilties. If that is the case, then (a) what is the brain for?, and (b) what is enabling them to think without a brain?

DNA Computing

CNN posted an article on DNA computing today. Nice overview of the subject.

Sun Microsystems Finds Way to Transmit Data Inside Computers 60 to 100 Times Faster!

Sun Microsystems isn't dead yet. They've just announced a new way to increase the speed of information transfer within a computer, up to 60 to 100 times faster than present-day top speeds. The technique uses transmitters inside the computer rather than physical connections between chips.

Underpants Man Sighting. During the Hurricane!

Sorry this is a few days late. But UPM, otherwise known to readers of this blog as Underpants Man, has been sighted on several occasions recently that might be considered "extreme." Of those the most noteworthy was that he actually came out for a brief moment -- in his underwear and trademark necktie of course -- during ... yes ... the hurricane! I don't know what he was hoping to find -- there wasn't any sun and it was raining. But hey, when you have that need to exercise on your roof in your underwear and necktie, I guess weather really isn't that much of a consideration! If you are not familiar with the Underpants Man phenomenon, read this posting. I have received several requests for photos or video of UPM. I have to admit I am not much of a photographer -- but I agree that this rare phenomenon needs to be documented. I'll work on that. In the meantime, I think we should start the UPM Fan Club. He's a modern hero.

New Way to Hide Messages from Email Sniffers

In reference to my posting about word scrambling as a means of protecting online privacy, a reader named Jack has created a Scramber script in Python for obfuscating text such that it can still be read by recipients without decryption. So now you can Scramble all your email before sending it in cleartext across the net without using encryption keys. On the other side you readers can read it with no problem, but any bots, agents or sniffers enroute will not be able to recognize the words in your message. It would simply be too much calculation for a bot to test every possible permutation of every word against a dictionary. Because of that barrier, this method of scrambling words is likely to be quite secure against sniffers and bots. This is also a lot better than using standard encryption because that tends to set off alarms -- if someone is looking for secrets and they see something that looks like binary encrypted data they are going to get interested. But if it is merely text it will appear to be nothing more than a meaningless email message and won't arouse any curiousity. For example, "itnlelgneice acgeny." So this is a method of "hiding in a crowd." Of curose, tihs olny mtatres if you hvae smeotihng to hdie!!!!

Brains are Cool

My friend Jerry Michalski sent me this really cool thing:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

This would be a good way to "encrypt" cleartext so that it could not be understood by Internet sniffers! All you need is a Scrambler script. You write a document normally and then your Scrambler mixes up the middles of all the words for you. It is still readable without decryption, but any Net sniffers that may intercept it in transit (via email for example) won't be able to make sense of it at all. Very cool idea...

The GPS Age is Coming...

Motorola launches a new dime sized GPS chip that promises to make cheap GPS ubiquitous in all sorts of devices including cell phones, pagers, PDA's, etc. This is good stuff. I have long been predicting the convergence of GPS and the Internet. You should be able to use your portable device to see location-relevant content as you move around -- for example, when you go to Times Square, you could suddenly see geographically-relevant news, ads, restaurant reviews, broadway ticket offers, and other content, etc. -- all related to where you are standing.

I'm Back

Hi everyone, I'm back in NYC after a whirlwind trip, part vacation and part work. Autumn in New York City is probably my favorite season here -- it's an Indian Summer -- the weather is finally clear. Nice to be home. Some good news too: my girlfriend's fashion company, yogini, may have landed a big investor -- I'm excited for her! This weekend I am meeting up with a bunch of bloggers, including Joi Ito and others, in Madison Square Park for a sort of flashmob event. I wonder who will appear there? It is September 11 today -- of course we are all thinking about the significance of this day in history here.