Cheating Death

Image Credit: Barnes and Noble

Popular M.D. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has recently released a book called Cheating Death.  In it, he explains how recent advances in medical technology can increase our survival rate in accidents and health issues tenfold.  The path this technology is on will eventually lead to the human race being able to effectively “cheat death” and die on their own terms–or not at all.

Of course this will create some philosophical issues, but for now, I’m simply examining the book itself.

CompSci: Virtual Reality and the Medical Field

Image Credit: engin.umich.edu

I was inspired to write this article after reading one of the closing chapters in Unweaving the Rainbow:  Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder by Richard Dawkins that I mentioned in a previous post.  Dawkins discusses the implications virtual reality has on areas of science, medicine, and everyday life.  The ideas he posed about this in Unweaving the Rainbow were mere hypothetical and “in theory” situations 13 years ago, but now, I curiously wonder why his ideas aren’t given more attention.

I say “his” ideas, but what I mean to say is the ideas of those in the virtual reality field, which is all too often overlooked as a branch of science intended for computer nerds intent on making the next great video game console.  It’s a sad reality that such a groundbreaking science isn’t respected enough.  Thankfully, those doing the research for virtual reality don’t seem too affected by the stereotype.

CompSci/Neuroscience: Brain Hackers

…or for the gaming type 0mg brain h4ax0rz!??  According to some scientists, it’s apparently something that should be taken serious in an age when neural devices are going wireless.  Technology has already allowed us to control computers using our brain waves for a few years now, and with hackers in the digital world increasing in number each year, it may indeed only be a short while before they go for one’s brain.

CNN is calling it “The Next Hacking Frontier,” but let’s hear what the experts have to say about this issue.

CompSci Review: Logitech Wireless Mouse M205

For the first post in this series, I decided I would review a mouse a bought yesterday.  I have gone through two mice before this one, both dying for the same reason, shorts in the cable.  So while in Wal-Mart searching for a new mouse, I decided to go wireless, with the Logitech M205 Mouse.

Though the price may suggest otherwise, this little mouse is really a great buy.

CompSci Series

I’ve decided to add a computer science section to the blog, considering we have pretty much every science covered save tech.  It should consist of tech news, reviews of hardware and software, etc.  Perhaps this will give my fellow writer, atylmo some material to contribute to the blog, if he’d like.  And no atylmo, that wasn’t a way of saying “contribute to the blog…now.”  Just a mere suggestion

Anyway, I have a post at the ready for sometime tonight or tomorrow.  We’ll see how it works.

My Thoughts On Google Chrome

It’s nothing special.  That’s really all there is to say.  Obviously it’s still just a beta, but I don’t really see right now why anyone would choose it over Mozilla FireFox.  Not that it’s bad, it’s just not any better in my opinion.  At least not yet.

First off, I hated how the installer assumed I wanted desktop and quick launch icons.  It doesn’t give you an option to avoid that either.  I know it’s just nitpicking on my part, but I HATE icons.  I only have three on my desktop as of right now.

And the interface is just….ugly.  At least that’s my feeling about it.  And as of now, you can’t change the appearance.  Hopefully this will change in the future.

The speed is fine.  Just as fast a FireFox.  The only thing is it seems to take a minute to “get warmed up” so to speak.  It’s not irritatingly slow or anything, just noticeably a bit slower when it’s first booted up.

The recently visited pages page that comes up when you open a new tab is both cool and useful if you visit the same sites a lot.

So far, Google Chrome is a fine web browser, but they really haven’t shown me any reason it’s worth switching to over FireFox.

Yea, I left out IE on this post because I hate IE.  I’d choose anything over it

Google Has a Web Browser

UPDATE: You can download the Beta to test it yourself here.

It was only a matter of time, really.  Chrome, Google’s new web browser has been put to the test for the first time.  The following is an article courtesy of Yahoo! News.

Google has introduced a new Web browser, called Chrome, aimed at wresting dominance of the browser market from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The move takes the Google-Microsoft rivalry to a whole new level. If Google succeeds, it will be a big deal, with major ramifications for the future of the Web.

But just how good is Chrome? How does it differ from IE and from less popular, but still important, browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox and Apple’s Safari?

Are You Being Watched?

When traveling to London, be sure to smile: the city is home to at least half of a million surveillance cameras—if you count video systems at banks, supermarkets and other commercial locations, wiretapping or surveillance powers.  According to The New York Times And motorists with obnoxious vanity license plates, take heed: New York City has plans to install cameras that will snap a photo of every plate that enters the borough of Manhattan.

The range of  human vocalization, from a full-throated bellow to a hushed whisper, typically lets you decide who will hear your voice. But what happens when that choice is taken away by technology that can pick up and transmit even the softest sounds? Add security cameras at gas stations, convenience marts, subway stops and street corners, and privacy appears to be little more than a quaint notion.