Honda To Showcase Assisted Walking Device

Honda is showcasing assisted walking technology, think exoskeleton, at the International Trade Fair on Barrier Free Equipments & Rehabilitation for the Elderly & the Disabled (BARRIER FREE 2008) in Osaka, Japan on April 25th -27th. The device which is currently under feasibility studies has been under development since 1999 and owes some of its technology to Honda's ASIMO humanoid robotics project. Honda's website says "Applying cooperative control based on the information obtained from hip angle sensors, the motors provide optimal assistance based on a command from the control CPU. With this assist, the user’s stride will be lengthened compared to the user’s normal stride without the device and therefore the ease of walking is achieved." The idea is to assist those with compromised walking capabilities due to injury or age. Check out the link above for images; very slick and looking like it's ready to hit the market.

Thanks to Engadget for pointing this out.

Google Gadget To Help You Conserve On Earth Day

Google has an interesting little desktop gadget that helps you conserve energy when your Windows XP or Vista PC is not in use. The Energy Saver Gadget enables and optimizes your Windows power settings to EPA recommended standards and shows you how much energy you've saved as well as how much energy has been saved by all those using the gadget. An important feature is the "Pause" button allowing you to keep your computer from turning off when you are watching a movie or giving a presentation. You'll need Google Desktop installed! Thanks Google!

Canada's New Democratic Party Pushes For Net Neutrality

NDP Member of Parliament Charlie Angus is urging the Canadian government to introduce net neutrality and stop the country's telecommunications companies from throttling Internet speeds. In an open letter to the Minister of Industry Jim Prentice, Angus wrote "Ground rules are needed to ensure that the bandwidth management strategies of the major telecoms will not lead to anti-competitive practices or arbitrary discrimination against end use applications... I am urging you to adopt the recommendations of the Telecommunications Review Panel in order to send a clear signal that Canada has a plan going forward to ensure continued development of Internet technologies and fairness for consumers." Prentice is quoted by the CBC as having said recently in Parliament that "At this point in time we will continue to leave the matter between consumers on the one hand and Internet service providers on the other." While the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) does have the authority to rule on such practices, it has yet to do anything to stop the practice by the big teleco's.

Wii Owners Not Buying Games

With Nintendo Wii's in more than 20 million homes you would think that sales of software for the popular game console would be through the roof. The New York Times is however reporting that Wii game sales are not stellar and this is at least in part due to the demographic that the company targeted in selling the console. “The kind of person that buys a Wii is not the same kind of person that buys a PS3 or an Xbox,” according to John Greiner, the chief executive of Hudson Entertainment, “You have to be very specific when you design a game and target not only the gameplay mechanics for that user, but also the marketing for that kind of a product launch.” We've considered buying the Wii in our home but decided not to simply because of the game catalog, it just doesn't have the same appeal as the titles on available for our XBox 360...

Manchester Police Create Facebook App

The Greater Manchester Police force has turned to social networking site Facebook to assist in apprehending criminals. The force has created a Facebook application that delivers a real-time feed of police news and appeals for information, allows users to share a story with Facebook friends, post comments, links to a "Submit Intelligence" page on the forces website and to videos on Youtube. This is another great example of reaching out to the community using the tools at your disposal... I'd personally like to see more organizations take this kind of approach! As long as they don't pester you with annoying invite a friend requests it just might work. PC World has the complete story here.

CNN Website Attacked

In a story on cnn.com the network quoted a CNN spokesperson as saying "CNN took preventative measures to filter traffic in response to attempts to disrupt our Web site. A small percentage of CNN.com users in Asia are impacted". The attack was said to have taken place on Thursday, and administrators took measures to counter the attack and isolate the trouble. The result was a slowdown in service to users in some geographic locations. The spokesperson added "We do not know who is responsible, nor can we confirm where it came from," but the attack comes on the heels of calls for denial of service attacks by hacker groups in China over CNN's coverage of the situation in Tibet. Chinese hacker groups... hmm.

Russian Capsule Makes Off-Course Landing, Astronauts Shaken But Okay

South Korea's first space traveller Yi So-yeon, American astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian flight engineer Yuri Malenchenko are reported to be in satisfactory condition after what NASA commentator John Ira Petty described as a "ballistic" re-entry. The three were subjected to severe G-force and the entry took them 420 kilometres off target in northern Kazakhstan. For Whitson the time she spent aboard the International Space Station, together with a previous stay, totals 377 days in space, more than any other U.S. spacefarer. You can find more from NASA here and the CBC here.

Microsoft's Downloadable Office Suite

Microsoft has announced a downloadable, subscription-based version of it's popular Microsoft Office, codenamed "Albany". The suite is currently available to users who signed up for beta testing and will offer Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, with the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. According to this CBC article, "It will also include the Microsoft Office Live Workspace connector on the Microsoft Office toolbar, where users will be able to save documents online and share them with others, as well as security and backup services." Microsoft is not planning on retiring the sale of software on media, stating "At the same time, we are definitely not straying from our traditional software sales model. There will always be a significant number of users for whom purchasing a perpetual license to the latest version of Office is still the best choice." While no one is suggesting that Google's Docs are posing a serious threat at this time, I think Microsoft is seeing software as a service as a reality.

Paypal Will Block "Unsafe Browsers"

Paypal is vowing to block users from it's service who are using "unsafe browsers", customers will first be warned but will be blocked from the service if they continue to use the unsafe technology. Paypal says "an alarming fact that there is a significant set of users who use very old and vulnerable browsers such as Internet Explorer 4". In fact they claim that some users are still employing Internet Explorer 3 which is more than 10 years old! The company also said "In our view letting users view the PayPal site on [an unsafe] browser is equal to a car manufacturer allowing drivers to buy one of their vehicles without seatbelts." BBC story here.

YouTube Surgery Video - File This Under Unbelievable And Disturbing!

A group of doctors, nurses, nursing students and and a clinical instructor each face disciplinary action after a video of a raucous surgery makes its way onto YouTube. The embarrassed patient, a 39-year-old unidentified male, plans to file a complaint seeking the revocation of the licenses of those responsible and a civil suit for damages, according to the Globe and Mail. The surgery preformed at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center in Cebu, Philippines, involved the removal an object from the patients rectum. Upon the successful removal someone reportedly shouts, “Baby out!” while the operating room and observation gallery erupts in loud cheers. The patient was apparently too drunk to remember how the object found it's way in there! Let this be a lesson... drinking in excess can have embracing consequences!