All Of Your Remote Controls Are Belong To Us

Media Interaction Labs is taking touch control to the extreme by using in a Microsoft Surface like device, called Cristal, as an interface to everything in your living room. The system uses a ceiling mounted video camera to provide the user interface projected on a coffee table in the room. The user interacts with the television, lamps in the room, a Roomba, stereo, etc. by activating it on the video image. Check it out...

Air Canada Launches iPhone App

Air Canada has released an iPhone/iPod Touch application that, according to the CBC, allows passengers to "check in with their device, select their seat, retrieve electronic boarding passes and keep track of real-time flight status and information."

"This is only the first iteration of our app, and we will continue to add new features in response to customer demand." Air Canada executive vice-president Ben Smith said of the application developed for the airline by IBM Canada.

Google Groups - The Upgrade

Google is listening to it's clients and tuning up it's collaboration tool, Google Groups, in it's push to get us all working in the cloud. With a recent roll out of improvements Google Groups has been tweaked to make sharing of calendars, sites and documents with multiple people easier. Primarily, instead of adding people one at a time, you can share your calendar, site, spreadsheet, etc., with an entire Google Group. On the other hand, when someone joins or leaves a Google Group, they automatically gain or lose editing privileges to the application. Nice!

Source: Official Google Blog

Research Concludes That Zombie Attack Would Mean The End Of Us All

You may wish to polish up your Zombie killing techniques as a group of mathematics students and their professor from University of Ottawa have concluded that "A zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilization, unless it is dealt with quickly," While they admit that the scenario is highly unlikely if taken literally, the research is said to provide a useful framework in instances where scientists are dealing with the outbreak of an unknown disease.

I don't know about you, but I'll be stock piling supplies and honing my zombie eradication skills on Left4Dead! :-)

Source: CBC

Heathrow Airport Ads Driverless Taxi Pods

According to Engadget, Heathrow's driverless taxi pods have now become a reality offering passengers an easy and efficient alternative method of shuttling to and from the airport to the business car lots. "The ULTra Personal Pod cars are fully automated battery-powered pods that zoom around at up to 25mph on a special road network, and can transport four passengers and their luggage..." Can you say Johnny cab?

Napping Improves Creativity

Need to amp up your creativity? Take a nap!

Review Says Windows 7 Microsoft's Best OS

Wired's Gadget Lab blog gives kudos to Microsoft Windows 7. "Microsoft delivers a slickly designed, vastly improved OS that will warp you to the world of today. This upgrade is big, and it’s hugely recommended for Microsoft users." Gadget Lab has great things to say about the user interface upgrades and performance and is promising more reviews leading up to the launch, but it looks like they have nothing but praise for Microsoft and the Window 7 team.

Microsoft - Google Battle Over University E-Mail Management

Google and Microsoft are giving away hosted e-mail services to universities and colleges around the globe in the hope to hook students when they graduate. For the schools involved it's a can't lose proposition, cutting costs of both hardware and human resources and offering a bigger and better service to the students.

Jeff Keltner, head of Google's Apps for Education team says that administrators appreciate the cost savings and security benefits. "They walk away saying my data is probably safer in Google's data center than anywhere I would house it myself," he says. "And they appreciate the advantages to having data in the cloud, rather than residing on phones or laptops, which are devices that tend to get lost."

A 2008 national Campus Computing Project (CCP) survey indicates that 57% of schools who had outsourced said that they had opted for Google, while 38% had partnered with Microsoft.

Source: Time.com

Businesses Spawned From MIT Classrooms Explore Innovative Cellphone Uses In Developing World

Projects developed, by MIT students and former students, both in the classroom and independently are proving the worth of cellphones as useful devices, beyond the obvious, and particularly in developing nations. Software developed as entries to MIT's IDEAS or $100K business competitions, or as part of the MIT Media Lab's NextLab program are being used to help residents of underdeveloped countries to increase their incomes, learn to read, navigate to where they're going and diagnose their ailments. The fact that cellphones are small, relatively cheap in comparison to computers, and increasingly more powerful and connected, makes them ideal for these countries that have little in the way of infrastructure. The MIT News provides details of some of the projects here.

Canadian Company Wins Patent Infringement Suit Against Microsoft

A U.S. judge has given Microsoft 60 days to comply with an injunction verdict, brought down by an earlier court, that said that the company had willfully infringed on a patent belonging to i4i LP of Toronto, the judge has awarded i4i about $290-million (U.S.) in damages. The injunction also bans Microsoft from selling, in the U.S., copies of Word 2003, Word 2007 and future versions of the office software that use i4i's technology without a licence.

“We feel vindicated with this result,” said Michel Vulpe, founder of privately held i4i and an inventor of the disputed patent. “We did not go into business to litigate, we build products that serve our customers' needs.”

Microsoft says it will appeal the decision.

Source: Globe and Mail