TrailGuard to prevent poaching
Technology is a two-edged sword and can be used for good or evil, but thankfully in this case it is used for the former. A metal-detecting sensor has been developed that can be buried alongside frequently used trails, helping authorities identify weapons and potential poachers. Known as the TrailGuard system, these 10″ sensors make the task of park rangers as they do not have the manpower to patrol the area 24/7. These metal sensors come with a detection radius of 10 feet, and can determine whether the metal is from a security patrol gun or not. Hopefully the implementation of the TrailGuard will see endangered animals slowly but surely rebuild their population without the threat of poachers.
More: click here…
Add comment May 9th, 2007
Motorola has performed pretty dismally over the past year or two, with new phones that are often rehashes of older models with a slight tweak in hardware and design without offering anything really new. This rot will stop according to CEO Ed Zander as Motorola will be unveiling what it calls a “media monster” next week - a handset which is capable of churning out video at 30fps. This new Motorola phone will be a multimedia powerhouse, concentrating more on portable movies stored on SD cards. Good to see the upcomnig iPhone releasing giving a swift kick in the butt to other cellphone manufacturers. Hopefully this Motorola handset has the battery life that lasts the distance.
No matter how much power you cram into laptops these days, they still cannot measure up to desktop systems in terms of performance. This is a sore point for hardcore gamers as they want the same, exacting performance on-the-go that is comparable to their desktop counterparts. Magma is now offering a solution in the form of the ExpressBox1. Shaped like an external drive enclosure, the ExpressBox1 holds a PCI-E graphics card and is connected to the laptop via the ExpressCard/34 module and a PCI-E cable. Latency issues are non-existent accordign to Magma, and the ExpressBox1 currently supports only single-width video cards that guzzle up 55 watts of power at most. Support for double-width cards will follow later this year. The ExpressBox1 hits your pockets hard for $729. Looks like portable gaming just got a boost, but your suitcase will suffer from an extra lack of space.
The Navy Opportunity Forum proved to be rather interesting, featuring a whole platoon of unmanned aerial vehicles that are sent ahead to scout potentially dangerous areas without endangering the lives of their human operators. These devices will be able to fly or swim, depending on their type. Unfortunately for us taxpayers, the military certainly don’t skim when it comes to battlefield gizmos, with this particular model you see on the right from Lite Machines costing a shade under $2,000 if it ever hits the commercial market. What does it do? I don’t know myself, but it sure looks cool as heck. Perhaps it can be used to scout the general traffic situation ahead before you leave the house.
Sony Ericsson has recently issued a patent that could potentially revolutionize the world of cellphones - a multiple layered display. Sony Ericsson probably thought that you can cram in more applications on a tiny screen via layers, making this a viable implementation on devices like PDAs and cellphones. Sounds a lot more like manipulating a bunch of windows to me. Do you think such an idea will take off, or will Apple and their new iPhone actually draw first blood in this aspect? Whatever the outcome, if it’s all better for the industry as the whole, the consumer wins 
Genius has just dropped a couple of new peripherals to enhance your gaming experience on the PC. The ErgoMedia 500 is a gamepad that comes with palm/wrist support for both online and FPS games. In addition, the ErgoMedia boasts a backlit key cap, 11 programmable keys, an integrated microphone jack, 4-way directional buttons, and a trio of game functions. The Vibration HS-04V is a vibrating game headset that comes with a microphone, complete with volume and bass control. I don’t quite like the idea of vibrating headphones - those wearing glasses will probably experience problems as their the vibration gets more and more intense. The ErgoMedia 500 and Vibration HS-04V retails for $42.90 and $24.90 respectively.
