ZZZ Online | Other Issues

PhoneSecure

On 12 January, 2005, by se99jmk

I'm not generally an insecure person. I'm perfectly happy with carrying in excess of ?1000 in electronics on my person... well, maybe I should get some protection after all, and I've found it, in the form of PhoneSecure.

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Phraselator

On 12 January, 2005, by se99jmk

One step closer to the babelfish from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

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Epson fabricates 20-layer PCB using InkJet tec

On 05 November, 2004, by Dreadnought

Epson has fabricated a 200micron thick 20 layer using their own InkJet technology with a conductive ink containing silver micro-particles measuring from several nanometers to several tens of nanometers in diameter, and a newly developed insulator ink.

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PetaPixel displays, 100TB storage and more...

On 05 November, 2004, by Dreadnought

Colossal Storage is developing 14M dpi or 200Tpixels per square inch of near-non-volatile display. It is based on a ferroelectric material which gives each pixel a state retension of up to 12 hours. Display resolutions of up to 4Petapixel will be possible with this technology.
Colossal Storage is also developing a holographic media which can store 10TB on a single 3?" disc. The theory behind it can go up to 1.5Exabytes (1.5x10^1.
They are currently looking for companies who are interresting in licensing the products.

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Retro OTC Medicine

I found an really intriguing and well-written article on The Straight Dope uncovering some of the history of this stuff, some of which is fairly recent:

"The FDA initially proposed clipping Mercurochrome's GRAS status in 1982 and asked for comment. Hearing little, the FDA classified the antiseptic as a "new drug," meaning that anyone proposing to sell it nationwide had to submit it to the same rigorous approval process required of a drug invented last month. (This took place in 1998--nobody's going to accuse the FDA of rushing to judgment.) It's not out of the question that a pharmaceutical company will do so someday--published research on Mercurochrome, though hardly abundant, suggests the stuff is reasonably effective. However, the approval process is time-consuming and expensive and any patent protection Mercurochrome might once have had surely expired long ago. For the foreseeable future those yearning for that delicious Mercurochrome sting will have to look somewhere else" - The Straight Dope - "What happened to Mercurochrome?"

It seems that in our rush to new and novel drugs, mercurichrome was just more or less forgotten. It's sad really that heavy metals tend to get such a bad perception in the public's eye. The story of mercury amalgam fillings is well-known, but what is not well-proven is whether or not the mercury that has ended up in some people's brains is truly from fillings and not some environmental holocaust. Science is funny that way ... you actually need to have "controlled test scenarios". Gee ...

Of all kinds of disinfectant, mercurochrome is a heavy metal variant which inhibits bacterial growth (rather than kills them):

"The mercurial salts and other heavy metal preparations have lost favor in the laboratory and hospital scene since they are more bacteriostatic than bactericidal and may be extremely toxic. This would include trademark names such as Mercurochrome, Merthiolate (Thiomerosal), Merbak, Metaphen and others." -Cleaninglink.com

I'm not trying to make a case for the return of mercurochrome. Honestly, I'm glad not to have my doctor advocating red-stained skin for all my child's cuts and scratches. Better safe than sorry, eh?

Oil-O-Sol

Something else I recall is my grandparents recommending the use od "Oil-O-Sol":

I can't find this stuff for sale anywhere except for perhaps eBay.
But it's no wonder why these old medicines have died out. This stuff contained Linseed Oil (a known skin irritant), Oil of Turpentine ((Mucous membrane and eye irritant. Harmful if inhaled) , Camphor Oil (also an irritant), Oil of Spearmint, and Eucalptus. Egads!

My grandparents claimed that it literally would "suck out" subcutaneous bruising. I've seen some claims that linseed oil injested internally can diminish bruising. I've recently seen something called "Athlete's Oil" that's applied to the skin that makes similar claims. Personally, I think ice (Supercooled Dihydrogen Oxide!) works fine.

Well, we do have our modern "snake oils" and "miracle cures", but science and organizations like the FDA will ultimately prevail, leaving us with the things that actually work. Personally, I can't wait until we get out of the Dark Ages and go Star Trek ... healing things with beams of energy, but for now we have stuff like Liquid Bandages and moisturizing antiseptics. The bonus? Well for one, they don't stink to high heaven and ultimately they're not going to kill you. Sounds like progress to me ...

Monkeys, Robot Arms, and Cognitive Integration

Sure, I could run out and buy something like Dragon Naturally Speaking, but where's the fun in that? I want a chip in my brain that I could use to type, or better yet, to decrease my delay times when beating Yoda's @ss in some deranged Half-Life mod:

Monkeying Around

I want better ... maybe electrodes in my brain, perhaps? Seriously, this tech is coming. We've talked about these things before ... Monkey Brains and Mind Control (ZZZ Online Issue 135) ... and it never ceases to amaze me. This is by no means new news. Monkeys (and people) have been moving cursors about screens for a while. What's more intriguing is mind control over robotics! More recently the technology is improving rapidly:

" Dr Andrew Schwartz's team inserted a number of tiny probes into the brains of monkeys. The probes interpret signals from individual nerve cells in the motor cortex. Given that even the smallest of movements involve thousands of nerve signals too numerous to track, the scientists used a gadget to work out the most important signals. The computer algorithm averages out the dominant signals to obtain the overall movement picture, which they called the "population vector". - BBC News

"A number of devices might one day be controlled by neurosprosthetic systems, ranging from simple computer cursors, to transport vehicles requiring graded two-dimensional control, to prosthetic arms requiring gra ded con trol of many degrees of freedom. We have demonstrated here that the nervous system need not c ontrol all the d egrees of free dom available in a controlled device in order to per form a useful task." - From the research in PDF (good read)

The University of Pittsburgh's Motorlab for more details on this burgeoning research and how monkeys with robot arms, robots with monkey brains, bringing an end to the whole Monkey vs Robot war that ravages this world (well maybe not, but you can prove anything on the 'Net!).

Cognitive Integration

Getting back to reality, I'd like to entertain one vision of the future. One really cool link that was sent to me on "AS3", an Augmented Reality Tactile Environment where live airframe aerodynamic feedback is functionally mapped over the pilot's body tactile sense. There's an intriguing video online that explores this (large download, so be prepared!) over at Karenfuxia.com.

In case you still don't know yet, AS3 is proposed for a pilot/airplane conection for full tactile control over an aircraft:

"Why there's the need for such an Aerodynamic Smart Skin System? The sport pilot and the aircraft are interfaced together via multiple ways, more or less effective and more or less efficient depending on the nature and the complexity of both the parameter to be interfaced or the interface itself. The tactile -way interface is extremely important from a cognitive point of view, but not much substantial work has been done in order to upgrade the modern cockpit under this subject. An interesting tactile application is the AS3, where the outcoming pilot is basically becoming the airframe itself from the aerodynamical interactions point of view. This fact amazingly boosts the synergy between pilot and aircraft, making the pilot of a glider, an aerobatic aircraft, a microlight, an experimental aircraft or a general aviation airplane enjoy the sport from a 21st century state-of-the-art perspective." - Aerodynamic Smart Skin System

With continuous advances in sensors, we're bound to see more control devices coming to market within this decade that will blow our minds. But when it all comes down to it, right now I really just want a replacement for my keyboard so I can type these articles up with my "gimp hand" ...