Morty you no longer need to sleep under your desk

From Springwise

We've already written about nap pods in New York City and airport Yotels, both of which provide a quick bit of rest for the weary. Picking up on the airport theme, Nemorelax is now rolling out cocoon-like rest modules to give airport travellers a way to decompress.

Whereas Yotel's pod-like rooms are booked in increments of at least four hours, Nemorelax pods can be reserved for as little as 30 minutes. Dubbed an "oasis of calm," each pod features a Stressless recliner chair from Norwegian furniture maker Ekornes encircled by a cocoon of sound-isolating materials. In addition to sleeping or making private phone calls, travellers can watch a movie on the pod's touchscreen monitor, listen to music on the sound-on-demand system or get some work done on the fold-away work table. Each Nemorelaxer offers free wifi connectivity, and loaner laptops are available at no extra charge. Nemorelaxers will be set up in suites of 6 or more in central airport locations with an on-site, staffed desk. Wake-up services will also be available.

Netherlands-based Nemorelax is currently talking with international airport and transit authorities, and its first Nemorelax Suite in Europe will open soon. It's a sleep-deprived world out there—no shortage of opportunity for this one across the globe.

Website: www.nemorelax.com

Sony to Toshiba - "HD DVD is whack!"

TOKYO (Reuters) - For Sony Corp's head of video businesses, Kiyoshi Nishitani, Blu-ray's impending victory over Toshiba Corp's HD DVD format is something he has been working at for more than two decades.

Nishitani, a 35-year company veteran, helped develop Sony's Betamax video tape system but the technology lost out in the 1980s to the competing VHS format, supported by JVC and Panasonic maker Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd.

This time around, however, Nishitani, 57, and other company executives have made certain Sony joined hands with Matsushita and many other global electronics makers.

They also tied up the majority of Hollywood film studios, laying siege to Toshiba's HD DVD camp, whose short list of supporters include Microsoft Corp.

The reward for his employer may include the salvation of its loss-making PlayStation 3 game console, although it may now face a battle for supremacy with other Blu-ray backers including Matsushita....

Who knew Bill Gates was so hip hop, Microsoft buys Danger - maker of the Sidekick

From GigaOm

That Yahoo thing is going to take sometime, but acquisition hungry Microsoft isn’t sitting idle. They have snapped up Palo Alto-based Danger Inc for an undisclosed amount of money. While they are not giving reasons as to why they are buying Danger, I am guessing that the user experience on Danger is a key factor.

Netflix cockblocks HD DVD

thanks Engadget:

In what can only be classified as yet another crushing blow to the embattled HD DVD camp, rent-by-mail giant Netflix has just announced its intention to only stock Blu-ray titles in the future. Netflix justified its decision by pointing out the fact that most Hollywood studios seem to be converging solely around the Sony-backed format -- a fact that's all too familiar to Toshiba and friends. With both Blockbuster and now the 'Flix having eschewed HD DVD for BD, it's gonna get harder and harder to even find a place to rent those former discs in the first place, let alone one that has a decent selection.

Kind of scary

"Forget about monitoring your computers with spyware, now they're going to monitor the users as well! 'Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker's productivity, physical wellbeing and competence. The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees' performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer's assessment of their physiological state.'"

Very Cool Technology!!!

Finding sustainable and affordable ways to power the world is clearly a substantial and increasingly urgent challenge. We covered consumer-generated power back in 2006, but Dutch startup Qurrent is taking the notion a step further with technology to enable neighbourhood-wide energy networks.

Because of fluctuating patterns of consumption, homes with wind and solar energy generators can find themselves with surplus energy at some times of the day but not enough at others. Surplus energy typically gets sold back to the main grid, but as much as 30 percent of it gets lost along the way, according to EcoGeek. When a group of homes work together to manage their collective energy generation and use, on the other hand, higher levels of demand in one home can be matched with surpluses in others, thus evening out the group's overall consumption and minimizing the amount that must be drawn from the main grid. Participating homes essentially form a "mini-grid" that shares energy internally before exchanging any with the main grid, thereby minimizing waste and maximizing efficiency.

To make it all happen, Qurrent provides a device for each participating house known as a Qbox. Each linked to a central Qserver, the Qboxes in the network monitor energy flows in each home and optimize them for maximum network-wide efficiency. They share capacities as needed among neighbours, and can also autonomously turn on devices such as washing machines and dryers so that they are run at the optimal time. A consumer could tell their Qbox that they want their laundry done by 6 p.m. and that it will take roughly 1.5 hours, for example. They can then go to work and the Qbox will decide when is the best time to run it, taking into account their production profiles and energy rates as well as those of their neighbours.

Qurrent won the 2007 Picnic Green Challenge for the best marketable green idea that could be developed and sold to consumers within two years. Along with the award came a EUR 500,000 prize, which reportedly will be used to pilot-test the concept in a Netherlands neighbourhood. One to get in on early?

Website: www.qurrent.com

Nerd it up - Macworld bitches

This is pretty huge

Researchers create printed solar cells

We've seen a lot of attempts to cut the costs of solar cells, but a team in Japan has managed to create an inexpensive flexible cell that's as thin as a sheet of paper using what they describe as traditional printing techniques. The team, composed of researchers from Toin University in Yokohama and private firm Fujimori Kogyo, managed to eliminate the expensive silicon component of regular solar cells, reducing thickness to just .4mm (.015 inches), and allowing a factory to pump out reams of the material every month -- enough to generate 10 megawatts of juice. That's actually a fairly low estimate, as the cells are only at 6% efficiency right now, but we can imagine that number shooting upwards after they start shipping in February.

a place for morty to store his glaucoma medicine

This is good

Google Shrewdly Plays Wireless Bid
By Vishesh Kumar
TheStreet.com Senior Writer
12/6/2007 6:03 AM EST
URL: http://www.thestreet.com/newsanalysis/techstockupdate/10393139.html

Don't expect Google (GOOG) to win the upcoming wireless spectrum auction. But in many ways, the company already may have the prize it wanted. What's more, losing the auction actually may serve the search giant's purposes more than winning would have. Google said last Friday that it would bid on the 700-megahertz spectrum the Federal Communications Commission is auctioning beginning Jan. 24. Previously used for television broadcasts, the spectrum is highly powerful and could help the search giant make good on its highly ambitious plans for the mobile Internet market. And with nearly $13 billion in cash and no debt, Google has the balance sheet and financial muscle to be a serious player in the auction. Still, rather than actually winning the auction, Google's participation is likely intended to secure what it sees as the real reward: ensuring that whoever ends up owning the spectrum allows the open access of applications and devices. Indeed, as long as this goal is met, it's hard to see why Google would want to take on the costly task of building and running its own network. But given how much is at stake when it comes to the mobile market, Google's vigilance is shrewd, even if it never planned to own the spectrum. To make sure the spectrum stays open, says Jamie Townsend, head of strategy at research boutique JRPG, Google must bid a minimum of $4.6 billion in accordance with FCC guidelines. Over the summer, Google had successfully lobbied the FCC to include provisions in the auction that would force the winner to open access to applications and devices. But if those stipulations deterred bidders from putting in a bid of at least $4.6 billion, the spectrum would go back on sale 30 days later without the provisions. With that floor in place, the two elements most crucial to Google aren't removed from the process. Above that level, Google can simply drop out of the bidding process. Townsend expects the spectrum to go for close to $6 billion and says it's highly unlikely that its $4.6 billion bid will mean its left holding the bag. Given how vital Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) believe the spectrum is to the future of their businesses, it's easy to imagine the bidding going into the double-digit billions. Owning and operating a network, on the other hand, could make for a costly and distracting scenario. "The cost of building a network could reach more than $10 billion, significantly reducing our estimated 2008 cash balance [from] nearly $20 billion to [about] $5 billion," Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto wrote in a research note on Google last week. It could also end up "diverting management's attention from its core search product and foray into display advertising," Noto wrote. Goldman Sachs makes a market in Google shares. Given the potential size of the mobile advertising opportunity over the long term, however, Google's efforts, even without the spectrum, should prove well worth it. While acknowledging that the market is still in its nascent stages and that forecasting is difficult, Citigroup published estimates last week that could see the global search market reach an astounding $28 billion by 2010. And that's exactly the type of large market Google needs to meet the aggressive growth expectations Wall Street has set for the company. Its stock, which closed trading Wednesday at $698.51 a share, trades at a price/earnings-to-growth ratio of 1.3. That means that analysts expect the company to grow earnings by almost 35% each year for the next five years. Through aggressive gamesmanship and legwork, Google seems to have set itself up to have as clean a shot as possible at the emerging mobile advertising pie. Given the heady growth expectations set out for the company, it's going to need that access.

Very very useful

Toyota's new robot can play the violin, help the aged

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Toyota Motor on Thursday unveiled a robot that can play the violin as part of its efforts to develop futuristic machines capable of assisting humans in Japan's greying society. The 1.5-metre-tall (five-foot), two-legged robot wowed onlookers with a faultless rendition of Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance. With 17 joints in its hands and arms, the robot has human-like dexterity that could be applied to helping people in the home or in nursing and medical care, the carmaker said. Toyota also unveiled a two-wheeled, single-seat "mobility robot" that could be used to transport an elderly or disabled person over uneven ground and around obstacles. Toyota, which already uses industrial robots extensively in its car plants, said it aims to put robots capable of assisting humans into use by the early 2010s. "We began to use industrial robots in our factories in the 1980s that have been perfected over time to be capable of working on several car models or carrying out different tasks," said Toyota Motor Corp. chief executive Katsuaki Watanabe. "Now we want to accelerate the development of robots that make a contribution to society, drawing on our knowledge and innovation in the field of automobiles," he told a press conference. The new robots come three years after Toyota unveiled a trumpet-playing robot -- its first humanoid machine -- in a bid to catch up with robot technology frontrunners such as Honda Motor Co. and Sony Corp. Makers of robots see big potential for their use in Japan, where the number of elderly people is rapidly growing, causing labour shortages in a country that strictly controls immigration. Japanese are famed for their longevity of life, with more than 30,000 people aged at least 100 years old, a trend attributed to a healthy cuisine and active lifestyle. But the ability to live longer is also presenting a headache as the country has one of the lowest birthrates. Japan's most famous robot is arguably Asimo, an astronaut-looking humanoid developed by Honda which has been hired out as an office servant and has even popped up to offer toasts at Japanese diplomatic functions. Toyota meanwhile said it believed it was vital to team up with partners in industry, government and academia to develop robots to assist humans. It aims to start trials putting some, including the mobility robot, into practical use in the second half of next year. Further work is also planned to improve the hand and arm flexibility of the violin-playing robot so it can use general purpose tools. Carmakers are also looking to use robot technology to develop more sophisticated cars. "Technologies used to enrich the abilities of robots can also be used to improve the functionality of automobiles," said Watanabe.