Camera Phones Plaza

A very good thing in this chaotic world we all live in is that, irrespective all the conflicts and disasters that are enough “stubborn” in their attempt to make life a living nightmare, many people become aware of the problems the humanity is facing nowadays and try to do something about it. They try to improve things, if it’s possible, and to start them all over again, where there’s nothing to do about it.

We’ve witnessed in the past couple of year the apparition of so many solar powered gadgets, from cell phones to vehicles, and the trend seems to be very powerful, as people also started to think about the world’s first solar-powered city. It’s like the solar energy history doesn’t want to come to an end and goes to the next level, even if we like it or not.

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There are plans for such a city to be built from scratch, in the Sunshine State. You don’t know which state I’m talking about? Well, it’s Florida, this being the nickname given by the population. The project is known under the name of Babcock Ranch, which is expected to be a community large of about 17,000 acres. The city, placed somewhere near Fort Myers, for the connoisseurs, will be the result of the collaboration between Florida Power & Light and Kitson & Partners, a development firm.



An impressive aspect is that the entire community will be based on a solar-powered generator of 75 megawatt, that is said to cost $300 million. In addition, smart grid technology will allow people to have total control over their power consumption.



Now, here is what we find on the Babcock Ranch website: “Electric vehicles, able to plug in for recharge at convenient community-wide recharging stations, will glide along avenues beneath the glow of solar-powered street lamps. Ingenious, revolutionary Smart Grid technologies will monitor and manage energy use while Smart Home technology will allow residents to operate their homes at maximum efficiency, thereby reducing costs”.



It sounds futuristic, of course, but we sure hope that everything goes according to the plans. And if it does, then the construction of the solar facility is said to begin sometimes at the end of the year, while the construction of the city center is expected to begin in 2010. A very important aspect is that buildings, both homes and businesses, will have a Florida Green Building Council standards certification.

There will be approximately 19,500 homes and retail and light industrial space of 6 million square feet. Not to mention the impressive surface of greenways and open space of more than 8,000 acres.

Maybe it’s hard to believe that the Babcock Ranch will ever come true, but what should please us is that the solar energy history goes on.

(Source: Dvice)

I don’t know if you ever had the chance to experience this feeling, but let me tell how invigorating it is for me to know that technology doesn’t reduce itself to all sorts of futuristic cell phones, to modern furniture for your home, to the coolest MP3 players one can find in the market or to weird shaped USB flash drives.

It’s so nice for someone to see that development doesn’t neglect a very important area, the medicine, and that we have all the odds for living a better life in the future. Maybe people don’t usually express their interest in a defibrillator, but you probably know that we become aware of its importance only in those nasty situations when we need such a device.

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Here we have the Lifepack 15 portable monitor / defibrillator and Medtronic’s Physio-Control, Inc. has just managed to receive a very important approval, the FDA’s, to be more precise. The system comes with a very impressive list of features that might sound a little bit difficult to understand, unless you’re familiar with the language.

Now, here’s what the portable defibrillator comes equipped with: the possibility to noninvasively and continuously detect the carbon monoxide (SpCO), the oxygen saturation (SpO2) and the methemoglobin (SpMET) (which is possible through the built-in Masimo Raynbow technology), the CPR Metronome has audible prompts, energy dosing to 360J for those patients who are difficult to defibrillate, easy to acquire pre-medication 12-lead ECG, a large and high-quality dual-mode color LCD display (it has a one touch switching to high-contrast SunVue mode) and an advanced Lithium-ion battery that provides up to six hours of operating time.

(Source: gizmodo.com)

According to Wikipedia, the “coronary artery bypass surgery, also coronary bypass graft surgery, and colloquially heart bypass or bypass surgery is a surgical procedure performed to relieve angina and reduce the risk of death from coronary artery disease. […] This surgery is usually performed with the heart stopped, necessitating the usage of cardiopulmonary bypass; techniques are available to perform CABG on a beating heart, so called ‘off-pump’ surgery”.

The technology has gone so far that stopping the functions of the heart during such a surgery isn’t necessary anymore. How come? Well, thanks to the Waseda University from Japan, that came up with a robot that is designed to take care of this problem.

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The surgical robot can perform the coronary bypass without the need of stopping the heart from functioning as it usually does. This means, in other words, that the robot can perform the surgery while the heart is beating. More than that, cracking open the patient’s chest which is normally involved in such situations won’t be compulsory from now on.

The robot is very precise, as it should be, if you think about it, so it performs the operation with a millimeters-long accuracy. However, irrespective of the advantages brought by the surgical robot that is able to remove the coronary artery bypass complications, there’s an obstacle very hard to obviate, and it consists of the costs implied by the acquisition of the robot (the price, to be more precise) and by the maintenance. However, there’s no doubt about the fact that scientists should spare no effort in order to implement such an innovation that will reduce the scars that usually remain on a patient’s body after a surgery.

(Source: Dvice)

I am quite frightened by the thought that in a very near future we will witness something that seems to be a very good idea right, a saving one, but I don’t know if we’ll be happy to see how our places are taken by robots. Yes, robots. Japanese kids, for example, are on the point of being introduced in the world of knowledge by non-flesh-and-bones creatures. This is dramatic, if you ask me, because there’s no machinery in the whole world to successfully replace a human being.

It seems that Japan goes through very rough times these days, with their grown old population, so the robots are considered to be the best solution when it comes to replacing all sorts of workers. Maybe we’re talking about a genuine solution, I agree, but it still sounds crazy.

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Anyway, if the robots are such fashionable apparitions these days, why not help them become part of the fashion industry? And if you thought this is nonsense, let me tell you that the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology of Japan doesn’t think so. On the contrary. The institute finds the idea a very interesting one and it’s eager to make it a dream come true.



Therefore, they unveiled what you can see in the pictures, a robot called HRP-4C, just in time for the Fashion Week which is to take place in Tokyo (March 23th – March 29th 2009). The fashion model is 5 feet tall and weighs no more than 95 pounds, but other measurements weren’t made available (bust, waist and hips).

I’m sure you’ll be a little bit confused when seeing this robot, as it looks so very real. And you’ll be even more confused if you get to see this thing making its debut on the catwalk next week, during the Tokyo Fashion Week. And I’m curious if someone will even notice the differences between the HRP-4C and the human models.

I don’t know whether designers from all over the world would ever choose to have such models on their fashion shows, but young fashion models from all over the world, beware! Your carriers might be in danger!

(Source: Dvice)

Deviating from its main function, which is making and receiving calls, the cell phones tend to be as multifunctional as a device could be. They can be your perfect fashion statement, as they can be worn as jeweleries, they help you take photos of you and your friends, they facilitate the access to the Internet, they sing and dance, they serve breakfast at bed and so on.

There’s nothing a mobile phone can’t do. Not to mention the fact that they are also able to get you out of a scrape, in those nasty situations when you forgot your wallet on the night stand or you’re so very shor on cash. Don’t laugh at me, ‘cause the cell phone can do it! And let me tell you how it works: the system is based on a contactless card format that is able to interact with the environment thanks the Near Field Communication (also known as NFC). The NFC is nothing but a “short distance wireless connection technology”.

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To be more precise, the phone comes with a second antenna, which is designed to manage NFC exchanges. Therefore, all the user has to do is to just wave the device from a distance of no more than a few inches from the reader (a special one).

British people should be happy to know that they will be the first to enjoy these new benefits of cell phones, and they will have to thank Barclaycard and Orange. A very important aspect is that the new payment system is created to replace cash and it will be used for payments of no more than $14. Pretty cool!

(Source: Dvice)