TFOT - The Future Of Things
The Future of Things - Your source for future science and technology
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Bahama Botnet Stealing Traffic From Google
The Bahama botnet, a sophisticated network of compromised computers that is wreaking click-fraud havoc among advertisers, is also snatching away Web traffic and revenue right from under the nose of mighty Google, Click Forensics said Thursday. As part of its design, the Bahama botnet not only turns …
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GigaGalaxy Zoom Project
The project, called GigaGalaxy Zoom, reveals three amazing, ultra-high-resolution images of the night sky that online stargazers can zoom in on and explore at an incredible level of detail. The reward is the most breathtaking dive ever made into our Galaxy, linking the sky seen by all with the cosmo …
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Toshiba's Latest Fuel Cell Charge in Seconds
At Japan's CEATEC show, Toshiba and KDDI are demonstrating a modified Toshiba T002 phone that's powered by a direct-methanol fuel cell (DMFC) and Li-Ion battery. More advanced than previous prototypes, it runs for 320 hours on a squirt of methanol. DMFCs produce electricity from a reaction of methan …
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Stem Cell Vaccine for Cancer Step Nearer
Researchers have engineered stem cells to mimic some characteristics of cancer that when injected trick the body into building up a natural immunity to the disease. The work focuses on colon cancer but the scientists believe it could be widened to provide a "universal cancer vaccine". The novel appr …
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Sony Debuts Vaio X, World's Lightest Laptop
Sony and Microsoft threw a big bash last night in New York City, and one of the company's three Windows 7-powered announcements was its Vaio X, an 11.1-inch ultraportable laptop that's "thinner than a No. 2 pencil" and lasts up to 14 hours. Finally offering the kind of device that isn't quite a netb …
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Ribosome Clinches the Chemistry Nobel
Three molecular biologists who mapped the structure and inner workings of the ribosome - the cell's machinery for churning out proteins from the genetic code - have won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who works at the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology …
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Give Forests Back to Local People to Save
Give tropical forests back to the people who live in them - and the trees will soak up your carbon for you. Above all, keep the forests out of the hands of government. So concludes a study that has tracked the fate of 80 forests worldwide over 15 years. Most tropical forests - from Himalayan hill fo …
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What's Next for the Netflix Algorithms?
When the Netflix Prize was awarded last month, it ended three years of intense competition aimed at finding a better algorithm for predicting users' movie preferences. The winning team, BellKor's Pragmatic Chaos, was the first to forecast Netflix customers' movie ratings with 10 percent better accur …
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Pensioner Grows New Skull
Gordon Moore, 72, had worn a metal plate to protect his brain for more than 50 years after he was involved in a car crash. But when surgeons removed the titanium plate to treat an infection, they were astonished to find the had grown a new skull underneath. A skull growing back is so rare there are …
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New Google Logo Celebrates The Barcode
Google's new logo is a barcode which, as far as we can tell, says "Google." Today is the 57th anniversary of the first patent on the bar code. Inventors Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver filed the patent on October 1949, and it was granted, No. 2,612,994, on October 7, 1952. The original patent was …
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Souped-Up Stem Cells Rescue Damaged Limbs
Already prized as engines of repair, stem cells have now been engineered to contain a gene that enhances their healing properties by summoning extra blood vessels to newly formed tissue. Using the same technique, it should be possible to add other genes to stem cells to make them more efficient at d …
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Huge 'Ghost' Ring Discovered Around Saturn
Saturn's ring system has just got a lot larger, with the discovery of a faint ring that stretches out millions of kilometres into space. But this new ring, which follows the orbit of one of Saturn's moons, Phoebe, is unlike any of the other rings that are closer to the planet: as well as being much …
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Light-Switched Drug Delivery
Targeted drug delivery is a hot topic of research. Scientists around the world are working on different ways to get drugs into specific cells without negatively impacting the rest of the body. Now researchers in England and Germany have created gold-studded polymer microcapsules that release compoun …
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How 3-D Television Works
"Larger than life" takes on a whole new meaning when you watch Beowulf swing from a dragon and hack branches that seem to just pop out of the TV. TV manufacturers want to bring that experience to your living room with 3-D displays that work much like the ones in the theaters. Major consumer-electron …
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'Power Loader' Robotic Exoskeleton Suit
Activelink, a subsidiary of Japan's Panasonic Corporation, has been demoing a "Power Loader" robotic exoskeleton suit that takes its name from the iconic machinery used by Ellen Ripley in James Cameroon's 1986 sci-fi flick. The suit is said to be built from an aluminium-alloy frame and wei …
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The Bloodbot Project
Collaboration between the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Imperial College in London, and its Mechatronics in Medicine Laboratory, has yielded the Bloodbot project, in which a robot has been designed to take blood samples from the ante-cubital fossa (ACF). Such a robot could make clinicians' …
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Sea-Level Rise Linked to Coastal Areas
The anticipated sea-level rise associated with climate change, including increased storminess, over the next 100 years and the impact on the nation's low-lying coastal infrastructure is the focus of a new, interdisciplinary study led by geologists at The Florida State University. "Our hypothesis is …
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Microsoft Confirms Hotmail Phishing Attack
Several thousand Hotmail usernames and passwords were exposed on over the weekend via a phishing attack, Microsoft confirmed late on Monday. Microsoft said it would block access to the accounts that were exposed and work with customers to reclaim access to them. "Over the weekend Microsoft learned t …
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Google Leaks Info About New iMacs, MacBook
There has been enough rumors about an Apple tablet to last a lifetime. It's a sad day when that alone makes these leaks about new iMacs and MacBooks refreshing. Over the last two months (give or take), speculation has been mounting about a more affordable laptop from Apple. Rather than discontinue t …
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'Free' Windows 7 Upgrades Still Cost Money
Did you buy a new PC this past summer with the promise of a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it launches on October 22? Well, it turns out that the upgrade might not be completely free. While the license for Windows 7 upgrade itself will be free, getting to delivered might come with a small charge, de …
TFOT - The Future Of Things
