The handheld device uses X-rays flourescence to detect chemical elements in the scanned area. The big pro to this tech? It's fast, and it does not destroy the scanned area, unlike swabbing, and sending to the lab. Details:

Speedy handheld device to solve murder cases. Cosmiverse.com Oct 6 2002 11:00AM ET... [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service]

12:26:14 PM    

This is pretty cool, though I wonder if the networking would react badly to those with pacemakers. Still, being able to share your business card via a funky handshake would be cool as well. Lenght of contact could determine the amount of data sent/received.

10Mb/s through skin. NTT DoCoMo have released a paper on the use of human flash as a networking medium:

A device attached to a PDA can send and receive weak electrical signals through people, with human bodies as communications circuits, the paper said, citing sources close to the companies.

Apparel and handbags have their own conductivity, allowing an electrical connection to a PDA that can remain in one's pocket, the paper said.

In this way, people can exchange e-mail addresses, names and phone numbers while shaking hands, with the data automatically written into both their PDAs, the paper said.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Alan!) [Boing Boing Blog]

12:16:50 PM    

Rack mounted if possible. Then again, if the latest copyright buill goes through, they won't work with the newer TVs that will be coming out. Details of what I'm yammering about below:

My TiVo woes continue.  Last week, my TiVo lost it's programming guide.  All efforts over the past week to reload it haven't been successful.  One thing we did find is that without the programming guide, TiVo is essentially useless.  It doesn't have simple VCR controls that allow you to pick a channel, a time, and a recording length.

My friend recently set up his Replay TV to connect to his PC over Ethernet.  He allocated a 120 Gb drive on his PC to his Replay device.  He also spent a couple of hours converting a couple of dozen of his DVDs and tapes he owns over to this PC hard-drive.  This now makes it possible to play them on demand.  

This is getting closer to what I want:  a simple device (and remote control) that connects my entertainment center to my PC.  Nothing fancy, just hardware and some light software.  This would allow me to easily store all the content that is delivered to my house or any movies/music I play on my DVD/CD player on an inexpensive drive for personal use later.  I could select from a variety of extremely low cost programming guides via the Internet (this competition would allow the guides to get better, faster, and more powerful quicker).   The interface doesn't have to be that different than a standard PC interface (on HDTV at 1080i, a PC interface is extremely nice and 30-40"!).  If this was built into a home theater receiver, that would probably work too (it would only require that a couple of input jacks -- for all three major modes of input -- that route through the computer's PVR hard-drive). [John Robb's Radio Weblog]

12:01:26 PM