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From Geeks are Sexy Technology News: Google Teases a First Look at Project Glass

Google has always been innovative and coming up with the future before we are ready for it. There was talk about a project featuring a device that would deliver the power of the internet in a wearable device and today I tripped over this video on Google’s channel that spills the beans on what they are working on.

Check out Project Glass:

I think this is an amazing concept. Many of the things that this mobile connected device promises we already try to do with a number of devices like smart phones and tablets. These glasses look to anticipate your needs and deliver that content without having to pull your phone out or always issue commands.

Of course, despite how cool this appears, what they don’t show is the user. No matter how magical this device could be, I wonder what you might look like wearing them. Will this have a multitude of styles to fit your fashion? Can the lens be prescription or will this only be for those blessed with perfect vision? Will it be a lens at all?

This likely is going to hinge on how silly you might look wearing them.

Rumor says we might even see this device for sale later this year, or at least a more functional version to show off.

The future is now.

 

from Geeks are Sexy Technology News

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From Engadget: Researchers create incredibly thin solar cells flexible enough to wrap around a human hair

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You’ve probably heard that the sun is strong enough to power our planet many times over, but without a practical method of harnessing that energy, there’s no way to take full advantage. An incredibly thin and light solar cellcould go a long way to accomplishing that on a smaller scale, however, making the latest device from researchers from the University of Austria and the University of Tokyo a fairly significant discovery. Scientists were able to create an ultra-thin solar cell that measures just 1.9 micrometers thick — roughly one-tenth the size of the next device. Not only is the sample slim — composed of electrodes mounted on plastic foil, rather than glass — it’s also incredibly flexible, able to be wrapped around a single strand of human hair (which, believe it or not, is nearly 20 times thicker). The scalable cell could replace batteries in lighting, display and medical applications, and may be ready to be put to use in as few as five years. There’s a bounty of physical measurement and efficiency data at the source link below, so grab those reading glasses and click on past the break.

 

from Engadget

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From Ars Technica: Feature: How the Aussie government “invented WiFi” and sued its way to $430 million


US consumers will be making a multimillion dollar donation to an Australian government agency in the near future, whether they like it or not. The great majority won’t even know about it—the fee will be hidden within the cost of a huge array of tech products. After the resolution of a recent lawsuit, practically every wireless-enabled device sold in the US will now involve a payment to an Australian research organization called the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, or CSIRO.

In the culmination of a nearly decade-long patent campaign, CSIRO has now scored a $229 million settlement from a group of nine companies that make a variety of wireless devices and chips, including Broadcom, T-Mobile, AT&T, and Lenovo. The settlement was reached last week just before the companies were scheduled to face a jury in Tyler, Texas—a location with a growing reputation for patent lawsuits.

CSIRO (commonly pronounced “si-roh”) adds this lump sum to the $205 million it received in 2009, when a settlement with 14 companies was struck midway through another East Texas trial. Soon after that, CSIRO began boasting to the Australian press that WiFi was a homegrown invention. By suing over its patents, it anticipated an additional “lazy billion” out of tech products sold in the US. Ultimately, this didn’t quite happen—but CSIRO is about halfway there.

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from Ars Technica

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From Ars Technica: Flashback trojan reportedly controls half a million Macs and counting


Variations of the Flashback trojan have reportedly infected more than half a million Macs around the globe, according to Russian antivirus company Dr. Web. The company made an announcement on Wednesday—first in Russian and later in English—about the growing Mac botnet, first claiming 550,000 infected Macs. Later in the day, however, Dr. Web malware analyst Sorokin Ivan posted to Twitter that the count had gone up to 600,000, with 274 bots even checking in from Cupertino, CA, where Apple’s headquarters are located.

We have been covering the Mac Flashback trojan since 2011, but the most recent variant from earlier this week targeted an unpatched Java vulnerability within Mac OS X. That is, it was unpatched (at the time) by Apple—Oracle had released a fix for the vulnerability in February of this year, but Apple didn’t send out a fix until earlier this week, after news began to spread about the latest Flashback variant.

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from Ars Technica

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From Ars Technica: Judge spares Amazon from Colorado sales tax reporting scheme


A federal judge has ruled that Colorado ran afoul of the US Constitution when it passed legislation forcing out-of-state retailers to report their customers’ purchases to the state’s tax authority.

Two decades ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that a state cannot require mail-order retailers to collect sales tax unless the retailer has a physical presence in the state. Under the commerce clause of the US Constitution, only Congress can regulate interstate commerce, and the Supreme Court ruled that forcing retailers to collect out-of-state sales taxes would create too much of a burden on interstate commerce. The courts left the door open for Congress to establish an interstate sales tax collection system. But while Congress has discussed the possibility, no legislation has been enacted so far.

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from Ars Technica

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From Ars Technica: Farm-fresh infringement: Can you violate a patent by planting some seeds?


Can a farmer commit patent infringement just by planting soybeans he bought on the open market? This week, the Supreme Court asked the Obama administration to weigh in on the question. The Court is pondering an appeals court decision saying that such planting can, in fact, infringe patents.

In 1994, the agricultural giant Monsanto obtained a patent covering a line of “Roundup Ready” crops that had been genetically modified to resist Monsanto’s Roundup pesticides. This genetic modification is hereditary, so future generations of seeds are also “Roundup Ready.” Farmers had only to save a portion of their crop for re-planting the next season, and they wouldn’t need to purchase new seed from Monsanto every year. The company didn’t want to be in the business of making a one-time sale, so when Monsanto sold “Roundup Ready” soybeans to farmers, it required them to sign a licensing agreement promising not to re-plant future generations of seeds.

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from Ars Technica