Android fans: wear it proud, wear it loud. Sound activates a mini light show that sees lasers from little Android’s eyes shooting and burning away the dirty little Apple.
Apple fanboys beware – the laser-eyed Android is coming for you. And it’s powered by 4xAAA batteries.
Available in “Chinese XL” at Chinavasion for $8.19 (though the price goes down if you order more!). Having grown up in Hong Kong, I understand the necessity of saying “Chinese XL” rather than simply “XL”. ;)
I am far from a biologist and I wouldn’t even call myself a science geek, but I was intrigued when I saw this article called Why our Skin is Waterproof because, well, I had never really thought about it before.
The common phrase, “Like water off a duck’s back” implies that these avian creatures are exemplary water resistant beings. Admittedly, it does have a better ring to it than, “Like water off of my hydrophobic lipids in my skins fat cells layer” – though I might start making an effort to use that to sound crazy smart!
But if you think about it, when we come in out of the rain, our clothing is wet, maybe your hair (I don’t have much hair to worry about) – but you aren’t soaked to the bone (though the dramatists among us may choose to argue that one). After stripping down from our waterlogged attire, a quick toweling off leaves you feeling great. You no longer consider yourself wet.
Lars Norlén at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute spent months researching skin samples shaved from volunteers. He would flash freeze the samples at a chilly -140° C to keep the cellular structure in place and then test its reaction to water.
This is the sciency-sounding explanation as published by New Scientist:
Lipids have a hydrophilic (water-attracting) head and two hydrophobic (water-repelling) tails. Normally, the two tails point in the same direction, giving the molecule a hairpin-like appearance. A group of lipid molecules typically arrange themselves into a two-layered sheet – or bilayer – with all of the tails pointing inwards. However, the lipid molecules in between the cells of the stratum corneum are splayed outwards so that the two tails of each molecule point in opposite directions.
These lipid molecules are stacked on top of one another in an alternating fashion. “By stretching out like this they form a more condensed structure which is much more impermeable than a normal bilayer,” says Norlén. This uniquely structured fatty layer prevents any water from getting past in either direction – except where the skin layer is modified to form pores.
Pores are the part of my body that cry when I exercise giving me a lovely glow of accomplishment.
We always take it for granted that our bodies just do what they do. Sometimes we wonder exactly what is left to learn about the way our bodies work that a scientist hasn’t already figured out. This new research doesn’t just answer the why, but also opens doors for further advancements in the tactile distribution of medications.
Nancy Lublin organises a social change website called DoSomething.org, which focuses on enlisting teens to make a difference in the world. When DoSomething changed tactics to start focusing on SMS-based marketing, it unexpectedly started receiving texts from troubled teens reaching out for someone to talk to.
She’s setting up a text-only crisis hotline to allow teenagers to have somewhere that they can message, using a medium that they’re completely used to in today’s world. She discusses the enormous possibilities that setting up such a text hotline could have in terms of the data gathered and what that could mean for understanding teen problems and taking steps towards reducing and possibly eliminating them.
Is the power of texting strong enough to truly make a difference here? Would you use a text hotline if you had a crisis?
When is a BlackBerry not a BlackBerry? Research In Motion is hoping the answer isn’t “when there’s no keyboard.”
Yep, in one of several gambles designed to revive what sure looks like a dying brand, RIM is releasing at least one touchscreen model for the much-delayed BlackBerry 10 operating system. There’ll be others with physical keyboards, but it looks like another attempt to expand the brand’s appeal beyond security-conscious business users who need to type frequently.
This won’t be the first touchscreen BlackBerry: back in 2008 and 2009 two models known as the Storm had a mixed reception at best.
The logic this time round seems to be to target as wide an audience as possible, figuring that this can make even a small market share profitable. The biggest problem is that touchscreen immediately invites comparisons with iPhones, high-end Android models and even Windows Phones, and those comparisons may not be all that favorable.
Going for a wider audience also means targeting people who use smartphones as mini-computers rather than e-mail machines, and even if it’s a lost cause, RIM is trying to build up its apps range.
It’s offering cash rewards to developers who come up with moderately successful applications: if you develop an app, get it certified as meeting a quality standard (a process as yet unconfirmed), and do at least $1,000 in sales, you become eligible for a bonus. The bonus isn’t fixed: instead it’s simply a guarantee you’ll get at least $10,000 revenue in the first year, with the RIM bonus making up any shortfall.
Though RIM hasn’t confirmed this, there will surely have to be some protection against people simply paying enough friends and colleagues to buy the app to the tune of a thousand bucks and then collecting a pretty sweet return a year later.
Its devices are ubiquitous, its annual new product releases are among the most anticipated in the world and it recently announced it would begin issuing a dividend to its stock owners–expected to generate $10 billion in the first year alone. But ho do Apple’s eye-popping statistics translate to the real world?
So geeks, what do you think Apple’s next big move is going to be?
I am a very big Star Wars Geek, and despite all the flaws of the prequel trilogy I love it all just the same. With Star Wars Day fast approaching we Star Wars fans are anxiously awaiting the opportunity to share our excitement for the franchise and repeatedly sharing the pun “May the Fourth Be With You” to an endless response of rolled eyes.
This year however, May the Fourth also sets another Geek landmark – the North American theatrical wide release of The Avengers! I may just explode.
So in an effort to not let The Avengers overshadow Star Wars Day, I am doing my part – with the help of the Official Star Wars Facebook Page to pre-emptively celebrate my enthusiasm.
There, you can download a Facebook Profile Cover image of Darth Vader. He will find your lack of faith disturbing, and you can pair the image up with a profile photo of you grasping at your collar. Vader will then attempt to affirm the power of the Dark Side by throttling you through time and space… and the internet.
This is my current Facebook Timeline Profile:
And as noted on my profile I am from Hamilton, which for the purpose of Star Wars Day I have baselessly decided was founded by Mark Hamill and was originally called Hamilltown… the town name was dropped when we became a metropolis, and was thus dubbed Hamilton.
None of that is true, but the droids you are looking for are right over there…
