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QOTD: What Tech Are You Most Looking Forward To In 2009?
Posted by Nick Broughall at 12:37 PM on January 5, 2009
Now that the New Years hangovers have well and truly subsided, it's time to look forward to another fantastic year of gadgets, gizmos and technology. Our question to you today is what are you most looking forward to this year? Is it an Apple netbook? Windows 7? Australian Android phones? The final rise of our new robot overlords? Let us know in comments...
This may sound weird, but maybe the children—the future engineers, programmers and techs of our world—deserve crappy gadgets as presents this holiday.
According to Samsung, by 2010, the majority of people who want an 
Regular Christmas trees have a string of lights. High-tech trees have 30,000 LEDs, 43 LCD televisions and lasers. Get the picture? Good—because the following trees definitely fall into the latter category.
I'm no memory or brain expert, only barely having the necessary equipment, but this 
This computer-controlled coffee machine created by Reko Maenpaa is the king of tech in coffee technology, creating a cup of joe in under 30 seconds while sporting a 8" touchscreen and the innards of a PC. Outfitted with an Intel 500 MHz Pentium 3 processor, ATX motherboad and a GeForce MX 440 graphics card, the coffee machine screen can be viewed through your TV via Wi-Fi, ordered through your WAP phone or through your web browser for ultimate utility (and by that, I mean laziness). Even better, maybe Maenpaa could rig additional options and create an automated espresso machine. Until then, I suppose only a (lightly steamed to 70 degrees please) soy hazelnut decaf dry cappucino that's spit-free will only exist in my dreams.
A recent survey of British teachers has revealed that students are relying more and more on tech-related excuses to explain their failure to hand in homework. Traditional excuses like "the dog ate it" have given way to gems like "the computer crashed", "the internet was down", "a printer failed to work" and "work was deleted by accident". Apparently, students believe they can slide one by older, less tech savvy teachers this way—and the teachers admit that they are more likely to fall prey to this tactic. However, as the following list of the top five worst excuses will illustrate, some students shoot themselves in the foot by taking things waaay to far.
Philips' Intelligent Pill is a robotic capsule that can carry out a number of advanced medical functions, such as knowing its location in the body. According to Reuters, the pint-sized devices measures acidity and temperature in the stomach, determines it's position in the stomach, and knows whether or not it should release its dose of medicine. Making use of a microprocessor, wireless radio and battery, along with a pump and a deposit for the drugs, the pill could greatly help patients with disorders like Crohn's disease; because the iPill can deliver drugs to a more exact spot, less drugs would be required (leading to less side effects). Researchers say the prototype is ready for mass manufacturing. [
Many of us are pretty happy with touchscreen implementation in products like the iPhone or HTC Touch. But Microsoft (teaming with HTC hardware, at least in this photograph) has developed a new sort of touchscreen that doesn't involve touching the screen at all. Instead, IR beams shoot out from the sides of the phone and track your gestures on any surface.
