The ultimate self sustaining, ultra mobile network medium — the human skin.

Generally speaking, when someone talks about jamming things into one’s skin, disgust follows along with various “brain doctors”. But hold back those feelings of uneasiness when witnessing someone jamming network cables into the arms. Why you ask? Japanese researchers have figured out a way to turn the human dermis into a living transmission highway, allowing plug-n-play installation of your typical network cable. Weird? You bet.

You may be surprised at how works — low level electromagnetic waves are harmless to humans while at the same time being an effective transmission method. Speeds aren’t exactly as fast as your typical network however, chugging along at a relatively pokey 10Mbps. Still, considering the fact that they’re sending data through human skin, I’d say that’s pretty freakin’ impressive, no? And as an added bonus, power consumption is said to be 90% lower than traditional power-tied networks.

All things considered though, this conceptual technology is more for medical purposes and reducing the number of cables running to and from patients’ bodies. So don’t go tossing all those cable just yet. You’re not going to be a human router anytime soon.

Who’s ready to get wired…well, electromagnified actually?

Switched

The biggest flash drive in the whole universe: The Moserbaer USB Flash Drive….Truck

128GB flash drives — psh. They don’t have anything on the Moserbaer USB flash drive truck…yes, truck. Seems the clever marketing team behind Moserbaer truly know how to get some attention, for it was them who whipped up this little semi mod you see above. So a typical high capacity flash drive such as the Corsair GT 128 GB behemoth is “the king” if you will. Just imagine how many of those Corsair GT’s you could cram into the back of this semi. Ya, that’s a lot of storage.

According to the math of Jeff from CraziestGadgets, if you jammed a bunch of 1-inch cubed flash drives into the back, you’d wind up with 6,192,000 GB’s. But what if it were a bunch of those 128GB Corsair GT’s? The numbers are astronomical. Some fun brain food for a midnight snack. Eat up.

Ubergizmo > CraziestGadgets

WinPhone 7 and the disappearing background apps…

So what do you think? Generally it’s good practice to ask the mind bending, cortex tickling question at the end. You know, saving the best for last. But I figured I’d switch it up. WinPhone 7 is a dramatic departure from Windows Mobile in every way. It’s appearance, functionality, features, and overall usability have all been given huge boosts. So much so that even I, a long time WinMo hater have seen the light at the end of Microsoft’s tunnel. It’s not all happy endings though. As the title above suggests, one monumental change from WinMo 6.x to WinPhone 7+ is how the OS handles multiple apps — or lack there of.

It is now stapled in history the age of the multi-tasking mobile Windows operating system for WinPhone 7 and beyond will employ a sort of background notification system much like Apple has made famous with the iPhone platform. As a standalone replacement for background processing, it’s not all that bad. The best examples of background notifications being beneficial are of course in communicative apps such as instant messengers in which information is constantly traded back and forth in real time. Other apps however don’t benefit at all. Apps such as Last.fm, task managers, games, etc. How will Microsoft tweak WinPhone 7 to handle these circumstances.

Another large talking point that is kind of reliant on the whole background notification topic is that of notifications in general. In WinPhone 7, a sort of overlay/notification drop down will appear whenever the user receives an IM, text, email, and so on. Clicking on the notification will take the user to the respective app quickly, giving the OS an overall smoother feel and interactivity. But what if you miss several notifications? Is there some place for the user to go and quickly glance at the number of and type of notifications received since last using the device? Sadly, at this point there isn’t. It’s up to the user to go to each app and check for any new messages or updates. Again, another area that needs just a little more crafting.

For me, I’m a big text based talker and multi-tasker. How an OS and device work together to blend the two is a big thing for me. With the massive overhaul we’ve seen so far in WinMo 7, I can honestly say that now more than ever, Microsoft is this close to convincing me that a WinPhone purchase is warranted. The two points highlighted above however still leave me sitting on the fence, unable to justify quite yet jumping all the way in.

Is the more “mass appeal” paint job slathered all over the OS in terms of much improved simplicity (read: neutering of background processes) and lack of any real unified notification area ala Android’s drop down notification bar actually a step too far? Simply put, is Microsoft trying too hard to be like everyone else that it is falling into jack of all trades, master of none?

Destination unknown: Simplify discontinuing music streaming apps, changing direction.

Here’s quite a shoker: Popular WiFi and 3G streaming app, Simplify, will be no more in its current form. Per a post on the Simplify company blog, Simplify as we have come to know it will be discontinued and the company as a whole changing direction. What direction are they going exactly? For that, we’ll have to play the “wait and see” game with Simplify stopping short of describing any immediate goals on the linked post above. Support for their current apps will continue on for “at least 3 months” the post claims.

I’m certainly surprised as Simplify was one of my favorite iPhone apps. How are current Simplify users going to take the news? None too kindly I assume. But the optimist in me is holding out hope. This new direction of theirs while mysterious has me highly intrigued. I mean, why discontinue a popular service if you don’t have something at least a little better in development, right?

What could Simplify be working on?

iLounge > TUAW

Give that pokey Pre a kick in the pants. Overclock FTW!

One of the joys in an open platform is the level of customization one can do. Take for example the overclocking efforts on various Android devices. Even a MHz here and there can do wonders for speed and fluidity. But Android isn’t the only popular mobile OS in town. The webOS folks have a few tricks up their own sleeve, with one of those tricks now also being overclocking.

Why overclock you ask? What’s the point? Well, simply put: It just makes everything better. Apps open faster, games run smoother, and the overall experience is more enjoyable. It’s not all smiles and fluffy unicorns though as those high MHz will eat away at your already challenged battery even faster than before. Another side effect — heat — is kicked up a notch as well.

From personal experience with my overclocked DROID however, both reduced battery life and heat are hardly any concern at all as I still get plenty of *cool* runtime. As always however, tinker at your own risk. Check out the oc’d action in the vid below. If you’re feeling lucky, go ahead and give it a shot and let us know how your Pre takes to a kick in the pants…

Video

Engadget > Palm News daily > PreCentral Forums

25 years of typosquatting

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the first ever registered DOTcom. Symbolics.com, back in 1985 goes down in history as the very first URL every created. This is definetely something to take note of, here we are, 2010 and there are soooo many different urls it’s disgusting, and of course, with fat finger syndrome, we have the all to familar mistyped dotcom, which usually lands us on those douchebags that feed off of the clumsy.

I know a lot of you probably don’t even give a darn, but I just thought it was something neat to know.

Getting rid of those last few pennies: The Bugatti Veyron PSP

After dropping a cool six figures on one of the hottest looking (and fastest) production cars in history, deciding what to do with that spare change left over can be quite a conundrum. Never fear. There’s always something in the gadget world that you can drop on. After spending millions on a uber powerful supercar, what’s a couple (likely thousand) more?

Precisely the mindset that Korean designer Won Chan Lee wants you to have. His nifty PSP design concept takes it’s cues from Bugatti’s faster than life car and transforms them into a pretty slick PSP mod. While I’m not really looking to pick up a PSP, I’d certainly be more receptive if the Bugattie Veyron PSP were available. Then again, if it takes it’s pricing from it’s more mechanical big brother, I won’t really have to worry about purchasing one as I don’t have nearly enough organs to sell…

Walyou