Using an HTC Magic and Google Street View we've made a simple pair of virtual reality goggles that let you immerse yourself in distant locations. You can also use these goggles with augmented reality apps -- although you probably don't want to walk around with them all day long.

For students learning Japanese (such as myself), the key attraction of the Zaurus (particularly the SL-C3200 model) is that it has Japanese handwriting recognition (through the stylus and touchscreen), and built-in Japanese dictionaries (広辞苑 is widely regarded as the authoritative 国語 dictionary, and Genius is a decent Japanese-English and English-Japanese dictionary). The additional language aids such as e-book reader, English-Japanese text translation (offering comparable quality to Altavista or Google web translation services) and English lessons are also useful to students learning Japanese (even though they are intended for students learning English). Additional software such as the Japanese atlas and rail/plane timetables are useful for those intending to visit Japan. And all this in a tiny little package that can be taken anywhere (it easily fits into a medium size handbag).

Good Lord, I've seen many Hello Kitty PCs but I believe the new MiNEW A10 is the most beautiful mode ever (skin).

But the experience taught Kaplan and Braunstein a lesson: Customers would sacrifice lots of quality for a cheap, convenient device. To keep the price down, Pure Digital had made significant trade-offs. It used inexpensive lenses and other components and limited the number of image-processing chips. The pictures were OK but not great. Yet Pure Digital sold 3 million cameras anyway.

Computer programs can make your computer use more power. PowerTOP is a Linux tool that helps you find those programs that are misbehaving while your computer is idle. The application that misbehaved the most was the Linux kernel. However, as of version 2.6.21, the Linux kernel went tickless, and no longer has a fixed 1000Hz timer tick. The result (in theory) is huge power savings because the CPU stays in low power mode for longer periods during system idle.

Are we humans – with our carbon-based neural net “wetware” brains – at a point in history when we might be able to imprint the circuitry of the human brain using transistors on a silicon chip?

A well-covered recent article in MIT's Technology Review reports that a team of European scientists may have taken the first steps in creating a silicon chip designed to function like a human brain.

TV Tokyo visited Gome, a major retail chain in China, where CBHD discs and players were flying off the shelf, while Blu-Ray players and discs languished. They also visited a factory for one of the largest CBHD manufacturers. Sources in these companies tell TV Tokyo that, in the China market, CBHD already constitutes some 30 percent of all disc players sold, while Blu-Ray accounts for 10 percent, similar to its penetration in the USA. DVD is responsible for the remaining 60 percent.

These days robot-loving Japanese are tinkering with screwdrivers and motors instead of heading to the beach or hot springs during the holidays. Tokyo's major store devoted to robots, Vstone Robot Center in the bustling Akihabara electronics district, sells robots of all sizes and shapes, including the tiny scuttling Robo-Q from Tomy Co. and the Pleo animatronic dinosaur toy from Ugobe Inc. of the U.S.

A suggested solution for the overheating problem with the crappy Acer Aspire 5315 laptop.