Your's Web Tech Power Blog's: Jun 5, 2012

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 06:30 AM PDT

When it rains, it pours. The weather in the UK is not always cheery, and sometimes, it gets wet nearly every single day, which means having an umbrella with you all the time is an essential tool, and you are not any less of a man to carry one around. After all, if the sun starts to come out bright and strong, you can always play the role of a gentleman and shade any fair skinned lady from those harmful UV rays. Not only that, you can also play your part of Good Guy Greg to the hilt by offering a seat to any tired looking pair of legs, thanks to this $89.95 English Umbrella Seat.

The name of the English Umbrella Seat says it all – this umbrella, when not being used to shield someone from the heat or rain, can be “transformed” into a portable seat. After all, it is very similar to the “seat sticks” that are traditionally used in England when it comes to watching cricket matches, although this one doubles up as an umbrella. It boasts of a sturdy steel shaft that can bear weight of up to 300 lbs.

[ English Umbrella Seat offers comfort wherever you are copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Cloak Camera Bag

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Ever wondered how some of the paparazzi managed to pull off seemingly impossible shots? Well, secrecy has plenty to do with it, in addition to a wealth of experience, a good sense of position and timing, and of course, decent gear. What if you lack those, and yet want to shoot some photos of perhaps a cheating spouse without giving the game away? Enter the $69.99 Cloak Camera Bag, where your camera will reside nicely in the bag without requiring you to remove it. Not only that, it does not only allow you to capture photos discretely, this unique bag also doubles up as a deterrent for would-be thieves, as they would probably not realize that you have a camera in the bag itself.

Made out of rugged, water-resistant fabric, the Cloak Camera Bag is lightweight and collapsible, being able to fit into most suitcases without a hitch. It was specially designed to be able to play nice with most of the popular SLR bodies, and it has been confirmed to be compatible with the Canon Rebel T3i, Rebel T3, Rebel T2i, Rebel T1i, Rebel XS, 60D, 7D, 5D Mark II; Nikon D7000, D5100, D5000, D3100, D3000, D700, D300s, D90, D40; Sony A580, A390, A77, A66, A55, SLT-A77, SLT-A55V, SLT-A35, SLT-A33; Pentax K-5, K-R; and Olympus E-500; E-5. Any takers?

[ Cloak Camera Bag copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

The paralyzed walk again!

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 05:30 AM PDT

Reading the title made me think of this – better to have the paralyzed walk again than the dead, eh? This is by no means demeaning to those who suffer from partial paralysis, but rather, what I am trying to say is this – it would be more beneficial to work on technology that get the partially paralyzed moving up and about, instead of working on the nigh impossible dream of reanimating dead bodies that might just literally come back to bite you in the rear end – with results that are far from pretty, according to all the movies and TV series that I have watched so far.

Basically, researchers working at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have managed to successfully make use of electrical and chemical stimulation techniques in order to excite neurons located in the lower spinal cord of previously paralyzed rats, allowing those experimental rodents to walk – and some can even run, whenever it remains suspended by a vest that offers balance while restricting movement to the hind legs only.

There were studies of this kind in the past that paved the way for the possibility of circumventing this severed connection between brain and legs in paralyzed rats through the stimulation of a subject’s spinal cord, although the movement remains involuntary, which means it was thought not to require any form of input from the brain. This new research by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) points to the contrary, where a specialized regime of training, working in tandem with an injection of a chemical solution of monoamine agonists, will enable the rodents to regain voluntary control over their legs.

Obviously, they needed some sort of carrot hanging on the end of the stick, and while I believe that vocal praise from the researchers over at EPFL had something to do with it, the reward of chocolate probably had a stronger “pull” factor.

Source

[ The paralyzed walk again! copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Dictionary shows up Google images

Posted: 04 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT

They say that a picture speaks a thousand words, so for the number of pictures that appear in this unique dictionary that we are going to talk about, it will definitely have more than its fair share of words. After all, London designers Ben West and Felix Heyes have come up with this idea of doing things differently, where a standard dictionary will show an image that appears whenever you Google a particular word. This tome weighs in at a hefty 1,240 pages, and each word is represented by an image that has been printed out in order. Of course, to achieve this manually is going to be a real challenge, which is why there is this thing known as scripts, where running them will allow the search engine to search for a word automatically, download the first image associated with said word, and position it in the book’s layout, resulting in the hardcover edition that you see above.

Obviously, this sounds like a novel idea until you run into the brick, insurmountable brick wall known as copyright implications. Both Ben and Felix did not bother to ask the image owners or Google for permission, so chances are pretty high that you will not see this visual dictionary being widely circulated as it will more or less be confined to a limited release.

Even then, the first choice of images are not always the best, so you might end up with some rather irrelevant results eventually. You might want to stick to the Oxford dictionary then. After all, it would not be too nice to have the young ones exposed to stuff like medical photos that are not meant for the underaged, porn images (if SafeSearch is turned off), racist photos and perhaps questionable cartoons, making it far from the ideal coffee table book. Would you lobby for one of these in your home?

Source

[ Dictionary shows up Google images copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]