The Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) has announced the availability of the 2008 State of the Connected Home Market Study. Among its findings: The number of households in the U.S. reporting that the connected home concept is ‘very appealing’ remained at just under 25 per cent — the same level as researchers found when the […]

We all think of the Internet as pretty clean technology. No huge plants spewing chemical effluent, no big smoke stacks, no packaging to swell the world’s already-groaning landfills… But a Harvard University physicist says there’s a significant hidden cost to the environment every time you click on a Web site link. Researcher Alex Wissner-Gross has […]

As of today, visitors to the U.S. from 35 countries must request visa waivers via a new online clearance service. The Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) has been up and running since last August but becomes compulsory today. Previously, travellers from most European nations, Japan, South Korea, Brunei, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand could […]

An electrical engineering student at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, has successfully tested an invention that promises to multiply battery life for wireless devices by a factor of 12. Atif Shamim, an engineering PhD candidate, has come up with a way to stop power ‘getting lost’ between the devices’ circuitry and their wireless antennae. In […]

From: TIME.com — We’re not exactly ready for a real-life Jurassic Park, yet, but cloning technology continues to advance in leaps and bounds. Witness the latest exploit by scientists at Penn State University who, late last year, announced they had reconstructed almost the entire genome of the extinct Woolly Mammoth — from tiny fragments of […]

In our never-ending quest to provide engrossing, in-depth weekend reading for our faithful readers, we offer something new for TLP: A heaping helping of tech humour! Denny Davis provides a feast of geek fun at his Computer Poems page. Meditate on carefully-crafted Haiku error messages… Windows XP crashed. I am The Blue Screen of Death. […]

Next to nuclear bombs or other “weapons of mass destruction”, the global threat that concerns U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) most is cyber terrorism. At a homeland security conference in New York City yesterday, FBI Cyber Division Assistant Director Shawn Henry told delegates, “Other than a nuclear device or some other type of destructive […]

Yanko Design offers what looks like a win-win-win situation: Good for your eyes, good for your portable devices and good for the environment. The only problem is, you can’t really use it at night. Yanko’s Solar Powered Solar Panel Sun Glasses not only protect your eyes but convert the sunlight they filter into electricity, which […]

Apple yesterday announced that it will cut prices at its iTunes music store, offering selected tunes as low as (US)$0.69, others at the former flat rate of (US)$0.99 and still others (new releases?) at a premium rate of (US)$1.29. But the big news may be that Apple is also removing its controversial digital rights management […]

Apple is celebrating Macworld week with the launch of iLife 09, the latest version of its Mac OS X geared suite of home and recreation applications and a new 17 in. Macbook built on the same unibody frame technology introduced last fall in the smaller Macbooks. The new Macbook Pro features a built-in batter that […]

The next version of the popular Universal Serial Bus (USB) data connection standard, USB 3.0, was officialy launched late last year. Industry oibservers say we can expect to see support for USB 3.0 in new products hitting the shelves within the first half of this year. USB 3.0 is just as simple to use as […]

The much-reviled Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) appears to be following through on its commitment, late last year, to cease actively prosecuting music file sharers. The Wall Street Journal this week reported that the RIAA has fired MediaSentry, the company it had hired to track down illegal tune traders. The RIAA isn’t giving up, […]