Back in 2007, we told you about Restoration Robotics, an upstart research team using robots to perform hair transplants — a project whose details (you know, like how it works) were shrouded in secrecy. Four years later, the Artas System has won FDA approval for in-office procedures, with the inviting bot in the above photo harvesting individual hair follicles from the scalp. A few months after this robot operates on your cranium, hair will start growing back, a process that could take a year — and makes for a more gradual transformation than slapping on a toupee. Still, you’ll have to be a certain kind of man to take advantage of this technology — for now at least, it’s only been cleared for men with black or brown straight hair. Looks like the rest of you will have to find other, lower-tech ways to suffer for your beauty.

Continue reading Hair transplant robot gets FDA approval, men with straight brown hair rejoice

Hair transplant robot gets FDA approval, men with straight brown hair rejoice originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Here’s a solution for adding a little techno-flare to your furniture that’s a bit more subtle than cramming computer parts into a coffee table. The Arbonata Light Table, available from nKcharms at the source link, impregnates stylish slabs of wood with over 1,700 LEDs arranged in the shape of a tree. According to designer Dennis Vetu, it’s some sort of metaphor for the circle of life — as he explains on the Arbonata site, “tree becomes wood, becomes light.” Artsy prattle aside, we couldn’t imagine sitting down to a ramen dinner on a classier surface. If you’re not partial to branches and leaves though, nKcharms will work with customers to create unique designs. We might just order one emblazoned with a glowing Engadget logo. Sadly, there’s no price listed, but then again, if you have to ask…. Don’t miss the gallery below.

Arbonata Light Table classes up LEDs and dining rooms originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:24:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hackers poring through the leaked Windows 8 M1 build have found some interesting evidence suggesting that Microsoft’s next OS may automatically recognize its users, a la Kinect.

An API relating to “Detect[ing] human presence” was combined with some earlier Microsoft suggestions that ubiquitous webcams by 2012 would make easy login as simple as checking the user’s face when they sit down. And of course the Kinect does this already — with a lower-resolution camera than many webcams. Voila: rumor!

My only issue is that it suggests the webcam or bezel cam will, in a way, be always on. Not the most reassuring notion to those of us concerned about privacy.

[via WMPowerUser]

Continue Reading:
Rumor: Windows 8 To Use Kinect-Like Facial Recognition

Our best chance to send humans to Mars will be in the mid-2030s, but the Red Planet might not be our final destination. It might actually be much easier and just as effective to land on Mars’s moon tiny Deimos. More

iOS: Prompt is an excellent SSH client for iOS, providing you with an elegant interface and several great features (like SSH-specific autocomplete) so using the command line on your iDevice is actually a pleasant experience. More

So what do you do when you want to analyze plasma, that wacky fourth form of matter that possibly powers your beloved HDTV? If you’re at the Novosibirsk Institute of Nuclear Physics, you use this awesomely huge “plasma trap.” More

Square is a great little device for capturing credit card information for quick sales. It is free. However, you can now buy the device for $9.95 in the Apple Store. That’s right – in the mail, free. At the Apple Store, $9.95. The Apple tax is, as they say, alive and well.

To be fair, you do get the convenience of having a ready-to-use device in your hot little hands so like Apple’s foray into selling batteries (remember that?) this is more about customers saying “Eh, I’ll pick it up while I’m here” rather than Apple saying “We are a rapacious company out to screw people.”

UPDATE – Hell hath no fury like an Apple fanboy scorned. I was just schooled by some readers and read “Receive $10 instantly when you activate your Square account” in the product page. So basically Apple is paying YOU 5 cents. Mea culpa.

Product Page via Giz

See the article here:
Apple (Sort Of) Selling Square Reader (Although It’s Free)

An energy efficient Ford F-150 certainly sounds like an oxymoron, but the folks at Protean Electric have proven that even this gas guzzler can go green. So how’d they do it? Well, with in-wheel motors of course. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen this technology put to use, but if things go according to plan, Protean’s version of the in-wheel motor could be road ready as soon as next year. The things weigh 68 pounds (31 kilograms) a piece and offer 110 horsepower per wheel. When pared with this F-150 — rocking a custom battery — they offered up 100 mile-per-hour speeds and a range of 100 miles. That might not be enough to take you across the great state of Texas, but it’s certainly sufficient for tooting around the ranch. Head on over to the source link for more on Protean’s in-wheel technology.

Protean Electric in-wheel motors have the stuff to make an F-150 turn green originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Will Foreman used the power of math to beat speeding tickets before three different judges. The tickets were automatically issued by traffic cameras. Foreman used the photographs themselves to raise a reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of the speed sensors.

The camera company, Optotraffic, uses a sensor that detects any vehicle exceeding the speed limit by 12 or more mph, then takes two photos of it for identification purposes. The photos are mailed to violators, along with a $40 ticket.

For each ticket, Mr. Foreman digitally superimposed the two photos – taken 0.363 seconds apart from a stationary point, according to an Optotraffic time stamp – creating a single photo with two images of the vehicle.

Using the vehicle’s length as a frame of reference, Mr. Foreman then measured its distance traveled in the elapsed time, allowing him to calculate the vehicle’s speed. In every case, he said, the vehicle was not traveling fast enough to get a ticket.

So far the judges have agreed.

A representative for the company that installed the cameras (and which receives a portion the fines they generate) said that the vehicles’ speeds are measure before the pictures are taken. Foreman said he doubted the cars slowed that much afterward, since the pictures do not show brakes lights on. Link -via Fark

(Image credit: Rod Lamkey Jr./The Washington Times)

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Math vs. Speed Cameras

20 nanometer manufacturing processes, you say? We say pshaw, be gone luddite. Sandisk and Toshiba just announced the latest product from their joint venture: a 19nm 64Gb (8GB) X2 memory chip; aka, the smallest NAND flash memory chip in the world. At least it will be when it hits production in the second half of the year. They are, however, sampling the monolithic chip this quarter in case you’re interested in stacking a batch of 16 into an ultra-high density 128GB SSD. Anyone?

Continue reading SanDisk and Toshiba announce world’s smallest NAND flash memory chips for tinier gadgets

SanDisk and Toshiba announce world’s smallest NAND flash memory chips for tinier gadgets originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 Apr 2011 03:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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