Can you believe they named it HAL? :)

Read on Slashdot: "A robotic suit that reads brain signals and helps people with mobility problems will be available to rent in Japan for $2,200 a month starting Friday"



MyTelus: "Daiwa House Industry Co. will lease HAL suits to Japanese care facilities for the elderly and others for those with disabilities. It plans to rent 500 units over the next year. Japan is a rapidly aging society and taking care of the elderly population is widely viewed as a growing challenge here." Growing challenge you say?

Hat tip to Buzz Out Loud

So yeah, we've now got HAL (or 'hybrid assistive limb') AND SkyNet. Microsoft should name their next OS Windows Matrix :)

First Gates-Seinfeld ad :)

Ray Ozzie: New Microsoft Chief Software Architect

Ray Ozzie replaces bill gates as Microsoft chief software architect = live mesh site wiki

In the news this morning

Microsoft walks away from the Yahoo takeover.

Obama wins the Democratic caucuses in Guam↓ by 7 votes.

Just briefly

Store your medical data online with Google or Microsoft. The WikiLeaks judge is having second thoughts :) iTunes overtakes CD sales. A new round of measly sanctions (not saying they should be tougher, just saying) against Iran are expected to gain UN approval on saturday. And from DNI: haha.

Also, the second chapter of iPlant is now available on the website.

The usual suspects

Press
Democracy back online in Pakistan. Fiedel Castro resigns. Clinton tries to shoot down Obama for borrowing part of a speech from a friend (please don't let this matter...). Feminists blame Clinton's falling behind on sexism. Swiss bank Julius Baer spawns a court order to close down wikileaks.org after hundreds of documents about its offshore activities were posted anonymously on the site (!!@£$%). Finally, Microsoft DreamSpark provides students with free development tools. Clever move.

Video
Joseph Stiglitz discusses globalization (FORA.tv, 1h36min). Slow at the start and an annoying eh-frequency, but the man was not awarded a nobel prize for nothing. Note: when asked about the recent upswing in the economy of Africa he replies: "What's making a difference for Africa is China. China is now giving more aid, for infrastructure for example, than the World Bank and the African Development Bank combined". To be compared with the 0.15% of GDP the US spends foreign aid (i.e. one fifth of the 0.7% target agreed on by advanced industrial countries). Also, Charles Anderson explains in serious depth what biofuels are and which ones are worth the hype (googletechtalks, 59min).

The world is flat

Thomas L. Friedman talking at MIT about his bestseller "The World is Flat" {search for 'The World is Flat' on iTunes}. A lucid and engaging account of what globalization is and implies. Identifies 10 factors globalizing the world. I'll plug the best mathematical description of globalization I know of yet again: Watts & Strogatz (1998) Collective dynamics of 'small-world' networks. Nature 393:p440-442 (pdf). Some of the best 3 pages you'll ever read (if you disagre, read them again). Through the internet, the world is taking on the properties of a small-world network.

Here's Charlie Rose interviewing Friedman about the book. One interesting anecdote: he says Bill Gates told him the best new software they're getting today is from China and that the way the Chinese do it is they went around the top universities in China with IQ tests and hired the top of the top of the top. What's the average IQ of the top 0.0000001% in a population of 1.3 billion? 195? 210? 225? 250? Say what you will of IQ but that's sharp.

In other news, Microsoft offers to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion (article). Heavy.