GeekSpeak for August 09, 2008

Professors from Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, has collaborated with a Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, to create an array of silicon detectors and electronics that can be conformed to a curved surface. Like the human eye, the curved surface can then act as the focal plane array of the camera, which captures an image. The results of this research will be published as the cover story in the Aug. 7 issue of the journal Nature.

The results of this research will be published as the cover story in the Aug. 7 issue of the journal Nature.

Some people have too much money on their hands.

SpaceX, a company that is attempting to commerciallize space flight, has had its third consecutive failed launch. The ashes of James Doohan (Scotty from Star Trek), and the astronaut Gordon Cooper were onboard.

Apple has taken the place of Microsoft for disclosing more vulnerabilities than any other vendor, according to an IBM security report. The company rose from second place in 2007 to take the top spot away from Microsoft, which had fallen into third place behind open source content management system Joomla.

Hulu allows you to watch high quality TV shows and more online.

We're free!

Scientists have discovered a virus that infects another virus. The smaller virus, named Sputnick by the researchers, infects the giant virus (called a mimivirus) and causes it to produce malformed genetic code. This potentially redefines whether or not virii can be considered living organisms.

Make sure your computer is ready for the edition of Windows Vista you want. The Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor will help you to determine if your Windows XP-based PC can run Windows Vista. You can also use the Upgrade Advisor to determine if your Windows Vista-based PC is ready for the upgrade.

While Vista is arguably a better product than the disaster that was Windows ME, the fact that the majority of users are opting out instills a sense of deja vu.

Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (SP4) is a recommended upgrade. Download Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 to obtain updates that can help improve security, application compatibility, operating system reliability, and Setup.

Sony Ericsson iSync plugins for iSync 2.4 and iSync 3.0 that allow Address Book and iCal syncing for over 30 new Sony Ericsson phones that are not natively supported by iSync in Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard.

Jott converts your voice into emails, text messages, reminders, lists and appointments. Kinda amazing.