An article from CNET indicates that MIT has just opened the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies in conjunction with the US Army. According to the home page, their charter is "to pursue a long-range vision for how technology can make soldiers less vulnerable to enemy and environmental threats. The ultimate goal …

Infoworld reports that the FCC is proposing to fit an additional 255MHz into the free 5GHz band (where 802.11a lives), which would be an 80% expansion of the frequencies available. This would bring the number of 802.11a channels to 24 and make the US and Europe more similar …

An article on CNET shows HP demonstrating a new technology that places the faces of distant videoconference participants on the "heads" of robots. Although the article makes one literary allusion (to the movie Short Circuit), I thought instead of a second movie that the concept reminded me of: Demolition Man …

Microsoft's PowerPoint is such a de facto standard that it is often referred to as a common noun ("I'll ship you a powerpoint", "We should do a powerpoint on that") replacing the previous word "deck" that used to symbolize a presentation.Here is a presentation that takes the presentation …

Wired reports that the new owners of ReplayTV are looking at removing the Commercial Advance (30-second Skip) and Send Show (deliver a copy of the show to another box) features from future models.

ZDNet UK is reporting that there is strong interest in providing WiFi access on train cars throughout the UK. Today, there is already a company rolling out 802.11 access in the stations, but the future may include the rolling stock as well. Frankly, I would appreciate it as an …

Wired has an article on "Smart Dust." The idea is to make machines so small (1 cubic millimeter) that they can be spread like dust and can communicate like motes (see this morning's article about wine motes).

An article from ComputerWorld states that the IEEE committee governing the 802.11g wireless standard (branded Airport Extreme by Apple) has finally reached an agreement on the standard. But, the draft (expected to be approved soon) is not without controversy. The big question is one of "real" (as opposed to …

Articles appearing today in CNET (here) and eWeek (here) give some details about the upcoming 9.0 release of AOL's client for Windows. One quiet replacement was Apple's QuickTime supplanting the Real Network's RealOne player from previous version.

Joining a growing list of companies to offer Voice Over IP telephone services, AOL's Time Warner Cable is starting to offer these services to broadband customers starting Thursday. An article on CNET contains the details.

An article in The Globe And Mail (of Canada) details the use of new Intel miniature sensors (called "motes") to monitor the growth and health of a vineyard in British Columbia. The sensors are a technology co-developed with the Wireless EmBedded Systems group at Berkeley. Using TinyOS, the "motes" communicate …

There is a good interview on Broadband Reports with Jim Baller, an attorney specializing in muni broadband projects. Baller covers a lot of ground with the interviewer, Karl Bode. Everything from the history of the rural power in the United States and its relevance to the issues of broadband in …

An article from Wired tells of a court case where a man convicted of murdering his daughter would like to go free because the police used a GPS device to find the grave of the slain girl. The crux of the case (being taken up by the ACLU, of course …

An article from Wired describes a new coat being designed by a firm in Boston (with the help of an industrial design engineer from MIT) that is designed to give those who attack its female wearers a bit of a shock. Powered by a 9-volt battery, the jacket is made …

This article from the BBC News tells you how James Dyson (inventor of some form of bag-less vacuum sweeper) created a garden water feature that appears to send water uphill. Pretty nifty!

Despite the fact that I'm a bit concerned about the government handing out concessions to recently-corrupt MCI (formerly WorldCom), it is good to know that we came to our senses and aren't saddling the Iraqi's with CDMA, and instead are going to get them some GSM for their troubles. report …

No big surprise, as Microsoft has been doing their best to complete the freebie-to-fee conversion recently (most notably with their near-stealth conversion of their photo service). Today CNET reports that MSN's calendar services will only be available to MSN subscribers starting on June 24.

The body that OK's new web standards, W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium) has announced that it's new policy on patents has been approved by the membership. Although the announcement doesn't guarantee that all future W3C standards will be fee-free (note: not patent-free), it does reserve that possibility for circumstances …

In what seems to be a repeating problem between Microsoft's MSN sites and other browser manufacturers, CNET reports that there are new problems between Opera and the sites.

According to an article on CNET, Amazon and Microsoft have entered into an agreement by which Amazon will provide music samples via Windows Media Player 9.