40Tech

Bobby recently reviewed a laptop stand that claims to protect against the effects of WiFi, but we were skeptical since there was no way to prove or disapprove those claims. We’re still skeptical, and I have no plans to buy the stand, but chalk a recent MSNBC article (published 3 days after Bobby’s review) up to strange coincidence. According to the article, a study from Argentinian scientists found that the electromagnetic radiation generated during wireless communications caused harm to sperm in a laboratory study. But before you panic, read on for some of the details.

Remember IBM? They may not be the premier computer manufacturer they once were, but the world’s oldest computer company is still skating on the cutting edge of technology. Their latest achievement? Two DARPA SyNAPSE (Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics) funded prototype chips that can learn and remember in a way that “begins to rival the brain’s function, power, and speed.”

Can you say Skynet?

Over on Google+, Kevin Rose recently asked his users a simple question: what was your first computer? Since the 40Tech demographics might skew a bit older than the San Francisco startup scene, that got me wondering how the 40Tech community would answer that same question. So I’ll ask it – what was your first computer?

Do you work on the computer a lot? If you do, there are some simple things that you can do that will eliminate mountains of stress.

Of course buying the newest and fastest computer out there will definitely help increase your daily efficiency, but this article isn’t going to give you tips that are that expensive. Here are a few “somewhat” expensive upgrades that you can give your workstation.

If you think that the printing industry is not exactly an exiting field of technology, you might be wrong. Many amazing inventions and creations in the field of printing have surfaced, and show that even the most boring of things can be fun at times if you look hard enough. Lets have a look at just a few amazing printer inventions and gadgets…

I just spent the last few days rearranging my house, moving my mother, and then rearranging and cleaning my house some more. Naturally, that got me thinking about robots.

As it turns out, there are no robots out there that can do all of those things for us yet (boooo!), but there have been some great strides in the general direction, as well as in artificial intelligence in general. Check out some of the videos that I found:

Forget the internet. Forget a fancy new smartphone or crazy new tablet. I want a rocket. You read me right. A rocket. Apparently civilian spaceflight is all the rage these days and I want in!

The latest development in firing regular folks into space happened Friday afternoon at about 3PM Danish time, as the non-profit, OPEN SOURCE group, Copenhagen Suborbitals launched a rocket into space. There was nobody in it — this time — but there could have been, and they are now one giant leap closer to that day.

The launch wasn’t all roses. They had some engine problems in the beginning, and some parachute problems at the end — overall, though, it was a huge success. Read on for a few images and a video of the launch.

Disk space is abundant and cheap. These days, you can get a 2 TB hard drive for under $100 from Newegg. I remember one of my first work computers, about 10 years ago, that came with a whopping 2 GB of storage. Those days are long gone. With the move to solid state drives, though, storage space is getting smaller, at least on a single solid state drive. My MacBook Air has a 128 GB drive, which would have felt humongous even a few years ago, but now feels small compared to my Windows 7 machine.

If you haven’t already heard about Sony’s PSP 2, codenamed Next Generation Portable (NGP), then you are in for a treat! The NGP features power enough to rival the Playstation 3 — and that’s not just fluffy marketing-speak. The specs of this little beast are off the charts.

Hit the jump for a rundown of what’s included, and a NGP gameplay video of Uncharted.

Microsoft’s Kinect, has already started a mini-revolution in the geeky world of modding. Since hacker Hector Marcanreleased the open source drivers that he created for Kinect, innovations using the technology have been appearing with speed that can only be described as plaid (my apologies to anyone who didn’t get that reference — and a cookie to the first commenter to identify it).

Some of the more interesting hacks I’ve come across after the jump.