Technobabble

Surfing on air
The new MacBook Air was just announced at MacWorld in San Francisco earlier this month. At about three-quarters of an inch at its thickest closed height and weighing in at right around 3 pounds, it makes me wonder if a notebook computer can be too thin or too light.

The track pad borrows “jesters” from the iPhone letting users “pinch” to zoom or “swipe” to move between pages of a Web site. One configuration ships with a 62 GB solid-state hard drive that in theory will not heat up as much as current hard drives, use less power (increasing battery life) and have a longer life span as there are no moving parts. But the most amazing aspect of this new laptop is what Apple is calling the Wireless Migration Assistant. The computer has no optical drive (DVD or CD), which, I’m guessing, is to inspire users to buy downloadable movies as opposed to renting DVDs, but what if you need to install software via disc? They make a USB drive that runs off of power through the USB cable, but you can also access discs wirelessly from the optical drives of other Macs or PCs! Truly innovative. OK competitors, time to play catch-up once again.

RoboEyes
You’ll soon be able to throw away those silly, oversized virtual-reality eyeglasses, as the University of Washington has already carried out successful tests with contact lenses containing circuitry that could beam games such as Halo 3 or Terminator directly into your brain. Now they need to figure out a way to power the lenses.

Innovative technology, or just another way for the robots to take over the human race?

Hair today, gone tomorrow
A couple of weeks ago I was talking about how I was amazed that the average citizen can go out and buy a TV satellite dish and screw it into the side of his or her house and pull digital sound and images from orbiting satellites. Now, a company has come out with a home laser beam. I know, you already have them in your DVD and CD players, but this is for laser hair removal. For around $1,300 anyone can perform his or her own home laser hair removal; anyone with dark- to semi-dark hair on a fair-skinned body, that is. It reacts to the dark pigment in the hair, so it won’t work on people with darker skin or light-colored hair. www.tria.co.uk

Game on!
2007 was a record year for video-game sales thanks in part to the huge popularity of the Nintendo Wii and games such as Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4, according to BBC.com.

The video-game industry rivals the U.S. film industry and is growing at a faster pace. Hardware and software sales came close to $18 billion, a rise of 43 percent over 2006 while box-office receipts in the United States and Canada climbed only 4 percent to $9.7 billion over the same time period.

Seeing the popularity of online gaming, game companies are now testing free online games, supported by ad revenue and micro payments. Electronic Arts, which is making more than $1 million per month on a free FIFA soccer game in Korea, will soon release its popular Battlefield Heroes game solely online to Western audiences. Someone gets it.

Wacky Web site of the week
From now on I’d like you all to refer to me as Diamondtrim Morgan Love. That’s my pimp name, generated at PlayerAppreciate.com. Warning: Adult language on this site.