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Sultry weather can be hard on any traveler, and for wine it can be disastrous.

High-tech shipping labels like this one can warn if a wine bottle has been exposed to harmful heat.

A high-tech shipping label now being used by some in the industry aims to warn customers if there’s a chance they’re getting cooked cabernet.

About the size of a sugar packet, the labels can be programmed for a range of temperatures and placed directly on the product or its packaging. A light flashes green if the product stays within specifications and yellow if it doesn’t.

Information on exactly what temperatures the product reached and when can be downloaded via a portable reader into a computer spreadsheet. If there is a problem, the data show where it occurred, helpful in determining who’s responsible.

“We’ve been waiting for something like this,” said Jayme Silva of the Napa Valley winery Robert Biale Vineyards.

Among those using the technology is WTN Services, a Napa-based shipper that has been offering the temperature monitor to customers of its retail brand Ambrosia, a wine catalog, and is now making it an option for other wineries shipping through WTN.

“It’s been a great success,” said Chris Edwards, vice president and general manager of WTN, which like Ambrosia is a subsidiary of 1-800-FLOWERS.COM Inc.

The labels cost WTN customers $20 a box — the equivalent of 10 bottles of Two Buck Chuck, but a fraction of the cost of a case of $100-a-bottle Napa cab, Edwards notes.

Made by Boise, Idaho-based PakSense Inc. and on the market for about two years, the temperature monitors had been primarily used by the food industry but lately have been finding a market in wine shipping as well, company spokeswoman Amy Childress said.

Temperature control is key for wine. Heat speeds up aging, which may sound like a good idea but results in diminished flavor. If the bottles get too hot the wine is “cooked,” which means it may taste flat or be otherwise flawed.

A low-tech warning sign is if the cork has been pushed up out of the bottle, but that doesn’t necessarily mean spoiled wine. On the other hand, a bottle may look fine but be spoiled.

Like many California wineries, Biale avoids shipping in hot months. It will ship overnight in summer, but that’s become less popular with rising gas prices.

Biale is currently experimenting with the PakSense label to see if it will prove to be a summer solution, Silva said.

Read more @ CNN.com

From CNN

Novint Falcon With Pistol Grip Attachment

Behold, the Novint Falcon. This menacing orb has taken upon the lofty task of replacing the mouse as the PC gamer’s preferred implement of destruction, letting you feel, lift, push and grope every bit of the action. It sits on your desk and provides force feedback — but not the vibrating-controller effect that console couch surfers are familiar with. Instead, powerful motors within the device provide a full range of responses, whether you’re bouncing a ball on a string or reloading a shotgun. Because really, what good are advances in technology if we can’t focus them on the obliteration of our gaming peers?

The first version of the Falcon we saw was a bit of a renaissance — well for games like Tiger Woods PGA Tour 07 anyway. When gripping the original control interface (a small, multibuttoned round knob), controlling Tiger’s swing becomes a matter of muscle coordination — for better or for worse. In our vain attempts at perfecting our line drives, we hit dozens of shots, each wildly different from the next, by simply adjusting the angle and force with which we moved the knob. Suddenly, following through on a swing becomes incredibly important, as the slightest adjustments to the pressure you apply can wildly alter the ball’s flight.

But chances are, you’re not checking out the Falcon for the fully immersive golfing experience: You want to light shit up with a high-caliber firearm. Well, Novint has got you covered. Using the Falcon’s new Pistol Grip, titles like Half-Life 2 suddenly become an entirely different game.

Forget fragging as you know it. With the pistol grip coming dangerously close to flying out of your hands after a few quick bursts with a submachine gun, you may wonder how you got along without this level of feedback in the first place. Every weapon takes on new life, from the meager jostling of the standard pistol, to the forceful thunder of a rocket launcher’s blast. 

Read more @ wired.com

From Wired.com

HTML 5 represents the biggest leap forward in web standards in almost a decade. Unlike the specifications that came before it, HTML 5 is not merely intended to present content to a web browser. Its goal is to bring the web into maturity as a full-fledged application platform — a level playing field where video, sound, images, animations, and full interactivity with your computer are all standardized. And it may be a long way off still, but elements of HTML 5 are already reshaping the way we use the web.

The last update to the Hypertext Markup Language — the lingua franca of the web — was the 4.01 specification completed in September, 1999.

Quite a bit has happened since. The original browser wars ended, Netscape dissolved. The winner, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, begat IE6, which begat the current IE7. Mozilla Firefox rose from the ashes of Netscape to take over second position. Apple and Google have released their own web browsers. The minority shareholder Opera continues to play the gadfly while pushing standards and software design forward. We even have a real web experience on our phones and game consoles, thanks to Opera, the iPhone and Google’s soon-to-be-released Android.

Read more @ webmonkey.com

From Wired.com

The computer chip industry on Friday celebrated the 50th birthday of the integrated circuit, a breakthrough that set the stage for the Internet and the Digital Age.

A half-century ago a young engineer named Jack Kilby first demonstrated an integrated circuit he designed while working through the summer at his Texas Instruments job because he didn’t have enough vacation time for a holiday.

Kilby used a sliver of conductive germanium to connect a transistor and other bits, dubbing the soldered assembly an "integrated circuit" (IC).

Engineer Robert Noyce was designing his own IC "in parallel" at Fairchild Semiconductor but didn’t debut his creation until about six months later. Noyce went on to found US chip making giant Intel in 1968.

While Kilby was the first to demonstrate an IC, Noyce came up with a design that could be mass produced, according to Leslie Berlin, project historian for Stanford Silicon Valley Archives and author of a book about Noyce.

"It was an idea whose time had come," Berlin told AFP. "There were efforts all over the world to make something like an integrated circuit."

History gives Noyce and Kilby shared credit for inventing the circuit that transformed the world of electronics.

Read more @ news.yahoo.com

From Yahoo! News.

Plastic cards could become a thing of the past after Barclaycard announced it was investing a seven-figure sum in new ways to make payments.

Contactless payment technology allows people to pay for items with the things they have with them, such as mobile phones, key fobs and even their eyes or fingerprints.

Barclaycard’s OnePulse was launched in London last year with some 10,000 customers.

It enables people to buy items for less than £10 by touching their card against a sensor, without even having to take it out of their wallet.

It can also be used as an Oyster card on London public transport.

Barclaycard aims to have one million customers upgraded to OnePulse by the end of the year, with payment terminals introduced in 9,000 shops across the UK.

The group also carried out a recent trial with mobile phone operator O2 in which customers paid for items with their mobiles.

Full story @ Sky News

People will soon be able to control their TVs simply by waving their hands, researchers have said.

Toshiba Research Europe’s Cambridge Research Laboratory has developed a gesture-based interface which could eventually act as an alternative to a remote control.

Users raise their hand to take control of a screen, and then move it around to change the channel or the volume.

Researchers are now working on the system recognizing gestures in different lighting conditions and on dealing with multiple users in the same room.

It also needs to be developed so that it recognizes real gestures, rather than involuntary movements such as sneezes.

Toshiba is also keen on developing the system to work with PCs

Read more @ Sky News