Wow, it’s like a backup for organics: “Norway is planning to build a “doomsday vault” inside a mountain on an Arctic island to hold a seed bank of all known varieties of the world’s crops. The Norwegian government will hollow out a cave on the ice-bound island of Spitsbergen to hold the seed bank. It will be designed to withstand global catastrophes like nuclear war or natural disasters that would destroy the planet’s sources of food.” [via] Link.
Here is this week’s “Cool Stuff Being Made”! – “…from aerospace to zippers, a lot things we use and interact with these days are made with investment cast parts. Surgery tools, golf equipment and lots of things that the military use all rely on the investment cast process. The investment cast process begins with plastics (Yes, Mr. Robinson, there “is a great future in plastics!”) to create near net shape metal parts that require minimal surface treatment. Investment cast parts come in all shapes and sizes, from fractions of an ounce to several tones.” Link.
MAKE’s Natalie Zee has a good round up of Macworld – “I walked around the Macworld floor with my fellow MAKE colleague Phil and I have to say, I was quite disappointed to see that there wasn’t enough good looking girl tech out there. I wasn’t about to shell out money for an ugly looking iPod speaker purse, so thankfully there were a few things that caught my eye.” Link.
Keylock has an interesting post about cell phone ownership in other countries in response to the Verizon crippling of our phones – “In Qatar I pay a security deposit and then my mobile phone is billed like a landline phone. I pay for the calls I make–no limits and full access to all my Nokia 6230’s features (like bluetooth) without being billed for it. The coverage in Qatar is good (albeit a small country) but it is also an all digital network. The USA is a mix of analog/digital because the companies that put up the analog towers are trying to wring every dollar out before they have to replace them. The USA is behind in the cell phone market considerably…don’t believe me? Check out Nokia’s website and click on the Middle East. I’ll bet you’ll find phones that you haven’t even heard of over here. I bought my buddy a Nokia 6600 cellphone while I was in Qatar and brought it back for him. It works fine over here and his bluetooth chip wasn’t disabled and he isn’t billed when he transfers his photos, movies, music, etc…” Link.
MAKE will be covering this in-world and helping with some video streaming. You can also watch one of Lessig’s presentations now on MAKE land – “New World Notes and Philip Linden welcome renowned Stanford Law Professor, Internet age legal theorist and IP rights expert Lawrence Lessig to Second Life. Interviewed by Philip Linden, Professor Lessig will be here in-world to speak about his latest book, Free Culture, while also seeking feedback from Residents for an upcoming revision of his classic book Code, which includes a section on virtual worlds…” Link.
Brought to you by the folks at MIT Lab, TapTap is not just a scarf, it’s like a big hug from someone you love. TapTap is a wearable haptic system that can record, broadcast and playback human touch for emotional therapy. Made in two layers of felt, the pink color on the inside contains pockets where up to six actuation circuits mounted on flexible plastic sheets can be placed where ever you want. You can even have a place for your keys and wallet. [via] Link.
