Hulu subscription service could come next week

Some of you may finally get a chance to pay for Hulu. The video Web site is finalizing its plans to launch its subscription service, and people familiar with the company say a beta test of "Hulu Plus" could launch as early as next week. If you're in a select group, that is. One person familiar with the site, owned by a joint venture of broadcasters and Providence Equity Partners, says the initial test could be limited to 10,000 people. The Hulu Plus pitch, as I've previously reported: $9.95 a month for access to a deeper catalog of shows than the free service currently offers, plus the ability to watch it on devices other than a laptop or PC, including Apple's iPad. Other reports this month indicate that the service may also be available on Microsoft's Xbox and Sony's PS3 game consoles. I'm also told that Hulu's network owners--GE's NBC, Disney's ABC, and News Corp.'s Fox--are still hammering out rights deals for particular shows. So it's possible that the launch could be pushed back, or that the service will have weird gaps in its catalog when it does launch. One example of a possible programming stumbling block: Viacom's Comedy Central, for instance, has rights to older episodes of NBC's "30 Rock." Hulu says it is already turning a profit from ad sales, and is on track to generate more than $200 million in revenue this year. And a successful subscription service would beef up those numbers. But it would also accomplish an equally important goal for CEO Jason Kilar--mollifying his network owners who worry that Hulu is cutting into their existing businesses, including licensing fees, DVD sales, and conventional TV advertising. Hulu and its network partners would split the $10 per head fee, I'm told, though I don't know the formula the JV will use to split up the dollars. No comment from Hulu. The Wall Street Journal is also reporting on Hulu's plans. Story Copyright (c) 2010 AllThingsD. All rights reserved.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Utilities try to get smarter about selling smart grid

WASHINGTON--It's probably not news to their customers, but utility company executives are now realizing that they're not great at marketing. For years, the smart grid has been touted by policymakers, tech companies, and utilities as a way to make the grid more reliable, efficient, and cleaner. But for the most part, surveys show that consumers are still struggling to understand how a digital grid and two-way smart meters matter to them. Having seen the backlash from smart meter installations in California, utilities are now acutely aware of how important it is to convey the benefits of new grid technologies, according to executives at the Kema Utility of the Future conference here on Thursday.

(Credit: PG&E)

In many discussions, speakers said consumers need to come along for the years-long ride of adding new technology to the grid. To get consumers involved, utilities need to shift from treating them like a monolithic block of ratepayers to customers they want to retain. "The relationship with homeowners is just beginning," Michael Morris, the CEO of utility AEP, said during a panel discussion. "There is no sex appeal to (playing) around with an electricity meter as there is streaming a baseball game on their iPhone or iPad, so we need to be a bit respectful of what that relationship is." Utility customers in the U.S. expect reliable service and power when needed. But going forward, consumers will want better ways to manage and reduce their energy use for economic reasons, said Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers. Although electricity prices have dropped significantly in the past two years because of the recession, the pressure on prices is upward given the worldwide demand on energy resources and growing electricity use in general. Helping consumers manage those price increases with efficiency measures is in the interest of utilities, too, since customers will feel more in control, Rogers said. But just installing smart meters without a good informational and marketing campaign is a mistake, particularly if it's seen as taking choice away from consumers, he said. "To make smart meters work, you have to follow up quickly with an audit and provide a suite of products that provide some benefit and make clear this isn't a 'Mother knows best' world. You can choose," Rogers said. "That reduces the chance of blowback." Not about technology
Many of the features promised by smart-grid advocates can be done with existing technologies, but they do require participation from customers, as well as customer education. So rather than rush headlong into the smart grid, some companies are treading lightly and slowing. Michigan utility Consumers Energy this month will roll out two programs geared at cutting back electricity usage in homes and in both cases, it's using relatively old technology to get it done. "The intent is not to figure out if the technology works, it's more about the customer marketing message," said Stephen Hirsch, the manager of demand response programs at Consumers Energy. "The biggest barrier was the suspicion on the part of the customer as to why we are doing this. There seems to be a problem with the consumer understanding our business model."

A model of the smart grid, where energy flows in two directions and consumers have more control.(Credit: EPRI)

In one demand-response program in the Grand Rapids area, the utility will reduce load on the grid during about 10 hot summer days a year by remotely controlling consumers' air conditioners. A signal sent over the utility's existing network will shift central air conditioners from running at 100 percent to 50 percent for four hours in the afternoon, which will result in a one- or two-degree temperature increase, Hirsh explained. In exchange for shedding load during a time of stress on the grid, the customer gets a rebate. The benefit for the utility is that it does not have to purchase expensive electricity, which is often made with polluting "peaking plants," or have to build new transmission lines to meet peak demand. Cutting the utility's energy accrues to the consumer as it lowers its operating costs, Hirsh said. Most consumers say they are willing to use a smart device, such as a smart meter, appliance, or thermostat, if it will help them better manage their energy, according to a recent poll by General Electric. And the combined impact of thousands of efficiency events can mean avoiding the construction of new power plants and power lines. But for these products and programs to work, it has to be simple and easy to use for customers, and there need to be variable pricing that reflects the cost of energy on the wholesale market. "We've got to make it simple so that it's programmable and you just set it once," said Terry Boston, the CEO of grid operator PJM. "We have to see how well the customer can interface with the grid and how their use patterns can impact the grid." Finding what works
Emerging smart-grid technologies pave the way for people to have more control over their energy, letting a person, for example, use a smart phone to monitor electricity or turn on the air conditioning just before getting home. How quickly the utility providers can adapt their businesses to deliver that sort of capability is a big question, said David O'Brien, the commissioner of the Vermont Department of Public Service.

Photos: GE's smart grid kitchen of the future

"For a 100 years, utilities have been responsible for running the grid on our behalf. I've seen reticence to go into this very dynamic environment where customers are making thousands of choice on how to use electricity based on information," O'Brien said. New technologies, such as smart meters, home energy dashboards, or microgrids with community storage, are also expensive and can be difficult to get regulators to sign off on. Baltimore Gas & Electric was shocked this week when the Maryland regulators rejected a smart-grid investment proposal because it did not demonstrate enough benefit. In the meantime, utilities are experimenting with smart-grid programs, which received a boost from billions of dollar in stimulus spending. Beyond what the technology can do, utilities are eager to see how consumers react to a life where using energy means more than writing a check for a monthly bill. Municipal utility Chattanooga Electric Power plans to let consumers view their electricity usage on a TV using IPTV, said David Wade, the executive vice president and chief operating officer. "One of challenges is to understand how to implement software to provide options to customers where they don't have to sacrifice comfort and convenience and help them manage energy costs," he said.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Wallops Flight Facility, NASA's hidden launch shop

At the Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, NASA designs rockets and high-altitude scientific balloons. It also launches the rockets, and maintains the ability to destroy them if they pose a threat to the public. (Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va.--Imagine a football stadium floating high in the sky, enclosed in material not much thicker than a sandwich bag. Take away the physical part of the football field, but leave the volume, and you get a sense of the size of the high-altitude balloons that NASA uses to conduct scientific experiments. Those balloons, as well as the design and manufacture of sub-orbital rockets and the launching into space of government satellites, are among the mandates of the Wallops Flight Facility, a NASA center based here on the Atlantic coast about 160 miles southeast of Washington, D.C. I got a chance to visit the facility on Thursday, the first stop on Road Trip 2010, my fifth annual geek-centric journey around a region of the U.S. And though I knew that it had a reputation as a center for research into high-altitude balloons, I had no idea just how mammoth the mega-vessels can be. The biggest balloons can reach 40 million cubic feet of volume and require 20 acres of material, according to Magdi Said, a researcher in NASA's scientific balloons program at Wallops. Those, he added, are for standard zero-pressure balloons that tend to stay aloft for a few days before changes in temperature drain away the gasses that keep them up. But the agency is also working on new, super pressure balloons that don't lose gasses that are meant to stay in the air for up to 100 days anywhere in the world.

Photos: High-altitude work flourishes at NASA

Getting vessels of many kinds aloft, of course, is a main NASA mission, and at Wallops, that's no different. Here, away from the glare and the spotlight that shines on places like the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, or the Johnson Space Center in Houston, research can get done without everyone watching. And that means, in an environment where quick turnaround research and development is the main way of life, that projects usually go from concept to high altitude in two years or less. On Thursday morning, students and their advisers participating in an annual program called RockOn launched their own research rocket, a sub-orbital shot that went as high as 75 miles before falling back to Earth. The program is a "crash course" in rocketry for university students, according to NASA spokesperson Keith Koehler. And sub-orbital launches are a big part of what goes on at Wallops. On average the facility launches something about once a month, be it a sub-orbital research-oriented rocket or one intended to put a Department of Defense satellite into space. Since 2001, Wallops has been launching Minotaur I rockets--vehicles that retain the first and second stage from old Minuteman missiles--in order to put satellites in space. But in 2011, the facility will add the new Taurus 2 rocket with the goal of flying supplies to the International Space Station. Those launches will be done by commercial companies, like Orbital and SpaceX. In order to send up those Taurus 2s, Wallops' partner, the Mid-Atlantic Region Spaceport (MARS)--a consortium run by the commonwealth of Virginia and the state of Maryland--is building a new launch pad. Known as Pad 0A, it will accompany the nearby 0B and employ a new system for constructing rockets.

A rocket being launched at the Wallops Flight Facility.(Credit: NASA)

Koehler explained that the Taurus 2s will be built on their side rather than having their stages stacked, as is the case with rockets at Kennedy Space Center. Then, having been put together on a newly constructed ramp, they will be moved--still on their side--to an as-yet built gantry and then lifted into vertical position. At the same time, the gantry at Pad 0B is being raised a few levels so that it can accommodate its own new rocket, the Minotaur 5, which in 2013 will be used for the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), a lunar mission to analyze the moon's atmosphere and dust environment. That project, Koehler said, will be the first launch from the Wallops Flight Center to go beyond the Earth's orbit. Launch sheds
Then, there's a third way that rockets are launched at Wallops. Sub-orbital rockets, like the RockOn vehicle, are sent up from one of three white, unassuming sheds located along the same north-south close-to-waterfront path as Pads 0B and, soon, 0A. Here, the rockets are constructed by bringing in motors and other elements through the roll-up doors of the sheds. When finished and ready to shoot into the sky, the rockets aren't moved. Instead, it's the sheds that get out of the way, moved away from the rockets on rails. Then the rockets are raised and launched. This area is shared by NASA and the U.S. Navy, which originally set up a Naval station along this piece of the Atlantic coast--not far from the former Langley Aeronautical Laboratory. The Navy needed a site not far from the lab that was also close to water. And that's why the site here was chosen. Koehler explained that in 1945, NASA began sharing the space for rocket launches, and when the Navy left in 1959, it took over as the sole resident. But in 1985, the Navy returned and now has a series of missions on the base, including the training of personnel who will be heading out onto one of various kinds of ships. Not far from the launch sheds, the Navy maintains three buildings, two of which look suspiciously--in profile, at least--like ships. One is used to train personnel on the systems and technology of aircraft carriers; a second is for training those headed for Aegis cruisers and destroyers; and the third is intended for those who will eventually be deployed on next-generation Naval ships.

The U.S. Navy also maintains facilities at Wallops, including this building, which is used to train personnel on the Aegis cruiser and destroyer.(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET)

All told, NASA keeps about 1,000 people busy at Wallops, while the Navy has around 300 people there. And there are also 90 members of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), who are on hand to man command-and-control of that agency's weather satellites. Many projects
In the middle of the Wallops site is the Sounding Rocket Facility, a "one-stop shop" for building sub-orbital rockets, explains Koehler. Here, rockets are built more or less from the ground up, often using surplus military motors that cost NASA little or nothing. At any given time, the facility may be working on as many as 60 different projects, whether they're in the design, fabrication, testing, launch, or analysis stages. The rockets built here have altitude ranges of between 25 and 800 miles and can serve just about any research purpose one can imagine. Plus, while many of the rockets are launched here, NASA also takes Wallops-designed vehicles on the road, for example, to Alaska to study the science of the aurora borealis. Similarly, the balloons being designed at Wallops--they're made and launched at separate facilities in Texas--have a wide range of missions, and sizes. They can be as tall as the Washington Monument, and, as mentioned above, contain the volume of a football stadium. Currently, the super pressure program is working on ramping up to the size of the zero-pressure balloons. Already, in 2009, NASA put a 7 million cubic foot super pressure balloon up for 100 days and is now looking into another flight that would be double the size, or 14 million cubic feet. And the goal, according to Said, is to craft and launch a 26 million cubic foot super pressure balloon that would be capable of carrying a payload of as much as 8,000 pounds for 100 days. In general, the balloons designed here are used in astrophysics missions meant to gather data on gamma rays, X-rays, and similar particles, explained Said. Wallops is also working with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on designing "planetary balloons" that could probe the surfaces of Mars or Venus, but it will likely be at least five years before that research bears fruit. In the interim, the typical client for such a balloon is a university professor or a NASA scientist. "They build the payload and we give them a lift," joked Said. For the next few weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2010. After driving more than 18,000 miles in the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last four years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more throughout the American Northeast. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. In the meantime, you can follow my progress on Twitter @GreeterDan and @RoadTrip and find the project on Facebook. And you can also test your knowledge of the U.S. and try to win a prize in the Road Trip Picture of the Day challenge.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

In search of geek treasures in Washington

This 'Bond Car,' from the International Spy Museum, is a potential Road Trip 2010 stop. Got any other must-visit ideas for a geek visiting Washington, D.C.? (Credit: International Spy Museum)

NEWPORT NEWS, Va.--I've just begun Road Trip 2010, my annual journey in search of the best geek-centric spots this country has to offer, and I've got a hole in my schedule. Can you help? Starting Sunday, I'm going to be in Washington, D.C. I'm booked up through Monday, but on Tuesday, I'd like to give the nation's capital one more day of my reporting time--and I'd love to get your help in deciding where to go. I'm looking for spots that are very geek-friendly and that photograph well. I'm already considering all the obvious spots--the major memorials, the White House, the Capitol, and a few others, but Washington is so jam-packed with great stuff--and amazingly, I've never been there before--that I have no idea what else I should check out. But I bet you can help me sift through the riches. So if you have a suggestion of a great place to go in Washington, D.C., please let me know. I want to hear about it. And if I end up going to a spot that you suggest, and that I wasn't already considering, I'll offer you my thanks with a small token of my appreciation. So, let's hear it, folks. What must a geek absolutely not miss on a weekday in D.C.? If you have an idea, please e-mail it to me (with "Washington, D.C." in the subject line) at daniel--dot--terdiman--at--cnet--dot--com. You can also leave your ideas in comments, but I'll only be able to offer tangible thanks to those who e-mail me. And, please understand if I don't respond to you. I get dozens of emails related to these requests. For the next few weeks, Geek Gestalt will be on Road Trip 2010. After driving more than 18,000 miles in the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest and the Southeast over the last four years, I'll be looking for the best in technology, science, military, nature, aviation and more throughout the American Northeast. If you have a suggestion for someplace to visit, drop me a line. In the meantime, you can follow my progress on Twitter @GreeterDan and @RoadTrip and find the project on Facebook. And you can also test your knowledge of the U.S. and try to win a prize in the Road Trip Picture of the Day challenge.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Flash arrives in Google's Chrome browser

Google has fulfilled a promise to build Adobe Systems' Flash Player into Chrome, a move that helps keep the beleaguered plug-in relevant despite significant efforts to replace it. Chrome 5.0.376.86, the stable version of Chrome released Thursday, extends the plug-in to the mainstream version of Google's browser. Previously it was only in the developer and beta releases, and because of some hiccups it was disabled for a time there.

The new version also fixes five security bugs, including one involving a cross-site scripting vulnerability that had been fixed earlier but that recurred. Flash has been a dominant component for building the richer aspects of the Web, notably games and streaming video, and programmers have relied on it to bridge compatibility and feature differences among browsers. But browser makers have long chafed at how Flash programs could crash the browser and confuse its user interface, and long-running work to reproduce many Flash abilities in Web standards is steadily maturing. Google is among those pushing this work, which sometimes loosely is called HTML5 but which in fact also includes Cascading Style Sheets for formatting, and JavaScript for processing, and other elements of the Hypertext Markup Language for Web pages beyond the upcoming HTML5 version. Apple has been most vocal about opposition to Flash, including a strongly worded letter from CEO Steve Jobs enumerating what he sees as Flash shortcomings and a ban that keeps Flash off iOS devices--the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. Despite Flash's drawbacks and mixed reputation, though, it's unarguably widely used on the Web, and Adobe is working to keep it relevant, most recently through the Flash Player 10.1 release that works on mobile phones as well as computers. Here, Adobe and Google have a tight alliance: Android phones are the first to get Flash support, and Chrome now has it built in. That means among other things that it will automatically be updated through Chrome's behind-the-scenes upgrade technology. To reduce Flash problems in Firefox, Mozilla just released Firefox 3.6.4 that walls off plug-ins into a separate area of computer memory where they can do less harm. The feature is enabled only on Windows and Linux so far but is under developent for Mac OS X. Update 6:32 a.m. PDT: Those who like Chrome but not Flash can type "about:plugins" into the Chrome address bar to see a list of plug-ins and a "disable" button to shut down what isn't wanted. In addition, in the "under the hood" section of the control panel, the "content settings" options lets people selectively block or enable various plug-ins for specific Web sites.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Nokia picks MeeGo over Symbian for iPhone rival

Nokia's N8 will be the last of the N-series phones to use the Symbian OS. Replacing it will be the Linux-based MeeGo software from Nokia and Intel.(Credit: CBS Interactive)

Despite years of investment in its Symbian operating system, Nokia has picked the Linux-based MeeGo instead to go head to head with Apple's iPhone and other higher-end smartphones. The Nokia N8 will be the last of the flagship N-series smartphones to use Symbian, Nokia told CNET Australia, and confirmed the move in a Reuters interview. "Going forward, N-series devices will be based on MeeGo," a Nokia spokesman said, though it will continue to offer Symbian lower down the product line. Years ago, Nokia was the dominant phone maker, but it's struggled to reclaim its past glory. The N-series change indicates the company's bets on Symbian--including Nokia's acquisition of full Symbian control from other partners and its subsequent release as open-source software--weren't sufficient to make the operating system a top-end competitor. In contrast, the iPhone 4 appears to be increasing Apple's considerable clout in the mobile market, and application developers' products also run on the iPod Touch and iPad devices that also use the iOS operating system. At the same time, Google has been making steady gains with its Android operating system, with 160,000 new Android phones activated daily, and various partners plan Android-baesd tablets and other devices. Android and iOS, while geared for mobile devices, stem more from a personal computer lineage compared with Symbian's mobile roots. That change arguably befits the new era of mobile devices, which resemble small general-purpose computers more than single-purpose phones. Customers use the phone not just for calls and text messaging, but also for e-mail, Web browsing, and games. They add new software picked from application stores rather than using a limited list of applications supplied with the phone. MeeGo falls into this general-purpose category as well. MeeGo is an operating system born earlier in 2010 of the combination of two other Linux efforts, Nokia's Maemo effort and Intel's Moblin.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Report: iPhone 4 is like an iPad Nano

The iPhone 4, at its core, is tantamount to Apple offering a handheld version of the iPad, according to a report. The iPhone 4 has so many internal similarities to the iPad that it could, in this respect, be labeled an iPad Nano, according to analysts from TechInsights cited in an article from EE Times. In a teardown of the iPhone 4, TechInsights found "at least seven chips from the...Apple tablet," according to the report. TechInsights will come out later with a full report on the teardown of iPhone 4. TechInsights is a division of United Business Media, the publisher of EE Times.

TechInsights says the iPhone 4 is, at its core, tantamount to Apple offering an iPad Nano(Credit: TechInsights)

While it's well know that, like the iPad, the iPhone 4 uses the A4 chip, Apple's latest phone also reuses a number of other iPad parts including a Broadcom Bluetooth FM radio combo chip (the BCM4329), Broadcom GPS device (the BCM4750), and Cirrus Logic audio codec (the 338S0589), according to EE Times. The iPhone 4 and iPad also share common flash chips--a Samsung 256 Gbit NAND flash device (the K9TFG08U5M) and a combo device from Numonyx, EE Times said. "Design reuse is clearly a big focus for Apple these days. For example, the iPhone 4 continues Apple's use of baseband and transceiver chips from Infineon despite a highly competitive market for such chips. The handset also uses the same Dialog power management chip Apple put in the iPad," EE Times said.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Apple acknowledges antenna issue in iPhone 4

The iPhone 4's antenna placement is hindered by holding the phone in a certain way, Apple acknowledged Thursday.(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Apple has finally acknowledged that the way you hold the iPhone 4 can hinder the device's cellular reception.Complaints about weakening or disappearing signals when the iPhone 4 is gripped in a particular way--usually by touching two seams of the antenna band on the exterior of the phone simultaneously--began popping up late Wednesday night, and continued to appear Thursday.While Internet commenters and bloggers spent most of the day trying to figure out if the problem was related to the phone's hardware or software, Apple released a statement late in the day to PC Magazine."Gripping any phone will result in some attenuation of its antenna performance with certain places being worse than others depending on the placement of the antennas. This is a fact of life for every wireless phone. If you ever experience this on your Phone 4, avoid gripping it in the lower left corner in a way that covers both sides of the black strip in the metal band, or simply use one of many available cases."There are two antennas on the iPhone, which are built into the steel band on the exterior of the phone. The one running on the left side of the phone is for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, the one on the right is for cellular reception. That means how a left-handed person holds the phone will affect it differently than how most right-handed people would hold it. Steve Jobs said at WWDC the exterior antenna was supposed to help reception--he didn't mention there was a particular way you had to avoid touching it. However, if you don't feel like spending more for a case for the phone, it sounds like that's the cheapest solution.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Lab-engineered lung tissue lives on in rats

A diagram shows the path of the regenerated lung tissue. (Credit: Yale University)

Bioengineered organs, still largely the stuff of sci-fi, may have just moved a step closer to reality with reports that scientists have successfully implanted lab-made lung tissue into living rats. The fully functional tissue can exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, the key role of the lungs. The scientists--led by a team at Yale University--used a chemical treatment to remove all existing cells from adult rat lungs, keeping the structure of the airways and vascular system intact to later serve as a sort of "scaffold" for the growth of new lung cells. They then cultured a combination of lung cells using a bioreactor designed to mimic the fetal lung environment and repopulated the "decellularized" rat lung with the engineered cells. When implanted into rats for short intervals of 45 to 120 minutes, the new tissue exchanged gas in a manner similar to that of natural lungs. The scientists, who detail their work in a Thursday issue of the journal Science, acknowledge that it may be some time before scientists can generate fully functional lungs in vitro, but they nonetheless are touting their research as a promising development in the quest to regenerate lung tissue. "This is an early step in the regeneration of entire lungs for larger animals and, eventually, for humans," said Laura Niklason, a Yale professor and vice chair of the Departments of Anesthesiology and Biomedical Engineering and lead author of the study, which was funded by Yale and the National Institutes of Health. (Decellularization has also been used in experiments to rebuild a human heart). Adult lung tissue, for its part, has limited regeneration capacity, so the primary therapy for severely damaged lungs is transplantation. That procedure is highly susceptible to organ rejection and infection and achieves only 10 percent to 20 percent survival at 10 years, according to some statistics.

Harvard University scientists have developed a microdevice that mimics real lungs. (Credit: Harvard University)

Lung disease, including lung cancer, emphysema, and cystic fibrosis, accounts for about 400,000 deaths each year in the United States, according to figures provided by Yale. Lung cancer is still the most common cause of cancer death, according to the American Lung Association. Meanwhile, in other promising artificial-lung-related news, a separate group of scientists has created a coin-size "lung on a chip" that mimics real lungs and could be used to test drugs and toxins. The researchers, Don Ingber and his team at Harvard University, detail their dual-chambered microdevice in the same issue of Science, saying it could provide a low-cost alternative to animal and clinical studies for drug screening and toxicology applications.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)

Google Street View's 'horse-boy' mystery

Do you feel the "Scent of Danger?" Could it be the "Centaur of Danger?"There are unearthly beings in our midst. And I am not referring specifically to any unearthly being that Stephen Hawking is so keen for us to avoid.Please look at the image from Google Street View that I have been brave enough to present here.It is the body of a man. It is the head of a horse. They are on the very same being. You try and tell me that this not something from out there, rather than in here.

Who will invite him to the Kentucky Derby?(Credit: Screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

The BBC says that this "horse-boy," as he has become known, has become a regular on the streets of Aberdeen, Scotland, where the days are cold and the nights echo with foreboding.People from all over Europe have allegedly been contacting Britain's most august news organization in order to claim they have met him. Though none so far has claimed to have ridden him or fed him carrots.Horse-boy, it seems, moves very quickly all around the European continent. Perhaps, behind his purple shirt, he has wings.There are those who reportedly claim that you can find more footage on Google Street View that shows him to be a real human being putting on a cheap horse mask.I cannot accept this. Horse-boy is surely real and will shortly been seen on Oprah's couch, in the stables of the Prince of Wales, or playing the fine game of C-E-N-T-A-U-R with Shaquille O'Neal.
Source: CNET News (http://cnet.com/)