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Microsoft Surface Gets Real
Remember back to around the middle of last year, when Microsoft unveiled the coffee table that everyone would want? Dubbed Microsoft Surface, the interface let you navigate, move objects, and accomplish all of your computer tasks via a sophisticated touch screen. We all wanted one, but knew we'd have to wait. Well, we still have to wait for the home version, but at least now we can play with Surfaces in the real world.
Cell phone company AT&T has partnered with Microsoft to put counter-height Microsoft Surface computers into its retail stores. The company will start with five on April 17: two in New York, one in San Francisco, one in San Antonio, and one in Atlanta. The Surface computers will allow customers to compare phone features, check service plans, and examine coverage maps. The new interface should be more user-friendly than the laptops that AT&T has been using up to now for this purpose.
So when will we be able to get a Surface in our own homes? The consumer version could arrive as early as 2011, up to two years ahead of Microsoft's original schedule. In the meantime, you can expect to see other business customers for Surface. Microsoft won't comment on whom, but the Surface could be used effectively in education, health care, government - and theme parks. Don't be surprised if you see the Surface in the future at Disney. After all, they already have enough mice.
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Bugs Trapped in Amber Revealed by Computer
Paleontology normally requires a rock hammer and trowel to find specimens. Likewise, entomology can also be a dirty job. But Paul Tafforeau and his colleagues at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, have found a new way to discover old bugs: put chunks of clouded amber through a specialized X-ray machine, take 1,000 pictures while the amber rotates, and reassemble the full image in a computer using a 3D processing tool.
So far, the researchers have illuminated more than 600 blocks of amber, revealing about 360 different fossil bugs, including wasps, flies, ants and spiders. All of the creatures are tiny - four millimeters or even smaller - in part because the large ones were strong enough to escape imprisonment by tree sap before it hardened into amber. And you can tell whether the bugs were dead or alive when they were caught from the position of their legs.
But if seeing a three-dimensional image that you can rotate on a computer isn't quite enough for you, Tafforeau's team came up with a great way to give you a hands-on experience. They feed the information from the image, with resolution down to the micron level, to a 3D plastic printer. The printer then takes a bug that might be less than a millimeter long and renders it as a foot-long "sculpture" you can hold in your hand. The scientists think that their methods could be use as an alternative way to store reference specimens of amber-trapped insects in a museum. It should help further scholarly research and our knowledge of the world in which the dinosaurs lived, to say nothing of the potential for low-budget horror movies.
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Dentist's Drill to Become Obsolete?
For many people, the worst part about going to the dentist happens when a new cavity is discovered. Then it's time for that most dreaded tool: the drill. Fortunately, some compassionate researchers are trying to find the right mix of chemicals to rebuild decayed teeth. Rather than simply patching holes with gold or ceramic filling, enamel and dentin, of which teeth are naturally composed, would do the job.
Sally Marshall, a professor at the University of California in San Francisco, explained that the goal is to catch decaying teeth early and remineralize them. The tricky part is that dentin is a very complex structure. While a tooth's outer enamel is composed of a regular crystal lattice, dentin is a clay-like substance reinforced by collagen fibers. Both enamel and dentin are vulnerable to acids and eventually succumb to erosion - hence cavities.
Marshall has been able to regrow dentin in some parts of damaged teeth by using a solution of ions that contains calcium. So far, she hasn't been able to tell whether the dentin is regrowing completely. Marshall believes she'll find a way to restore dentin functionality in the next few years. It looks like we'll have to dread the drill for a little while longer.
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