Some Stuff: Tuesday, May 26, 2009

1969: Apollo 10 returned to Earth after a mission that served as a dress rehearsal for the first moon landing.


Joan Alexander, who first played ace reporter Lois Lane, Superman’s girlfriend on the radio in 1940, has died at age 94.


Internet rumors have Hollywood working on a new Daredevil flick. A 2003 Daredevil starring Ben Affleck was a critical bomb. Katee Sackhoff aka Starbuck from BSG rumoured to be interested in playing Typhoid Mary.


A service which lets you tweet and update you Facebook status after your death is about to be launched. WebWill allows users to prepare messages on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace which will be automatically updated if they come to an untimely end. After the system is informed of your mortal demise (from a pre-registered contact) it then updates your services which can include a blog post or spooky email to a list of friends. The service also allows the web profiles of the recently departed to be handed over to a friend or family member.


A device is being launched in the UK which uses a foot-powered air pump to charge a mobile phone. The phone charger attaches to a standard foot pump which drives a turbine. This energy is then converted into an electrical current to charge a mobile. Makers of the device claim you can generate enough energy to make a five minute call in the same time as it would take to inflate a pillow.


A Japanese company has invented a sort of wearable robot to help the paralyzed walk again. The 50 pound suit -- called HAL for Hybrid Assistive Limb -- is attached to the wearer's body. Through a voluntary control system, the robot suit detects natural electrical currents passing over the surface of the skin and interprets the wearer's intended movement. The robotic process occurs a fraction of a second before the muscles actually move. A prototype of HAL will allow a user to carry 100 pounds as if it were only a few. Eventually a robotic suit could be used in heavy labor (think a scaled-down version of Sigourney Weaver's big yellow robot suit near the end of the film Aliens).