At first glance, this quote by Windows Manager James DeBragga doesn't make much sense. But it's actually a relatively reasonable metaphor.

He compares Android to a puppy thusly: sure, you can get a puppy for free, but then you've gotta housebreak it, take it for walks and train it. It takes a lot of work to turn that puppy into a properly-behaved dog.

And really, that seems to be true based on the initial experiences of Nexus One owners. But then again, that's one specific case. Every mobile platform, including Windows Mobile, has its issues. Are Android's really worse than most? [Laptop]

I'm going to tell you a tale, a tale of friendship that, with the help of a Chinese automatic nail printer, blossomed into a full-out, wet and sticky bromance.

There Jason and I were, walking through the International Center at CES, our shoulders brushing casually in the intimate walkways. Then we spotted a machine unlike any we'd seen before. A wizened Chinese man beckoned us into this booth, and before we could raise any objections, he placed his finger our our lips, a tacit acknowledgment that this was our first time. Jason took a seat.
Still confused and a bit disoriented, Jason smiled nervously as a camera photographed nothing less than the full earnestness his soul. Looking at the screen, Jason's stomach dropped at the sheer amount of honesty that could be captured on a webcam and displayed on a touchscreen LCD.
I pretended to ignore Jason's powerful image as grabbed a seat myself. The Chinese man took my hand—his touch was warm. He lightly stroked my thumb with a base coat while photographing me as well.
How would Jason and I frame our faces? We joked that the heart cutout was the only way. And then our eyes locked and we realized that maybe, just maybe, we weren't joking at all.
The photos processed, I tentatively placed my thumb into the machine. It clamped down on my appendage, strongly, and it wouldn't let go. At this moment, trapped and vulnerable, I could only let the machine finish. To this day, I don't know if it's the event's repression speaking, but the process was quick, professional and I don't recall the slightest bit of pain. In fact, I didn't feel a thing.
Jason, having bravely endured the same process, reveals the worthwhile aftermath in this photo. My face has been semi-permanently painted upon his fingernail. He blows on the finish to make sure it's dry, his lips the closest they'd ever been to my face.
"For better or worse, we're together in this thing now," I thought to myself. But just several days following this entire affair at CES, Jason and I have parted ways. Sometimes we IM one another, and there's the occasional text. But even as the heart has chipped away from my nail, his smile remains.

And if you'd like to duplicate the experience, the ArtPro Nail Printer runs about $1500, takes normal HP ink cartridges and breaks up to 6000 hearts between refills. The company is currently seeking US distribution.

Created by a team from MIT and Harvard, Egg Energy is taking the Netflix style subscription model and applying it to a very unique for-profit business: supplying energy for populations in developing countries.

I'm not sure about the value of a dollar in Tanzania, but the Egg Energy's service seems like a decent deal. For a $27 first-year subscription, customers will get their home wired for electricity and receive a fully-charged, relatively compact battery that can be swapped out for a fresh one at a cost of 40 cents. As Earth2Tech notes:

The company explains in its executive summary that its target customer spends $5 per month on kerosene and $3 per month on AA batteries, with an average total of $96 per year for lighting and the use of a radio. But with eight swaps per month, the annual cost of the service in total is $65. "Switching to EGG-energy therefore saves a typical household $30.60 a year on its lighting and radio needs," says the company.

The first Egg Energy distribution center is already up and running on a well-trafficked route in rural Tanzania. They have acquired 60 customers since November and plan a rapid expansion in the coming year. [Egg Energy on Facebook via Eart2Tech via @Timoreilly via @TomRaferty]

Ten years' worth of Apple laptops are stacked high in this shot. I was going to list their identities, but then I realized the commenters could probably have more fun with it. Be nice (or funny). [Flickr via Unplggd]

Dogs are lovely creatures, but they aren't all that useful. Sure, they provide companionship, but any animal can do that. That's why I love turning your dog into a cellphone charger using solar panels. [Recombu via Make]

While this might look like something found on Tatooine, it's actually a new Israeli drone designed for rescue and cargo operations. It just had its first hovering test, so it may be in the field before too long. [Danger Room]

Google on Tuesday is making a big move with its Docs service, opening it up to all types of file uploads. This includes photos, movies, music, and ZIP archives, all of which will be stored on Google's servers.

Along with opening up Docs to additional file types, Google is also dramatically increasing the size of individual uploads. Where the company will still limit users to 500KB for Microsoft Word documents, and 10MB for PowerPoint presentations and PDFs, the new limit for all other files that cannot be converted into a Google Docs format is 250MB. This is 10 times the size of what's allowed as an attachment in the company's Web mail service Gmail.

In a post on the company's blog, Google Docs' product manager Vijay Bangaru said that the new size and file type allowances serve to make Docs a replacement for USB drives, allowing users to access their files between computers. The company is also applying the same permissions-based sharing system it has for documents that it hosts, allowing users to share files with one another.

That said, the amount of space for non-Google Docs files that are stored within Docs will only be 1GB. Users can upgrade though, and Google is planning on that.

Just like users can purchase additional space for other Google services like Picasa Web Albums and Gmail, users will soon be able to rent space from Google. For standard Google Docs users this will be 25 cents per gigabyte, per year, while Google Apps enterprise users have to pay $3.50 per gigabyte, per year. That's a hefty price difference, but customer support, and a service level agreement that guarantees uptime add costs.

Bangaru says the new file storage features will be rolling out to users within the "next couple of weeks." In the meantime, Google has been busy readying a new documents API that will take advantage of the storage, giving third-party programs read and write access. This turns Google into more of a traditional storage provider than it's ever been, completely cutting out the need to visit the Docs site itself to add or remove files. The only caveat here—and it's a big one—is that users will need to Google Apps premier edition customers to access the API, leaving free users of Docs and lesser Apps subscribers out in the cold.

Three companies that are coming out of the gate with support for this new API are Syncplicity, Manymoon, and Memeo Connect. All three will be tapping into it to do things like file sync, upload, and backup.

So is this the GDrive?

Signs that Google was readying Docs for file storage came in late July of last year, which is when the company quietly added the "files" menu to the Docs interface. It's since been under-utilized as a place for users to store PDFs that could be read within Google's document viewer. Attempts to upload other files that could not be converted into Google's own formats simply did not go through.

But do these changes make Google Docs the long-awaited GDrive? In a way yes, but it's far from the game-changing storage service that many thought would come by now. The expectation has always been that if Google came out with its own storage service, it would be deeply tied into its properties. And more importantly, that it would be something readily available to all users.

This time last year the company had alluded to as much, almost by accident. Bundled deep within the code of the company's "Google Pack" software (which includes a handful of Google, and non-Google software installers), was mention of a service called "GDrive." It was billed simply as a tool for online file backup and storage. That included "photos, music, and documents." The software also promised to let users access these files from a variety of locations—including the operating system and mobile phones.

Sound familiar? Google Docs now does all those things, at least with the help of some third-party programs. However, the one remaining hurdle is getting the sync to non-enterprise users, which for the time being is not happening.

There is light at the end of the tunnel though. This year, Google brings its cloud-centric Chrome OS to Netbooks, and you can be sure that storage will be an important part of the equation. It's much easier to sell the idea of a cloud-based lifestyle when you can give people a place to dump their existing files. This is especially true given what could be a very limited amount of storage in the first crop of Chrome OS hardware that will be sporting solid state drives—a technology that costs considerably more per gigabyte than platter-based hard drives.

Suddenly 25 cents a gigabyte doesn't sound so bad, does it?

Where Google still has a lot of work to do is unifying its storage offerings into one big drive that's shared across all of its services. As it stands, depending on what type of media you're giving to Google, and from what service you're uploading it to, there's a different bucket with a different limit. This is further complicated by the fact that many of the services have trouble talking to one another. If they did, it would allow Google to group search indexes into one place where users could sift through content they had stored across all of Google's properties.

While Google may get there by the launch of Chrome OS, it doesn't have to. Just consider Tuesday's news proof enough that Google, at the very least, has the ball rolling.

This story originally appeared on CNET

I've written a lot about 3DTV and that I consider it occasionally incredible. But the entire concept is tough to explain because, let's face it, I can't just embed 3DTV example videos and you've probably never seen it. Allow me:

I stood on a crowded CES floor with an assignment I dreaded. I had to look at every 3DTV I could find, an attraction that seemed to be drawing the slowest, most annoying attendees of all of CES into long lines to split a few pairs of glasses.

And these stupid screens are so unimpressive at first glance. To the naked eye, the screen is a tad blurry and maybe even a bit washed out. Then you slip on a pair of lightweight, heavily-douchey, thick-framed glasses. After a moment or two, the world around you goes darker, that once-blurry image sharpens instantly, and suddenly you're watching 3D.

The image you see will vary with content. You'll note a light flickering over your eyes, somewhere between the gaping black holes of an old time projector playing silent films and smooth 24 or 30fps video of a DVD or digital projector. But the biggest change is that your TV is no longer a flat pane but a window, an image in which there's an actual depth your eye can dig through, a digital diorama, if you will.

And if you happen to be looking around a room filled with 3DTVs, or maybe a display of 15 stacked 3DTVs, all of these TVs will have turned 3D. In mass, the effect is a giggle-filled novelty ever so reminiscent of Jaws 3D.

Animation is, by far, the most impressive demo you will see. Impossibly crisp and colorful, the effect is extremely lifelike...for a cartoon. More simply put, there's a perfect front to back gradient. Every object looks, well, like an object, like something round that takes up real physical space. When, during a clip of A Christmas Carol, Scrooge's oily, porous nose protrudes from the screen ever so forcefully, you can't possibly imagine the moment done justice in 2D. The sense of flesh far outweighs what you see in the illustrative lead shot, because truthfully, these scenes have been designed and rendered with information that our displays have been incapable of showing us. With 3D animation, 3D is no gimmick—it's 2D that's the lousy undersell. And your eyes will be able to tell as they savor looking as deep as they can into the frame.

Sports are a vastly different, inferior experience. Basketball, for instance, is interesting in 3D but also indicative of the format's limitations. For one, the court has depth, but the players are quite flat, like a few paper cutouts are dribbling a ball back and forth instead of fully corporeal, 6'6" titans. Your mind can't quite reconcile the image, as it's somewhere between 2D and 3D, meaning it looks more fake, in a sense, than the simple 2D presentation we've always seen (the term "uncanny valley," though not quite suitable in this context, certainly comes to mind). I assume such is a result from the use of telephoto lenses, which are notorious for flattening even 2D images. The effect is even more pronounced in 3D, meaning that stereoscopic 3D shouldn't (and can't) be the end game for sports no matter what ESPN tells you. I could easily imagine a multicam arena setup which these blank (flattening) information spots could be filled, and an actual 3D image (a la Pixar) could be piped to consumers, rendered in real time. The effect in sports could truly be something we've never seen before (Madden 2010 crossed with real textures, essentially). As of now, it feels more like we're playing with paper dolls.

Live action film, specifically Avatar, is something I haven't seen on a 3DTV beyond a few 3D previews. The fast paced trailers—as opposed to the long, expansive shots of Pixar-style animation—don't lend themselves as well to the illusion (the 3D planes constantly break), and it's quite difficult to really assess or describe an effect that your eyes can't chew on for a while. On an IMAX 3D screen, I've mentioned that Avatar showed me textures I'd never seen before. On a plasma, Avatar looks far more like a cartoon, and its depth gradient is somewhere between the 2Dish sports and the all-out 3D animations (probably because Avatar itself is much a combination of the two). In the theater, I opened my eyes as wide as possible to take in the bioluminesence of Pandora. On the small screen, a light flicker distances you, almost unconsciously, from the content. But then again, Avatar never looked nearly as impressive in trailers as it did in final cut form, and 3D missiles firing straight at you will always be awesome.

But when things go really bad...

...watching 3D is nothing but pain. Before checking out an LCD or OLED, you put on the shutter glasses, as if all is well and good, and the lights again dim instantly. Each actual frame of the video are just as colorful, sharp and Y-axis-deep as those you've seen on better displays. But the frame rate seems to drop, with your favorite Pixar hero moving without smoothness or extreme subtlety. And of course there's a flicker on top of the odd frame rate, causing the already subpar image to strobe. The overall effect is akin to playing Crysis on an underpowered GPU along with some monitor that goes dark several times a second. It's sour stacked on sour, an experience with so little redeeming quality you should cease to even consider it.

That annoying CES line I described at the start of this piece? It was at the LG booth, right before I took a look at their 3D plasma prototype, which is slated to be released later this year for $200 over a 2D model. And right when I was ready to give up on glasses, gimmicks and eyestrain, the experience wiped my memory of it all as I stood there transfixed for at least 5 minutes, disregarding the line behind me and watching the same remarkable animated clips over and over. I thought of a new era of filmmakers speaking in an updated cinematic dialect, and I knew that words couldn't quite describe the sensations—we simply hadn't decoded them yet.

(Oh, and if you think all of this is too lovey on 3D, read all of my technological caveats here.)

You want to be green, but you also want to take your MacBook to Starbucks without bothering with a backpack. It totes ruins your look. Designer Yuji Fujimura has conjured up a laptop-docking bike concept, just for these moments.

The laptop storage space actually docks your laptop, charging as you cycle. The inbuilt screen on the handlebars not only gives you internet access via your laptop (presumably you have to stick a 3G dongle in somewhere), but also ensures you wind up in the A&E ward several times a month. I'm sure the nurses will all like your tales of masochistic hipsterdom. [Coroflot]

The street-facing side of Tokyo's N Building is covered in QR codes that can be read by your phone for up-to-date information—including Twitter updates from the building's inhabitants as they happen.

The project is a collaboration between Qosmo and Teradadesign. Any mobile device that can read QR codes can access shop information, but more in-depth content like tweets (located by GPS tagging), coupons, and reservations can be seen through a dedicated iPhone app that's available only by request.

Now this is a use of augmented reality I can really get behind: instead of cluttering up a building with billboards and sale signs, they're hidden within an aesthetically pleasing QR Code design. More of this! Please? [Creative Applications via Design Boom]

It took only a few hours: Apple has banned ForChan from iTunes, a perfectly innocent, web-based, dedicated image browser for the iPhone. Its only sin: It could display porn. Well done, Apple. Let's delete Safari now.

ForChan could connect to any image board web page and show pictures. Photos of dogs, cats, birds, food, cars, planes, flowers, scenes of summer, winter, and fall, or anything in between. Anything including boobs and buttocks:

It didn't promote porn in any way. It didn't have any ads for porn. Its icon was plain. Its explanatory text was perfectly innocent. And yes, while the developer mentions that it could be used to browse pictures of fully naked girls—and has some boards with that kind of pictures—the app itself is not a "porn app." Actually, you had to click a few times in the web before getting to the smut. There was no magic "Show me the tits" button.

In fact, ForChan only has two options: Browse page after page of images, or enter a new URL to access a new web server containing different images.

Sounds familiar?

Yes, exactly the same as Safari. Enter any porn web site address in your Safari URL field, and you will instantly get connected to porn. Hardcore picture after hardcore picture, wet video after wet video, all the perversions imaginable, no niche left untouched.

So why is Safari in the iPhone? Is it because web-browser porn browsing is socially accepted, leaving the ultimate responsibility in the individual using the web browser—often with a convenient privacy mode?

If that's the case, why delete ForChan from the iTunes Store? It's a web browser too, no matter how image oriented it is. Apple is not selling porn in the Store when somebody purchases ForChan. They are selling a generic browser, just like the built-in Safari is. One that can only display images, any kind of images, just like the built-in Safari does.

Apple includes Safari with no restrictions because, at the end of the day, it is your responsibility to use your web browser according to your own set of moral and social rules. You can write a new web address and access Fleshbot instead of Gawker. Your action, your choice. Nobody is going to go to Apple and accuse them of selling a porn app because I can access porn online. And nobody can accuse Apple of selling porn by making ForChan available in their app store.

So why retire it? Just because we highlighted that it can be used to browse porn. So here's a hint, Apple:

Time to delete Safari.

This week, it's all about CES. Nanotechnology changing our LED displays, solar-powered cars, human-powered chargers that work, e-readers galore, electronic bikes and a whole lot more green stuff from this crazy ass gadget trade show.

Nielson Fact Sheet Reveals Surprising Statistics About American Gadget Use
In preparation for CES, tech bloggers were sent a fact sheet from Nielsen about gadget use in American households. Some of the stats used are positively jaw dropping, and shine a whole new light on the technology seen at the tradeshow.

Sharp Shows Off Solar Powered Car, New LED TVs, and Lovely LED Lights
Sharp was happy to show off its greener products at CES, starting with a big display for the Tokai Solar Car. Check out that, plus other goodies from the Sharp booth.

Nanosys Using Nanotechnology to Make LED Lighting More Beautiful
Using nanotechnology, Nanosys has figured out how to make LEDs of virtually any hue with a color saturation far greater than current LED-backlit LCD displays, and lighting that has warmer hues. In other words, way better lighting and displays, without changing manufacturing plants or energy efficiency.

Wireless!! e-Coupled Brings Wireless Charging to Everything from Laptops to Hot Pots (Video)
Wireless charging was a popular technology being shown around CES. I stopped to talk with eCoupled, a wireless charging company working to put wireless charging in households and businesses everywhere. The company behind the Dell Latitude Z, eCoupled is already showing off their technology and what we can expect to see in the future.

Solar Powered iPhone Skins Getting More Popular
One of our very popular posts from this fall was news about solar powered skins for iPhones and iPod Touch products. And when I say popular, I mean REALLY popular. It's clear this is the kind of thing readers can get excited about. But at CES, it was also clear that it's not just TreeHugger readers who get excited about it - everyone does.

Bamboo Keyboard, Mouse and Headphones from Impecca
When you're surrounded by plastic, metal, and other man-made materials all day long, something made of a natural substance like bamboo calls you to it. I had to stop and say hello to these lovely computer peripherals by Impecca.

YoGen Makes a Splash in Pull-String Charging (Video)
The YoGen hand-held charger is one we talked about back in October, and I finally got to see it in action at CES. It was one of the more popular booths in the Sustainable Planet section, and after trying out the product, I could see why. I also got a demonstration of their prototype pedal-powered charger for laptops, which is reportedly capable of a 50 Watt charge, with just an easy push of a pedal. Check it out.

CEA Backs Stance on NYC e-Cycling Lawsuit and California TV Efficiency Regulations (Video)
To find out more about CEA's stance on the environment and to get their take on their lawsuit against the NYC electronics recycling law, and their feelings on the new California television efficiency regulations, I met with Parket Brugge, Vice President of Environmental Affairs and Industry Sustainability of the Consumer Electronics Association. Here's what CEA has to say about these two issues, and greener gadgets.

PHOLED Technology Can Cut OLED Power Consumption By Factor of Four (Video)
Janice Mahon, Vice President of Universal Display Corporation sat with me to discuss advancements in PHOLED research, what could be the greenest display and lighting technology.

Embertec Cuts Vampire Power With One Device, Zero Effort (Video)
Embertec is looking to take a bite out of vampire power with their solution that doesn't require the user to do anything different, or learn anything new. Pretty basic, right? Check out a video of the technology

eReaders Go Bonkers At CES, Sales Expected to Double...Should We Be Scared?
Last year it was all about the netbooks. This year, it's all about the e-readers. e-Readers are so hot at CES this year that they received their own Tech Zone. CEA expects that their sales will double in the next year, and considering the explosion of models and accessories being shown off at CES, it's not hard to agree that's a reasonable expectation. But, looking at some of the other technology and buzz words at CES, is this a market destined to become a massive pile of obsolete gadgets in the very near future?

Sanyo's Eneloop Bike May Be a Bike World Game Changer (Video)
This bike has made quite a splash at CES, and is one of the most beautiful electric bikes we've seen. Not only is it gorgeous, but it's at a cost that is very competitive. Designed from the ground up to be an electric transportation vehicle, it has a beautiful shape along with powerful capabilities. Check out our video interview showing off the bike.

Greenpeace Ranks Nokia As Top Green Gadget Company
It's tough to get a high rank on Greenpeace's Green Electronics Guide. The organization is tough when it comes to measuring up how companies are doing with recycling, eliminating toxic materials, planning for a device's end of life and so on. Which is why the fact that Nokia snagged top rank at an impressive 7.3 out of 10 is an accomplishment. Check out how Nokia did it, who else made the top ranks and why.

Using a mouse is old-hat, if the recent wave of ball-shaped motion-sensing PC remotes is anything to go by. Straight out of Japan, the Puyocon can be squeezed, thrown around or rolled, controlling actions on the computer.

The Entertainment Computing Laboratory, at Tsukuba University in Japan, should hook up with Cambridge Consultants, whose Suma controller has been designed especially for PC gaming. Both ideas are very interesting, taking the Wiimote as influence, with 14 pressure sensors, a three-way acceleration sensor and Bluetooth taking up the core parts of the Puyocon. Could these balls wipe out traditional computer mice in the future?

Check out the video below for a demo of how the Puyocon is used. [Puyocon via Crunchgear]

All those outdated billboards in Google Street View aren't just an eyesore; they're a waste of a money-making opportunity for the big G, apparently. But not for long.

Google's filed a patent entitled "Claiming Real Estate in Panoramic or 3D Mapping Environments for Advertising," and it should allow them to automagically cut out billboards shown in Street View and replace them with their own current ads.

In theory, this would be done in concert with whoever owns the space, so a theater owner could keep the posters out front up to date at all times. This seems to be the only way for Google to get away with doing this, as if they suddenly started sticking ads on other people's property without their permission, things could get ugly fast. [Telegraph]

Take heart, business travelers of America! Soon you'll be able to add "slow and spotty internet connection" to your list of gripes with Amtrak's high(er) speed Acela line. While I'm sure Hulu will help numb the pain of rail commuting, be warned that it may only be free for a limited time. Also, be annoyed that JetBlue had free Wi-Fi in a plane more than two years before Amtrak could get its act together for a ground-based service. [Wired]

Wet computers—devices made of lipid-covered cells that handle chemical reactions similarly to neurons—are the key to machines with the processing power of the human brain. But for now, they may deliver drugs in a better way:

The type of wet information technology we are working towards will not find its near-term application in running business software, but it will open up application domains where current IT does not offer any solutions - controlling molecular robots, fine-grained control of chemical assembly, and intelligent drugs that process the chemical signals of the human body and act according to the local biochemical state of the cell.

That's what University of Southampton's Klaus-Peter Zauner says, pointing out that the molecular computer they are working on is a "a very crude abstraction of what neurons do." When the lipid-covered cells contact each other, a passage opens between them so chemical reactions can pass from one to the next. Inside the cells, a reaction—called the Belousov-Zhabotinsky or B-Z—happens, triggered by other cells. This reaction can pass from one cell to the next, or can be contained within the cell, allowing for cell networking, which is key to form these wet processors.

Did you get any of that? Good. I just like the idea of my processors getting wet. [BBC]

Here's a satellite picture showing why I spent 48 hours stranded in London Heathrow's Terminal 5 last Thursday. I witnessed about 3000 passengers fighting for luggage, another 3000 waiting for hotel coupons. I left before the food riots.

This is Britain covered under the snow, from top to bottom.

I was lucky. I got the last seat on flight BA177 on Thursday. It was the last flight that left to New York that day, after an extra six hour delay (apparently, there's only one defrosting machine in Heathrow) on top of the two days. The previous day, they canceled two of my flights. The next day, they cancelled all flights again.

While the weather was bad, there was no excuse to what happened at Terminal 5 those days. British Airways and the people at the airport were nowhere to be found after 6pm. Before that, there weren't helpful, offering no directions except "we don't know" and "they haven't told us anything." They were the most incompetent, most idiotic people I've ever found anywhere in the planet, leaving all their customers unattended on the evening, and treating everyone like cattle the rest of the time. There was a point in which passengers had to step in and organize the baggage belts, because the machines were overflowing and jamming. At another point, there were passengers fighting for food in the departures area. Sad.

When the guy at JFK's customs asked me if I had anything to declare, I quoted Dennis Farina in Snatch, from the very deep bottom of my heart and soul: "Don't go to England." And don't ever fly British Airways. [NASA]

[A lot of you have written to me in protest of Jesús's post, claiming prejudice towards the British. I think the spirit of the post is Jesús expressing his frustration at BA, and his quote at the end of the post is from a movie, and a joke. Don't take it too seriously. Have a good weekend. —Blam]

This is Sofia. Like the Italian actress, it will turn heads everywhere it flies. Not because of its cleavage, but because this Boeing 747 has a 15 by 14-foot door on it, which opens to reveal a 2.5-meter telescope.

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy—which went through $500-million in modifications after two decades of engineering—has finally been tested after its construction, flying at 15,000 feet and 415km/h with the door fully open. The test was a complete success, and in 2010 they will start testing the telescope itself. [Flight Global]

Behold the smallest world map, created by the Photonics Research Group of Ghent University-IMEC. Its scale is one trillionth. That's a 40,000-kilometer equator reduced to 40 micrometer, half the width of a human hair.

The map was embedded in a silicon photonics test chip, using a 30-step etching process. The chip has optical circuits, submicrometer scale "tiny strips of silicon called waveguides or photonic wires." These developments will allow companies to integrate optics in packages that will be a million times smaller than today's glass-based photonics. The resulting chips will allow for inexpensive integration of photonics in every technology, from consumer gadgets to medical equipment. What does that really mean? Think more inexpensive high-speed network connections—like Light Peak, non-mechanical gyroscopes, and holograms. [Intec ]

China keeps growing like a giant red octopus fed by nuclear power and monosodium glutamate, a country that keeps spending money in pharaonic projects. Some useful, like the fastest train in the world. And some eerie and worthless, like Ordos.

The city of Ordos was founded on February 26, 2001. Ordos means "palaces" in Mongolian, and it's richer than Beijing. In fact, with a $14,500 GDP per capita, it's one of the richest in the whole country. With 1,548,000 inhabitants, Ordos is not exactly empty. But much of its modern architecture, sometimes awesomely futuristic, sometimes nafftastically overdeveloped and underdesigned, remains completely empty. The density of this city is only 17.8 people per square kilometer. By comparison, New York City has 157.91 habitants per square kilometer, San Francisco has 6,688.4, and Madrid 5,293.69. Even the city of Dubai, which has only grew in recent years, has 408.18 people per square kilometer.

And yet, the city of Ordos keeps growing like its motherland, with no control and making little sense at times. If at all. [Wikipedia]