It’s a biological fact that when a person comes in contact with their mouse, it’s only a matter of time before the palm of the hand begins to warm up and perspire. This is hardly rocket science; PC mice are just solid plastic shells, and plastic as we know isn’t really all that porous. Coupled with the fact that when we handle a PC mouse, contact between skin and shell leaves no opportunity for air to circulate and so causes the perspiration and sticky feeling that most, if not all, mouse users experience.

However, sweaty-palms may now be a thing of the past with the introduction of a USB powered palm-cooling mouse. Japanese maker Thanko has developed a mouse which draws air from the base of the mouse and blows it into the users’ palm by virtue of a built-in fan on the top of the mouse, helping to keep the palm of the hand cool. 

The optical, 5-button mouse is available for $19 but currently only in the Japanese maket, although Thanko has plans to release the mouse globally in August through their revamped online shop. Shoppers will also be able to buy other quirky Thanko products via the new online shop, such as the USB ‘ass warmer’ and USB heated slippers.

Well, the people up in arms may not be you or I but it has certainly ruffled the feathers of Privacy International who are currently known to be seeking out more information on the details of the project from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

There was a bit of an outcry a while back when Google was sending out its spyvan-cam on its home turf. It has now begun blurring people’s faces in the pictures it took then and plans to do the same for the snaps it takes in Europe. Google will also blur out vehicle number plates and has already put in place the technology to do so. It recognises faces and number plates and works to blur them out.

So far the Google spycar has been spotted in London, Edinburgh and Cardiff, proven by a snapshot of the Google Street View car by the Register. A bit like taking a picture of your friend taking a picture.

Facial characteristics are compared with images in a database of over 100,000 people, and if the machine deems the customer to be well over 20 years old (Japan’s legal age for smoking), it will complete the sale. Fujitaka, the vending machines’ creator, has claimed that the technology is 90% accurate.

However, as Techdirt notes, there’s a reason that face-scanning technology was given up by scientists attempting to create new security measures following the September 11th attacks – it just doesn’t work! This has been demonstrated by a reporter for Sankei Sports who discovered how easily the high-tech machines could be fooled just by holding up magazines before the sensors. Judging from this, the software cannot even detect whether input is two- or three-dimensional. Understandably, this has somewhat diminished its capabilities in fulfilling the task for which it was created.

The reporter tested several types of image, including a six-inch headshot of Bruce Willis and a three-inch picture of a female celebrity in her thirties. Both trials were successful. He also attempted to purchase cigarettes using an inch-wide photograph, but this was rejected.

The system was created in response to the dubious success of the RFID readers that require the insertion of the consumer’s Taspo age-verification card. This hasn’t proven to work very well: last month, a man attached his own Taspo card to his vending machine to try to encourage consumers unwilling to use their own cards back into his custom. He also attached a note to the machine that read ‘This is a Taspo ID card exclusively for this vending machine. Minors are not supposed to use the card.’

A spokesperson for the Tobacco Institute of Japan said: “It is an act that erodes the age-verifying system and the public’s confidence in the tobacco industry.” In any case, it looks like it’s back to the drawing boards for Fujitaka. Perhaps the next models will actually be able to perceive depth and they’ll learn from these humiliating mistakes.

Maybe the next time Bruce Willis tries to purchase vending machines cigarettes in Japan, he’ll be disappointed.

The project has been met with much amusement, with many people heading to the official website to sign up and attempt to send a message. Brain Green posted on his blog that it’s a “nerdorific idea”, a notion probably shared by quite a few people!

The tiny radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on the shells of the snails enable the snails to receive messages when they slide past an electronic reader. The snails then physically carry the message around on their backs until they pass a second reader. When the reader and RFID pick each other up, the messages is forwarded from the snail to the reader and is sent back over the web to its destination.

This is all part of a “slow art” project which will be showcased in August at the computer graphics conference, Siggraph, in Los Angeles. The idea behind it is to encourage email users to consider the technology behind services they take for granted. Since the snails move at a rate of about 0.03mph in pretty much any direction they want to, whether there’s a sensor there or not, there’ll certainly be time in between messages to do so!

So far, only 14 messages have been successfully transmitted by the snails, with 10 being by the hard-working Austin, or Agent 002 as is painted on its shell.

The three snails have their work profiles posted on the site, which shows their status (available or carrying message), number of deliveries made and average delivery time. So far, one snail is lagging far being – Agent 003, or Muriel, hasn’t made one delivery yet.

If there isn’t already a dole system for snails, someone better get on it because Muriel will probably be signing on pretty soon.

In a pretty foxy piece of marketing, it looks like Mozilla’s idea worked – since the launch at 10am PDT (6pm GMT) yesterday, the number of Firefox 3 downloads rests comfortably at 5,600,000 downloads – a whopping four million more than Firefox 2 received on its launch. This impressive achievement, which can leap upwards by thousands when you refresh the page, will continue to grow until the 24 hour limit is up and, Guinness World Record aside, means a fantastic launch day for Firefox 3.

And all of this is despite a messy server blockage when downloads first began. Download sites were rammed by eager Firefoxers all determined to be one of the first to experience the latest version of their favourite browser. Instead, most of them received a 503 message which turned into something of a disaster as, if files were accessed, there were problems with what was downloaded. On top of that, much criticism about the new feature, the “AwesomeBar”, is pouring onto blogs alongside advice of how to disable it. That said, not everybody hates it and some people who didn’t like it at first learned to change their minds and to at least cope with its existence – kinda like Windows Vista.

It’ll be interesting to see how the reception of Firefox 3 grows as more users experience its 15,000 improvements (say Mozilla). We’ll probably hear about them very soon – during the time taken to write this post, the total downloads on the Firefox 3 Download Day site has climbed another 100,000.

Go Firefox.

The revolutionary bunny has been created by the University of British Columbia inventor in order to enable people to build emotional bonds with robots, a move which will bring us a step closer to ‘accepting our robotic overlords’ according to For the Love of Geeks.

Spurred on by the loss of his pet cat, Steve recalls that “what I miss most about interacting with her is touch” and, from this, the idea of the Haptic Rabbit, or ‘bunbot’, was born. With pressure sensitivity, the robot rabbit responds through making breathing movements, soundless purring vibrations, and twitching its ears. Tests have shown that the positive emotional responses in humans from interacting with the machine are promising.

Various opinions on the roborabbit have come out, ranging from the above blogger’s ‘bunbot’ “Want” to Futurismic’s speculation that Ai Robotics may be including haptic technology in their upcoming Perfect Woman robots.

Cripes.

It all started with an announcement on 9th April that the two companies had been courting for a while and that now was the right time to spread their good news to the public: the immediate integration of BBC’s iPlayer into Nintendo’s Opera powered internet channel on the Wii.

As FunkyGuy on FashionFunky comments, when considering “two explosively popular things coming together and you wont find a better fit then [sic] the Nintendo Wii and the BBC iPlayer.” Initially only streaming content is available, and restricted to the UK where license fees are dutifully paid, but an independent download service operating from the main Wii menu has been mooted for the future.

Now, with comments surfacing that the Beeb were also in talks with Sony and Microsoft, it looks like the willingness of Nintendo to allow the original iPlayer branding to remain won out over the other two gaming giants in securing this deal. As GameGrep remarks this “makes a mockery of what they (Playstation 3 and Xbox 360) stand for” with the Nintendo machine being the first to offer itself up as a true multimedia device. It is safe to say that in the future the iPlayer will no doubt feature on the PS3 as it has a built in internet browser, a feature noticeably hindering the Xbox’s options at the moment.

UPDATE: The BBC iPlayer is now (unofficially) available through Playstation 3, using a portal with some clever trickery. This “unofficial website…set up by a very talented coder” as Garuti on Console Informer states, allows the iPlayer to be used much like it is on the Wii, demonstrating the ease with which it could be made available to PS3 users if Sony and the BBC can agree on the terms.

These days it pays to be green and within almost every aspect of our lives, from drinking beer to opening bank accounts, there is an environmentally conscious option. In the world of the sustainability, things could only get bigger; first we had eco-houses, then came green skyscrapers, and as blogger Superforest NYC says, it’s exciting times for environmentalists, as China, already a giant in the global economy, announced plans for Dongtan, the first ever Eco-City, last year. The entire settlement is being purposely designed to be completely sustainable, producing all its own energy from renewable sources, offering cycling, walking and public transport instead of personal cars and recycling all of its city waste.

The Dongtan development, which has been lauded by environmentalists and travel bloggers alike, is scheduled for completion by 2010, to coincide with the Shanghai Expo, and by 2040 is predicted to be a third of the size of Manhattan with a total eventual population of 500,000.

Picture from the Tourist Republic.

On the back of the success of Guitar Hero and similar, toy company Jada is targeting a whole new niche in the ‘wannabe rockstar’ arena – the air guitarist. The rocker will be released sometime in March at $29.99 according to rabid72 at The Rabies Blog.

The gadget lets players attach a mini-amplifier to their waist, while the included belt buckle and guitar pics allow the player to jam like real rock-gods such as Eddie Van Halen and Richie Blackmore. Simply by strumming the pic in front of the belt buckle, air guitar heroes can change the tempo of the song being played, as demonstrated at iDunzo.

New buckles and additional cartridges will follow the initial release, so that air guitarists can enjoy further axe-wielding mayhem. The game is scheduled to be launched in the United States in March, and will be licensed through Activision. But will it be a success or just another throw-away gimmick, bdwilcox on bits bytes pixels & sprites is not loving it, saying “more like Guitar Zero” whereas Seroth at Engadget commenting:

What do you make of it? Refreshingly new, not for you or perhaps even a little off? Quite a few people we’ve showed the picture too thought the design was pretty funky.

The commends at CraftZine less welcoming though and commentator Ellen even asked, “Could someone screen these ideas? Tasteless …”