bone

This week, Donald and Eric explore the idea of hearing with your mouth, seeing in 12 dimensions, and shooting lightening with a wave of your arm. Yes, it's wizard tech week, apparently. To that end, we show off an illuminated staff that can divine the strength of your Wi-Fi signal and a DIY project for all you pinball wizards out there.

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The Apple event on Wednesday was largely about the next iteration of Mac OS X (appropriately named Lion). But an interesting development came when Steve Jobs introduced the new Mac App Store, which will become available to Snow Leopard users in about 90 days.

Much like the iTunes App Store, the Mac App Store will let you purchase Mac apps and install them quickly on your computers. And as it does with the iTunes App Store, Apple will take a 30-percent cut of the sale price, leaving developers 70 percent. But Jobs was careful to point out that the Mac App Store will not mimic the closed system of the iTunes App Store--it will simply be another option to bring apps to your Mac. But do we really believe him?

It seems to me that creating the Mac App Store is Apple's way of testing whether the market will tolerate Apple getting a piece of the action on software developed for the Mac, just like it does with iPhone apps. We can be pretty sure that several developers will submit their apps right off the bat, if for no other reason than for the exposure that an iTunes-like experience can provide. But what Apple might be banking on is that once the software submissions gain momentum, the larger players may no longer have a choice but to submit their software to the new system. Am I just being paranoid?

While we certainly can't be sure what Apple hopes to achieve with the Mac App Store, this sort of soft launch makes me think there's something more going on here. Let me know what you think in the comments.

This week's apps include a 3D third-person soccer game and a new arcade space flier with a fun single-player mode.… Read more

For years, people with broken bones have had to suffer through not only the pain of the break, but also the long process of healing, often with the help of titanium screws. Typically, patients must then undergo more surgery to remove the titanium.

When my mom broke her knee in the '90s, they rigged her with so many screws and bars that her X-rays looked more robot than human. She predicted rain with eerie accuracy.

This month, researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Applied Materials Research (IFAM) in Bremen, Germany, are unveiling a new type of screw … Read more

BoneLab helps users better understand the human body, specifically the skeletal system. With its 3D view and flexibility this program has very few flaws.

The interface of this program is simple enough that novice users will find their way around quickly. The three-dimensional skeleton is front and center and its view easily changed. The program's information is balanced by a series of tabs. Most users will not need the online Help file, however, because its depth will help clarify a lot. Users can choose a part of the body to look closer by navigating through the tab listing the … Read more

An all star research team is developing a putty-like material to help regenerate shattered bones, a technology that could allow soldiers to avoid amputation and quickly regain full use of badly broken legs.

'Fracture putty' is a biocompatible compound designed to be packed in and around non-union fractures. It provides a load-bearing, osteoconductive, bone-like structure to give regenerative growth a chance. Then, once the bone heals, the putty degrades into harmless, absorbable by-products.

"The fracture putty will serve as a bioactive scaffold and will be able to substitute for the damaged bone," said principal researcher Mauro Ferrari. "… Read more

Producer T Bone Burnett talked passionately about sound quality, or lack thereof on a radio program, Soundcheck, from WNYC on Monday. Burnett produced Robert Plant and Allison Krauss' awesome Raising Sand CD; the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack; as well as records by Bob Dylan, Los Lobos, Elvis Costello, and Counting Crows.

Turns out Burnett's no fan of CDs or downloads, stating that CD's inadequate sampling rate loses too much of the sound he heard while making and mixing records. He put it this way, "We've been fighting digital sound since it came out twenty years ago...music's gotten to a place that's harder to listen to."

Wow, the guy sounds like an audiophile to me, and he goes on about the degradation of sound from what he heard in the studio, "It's stepped down from tape to digital to compressed digital, so people are now listening to a Xerox of a Polaroid of a photograph of a painting." Tell it brother, but it's interesting Burnett never brought up vinyl or analog, though he did mention that it's only in the last few years that digital's gotten really good. I agree.

Digital losses have all taken their toll on the way people relate to music, so it's mostly background to other activities instead of the primary focus. Digitized sound is diluted to the point is ceases to connect with people on a visceral level. It's just there, a ghostly shadow of its original intent. … Read more

This replica of the Star Trek "Medical Tricorder" makes it clear why they rarely showed a close-up of Bones' device on the original series: It looks like something cobbled together in the garage of that neighbor who's still trying to get his old CB radio to work.

It's interesting to note how a supposed 23rd century device created in 1966 could look like something made in 1967. (Is that foresight-hindsight?) Anyway, if you want one of these collectable novelties, GeekAlerts says it can be had for just $40 in October, complete with removable scanner. That's … Read more

When we first saw a photo of someone wearing these "Vibe Body Sound" earphones by Outi, we thought they'd been put on backward. So we didn't stare or say anything for fear of humiliating the poor sap, just as mom always taught us.

Then it turns out that it was the right way to wear them after all, because they use that body-conduction technology we keep hearing about. This pair clips to the skin and cartilage of the outer ear just above the lobe and sends the sound vibrating through the skull, according to Coolest-Gadgets.

We'… Read more

From the Department of Bad Ideas: While we totally understand (and encourage) good old-fashioned price wars, they shouldn't come at the expense of basic functions. Take, for example, the "KanaSD" MP3 player from Greenhouse Japan.

The good news is that it costs about $18. The bad news is that it doesn't have any built-in memory--we're talking none. Instead, you need to get your own SD storage card, which will probably be more expensive than the player itself. Nor can we expect find video playback or a color screen at all on this low-budget device, as … Read more