mask

Remember that bra we wrote about last year that lifted more than just our spirits when it won the 2009 Ig Nobel Public Health Prize?

Well, creator Dr. Elena Bodnar--whose inspiration comes in part from having witnessed as a young physician the devastating effects of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster in 1986--is introducing the now commercially available Emergency Bra at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Mass., on September 28. She hopes we can all "get a feel of [sic] the product," as she has grown fond of saying.

The bra is, of course, meant to be … Read more

Paint.com provides an excellent set of tools for perfecting digital photographs. While it doesn't do much of anything to separate itself from the competition, its performance and attention to detail prove it belongs at the top of the heap.

The program's interface is impressive for two reasons. First, it offers a large selection of command and design icons, and, secondly, it lays them out in a very intuitive and uncluttered manner. We felt right at home from the start, even though we have little graphic design experience. The program's main function allowed us to apply some … Read more

ActMask Document Converter CE is an easy-to-use conversion program that allows users to quickly turn documents into PDFs and JPEGs. It provides options for the more advanced user but is simple enough for everyone to use.

The program's interface is fairly intuitive, although we found that the large portion of it that's devoted to advertising other ActMask products was cluttered and distracting. Users can convert either individual documents or batches of them, and these two functions are helpfully organized with tabs. In general the program is self-explanatory, which is good, as the built-in Help file does not go … Read more

When friends and family ask me to show them a useful application on the iPhone or iPod Touch, I have no trouble pulling up four or five that convince them it's a solid platform. "A Virus Protection Mask" is not one of those apps. This 99 cent gem (which usually costs $2.99) simulates a protective face mask...for your phone.

There are a dozen mask colors to pick from, all of which sport the same design, and do not actually protect you or your phone from anything. Especially a "you paid for that?"

Related: … Read more

IBM has released proof-of-concept technology designed to protect sensitive data used in industries such as health care without the need to modify existing applications.

Masking Gateway for Enterprises (Magen), unveiled last week, is designed to catch protected data before it reaches users' screens, IBM said. The technology, which runs on a server installed alongside existing server and client applications, was developed at IBM's Haifa research laboratory and takes its name from the Hebrew word for "protection" or "shield."

Magen treats a screen of information as a picture and uses optical character recognition to identify the … Read more

I don't know if the Mexican swine flu, which may or may not have come from Mexico or have anything to do with pigs, will wipe us all out.

But I do know that people are scared.

How do I know? A simple perusal of Amazon.com's health and personal-care store.

Amazon is often an extraordinary barometer for people's feelings. A singer dies, his music is off the charts. Or, more accurately, up the charts. An author dies, and her words suddenly have new meaning for the world at large. Or, more accurately, new sales.

So it … Read more

Mask Surf Lite's claim to fame is that it offers users privacy while browsing the Web by providing a false IP address. However, when we put it to the test, it completely blocked us from browsing altogether.

We had to click the program's desktop shortcut several times before it appeared in our Taskbar. On several occasions, the Taskbar icon failed to appear at all. Eventually, right-clicking on the icon introduced options for changing the false IP address, as well as for performing a privacy test. Both features directed us to Web pages that weren't available. When we … Read more

A few years ago--specifically, after Sept. 11, 2001--something like a jewel-studded gas mask would have been considered to be in poor taste, to say the least. And it still is, in our opinion, but that doesn't count for much when you're talking about obscenely expensive designer items showcased at the Luxury Show 2008 in Bucharest. That was, after all, the site of such egregiousness as a 24k-plated Hummer.

The gems pictured here are the products of artist Diddo Velema' along with Gucci and Louis Vuitton, according to Dvice, some even encrusted with diamonds. Velema explains the concept thusly: &… Read more