patterns

Hitachi acquires M-Tech

At RSA 2008 on Monday, Hitachi announced its acquisition of M-Tech. Since last Wednesday, the Canadian ID management company has been using its new name, Hitachi ID Systems.

Forrester Research predicts that the ID and access management market space will grow from $2.6 billion in 2006 to $12.3 billion in 2014, and Hitachi, long known for its security electronics, wants to be a player in the enterprise security market by offering a complete package.

Hitachi currently offers advanced IT authentication with its finger vein biometric devices. Finger vein biometric authentication is used in 80 percent of Japanese ATMs … Read more

Kodak aims for 5-megapixel phone cameras

Eastman Kodak hopes turning one aspect of chip design on its head will help improve cell phone cameras--or at least help their image quality catch up with their megapixel increases.

"We believe we've created a new camera sensor product that rivals that of real cameras, but it's small enough to be used in a camera phone," said Fas Mosleh, manager of CMOS market work for Kodak's professional and applied imaging group.

There have been nice cameras in high-end mobile phones such as Nokia's N95, but Kodak believes its technology, built into a 5-megapixel sensor … Read more

This week in mind-reading

You've been thinking, "Hey, where are all the updates on mind-reading devices?" All the appropriate scientists already knew this, so they decided to give you what you want today.

Here's this week's mind-readers' digest.

Microsoft applies for mind-reading patent: According to this New Scientist blog post, Microsoft applied for a patent in August that would help the company figure out what people really think about its products. The technology in the patent application, titled "Using electroencephalograph signals for task classification and activity recognition," would read a user's brain states while testing Microsoft'… Read more

Make your desktop a window seat on Mac or PC

With summer here in the northern hemisphere, many people are packing their bags, grabbing their plane tickets, and hopping a flight for a well-deserved vacation. Once on the plane, most of us face cramped seats, crying babies, and maybe a couple of bags of peanuts (if we're lucky). Most of the time, the promise of the destination is enough for us to deal with a long flight, and if all else fails, there's always the sweeping view of the country from the window seat.

This week, I rediscovered (it's now in version 2.0) a great screensaver … Read more