aids

Microsoft and Dell very much want the world to know about their new line of (Product) Red PCs, benefiting the Global Fund, which provides AIDS treatment in Africa.

The rich and famous will get to hear about the product at this week's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, but the two companies also want the computer-buying masses to know what they are doing.

In the coming days, the new Dell XPS systems and a "red-ified" printer will start showing up at Best Buy, which will be the exclusive U.S. retailer of Dell's products, according to … Read more

Does hearing actually go first as you get older? For those who've always feared dead giveaways like hearing aids and bifocals, help is on the way. Perhaps taking a cue from Oakley's MP3-playing Thump, a company called Varibel is developing eyewear that hears.

It won't give provide bionic auditory powers, but it does promise vastly improved hearing through a device built directly into a pair of eyeglasses. Embedded over the length of each spectacle arm are four tiny microphones that transmit sounds from the front and simultaneously block background noise.

The result is "directional sensitivity"… Read more

This sounds too good to be true, but we're putting our faith in it anyway because we love the idea so much.

Electrolux, which has already invented the washing machine from the future (ultraviolet light), has outdone itself with the ultimate in next-generation dryers: one that helps with the ironing. The "Iron Aid" steam dryer doesn't exactly iron the clothes, according to Appliancist, but it does have "dewrinkling" feature that adds a steam phase at the end of the regular drying cycle. The 20-minute shvitz is enough to treat five shirts.

The U.K.… Read more

Every once in awhile, Microsoft does something very right. Microsoft's anti-spam technology and a Windows server farm, along with some innovative thinking from Microsoft researcher David Heckerman, are cracking the AIDS code.

Why is Microsoft in the AIDS research game? Because it's in the anti-spam game, and it turns out there are some similarities between the two:

This parallel between spam and biology resonated for Heckerman, a physician as well as a PhD in computer science. It didn't take him long to realize that his spam-blocking tool could extend far beyond junk e-mail, into the realm of life science. In 2003, he surprised colleagues in Redmond, Wash., by refocusing the spam-blocking technology on one of the world's deadliest, fastest- mutating conundrums: HIV, the virus that leads to AIDS.… Read more

Don't get us wrong: We're all in favor of using fashion, or whatever else it takes, to de-stigmatize ailments. But a gold and diamond hearing aid isn't exactly what we had in mind.

Unlike the tasteful designs we've seen in other versions, Widex is offering a horrific 24k hearing device and controller studded with 220 diamonds, according to Gizmodo, for the princely sum of $49,590. Even if carbon-bearing materials have some kind of audio-enhancement properties that we don't know about, this has got to be one of the more ridiculous examples of egregious excess … Read more

It's not unusual--and a good thing, in our opinion--for designers to come up with ways to de-stigmatize diseases, as we've seen with such products as fashionable asthma inhaler cases. What we didn't anticipate, though, was that hearing aids would be the next cause.

Although they may look like new Bluetooth headsets, the items pictured here are actually "Personal Communication Aids" created by the Phonak Group, which describes them as "the ultimate high-tech accessory," according to Inventor Spot. The Swiss company is apparently targeting those Boomers who actually believe that stuff about 50 being … Read more

Call us old-fashioned, but we'd think twice before ingesting something billed as a magical elixir created for a game. Yet Japanese distiller Suntory is apparently confident that it will sell thousands of vials containing a special "potion"--77,777 to be exact--to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Final Fantasy VII.

The potent-potable company is teaming with game developer Square Enix to distribute the limited-edition liquid, which Newlaunches says will be sold in Japan starting this September. For the record, the potion is made of "jelly enriched with vitamin B1." Yum.

Intergenerational tech musings today: The New York Times has an interesting report about new advances in hearing aid technology. Companies are motivated to meet the needs of aging baby boomers facing progressive hearing loss.

But how to overcome the stigma of hearing aid use for this potential market of 78 million people? Recent innovation has led to new devices that look more like Bluetooth headsets or iPod headphones than older models that resembled "a chewed Circus Peanut."… Read more

CORONADO, Calif.--The real threat to the future security of the world might just be the AIDS virus, according to a U.N. official.

More than 25 years after the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS, 65 million people have been infected and 25 million have died, said Peter Piot, executive director of UNAIDS, at the Future in Review conference. The way the world looks at AIDS is changing from short-term fear to long-term worries about the stability of countries that fail to control the epidemic, he said.

"It's moved into one of the defining issues of … Read more