BumpTop 3D Desktop Gets Unique Multi-Touch Gestures [Multitouch]

For all its new multi-touch goodness, Windows 7 only has about 7 basic gestures. So if you're all about the touch (and say, have a tablet PC) BumpTop's stack of unique new gestures could be a very good thing.
As we've mentioned in the past, BumpTop isn't a new OS or shell replacement, it just adds a 3D workspace to your desktop. The $30 mulit-touch version of the software is available now, but you'll need to have Windows 7 (and a multi-touch tablet, laptop or all-in-one PC). The good news: we're going to see a bunch of those arrive alongside the new OS on October 22.


[Gizmodo via BumpTop via TechCrunch]

Madagascar Institute’s Jet-powered Merry-go-round

The sign next to Madagascar Institute’s jet-powered merry-go-round says, “Caution: this may kill you” and with both speed and flames involved, it looks like it just may.
[The Uber-Review via BBG]

Nanobees Sting Tumors to Death

We have known for many years that melittin, an ingredient in bee venom, is a poison to tumor cells. Development of therapeutic uses of the substance has been stymied by the fact that melittin does damage to healthy cells as well. Now researchers from Washington University in St. Louis have developed nanoparticles called 'nanobees' that can ferry the melittin directly to tumor cells with great specificity.
The Wall Street Journal reports:

Among Dr. Soman's first experiments was to see how melittin interacted with the nanoparticles. He found that not only did it attach quickly to the outer, lipid layer of the nanoparticles, but that the attachment was stable, suggesting that the nanoparticle-melittin combination, or nanobee, might be able to circulate in the body and not attack healthy cells.
The next issue was to figure out how to get the melittin, once it came upon a tumor, to detach from the nanoparticle and transfer to the cancer cells, taking its cell-killing properties with it. The researchers accomplished this by attaching a third component to the mix—a ligand, which is a chemical that binds two distinct compounds. The ligand they used in this case—which Dr. Schlesinger likens to a "molecular ZIP Code"—has an affinity for attaching to a receptor plentiful in newly formed blood vessels. That's useful in cancer treatment because tumors tend to form new blood vessels to feed themselves and grow.
The scientists began testing the resulting mix, which resembles a milky substance, in mice in 2007. They tried it on a few dozen lab mice with three kinds of tumors: a mouse form of skin cancer; a form of human breast cancer transplanted into the mice; and precancerous lesions caused by human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer in humans.
After about two weeks of treatment, the nanobees slowed the growth of the breast-cancer tumors, shrank the melanoma tumors and reduced the precancerous lesions, compared with control groups that received saline injections and nanoparticles lacking melittin.

Full paper in J. Clin. Invest.: Molecularly targeted nanocarriers deliver the cytolytic peptide melittin specifically to tumor cells in mice, reducing tumor growth
Link to WSJ: The Buzz: Targeting Cancer With Bee Venom ...
[Medgadget]

Motorola Tao Gets Release Date, Full Specs Coming Together

A super secret document made its way into the hands of Taylor and company over at AndroidAndMe which outlines the plans for Motorola’s Tao handset. We’re being treated to some insider information that sheds light on what to expect from both Motorola and Verizon. This phone definitely plans to deliver the goods.
Rumored to drop December 1st, the Tao is being billed as the world’s thinnest slide QWERTY phone at 13.7mm thick. Other details include a 3.7″ touch screen with 16:9 ratio, 16GB on board storage, Flash and a little something called Android 2.0, whatever that is.

There’s mention of a dock that transforms the phone into a beside clock, digital picture frame, or bedside clock. From the sounds of it, the Tao will come with it in the box. There are tons of little goodies in the document – Too many to list out here. If you’re into things that get Android fans excited, then might we suggest reading it for yourself?
If you’re looking for the full-on spec list, we have that for ya. Here’s what we have so far. You’ll note that some of it is a little conflicting.
Specs:

• OMAP3430 – 600 MHz ARM Cortex A8 + PowerVR SGX 530 GPU + 430MHz C64x+ DSP + ISP (Image Signal Processor)
• Dimensions 60.00 x 115.80 x 13.70 mm
• Weight 169 g
• Battery Li-ion 1400 mAh.
• Standby 450 hours, talk time 420 minutes
• 3.7-inch touch-sensitive display with a resolution of 854×480 pixels, 16 million color depth. Physical screen size is 45.72 mm by 81.34 mm.
• 512MB/256MB ROM/RAM
• microSD / microSDHC expansion slot
• Camera: 5.0 megapixel with autofocus and video recorder
• Connectivity: USB2.0, 3.5mm audio jack, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, Wi-Fi
• Operating System: Android 2.0 (with Eclair, no Motoblur)
• Package Contents: Phone Motorola Sholes, battery, charger, USB cable, 8GB MicroSD memory card and other literature

The list we were passed does not indicate the dock, nor does it match up in terms of on board storage. Also noteworthy is that this is not going to have MOTOBLUR, the new interface developed by Motorola. This matches up with the pictures we’ve seen so far.

Hang on folks, this is about to get really fun!
[AndroidGuys]

Backpack Generates 40 Watts Just By Walking [Gadgets]

Defense Tech's Bryant Jordan was at the Disneyland of military gadgetry—the Modern Day Marine event at Quantico—and came across this power-generating backpack, which has stepped from prototype to reality. It can generate 40 watts just by walking.

It works great, apparently. The backpack itself is mounted on rails, so it moves up and down when its wearer moves. The movement generates enough electricity to power your gadgets, and the design actually relieves stress from the user. [Gizmodo via Lightning Packs via Defense Tech]

Nvidia Fermi Next-Gen Graphics Architecture Has 512 Cores for Radioactively Melting Faces [Graphics Cards]

Fermi is Nvidia's new GPU architecture that's going to be the basis for all of its upcoming graphics cards. With 512 cores and 3 billion transistors, it will nuke Crysis.
The architecture really is a huge leap forward, according to people who've gone through it in-depth. Interestingly, the huge focus for Fermi is GPU computing. The first actual goods coming out using Fermi should be the GT300 series cards, which, besides the 512 cores sorted into 16 streaming processors with 32 cores each, uses a brand new GDDR5 memory setup.
PC Perspective has an epic write-up breaking down Fermi in detail that's worth a whirl, and of course Nvidia's got lots of fluff themselves all about Fermi. Strangely, they don't explain the name, which sounds like a sad little poodle. [Gizmodo via Nvidia, PC Perspective, Anandtech]

Sony to unveil a 3D 240fps Broadcast Camera at CEATEC

CEATEC will kick on next week and Sony announced today their plan to unveil a 3D (Full HD ?!?!?) capable Camera capable to shoot video up to 240fps.

Anyway, we will see and learn more about this camera next week so stay tuned.

[Akihabaranews.com]