Tech Universe: Wednesday 23 March

Engineers from the University of Konstanz in Germany mounted a Kinect camera on a helmet, added a Bluetooth headset, Arduino LilyPad vibration motors on a special belt and a backpack computer. Photo / Supplied

SEEING EYE HELMET: Engineers from the University of Konstanz in Germany mounted a Kinect camera on a helmet, added a Bluetooth headset, Arduino LilyPad vibration motors on a special belt and a backpack computer. The gear could help a visually impaired user navigate to a specific destination indoors, using feedback to the user through the belt and headset. The Kinect can detect distance to markers placed in the environment. The helmet plus Kinect may not be a hit look, but with refinement this could be a very useful approach. More at the University of Konstanz and video on YouTube.

OLD COMPUTERS: In spite of the name KIWI PC don't appear to have any New Zealand affiliations. Their Ubuntu-based computer is designed specifically for older people. They claim a simple and intuitive interface, larger icons and text, a Software Centre for easy downloads of trusted additional software, durable and reliable hardware and a customer service hotline. The very colourful keyboard's a riot too. It's a very interesting idea. More at KiwiPC.

ANCIENT VIRUS: The first computer virus turned 40 the other day. It was created in 1971, and was given the name Creeper. Infected machines simply displayed a message. Ah, the good old days of innocence! Modern viruses often help create botnets, and number in their millions. More at Physorg.

ZOMBIE KILLERS: Meanwhile, Microsoft recently played a major part in shutting down the Rustock botnet. Their lawsuit aimed to cripple the leading source of junk email on the Internet. Together with law enforcement officials they seized computer equipment from Internet hosting facilities across the US. The machines they seized were command and control machines rather than the infected drones. Stake through the heart or chopping the head off, it's the results that count. More at the Wall Street Journal.

OOPSIE: It's the chip that runs any computer, of course. Engineers at Rice University in the USA are busy chopping bits out of the chips to make them work better in specialised devices such as hearing aids. Probabilistic pruning creates chips that are half the size, use half the power but that run twice as fast as unpruned chips. The pruning removes parts that aren't really needed, but it does introduce errors. Luckily, the devices that use them are designed to cope with more errors than the pruning creates. Just so long as they restrict their errors to hearing aids, and not weapons or nuclear energy control. More at GizMag.

- Miraz Jordan knowit.co.nz