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From the TeamViewer website:
TeamViewer is the fast, simple and friendly solution for remote access over the Internet - all applications in one single, very affordable module:

Remote control of computers over the Internet
Instantly take control over a computer anywhere on the Internet, even through firewalls. No installation required, just use it fast and secure.

Training, sales and teamwork
TeamViewer can also be used to present your desktop to a partner on the Internet. Show and share your software, PowerPoint presentations etc.

File transfer, chat and more
Share your files, chat, switch the direction during a teamwork session, and a lot more is included in TeamViewer

Download TeamViewer 3.6.4606

Adobe Systems Inc. today rolled out a beta version of its Adobe Flash Player 10 (formerly called Astro) browser plug-in, which adds features to help designers and developers create special effects and cinematic Web experiences.

The new offering adds support for custom filters and effects created using Adobe’s Pixel Bender tool kit, Adobe said. The Pixel Bender technology is used in the company’s After Effects CS3 tool, which creates motion graphics and visual effects for film and broadcast.

“We’re doing things that really change the game of what’s possible on the Internet,” said Tom Barclay, senior product marketing manager for Flash Player. “The community now has the ability to upgrade the capabilities of the player and create new types of effects and cinematic experiences that are not available with any other browser plug-in.”

The beta version of the player also includes native 3-D transformation and animation capabilities, an extensible rich-text layout, and graphics processing unit hardware acceleration, he added.

The new support for 3-D is “really 3-D for the rest of us,” Barclay noted. “It allows people to take what they know in the 2-D world and transform it into 3-D. It’s native so the performance is very fast, and it will not result in larger file sizes.”

New bit-rate streaming for video links between the Flash Player and intended future releases of Adobe’s Flash Media Server will automatically adjust video quality as bandwidth changes without having to rebuffer, the company said. “This will provide a seamless playback experience with no starting or stopping of video waiting for the stream to catch up,” Barclay said.

The Wii Fit, which comes complete with its own special balance board, is one of the new fitness computer games from the Nintendo stable, which already includes virtual games such as tennis, boxing and bowling…

Sophie, a publicist, shows me the new hardware for Wii Fit at her office in Soho. On the floor in front of a giant TV is a pressure-sensitive balance board about the size of weighing scales. In fact, what the new Wii does is to weigh you straight away. Along with your height and age, the computer then works out your body mass index. Mine is 29.36, somewhere between Medically Obese and About To Drop Dead. “It’s not 100 per cent accurate,” Sophie says, tactfully. “Muscle weighs more than fat.” “Thanks,” I say. “I can see why you’re in PR.”

[Youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=t3pfQdADxEs[/youtube]

Next, after some rudimentary balance exercises in which I am revealed to be fundamentally lopsided, the machine computes my “Wii age”. It is 65 (my actual age is 43). “Oh dear,” says Sophie. I have to choose a “Mii”, an icon to represent myself on screen. I go for a perky little chap with a side part and pot belly. He introduces himself. In Japanese. The English language version is not available yet, but if its success over there is anything to go by – more than a million copies of the game sold in just over a month – this game won’t be sitting on shop shelves for long.

I select an on-screen tutor, wondering if it’s morally or legally OK to lust after a computer-generated fitness instructor. She greets me with what I take to be a provocative pose. “She’s saying, ‘Hello, you fat bastard’,” the photographer says.

I was introduced to TeamViewer earlier this week by one of my IT buddies. TeamViewer is handy remote software and unique in the fact that it uses port 80 (same port as internet). This assists greatly in successful connections with someone with a hardware or softwall firewall.

From the TeamViewer website:
TeamViewer is the fast, simple and friendly solution for remote access over the Internet - all applications in one single, very affordable module:

Remote control of computers over the Internet
Instantly take control over a computer anywhere on the Internet, even through firewalls. No installation required, just use it fast and secure.

Training, sales and teamwork
TeamViewer can also be used to present your desktop to a partner on the Internet. Show and share your software, PowerPoint presentations etc.

File transfer, chat and more
Share your files, chat, switch the direction during a teamwork session, and a lot more is included in TeamViewer

Download TeamViewer 3.5.4356

Honda’s child-sized ASIMO robot will conduct the Detroit Symphony Orchestra when it performs “Impossible Dream” from “Man of La Mancha” during a special performance on May 13.

The concert featuring famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma is part of the DSO’s youth music program.

The bubble-headed ASIMO looks like a child in a white spacesuit. Honda Motor Co. designed it to help people and hopes it someday will assist the elderly and disabled in their homes.

The robot is being used today to encourage and inspire young students to consider studies in math and science.

ASIMO can walk, even jog, wave, avoid obstacles and carry on simple conversations.

Source

Burlington’s iRobot Corp. said today that its Army contract to develop next-generation portable battlefield robots now totals $63 million.

That total includes $6 million to accelerate delivery of 25 Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle, or SUGV, robots to the Army’s Future Combat Systems program for testing.

To date, iRobot said it has delivered more than 1,400 PackBot robots to military and civilian customers; the PackBot can scout hostile terrain without putting soldiers at risk.

Modeled after the PackBot, the SUGV features a rugged, lightweight body that enables a single soldier to carry and deploy the robot, the company said.

Aside from military robots, iRobot also makes robots that do household chores; the Roomba, for example, will vacuum floors and rugs.
(By Chris Reidy, Globe staff)

Souce

Blockbuster Inc. (BBI) is being sued for its participation in a Facebook advertising program, which highlights the difficulties for social networking companies in using customer data to build advertising revenues.

Dallas resident Cathryn Elaine Harris’ filed a lawsuit April 9 that alleges Blockbuster distributed her rental and sale records to third parties without appropriate consent.

The suit strikes out at Facebook’s Beacon advertising program, which it launched last year. Beacon allowed Facebook to track users’ activities on certain outside Web sites, including online purchases, and in certain cases published updates in online news feeds.

In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Texas, Blockbuster violated the Federal Videotape Privacy Protection Act by sharing Harris’ information with Facebook.

Beacon was met with protests by Facebook’s users, and was quickly modified to let users select which of their friends get access to information.

“To this day, Facebook still receives personal identifiable information from participating Web sites with the Beacon javascript; whether the Facebook member has chosen to distribute the information or not,” Harris said in her complaint. “To this day, Blockbuster online members remain unsuspecting victims.”

A spokesman for Blockbuster, Randy Hargrove, on Thursday denied the allegations.

He said Blockbuster’s alliance with Facebook included “numerous levels of privacy protection,” for users.

“We can’t discuss the specifics but we intend to vigorously defend the company,” the spokesman said.

Source

Officials at one eastern Kentucky hospital say their patients soon won’t have to travel to see a specialist.

That’s because they’re bringing the specialists to them with a robot.

Officials at Saint Joseph Hospital in Martin say the robot is controlled wirelessly from a computer with a joystick.

They say their robot will allow doctors from anywhere in the Saint Joseph System to see patients at the Floyd County hospital.

Hospital officials say doctors have to first get credentials before they can see patients wirelessly from the robot.

All seven Saint Joseph facilities in the state now have a robot doctor.

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Sarah Connor would likely destroy TERRI the robot and all of its creators but the people of Honolulu, Hawaii visiting the Mad About Science Festival absolutely loved the fully integrated interactive robot.

The undisputed star at yesterday’s Mad About Science Festival at the Bishop Museum’s Great Lawn, Watumull Planetarium, and Science Adventure Center was a mobile robot with blinking baby blue eyes, an inquisitive manner, a helium voice, and the gift of gab.

Kids and adults flocked around TERRI the Robot throughout the morning and afternoon. The gabby robot sang songs, charmed onlookers, and challenged anyone to ask him a question he couldn’t answer. If no one had a question, TERRI would supply one himself.

“What’s Luke Skywalker’s favorite car?” he asked Randy Gillin, 10, of Kailua, before answering his own question. “A toy-Yoda.”

With TERRI the phrase “pay no attention to that man behind the curtain” does not apply. That’s because there’s no one behind a curtain. Unlike shopping mall robots with voices supplied by some secret, nearby human with a remote microphone, TERRI speaks for himself, or herself if you prefer. Gender seemed to be a question. But TERRI did ask one girl for a date and her phone number, and just about everyone refers the robot as “he.”

TERRI stands for The Educational Resource Robot Initiative, and is a Conceptual Visions Corporation robot sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to promote science education.

The technical description: “A fully integrated interactive robotic device that can be put into a fully automatic mode so that it can interact without any outside intervention or telemetry.”

That’s fancy talk for a robot with a personality and smarts.

Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) Chairman Bill Gates indicated Friday that the successor to Microsoft’s Vista operating system will be available sooner than the company previously had indicated.Gates, in response to a question during a public appearance in Miami on Friday, said to expect Windows 7 “sometime in the next year or so.” Gates was speaking at the Inter-American Development Bank in Miami, and didn’t elaborate.

When asked to elaborate on Gates’ remarks, a Microsoft spokesman said Gates was alluding to a test version of the new software, and not the full-on commercial version. The spokesman didn’t offer additional comments outside the statement.

“As is standard with the release of a new product, we will be releasing early builds of Windows 7 prior to its General Availability as a means to gain tester feedback,” according to Microsoft’s statement. “We’re not sharing additional information at this time.”

Microsoft last said it expected a follow-up to its Vista software around January 2010. Should Gates be referring to a full-scale release, his timetable on Friday lops at least a year off the wait.

Source

Well, it’s something to keep an eye on. With the messy (and some would say, incomplete) release of Microsoft’s Windows Vista operating system, it is no small wonder that Microsoft wants a successor out as soon as possible, if for no other reason than to quiet the masses about wanting to keep XP rather than upgrade to Vista.

Microsoft likely may want to give people something else (positive) to desire and talk about, thus drowning out the XP concerns, driving people to a feeling of more acceptance of where things are and that things are “moving forward” so they might as well accept the direction as it would be futile to swim against the current.