detect

Move over, bomb-sniffing dogs and bees. You've got some serious competition in bomb-sniffing mice (the kind with four legs, not the kind you use with a mousepad).

Israeli start-up BioExplorers has created a system that relies on the rodents' keen sense of smell to detect explosives or drugs.

The system is aimed at airports, government buildings, malls, mass transit, and other public venues, though it fortunately does not require that mice scamper all over you or your bags to ascertain whether you're carrying contraband.

Instead, the person being screened walks through a passageway in the BioExplorers system, which looks a lot like a standard airport metal detector.

A fan pushes air into a biosensor receptor, and delivers the air to a chamber inhabited by four to eight mice that have been specially trained at the Bomb Sniffing Academy for Rodents. If they smell something they've been taught to recognize, they move into another chamber, which sets off an alarm. Security officials can then move in and take whatever steps they need to take next. … Read more

Children too sick to go to school are still getting an education--thanks to robots in the classroom that transmit lessons back to the student.

Stepan Supin, 12, of Moscow has been battling leukemia for two years, and his immune system is so weak he can't leave home. However, telepresence technology allows him to go to school via remote-controlled robot.

The R.BOT 100 was developed by Moscow's 3Detection Labs several years ago, and it's been helping Stepan study history, geography, and languages since September.

Priced at roughly $3,000, the R.BOT 100 moves around on a wheeled base and has a display, Web cam, microphone, speakers, and an Internet link so Stepan can interact with his classmates and teacher.

"I can change the robot's speed, to go slower or faster. I can move his head to look left or right. I really feel as if I am in the classroom," Stepan told Australia's Herald Sun.

In Texas, Lyndon Baty also goes to school through a robot surrogate. He suffers from polycystic kidney disease and has a severely impaired immune system, which confines him to home.

Lyndon attends class with the Vgo telepresence robot, which was released last year by Vgo Communications. With two-way video, audio, and a 10-hour battery, Vgo lets Lyndon roam around the halls of Knox City High School and interact with other students (see the video below).

"I never thought when I was sick that I would ever have any interaction, much less this kind. It is just like I am there in the classroom," Lyndon said. … Read more

After introducing an API that allowed developers to check on an iOS device to see if its operating system had been compromised (read: jailbroken) less than six months ago, Apple has now unexpectedly dropped the functionality from iOS 4.2.1.

The jailbreak detection API was part of the mobile device management (MDM) API which was introduced with iOS 4 in June this year, according to NetworkWorld. Now, device management vendors say Apple has dropped the API while also saying that there are alternatives to checking on whether an iOS device has been jailbroken.

So, it remains a mystery as … Read more

The bottom line: A new name heralds some big changes for Trend Micro's Titanium suites. The overhaul to Titanium Antivirus+ 2011 brings users a faster suite with a smaller system impact. However, Trend Micro's new security engine is too untested to be able to recommend it.

Review: Trend Micro's updates for 2011 bring a substantially overhauled suite, from the name down to its detection engine. The new version brings a new interface, new cloud-based detection engine, and new features that, on whole, are changes as impressive as those that Norton has gone through the past few years. … Read more

Lie Detector Pro is a fun app that allegedly can detect whether you are generally a liar or generally truthful, but mostly it's just fun to play with. To start the test, place the iPhone in your hand, read the instructions, and hit Next. From there you will be asked a series of questions onscreen, and you will need to speak your answers out loud.

The app supposedly measures your stress level, the tonality of your voice, and whether your hands are shaking to detect if you are dishonest in your replies. The questions are mostly simple ("What … Read more

The bottom line: Norton Internet Security 2011 maintains its recent strong performance record and introduces some useful new features in the latest version, making it one of the top Internet security suites available.

Review:

Editors' note: Portions of this review are based on CNET's review for Norton Internet Security 2010.

Over the past few years, Symantec has completed a course reversal for its Norton consumer Internet security suites. The massive package of security tools works better than it ever has before, with an impressive set of features, some useful new tools including the free Power Eraser, and third-party security … Read more

Freelancers, attorneys, project managers, and anyone else who need an easy way to keep track of the time spent on particular projects or clients often turn to software to handle this task. There are quite a few programs that do this quite well, but unfortunately, TimeSage isn't one of them. Although there's nothing functionally wrong with the program, it's not nearly as intuitive as many other time-tracking programs we've used.

The basics of the program are easy, as they should be: there are buttons to start and stop tracking time. But it's not immediately clear … Read more

Using a $400 Olympus E-330 digital camera, Rice University biomedical engineers and University of Texas cancer researchers report in PLoS ONE this week that they are able to distinguish between healthy and cancerous cells with only a little tweaking.

"Consumer-grade cameras can serve as powerful platforms for diagnostic imaging," says lead author and Rice professor Rebecca Richards-Kortum in the school's news release. "Based on portability, performance, and cost, you could make a case for using them both to lower health care costs in developed countries and to provide services that simply aren't available in resource-poor … Read more

Can you still call a touch screen a touch screen if you don't have to physically touch the panel to register a command? Apparently, yes. Cypress' new hover-detection feature for capacitive touch screens lets you do exactly that. In other words, you don't actually need to touch the display to zoom in on a Web page or enlarge certain points of interest on a map. As your finger moves closer to the screen, the corresponding onscreen bubble (magnifying glass of sort) grows bigger.

This whole proximity sensor concept looks eerily similar to what Apple patented recently. Then again, … Read more