Monitors

No one wants to stumble upon the radiation warning sign. But its presence at least indicates that hazardous materials have been detected, and that there might be some form of control of those materials.

In high-risk scenarios without up-to-date signage (war zones, abandoned testing sites, and now airport security lines), it could prove quite handy to have a handheld device that can detect hard radiation--including nuclear weapons.

Chemists at Northwestern University report in the journal Advanced Materials that they are one step closer to developing such a device.

"We have designed promising semiconductor materials that, once optimized, could be … Read more

LED-based monitors continue their march toward completely taking over the world, and Hewlett-Packard is one of many monitor vendors doing little to stop this.

In fact it's actively contributing to the conquest. Soon we'll all be using them, saving a couple dollars every year on power and what then, huh? What then?!

Well, I, for one, welcome our new LED-based overlords, hence this blog. Today, HP announced a number of IPS displays; this, however, is not one of them. The HP Compaq LE2202x is a 22-inch (with 21.5-inches of actual viewing space) display with an LED-based backlight … Read more

The last few months in monitor reviews have been dominated by rail-thin monitors with twisted nematic (TN) displays. Many have been impressive specimens. But as far as monitors go, there are other panel technologies out there, people.

Today, Hewlett-Packard announced five new computer monitors: one TN and four that use in-plane switching (IPS) technology.

IPS monitors generally provide wider viewing angles and usually cover a higher percentage of the sRGB color space than TNs, so they appeal to more professional users, who may require more accurate visuals.

Below we'll dive into the details of four new IPS monitors, one … Read more

Today, if a woman is considered to be at high risk for ovarian cancer, surgeons tend to want to preemptively remove her ovaries.

That may sound harsh, but of all the gynecological cancers, ovarian has the lowest survival rate--mainly because, without reliable symptoms, it is difficult to detect early on.

Now, researchers at the University of Southern California and the University of Connecticut have combined three imaging tools to spot tissue irregularities that signal ovarian cancer at earlier stages of its development.

Describing their hybrid device in the September issue of the Optical Society's Biomedical Optics Express journal, the researchers say they have combined photoacoustic imaging for contrast, optical coherence tomography for hi-res subsurface imaging (called OCT, this is the top image at the right), and pulse-echo ultrasound for deep-tissue imaging (second image) to identify malignant tumors.

The superimposed images (at the bottom of the images) enabled the team to spot malignant tissue (indicated with yellow diamond arrows).

They performed their initial tests on surgically removed pig and human ovarian tissue--but with the device measuring just 5 millimeters across, it could potentially be inserted through a tiny slit to image tissue without having to biopsy it.

The researchers were able to confirm that they'd correctly identified malignant cells by staining the tissue and examining it by microscope. Next step: test the device on live patients using minimally invasive surgery.… Read more

Not everybody needs (or wants) a huge monitor. As a matter of fact, the awesome Acer Aspire 8950G-9839 desktop-replacement laptop I use on a daily basis has a "mere" 18.4-inch display, and I find it more than adequate.

From now until tomorrow, or while supplies last, Dell is offering its own Dell IN1920 18.5-inch LCD monitor for $69.99 shipped (plus sales tax in some states). The monitor is new, not refurbished.

As you might expect at that price point, the IN1920 has few frills. It's a VGA-only monitor with a 5ms response time and … Read more

I expected the Samsung SyncMaster S23A550H to be a worthy successor to the Samsung PX2370. I was wrong, and while the S23A550H wasn't a bad monitor, it failed to live up to the performance and smart design of the best TN monitor to date.

I guess it stands to reason that I went into the SyncMaster S23A350H's review with low expectations. Having just been disappointed by the S23A550H, I wasn't willing to put my heart back out on the chopping block just yet.

Sometimes, however, lowering your expectations can yield some surprising results. So, does the S23A350H … Read more

We've written about mirrors that tell us more than whether we have a piece of spinach stuck between our teeth. A year ago, a Harvard-MIT student showed off a mirror that's able to read certain vital signs.

Now The New York Times Research & Development Lab is taking things a step further--bringing body tracking, shopping, news, and of course advertising to one's most intimate of places: the bathroom.

The group's "magic mirror" uses LCD and Kinect technology (it's really more of a computer with a reflective surface) that lets users browse the Web while brushing their teeth.

How is this better than using a smartphone in the bathroom? For one, it's hands-free. In fact, in the group's demo, one of the designers simply places a box of meds on the mirror's small ledge; it uses RFID tagging to recognize the type of meds and pull up information about dosages and where to buy more.… Read more

LED-based monitors actually worth their asking price are a recent trend I can easily get behind. Displays such as the Dell S2330MX and the Samsung S23A550H are LED-based, low-priced, and, when push comes to shove, ultimately worth their low prices.

The HP x2301 is the latest in recent monitor releases following the same thin-design paradigm, but does it follow the high-quality trend as well? With its sound design, cool-looking footstand, and low $200 price (currently), all signs point to yes, but there's more to a monitor's worth than simply design and price.

One thing that sets the x2301 apart from the aforementioned TN displays is its glossy screen. I spoke to this in a more general sense a few months back, but this is the first of these recent, superslim LED-based displays to house such a reflective screen.… Read more

A good nose can be a curse. Dogs, for instance, have been shown to be able to sniff out lung cancer in humans, which means the poor creatures have to smell our breath, with a lot of smokers in the mix, one sample at a time.

Good news out of Germany, then, for man's best friend. A team of scientists at the University Hospital Jena is testing an electronic nose system that's able to distinguish between people without heart failure and people with it, and even between two types of heart failure (compensated and decompensated) with almost 90 percent accuracy--higher than what canines were able to achieve in the lung cancer study.

The system includes three thick-film metal oxide-based gas sensors with heater elements. Each is tailored to sense different odorant molecular types. As oxygen reacts to the heated sensor surface, the molecules interact with the sensors and change the free charge carrier concentrations, and thus conductivity, in the metal oxide layer.… Read more