Growing body parts! Regenerative Medicine Cellular Matrix Dust grows back FINGER!

Another video from a PBS special:

This is a terrific video from This American Life's Ira Glass on having the work ethics to get better at the creative work — even when you know what you’re making isn’t as good as you think it should be.

He believes you should continue doing more and more work, and perfecting your craft, even though your current work may suck ;-)

Video: Part 1
Video: Part 2
Vide0: Part 3 (above)

After a long wait, the Readius e-Reader AND 3G Phone is finally around the corner! The first countries to get the Readius are England, Italy and Germany, according to the NYTimes. Americans will have to wait until early 2009 before they can lay their hands on it.

From Readius:

Our exclusive rollable display technology is the core around which we build our plans, and in the Autumn of this year we will launch Readius, the first pocket eReader. Readius offers the advantages of eReaders as known today - but now all neatly wrapped into a pocket sized device.

Readius is very much a data centered mobile product, designed around eBooks, eNews, RSS feeds, and receiving email messages. It is optimized for mobility by allowing instant access to hundreds of books from your pocket, while the integrated 3.5G data connection ensures high speed downloads of pre-ordered content and instant news updates on the go.

Read: Readius
Read: N.Y. Times

A few days ago I posted 2008 Most Fuel Efficient Cars. And here is another way of looking at the numbers:

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Now lets look at it this way; on average we may drive 10,000 miles per year (50% City & 50% Highway), and let's just average out gas at $4/gallon (Current in my city it is $4.69). So the yearly numbers become:
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Toyota Prius Hybrid / City: 48 mpg / Highway: 45 mpg
Yearly Fuel Cost: $860

Typical Small Car / City: 30 mpg / Highway: 35 mpg
Yearly Fuel Cost: $1,238

Typical Large Car / City: 20 mpg / Highway: 30 mpg
Yearly Fuel Cost: $1,666

Typical Mini-Van / City: 18 mpg / Highway: 25 mpg
Yearly Fuel Cost: $1,911

Typical Large SUV / City: 12 mpg / Highway: 20 mpg
Yearly Fuel Cost: $2,666

With these simple parameters; if you switch from a large SUV to a Toyota Prius, and even if you drive a modest 10,000 miles per year, you'll save about $1,800 per year.

There is water ice on Mars within reach of the Mars Phoenix Lander, NASA scientists announced Thursday.

Photographic evidence settles the debate over the nature of the white material seen in photographs sent back by the craft. As seen in lower left of this image, chunks of the ice sublimed (changed directly from solid to gas) over the course of four days, after the lander's digging exposed them.

"Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, *WATER ICE* on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!" the Mars Phoenix Lander tweeted at about 5:15 pm. 6/19/2008

Read: Wired News

Stewart Butterfield, the cofounder of Flickr, has tendered his resignation to Yahoo, as has wife and cofounder Caterina Fake. Flickr was purchased by Yahoo for the tune of $35 million three years ago!

Here is Butterfield's full resignation letter:

Here is the list of most fuel efficient vehicles in 2008:

#1: Toyota Prius Hybrid / City: 48 mpg / Highway: 45 mpg

#2: Honda Civic Hybrid / City: 40 mpg / Highway: 45 mpg

#3: Nissan Altima Hybrid / City: 35 mpg / Highway: 33 mpg

#4: Ford Escape Hybrid / City: 34 mpg / Highway: 30 mpg

#5: Mazda Tribute Hybrid / City: 34 mpg / Highway: 30 mpg

#6: Mercury Mariner Hybrid / City: 34 mpg / Highway: 30 mpg

#7: Toyota Camry Hybrid / City: 33 mpg / Highway: 34 mpg

#8: Toyota Yaris / City: 29 mpg / Highway: 36 mpg

Here is a great article on The Atlantic about how we are adopting to the Internet.

It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.

Read the complete article: The Atlantic

Apple new iPhone 3G is finally official! Starting at $199 for 16GB version, and available on July 11th, 2008.

Read: iPhone 3G

Wells Fargo hired Pentagram in the fall of 2005 to begin work on a new user interface for their ATMs. Wells Fargo was in the process of upgrading their ATMs with touchscreen monitors. This was a relatively slow process, since there are about 7,000 ATMs in the field, and any upgrades are expensive. But with the vast majority to be converted during 2007, this was the perfect time to create a fresh UI that would fully utilize the touchscreen capability.

Read: Physical Interface