Your Heartbeat Could Be Your Password

A technology in the works might soon allow you to unlock your hard drive by simply touching your keyboard. Your unique heartbeat, emitted through your fingertip, would be your password.

Chun-Liang Lin and his team at the National Chung Hsing University in Taichung, Taiwan translated a human heartbeat into an encryption key using an electrocardiograph reading from an individual's palm. Their unique series of thump-thumpa generated a secret key.

The part that blows my mind is that your heartbeat is so unique that that pattern never actually repeats. You will never get the same exact timing of beats twice. So the encryption scheme is based on the math behind chaos theory, which dictates that outcomes are highly sensitive to initial conditions, leading to widely divergent outcomes (it's sometimes referred to as the butterfly effect). The research will appear in an upcoming issue of Information Sciences. If they're going to create a product, they better hurry up if they want to beat Apple, where engineers seem to have been working on something similar since at least 2010. More here.

I had no idea heartbeats could be so unique! Somehow the whole idea has awoken the romantic in me. Happy Valentines Day everybody!

A Ghastly Cloud Tsunami Creeps Up on the Beach

Earlier this week, Panama City Beach, Florida was overwhelmed with a sweeping wave of fog that was not unlike a cloud tsunami. It creeped onto the beach and rolled right over buildings, giving off an almost supernatural aura.

Meteorologist Dan Satterfield explains how the cloud tsunami phenomenon works:

Cool air offshore was very nearly at the saturation point, with a temperature near 20ºC and a dew point of about 19.5ºC. The air at this temperature can only hold a certain amount of water vapor, and how much it can hold depends heavily on the temperature. If you add more water into the air, a cloud will form, but you can also get a cloud to form by cooling the air. Drop the temperature, and it can no long hold as much water vapor, so some of it will condense out and a cloud will form.

The pictures were taken by Helicopter pilot Mike Schaeffer and JR Hott of Panhandle Helicopter. It seriously looks like ghosts sweeping over Florida. Or dementors looking for Harry Potter. Or a gigantic spiderweb covering the beach. Either way, it's so spectacular it gives me the heebie jeebies. More here.

Lot of People Thought Oprah Was Whitney Houston on Facebook

Whitney Houston, the diva of divas, passed away yesterday at the too young age of 48. It's a depressing end to her story of galaxy bending talent, sun magnifying limelight and cursed frailty. Anyone who has ever heard Whitney in her prime will always remember the singular power of her voice. I mean, we all have our own 'oh damn' Whitney-moment we hold dear, right?

The 19th Century Version of Facebook

Looks like Mr. Zuckerberg has some explaining to do—he clearly stole the entire idea for Facebook from this 19th century girl's "friend urn"—or, if you will, Vasebook.

The eBay seller says the vase is likely "a graduation present for the young lady in the center." Yeah, you see her? That's her profile picture, with a non-traditional circular Facebook wall surrounding her. Circles were in mode back then, before being briefly banned during WWI for rationing purposes. But there's something very sweet and sad about this! She carried this vase around, labeled "My Friends," as reminder of 50 people who presumably meant the most to her at that point in her life. It was indelible—sealed in ceramic. And now that she's been dead for a very long time, this is all that there is to prove she ever had any friends at all. Will you be able to say the same about your Timeline, Dr. 21st century fancy pants?

Why Updates for Your Android Phone Take So Long

Many of us point to custom UI skins as one of the main reasons Android updates take so long to reach certain phones. But according a Motorola exec, that's not really the case. It's the hardware itself.

PC Mag's Sascha Segan spoke with Moto Senior Vice President Christy Wyatt, who launched a full scale explanation.

"When Google does a release of the software ... they do a version of the software for whatever phone they just shipped," she said. "The rest of the ecosystem doesn't see it until you see it. Hardware is by far the long pole in the tent, with multiple chipsets and multiple radio bands for multiple countries. It's a big machine to churn."

Motorola understands that consumers want their Android upgrades sooner, but the process is complicated, she said. First there's hardware support, then the layering in of custom software from manufacturers like Motorola, and finally, phones must be re-certified by carriers, taking more time.

Long story short, handset manufacturers struggle have to code the drivers for all the different components themselves, and because there are very few hardware limitations on Android once it's gone public, there is a ridiculous amount of variation in devices, even if made by the same company.

Another interesting little aside from the piece is that from the sounds of it, it's possible that Motorola's future webtops (the ones which use phones like the Atrix to power them), will run straight-up Android instead of some other version of Linux. That could be interesting.

DIY Furniture Made Extra Easy With Foam Building Blocks

Since most of us are far handier with a pile of Legos than tools, lumber, and raw upholstery, Japanese design studio Torafu Architects has created these large scale foam building blocks that making assembling furniture easier than an Ikea bookshelf.

The Soft Blocks are designed to look like concrete cinderblocks, but they're actually made from a felt material packed with dense foam so they're comfortable to sit on while still being sturdy enough to support someone's weight.

Sadly, the Soft Blocks are unfortunately still just a design concept, but imagine how easy moving would be if all of your furniture was assembled from these blocks? Filling the U-Haul would be like playing a game of Tetris. More here.

Heat-Based Recording Could Boost Magnetic Drive Speed

Magnetic fields are pretty nifty for levitating stuff, carving sponge-like thingamajigs and, of course, data storage. But an international team led by the University of York in the UK has figured out a way to replace magnetic fields for the latter by using ultra-short heat pulses instead. Conventional thinking typically dictates that an external magnetic field is required to store data on a magnetic medium. By using heat, however, researchers were able to record terabytes of information per second in a way that is also more energy-efficient compared to current hard drive technology. As for the time it'll take for the tech to make it to market, well, we have a feeling it won't be as fast. More here.

Google’s Very First Employee Is Leaving

It's the end of an era: Google's very first hired employee is leaving the search giant. Craig Silverstein — the first Google employee, Page and Sergey Brin aside — is heading off to the new online learning concept, the Khan Academy. Before you ask: no, it's not acrimonious. " I am as passionate about Google's mission now as I've ever been," says Silverstein. More here.

Download the Entire Pirate Bay in Just 90 Megabytes

Users of Swedish piracy utopia The Pirate Bay have reason to be nervous, post-Megaupload. It's survived everything companies and cops have thrown its way, but you never know—so download thisarchive of every single torrent from The Bay.

Pirate Bay user "allisfine" ripped the text contents from the site, TorrentFreak reports, and luckily, that's all you really need to keep it alive forever. TPB doesn't actually host anything, and since torrent downloads are decentralized to begin with, a list of links that point you to other users is sufficient. That's what TPB offers now, in nicer packaging—and with the option to add more, of course.

But with one 90 MB .zip file, you'll have access to every single one of the 1,643,194 torrents that's ever graced The Pirate Bay. Keep it safe, for posterity. Maybe print it out and bury it in your back yard. We might need it someday. More here and here.

Microsoft Celebrating Leap Year Right by Launching Windows 8 Consumer Preview

Perhaps celebrating a push toward the mobile space with its traditionally desktop-bound OS -- or maybe just doing its best to further confuse the similar naming conventions with its forthcoming smartphone operating system -- Microsoft today sent out invites for a February 29th Mobile World Congress event that will see the launch of its Windows 8 Consumer Preview. More here.

Logitech Touch Mouse M600 Mouse Lets you Swipe and Scroll Sans Buttons for $69

Is your current wireless mouse not up to snuff? If that's the case, you may want to take a gander at the Logitech Touch Mouse M600 that lets you do your navigating via a touch surface instead of those ol' clicky buttons. The peripheral is outfitted with the company's Flow Scroll software that touts a similar feel to scrolling on your touchscreen smartphone of choice. From wherever your fingers contact the top of the mouse, you can scroll and swipe in order to keep powering through those Photoshop files. The M600 works just as well for lefties once click areas are reconfigured with Logitech's SetPoint software. If you're thinking about taking the leap, get ready to shell out $69.99 later this month.

Playing In the Sand Could Make You Pay On the Toilet

Some people go to the beach but eschew going into the water because it's "gross". If that's you, then you are a sucker. According to a new EPA study, playing in the sand more than doubles your chances of getting sick.

The study, which was a collaboration between the EPA, UNC Chapel Hill, and Johns Hopkins, found a relationship between sand exposure and gastrointestinal illnesses due to fecal microbial pollution in beach sand. Yeah, sandpoop. It was even worse than exposure to the ocean water. The researchers tested 144 wet-sand samples from beaches within two miles of a waste treatment-works outfall (testing for Enterococcus, Bacteroidales, fecal Bacteroides, and Clostridium, and others) and conducted nearly 5,000 interviews at the beaches with followup interviews two weeks later.

They found that, compared with beachgoers who did not dig in the sand, the adjusted odds ratio (OR) of illness among those who dug in the sand with the highest Enterococcus levels was 2.0 for GI illnesses and 2.4 for diarrhea (considered as a separate outcome).

In other words, they were between two and two and-a-half times as likely to get sick. And it was even worse for people who were buried in the sand. The EPA doesn't advocate avoiding the beach all together, but says people "should consider washing their hands or using a hand sanitizer after playing in the sand or water." Yeah, or maybe a Silkwood shower would do the trick.

Obviously, examining beaches that are near waste-treatment plants are liable to be nastier, but the EPA thinks wider conclusions can be drawn. Beaches with less nasty water are likely to have less nasty sand, but the sand is still likely to be nastier than the water. Way too much nastiness for my liking.

I'd never really considered this, but it actually makes a lot of sense. Sand is often used for filtration systems (y'know, they're called "sand filters"), because it's good at pulling contaminants out of water. Those contaminants don't just disappear. So basically, the beach is one big filter for the nastiness in the ocean. Which is, y'know, gross, but if you think that's going to keep me off the beach you've got another thing coming. If you need me, I'll be surfing in an biohazard suit. More here.

How Much Abuse Can a Blackberry Take?

RIM just put out a series of videos showcasing the durability tests a Blackberry has to withstand prior to its release. Pretty cool!

The featured victim is a Blackberry Curve, which is dunked in water, bent to excess, and dropped.

Hankie Notepads Keep Reporters Looking Dapper

That Field Notes notebook you'll find in many a reporter's back pocket ensures they never miss a scoop, but it doesn't do a lot for their image. At least not as much as this clever faux-hankie notebook that complements a blazer.

Available in a polka-dotted red, black, or white pattern, the top of the notebook is trimmed to a point so it looks like a folded hankie when carried in a breast pocket. And with 60 pages of acid-free paper, you have enough space for every scandalous quote. Available here for $10 each—pencil, blazer, and whimsical sense of style not included. Get it here.

Nokia, Samsung, Apple are the New top 3 Handset Makers

The latest figures are in from IDC: the top three global smartphone makers are Nokia, Samsung andApple, in that order. Drilling down into the figures finds some surprises: Cupertino's third-place with only 8.7 percent of the market, while the giants of Korea and Finland are duking it out with 22.8 percent and 26.6 respectively. LG and ZTE are tied for fourth, but that's hardly good news for Goldstar, given that it's lost a staggering 42.2 percent of its market share in the last twelve months (Nokia was the other loser, eating 8.2 percent).

ADzero Bamboo Cellphone's Aiming for the Giant Panda Market

This is the ADzero, a smartphone with a four-year old, organically grown bamboo unibody shell. It was designed by British student Kieron-Scott Woodhouse, a final-year product design student at Middlesex University. After his concept designs were spotted online, the 23 year old was approached to help design a real device. 

The Android-powered phone is built with an eye on sustainability, but isn't scrimping on the technical: its packing a camera with a reportedly unique ring-flash that encircles the lens. It'll be released in China and the UK shortly, with a focus on getting it into the hands of design-focused consumers. 

Facebook Valued at Just Under $100 Billion

In a private market auction yesterday, Facebook was valued at $94 billion, which is squarely in the ballpark of the $100 billion valuation that financial pundits have been tossing around. Don't read much more into it than that; there's plenty of time for the valuation to change slightly before the actual IPO (sometime in May), and either way, it's not going to affect you in the slightest.

SharesPost Inc. completed an auction of 100,000 shares of Facebook’s Class B common stock, according to an e-mail obtained by Bloomberg News. The shares were sold for a clearing price of $40 each, valuing the company at $94 billion based on a fully diluted share count of about 2.35 billion, according to SharesPost.

Facebook filed this week to raise at least $5 billion in the largest Internet IPO on record. The Menlo Park, California- based company, with 845 million users worldwide, is considering a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said last week. At the top of the range, Facebook would be the ninth-biggest U.S. technology company by market value.

A $100 billion market capitalization would value Facebook at 26.9 times trailing 12-month sales, more than double Google Inc.’s valuation when the search-engine operator went public in 2004. Revenue at Facebook jumped 88 percent last year to $3.71 billion, while net income climbed by almost two-thirds to $1 billion.

The valuation based on a per-share price of $40 may change depending on the actual share count after the IPO. As of Dec. 31, Facebook had 117.1 million Class A shares and 1.76 billion Class B shares outstanding. Additionally, there are about 380 million restricted stock units that vest at a later date, as well as other shares tied to options and compensation.

Skype Rolls out Update for Windows with full HD Video Calling, Group Screen Sharing

Skype rolled out its version 5.8 software update for Windows users today, and it brings with it a couple of fairly notable features. That includes full HD video calling (provided you have a suitable webcam and internet connection, of course), video calling to Facebook users (regardless of whether they have Skype installed or not), and group screen sharing, which will let folks share either their entire desktop or a single application with other participants on a conference call. 

That last feature is only available with Skype Premium, though. Other new features include a "push to talk" option that will let you set up a hotkey to trigger your microphone (for multiplayer gaming, for instance), the ability to hide offline Facebook contacts, and one possible fruit of the Microsoft acquisition: Bing toolbar integration. Get it here.

The Tablet That Every Linux Lover Has Been Waiting For

While most people just want their devices towork so that they can do stuff, some people love tinkering with operating systems. Until now, the tablet sector's been ripe for hacking, but there hasn't been anything that's truly open-source and easy to fiddle with from the get-go. This Spark tablet puts that straight.

It runs Plasma Active UX, an open-source OS based on the Linux kernel. It's not, I think it's fair to say, designed to be a Kindle Fire or iPad competitor. Indeed, it's aimed at "those who love writing great software... using the typical Linux tools". That kind of rules me out, but it will get plenty of people excited, I'm sure.

In terms of specs, it fairs modestly: a 1GHz AMLogic ARM processor, 512 MB RAM, 4GB internal storage plus SD card slot, a 7" capacitive multi-touch screen and wifi connectivity. It's slated to cost around $260 when it ships, though at the moment it's not clear when that will be. More here. 

New, Targeted Mouthwash Could Eliminate Tooth Decay "Within Our Lifetimes"

A single species of bacteria is responsible for tooth decay. But until now, mouthwash has worked by sterilizing your maw wholesale. But why go Death Star v. Alderaan on it when you could just kill off that one bad species? This is exactly what Colgate has done and the result could mean an end to cavities—forever.

The bacterial species Streptococcus mutans constitutes just 0.1-percent of the biomass currently residing in your mouth (fun fact: 100 trillion bacteria live there) but is the primary cause of decay. The rest of the 99.9-percent are harmless and some even beneficial. To spare these innocuous bacteria death by rinsing, a research team at the Colgate Technology Center in conjunction with the UCLA School of Dentistry have developed a mouthwash that kills only S. mutans and does so with extreme prejudice.

The study, published in the November issue of the Carries Research journal, involved 12 volunteers who rinsed with a solution containing a "specifically targeted anti-microbial peptide". After just a single rinse, the S. mutans was completely wiped out and the patients remained S. mutans-free for the duration of the four-day study. the rest of the bacteria were left unscathed.

Obviously, more than a 12-person test is going to be needed to obtain FDA approval. Which is why follow up studies ar already scheduled for as early as March. If it does win FDA approval, this mouthwash could be bigger than flouride—you'd never have to brush.

"With this new antimicrobial technology, we have the prospect of actually wiping out tooth decay in our lifetime," Dr. Wenyuan Shi, chair of UCLA's oral biology section, said in a written statement. More here.