Online shrines for ‘death networking’
With online sperm-and-egg trade and social networking sites like Bebo, Facebook and MySpace, we already create and date on the Internet–so why not “cremate” online too?
Maggie Candy, a nurse trained in care of the elderly, thought she knew how to cope with death. But when her daughter Stella committed suicide at age 17 she found the adult world of condolence books, sympathy cards and graveyard headstones out-dated and lacking in what it could offer in Stella’s memory. In the end she turned to her computer-savvy teenage son, the Internet, and a new world of online memorials and so-called “death networking” to create a fitting tribute.

Source: Reuters, September 2, 2007

‘Tap and go’ plastic arrives in London

MasterCard has launched its contactless payment tech in the UK. The MasterCard PayPass and Maestro PayPass contactless cards allow consumers to buy items costing less than £10 by simply waving their debit or credit card in front of a reader. The rollout of contactless card readers has started in London, in several areas including Canary Wharf, with participating retailers in the rest of the UK set to get the tech over the course of next year.
Source: Gemma Simpson, Silicon.com, September 4, 2007

Geotagging links photos to locales

An array of maturing technologies is poised to add a new dimension–geography–to the digital photography revolution. Today, people can retrieve digital photos based on the time they were taken. A nascent technology called geotagging, though, enables people to organize photos by where they were taken, not just when.
Today, geotagging is not for the faint of heart. It requires a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and either software that adds GPS data to photo files or an expensive camera that communicates directly with the GPS device. But as the technology takes off and sites such as Yahoo’s Flickr or Google’s Panoramio show off the possibilities, the elements of geotagging are starting to come together.
Source: Stephen Shankland, CNET News.com, September 4, 2007

Facebook to show profiles to search engines

Facebook users may no longer be able to hide after the website announced it is launching a service that enables anyone to view member profiles. In a major move, the social networking site said on Wednesday that it intends to make a limited public listing service available to people who are not logged in to Facebook, meaning that non-members will be able to look for friends or acquaintances via a search box on the Facebook home page. Information contained in the listing service will also be accessible via search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN Live.
Source: Charlie Taylor, ElectricNews.net, September 5, 2007

Sensor rise powers life recorders

A person’s entire life from birth to death could one day be recorded by a network of intelligent sensors, according to a senior scientist. By 2057, Martin Sadler of PC firm Hewlett Packard, said there could be at least 1m devices for every UK resident[Note: Yes, that's one million...]. Predicted advances in storage and cameras coupled with decreasing costs would allow this explosion, he said.
Source: Liz Seward, BBC NEWS, August 29, 2007

‘Spy satellite’ plan draws fire on Capitol Hill

Under sharp questioning from politicians, Department of Homeland Security officials on Thursday defended a new plan to make detailed satellite images available to a broader swath of government agencies, including state and local police.
At a U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee hearing here, Democrats and Republican politicians alike accused the department of leaving them in the dark about the proposed October 1 launch of its new subset called the National Applications Office (NAO).
Source: Anne Broache, CNET News.com, September 6, 2007

Self-serve airport idea could take off in future

In this most miserable year ever for airline passengers — a year of record flight delays and baggage mishandling — hope is on the horizon. One solution: an airport where the only people are the passengers. That possibility and technology designed to speed voyagers to their destinations were aired at a conference of airport and airline officials here, providing tantalizing glimpses of a traveling future with fast-moving check-in lines and luggage tracked using radio signals.
Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is floating a vision of travelers lined up at self-service kiosks — similar to ones at grocery stores — where they would check in, tag their bags, drop them into luggage chutes, select their seats and print out boarding passes.
Source: Peter Pae, Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2007 (Free registration)