At the American Association for the Advancement in Science, the National Academy of Engineering made publicly a panel which consists of 14 Grand Challenges for Engineering in the 21st century. All 14 challenges are considered priorities and in theory should make our world cleaner and safer.
Take a look at the list:

Advance health informatics
Advance personalized learning
Develop carbon sequestration methods
Engineer better medicines
Engineer the tools of scientific discovery
Enhance virtual reality
Make solar energy economical
Manage the nitrogen cycle
Prevent nuclear terror
Provide access to clean water
Provide energy from fusion
Restore and improve urban infrastructure
Reverse-engineer the brain
Secure cyberspace

I think …

After the rumors that Apple is going to cut the price on iPhone and iPod Touch, now we’ve got something official. The 1GB Apple Pod Shuffle’s price has been reduced from $79 to $49 and they have also introduced a 2GB version, that’s cheaper than the 1GB’s old price. For the new 2GB iPod Shuffle you only have to pay $69.

Source

The disabled spy satellite has been photographed today over Japan, by the Kumamoto observatory, so if the US doesn’t manage to blast it, you might need to take a few days vacation in the basement, for you safety, especially if you live in Japan. But the US will definitely try to destroy it very soon, so you should remain calm.

HP seems to have dropped an information about an upcoming UMPC release, but they haven’t offered any details, like specifications, date or price. Probably it will be released at the end of Q2, but nothing’s sure. The UMPC is going to be handphone-like and it will see a major improvement in battery life and is headed both to youths and professionals.
If the news are true, we might get more details along with an official announcement soon.
via CNET

After a long dispute, HD DVD has finally lost the battle and Blu-ray is now a winner. Toshiba has just announced that ” it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders.” The production will stop in March 2008 and they will only going to sell HD DVD disks for players and recorders owners.
Also, Toshiba’s President and CEO, Atsutoshi Nishida stated that Toshiba is going to “continue to assess the position of notebook PCs with integrated HD DVD drives.”

If you want to know exactly what time it is, not even one second over or under, then the atomic clock created by U.S. physicists is what you are searching for. This clock was created in one of the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics labs, and it is said that it will be perfectly accurate for 200 million years. This new atomic clock outperforms the official atomic clock used by the U.S. Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is said to be accurate for “only” 80 …

Rumors say that we might see PCs branded with the Centrino 2 brand if they meet some minimum specifications. And it probably was the time to do it, because it was a bit blurry with all those processors branded as Centrino. Now the Centrino 2 will mean Montevina with 45nm support, Core 2 Duo Penryn processors, DDR3 memory, 1066Mhz FSB and WiMax. View the image above to understand more clearly and for more details.

Japan is known for the most technologically advanced country and it hasn’t disappointed us until now and neither they did this time. Their MagLev technology is revolutionary and now they started using it for public transportation in towns, by developing MagLev buses. Until now, only one bus has been put in use and it has 60% lower carbon emissions, being a hybrid vehicle. The other countries should also follow Japan’s example, which uses the most advanced technologies, but makes them environmental-friendly.

Researchers from the University of Michigan believe that they have developed the most intense laser beam. According to Karl Krushelnick, physics and engineering genius, their laser beam set a new record for the whole Universe for intensity. The beam has a power of 300 terawatts and it sends 20 billion trillion watts per square centimeter.
Victor Yanovsky continued and said that the laser can recharge and produce the beam every ten seconds considering the fact that any other laser an hour to get back to full potential. Also he said …

Rumors that Dell is going to drop AMD doesn’t seem to be true and Dell is preparing to release two desktops featuring triple-core AMD Phenom. This new computers are code-named “Heineken” and officially called OptiPlex 740 and OptiPlex 740 Enhanced. The OptiPlex 740 will feature a single-core or dual-core AMD Athlon 64 with GeForce 6150LE graphics/chipset, while the OptiPlex 740 Enhanced will sport a triple or quad-core AMD Phenom processor, GeForce 6150LE/nForce 430 motherboard.
via TgDaily

For the people with poor eyesight, the video-glasses-looking device called SightMate can improve the sight, featuring a 2 megapixel camera with a 3x zoom placed in the middle of the outer frame. The glasses sport two 640×480 displays that get images from the camera.
Also, the SightMate can compensate colorblindness, getting people vision of 20/20 to 20/40 from 20/70 and 20/200 accuity. Unfortunately, the device is quite expensive and there’s a notice that you shouldn’t use it while driving. You can already order it for $3,500.

Now you can create your own electrical-charge shapes using a giant particle accelerator or a shag carpet ( we recommend the particle accelerator). One good accelerator is the Dynamitron and it can be found at the Kent State Neo Beam in Newton Falls, Ohio.
The Dynamitron is a 5 million particle accelerator, it’s bigger than a tube TV, but both use high voltage to send electrons to a target. The lightning bolts captured in a block made of clear acrylic glass are called Lichtenberg figures, they are called like this after …

Iwamoto Scott, an architecture firm from San Francisco has released some photos and ideas of how they see the city in the future, more exactly in 100 years. Probably the population will double until 2108, so we definitely need new ways of transportation, that can be more reliable, carry more people and also be environmental, so they came with some ideas.
The transportation will be done via hydrogen-powered hovercrafts through an underground network of tunnels, collecting and distribution of water, electricity, gas and other products will be done through a symbiotic …

If you don’t like living in a normal looking house, then you should try building one just for your taste. It seems that a couple from Mexico City did so. They’ve built their own snail shell looking house with some help from the architects at Senosiain Arquitectos. So if you think that this is only a concept, then you’re wrong. The couple is living in this house along with their two children. The house was built using a frame of steel-reinforced chicken wire with a special two-inch-thick composite of …

One of the most interesting exhibition at the American Association for the Advancement of Science was the one about Martian Rovers. The people who “fascinated” the audience were NASA’s Richard Cook, the designer of both Spirit and Opportunity and of the next Martian Rover, a Cornell geologist named Steven Squires which made Spirit and Opportunity capable of gathering as many samples possible, and Andrew Knoll, a planet scientist from Harvard which studies the idea of “water on Mars” whether if it supports life or not.
The Mars Science Lab Rover is …