News: 'Green' traffic lights cause problems with snow in Midwest

Hilarious. Because LED-lights use less heat, they don't melt the snow as easily as their previous traffic light brethren. The LED-lights were installed because they burn brighter, last longer, and use 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs. But they also produce less heat, making it hard for them to melt snow covering them up. And it's already been confirmed to have contributed to one deadly accident.

News: Toshiba Intros Tri-lingual Translation app for smartphones

Japanese, Chinese and English. NO server-side interaction means no data roaming charges (when you're in said countries that might require you to use it).

News: Salvation Army worker shot and killed Christmas Eve

In front of his 3 children. Freaking Arkansas.

News: 'Balloon boy' hoax father gets 90 days jail, mom 20

Pretty flexible about serving it (he gets work release, she can do it whenever including over 10 weekends, for example), but jail jail. Cool.

News: Machine translates THOUGHTS into SPEECH in REAL TIME

OK. This is the coolest thing I've read in a while.

Disclaimer: I haven't verified anything.

A joint research project (which I take to be undertaken) by Boston University, Harvard University, Emory University (very well respected in medical research). Supposedly, the process takes about 50 milliseconds - the same amount of time for a non-paralyzed, neurologically INTACT person to speak their own thoughts. If we can figure out how to REVERSE the process....yeah.

That's right.

Telepathy.

Sweet.

Also, if this is what we've got publicly released to us....what does the miltary already have.

What about the idea of a soldier thinking critical real-time updates. Those updates appear on the heads-up display of other special-ops members in the same area. Things like that.

News: Eurostar resumes train service

Thankfully for holiday travellers, it's back on. As long as snow doesn't derail any of them.

News: HP webcam face-recognition can't see African-Americans

Oooooooo....that sucks. Whatcha gonna do now, HP?

Sports: Roy Halladay takes out full-page ad thanking Jays

Class act. Roy Halladay, former Blue Jays ace pitcher recently traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, took out a full-page ad in Toronto. It was to thank the city and fans for their support. Classy, classy guy. Who else would do that? He stuck around for as long as he was asked. And now is trying to win a championship to cap off an already amazing career. Good luck, Roy. We'll miss you.

News: DOT announces new 3-hour limit on board a plane on tarmac

Just in time for the ridiculous airline delays.

News: Eurostar (Chunnel train) shut down indefinitely

After 4 trains broke down and stranded nearly 2,000 people, some without water, food, or light, the company has shuttered the service indefinitely. Which is sure to make a whole host of passengers really happy right before Christmas.

News: Avatar brings in $73 mil despite East Coast weather

Even despite the crappy weather out East, surely knocking down the numbers a notch, Avatar manages to pull in $73 million domestically. The best 3-D release ever and 2nd-best December release (behind 'I am Legend'). The film has already banked $232 million globally, which should help. And with the buzz on everything from CinemaScore's A rating to the rest of the after-release buzz, it's sure to have some long legs. Reports are also flowing around that IMAX sold out EVERY SEAT (prime showings only, I assume).

Cool: Interactive 360 degree panoramic view of Prague, CZ

Czech THIS out. It's awesome. Find something cool. Zoom all the way in. The try and see it when you're zoomed all the way out. Pretty much can't. Soooo cool.

News: Fermi, Standford, U of M may have detected dark matter

In Soudan, MN's Iran Range deep-underground lab, they may have detected the first confirmed evidence of dark matter on our planet. In near absolute zero temperature (1/100 of a degree KELVIN).

News: Blu-ray 3D specification finalized, backwards-compatible!

What that means is the you can watch the 3D discs on existing players, though (obviously) only in 2D. But, the most interesting part of this is that although you'll need a full 3D, 1080p image for each eye, it will only take 50 percent more disc space than the 2D version. Not sure how or why, but that's good.

News: 26 Gigapixel photo sets new world record

1655 images. 21.6 Megapixels each. Taken with a 400 mm lens over 176 minutes. The images stitched together using a 16 processor system with 48GB of RAM. And even THAT took 94 HOURS to complete the stitching. Craziness.