Tech Tomorrow: March 07, 2007

I am going to start a new column today: Tech Tomorrow. In this column you'll find the most exciting things happening in the scientific and the technological world. Here's the first issue:


Publishers will allow the readers browse books online

• Random House, HarperCollins to allow online book searches
• Users can add book material to pages on social networks
• Amazon, Google allow customers to look at book pages
• HarperCollins Publishers, whose authors include Michael Crichton, on Monday said it was introducing a browse function that lets consumers embed pages of books onto networking sites such as MySpace. Media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp owns HarperCollins and MySpace.

Robots are being taught to learn Japanese culture in Japan to fit in their life style

• Researchers at the University of Tokyo are exploring just that. In a demonstration this week, a humanoid with camera eyes made by Kawada Industries Inc. poured tea from a bottle into a cup.
• The tea-pouring humanoid has been programmed to do the dishes.

Set out to seize the day with Jeeve's

• The Voco clock boasts an alarm of several morning greetings in the dulcet tones of Stephen Fry reprising his role as Jeeves from the 1990s British television comedy series "Jeeves and Wooster," based on the novels of P.G. Wodehouse.
• The clock has nearly 50 different wake-up messages including: "Good morning sir. I'm so sorry to disturb you but it appears to be morning. Very inconvenient I agree sir." and "Come come sir. Let us not be defeated. Let us seize the day..."
• Get your own at: http://www.fanpop.com/external/16646

Kenyans will use cell phones to do banking

• The first of its kind in the world.
• It allows its 5.8 million subscribers to use their cell phones to send money in the east African country where it is commonplace for one family member working in the city to support a whole family living in rural areas.
• Kenyans will deposit or access the money through Safaricom agents like supermarkets or shops situated all over the country.
• Safaricom -- a joint venture between Kenya's state-owned landline company, Telkom, and Britain's Vodafone (VOD.L) -- is the country's most profitable company having made a 12.2 billion shilling ($175.5 million) pre-tax profit in 2006

New safety measures in BMW

• The 2008 5 series, which will make its official debut at this week's Geneva Auto Show, will come with the intelligent Lane Departure Warning system (LDW), which will warn drivers if they are about to cross over a lane-dividing line without using their turn signal.
• Rather than sounding a chime or flashing a light on the dashboard (the system in the 2007 Infiniti M35 Sport), the BMW system will actually reproduce the physical sensation of driving over a rumble strip by generating tactile (or "haptic") feedback in the steering wheel--in a similar way to that in video-game steering wheels.