Uk-based company Smart Holograms produces holograms which can be used as biosensors.

Prototypes have already been made for contact lenses that monitor glucose levels, badges that detect alcohol levels, and sticks that can tell if milk has spoiled or become contaminated. The technology will not only be quick and cheap, it will also require less training, as the hologram can be designed to show results graphically.

A test showing that fuel has been contaminated with trace amounts of water reads "dry" or "wet." In a breath alcohol test, suspects breathe onto tiny cards that either show a green automobile or a red X, establishing whether a person is sober enough to drive. Diabetics having the technology inside a contact lens just have to take a photo of the lens using a mini camera, and beam the data to a hospital using a mobile phone.

Via Slashdot < eWeek. More details in OE Magazine.

According to Lawrence Dubois from SRI International , mobile computing will be transformed by high-power batteries that can be charged in less than 10 minutes and by fiber batteries built into clothing.

Among the technologies being developed:

- batteries that run for four hours after a 10-minute re-charge.
- printed batteries that use modified inkjet printer or a standard printing press.
- a fiber battery, made with thin carbon fibers coated with fiber materials. The battery could become the case of a PDA or mobile phone, or woven into clothes.

Via textually < Tech Web.

While the exhibit "Pain Couture " where French designer Jean-Paul Gaultier fashioned dresses with bread is about to close in Paris (till 10th October at the Cartier Foundation), Sapporo Breweries, Shimadzu and Hiroshima University have succeeded an experiment to steadily generate hydrogen and methane gas using waste from the bread-making process.

The first technology of its kind, which is also applicable to waste materials from production of other food products, is planned to be put into practical use in fiscal 2006 to contribute to the utilization of energy stored in organic matter.

Via Kyodo News.

Related: yummiest sources of energy.

U.S. bases of the future are supposed to be self-sustaining. But they produce over 7 pounds of waste per day, per soldier. And the Pentagone even adds that a whole heap of "personnel, fuel, and critical transport equipment are needed to support the removal and disposal" of such waste.

So Darpa has just given "gene synthesis" company DNA2.0 a grant to
give the junk a second life, by turning the plastic waste into fuel.

read details , via defensetech

Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology has begun to mass-produce a liquid crystal display (LCD) panel for mobile phones featuring a color reproduction range that is the widest in the industry.

The panel will be employed in NTT DoCoMo Inc's N506i model.

TMD's 345 x 240 panel (left); QVGA panel (right)

Details in NE Asia.

The US Federal Communications Commission has approved the Motorola CN620, the first phone able to switch from VoIP to GSM via WiFi.

Voice calls started on Wi-Fi networks can be handed off to a GSM network. The reverse is possible only for certain types of calls.

From Smart Phone Thoughts.
Related entry: Motorola's Cross-Technology PoC.