The Atom-powered device uses a high-resolution camera to capture images of any printed text, which it then converts into digital format to read out loud. The Reader can be used as a standalone device to snap pictures of text. But paired with Intel’s Portable Capture Station, which can hold the Reader in place, the device can grab huge amounts of text, such as an entire book, according to Intel.

“We are proud to offer the Intel Reader as a tool for people who have trouble reading standard print so they can more easily access the information many of us take for granted every day, such as reading a job offer letter or even the menu at a restaurant,” said Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of Intel’s Digital Health Group, in a statement.

A check at some of the retailers selling the Intel Reader revealed its base price to be $1,499, with the Portable Capture Station an additional $399.

Weighing one pound, the Reader is the size of a paperback book. The tactile buttons and voice-operated menus that control the device have been designed so sightless people can use it, Intel said. Individuals with poor vision can also zoom in or out of the display and increase the font size of its text.

The 5-megapixel, autofocus camera can snap a picture of text anywhere from 4 inches to 1.1 yards. The content itself is stored on a 4GB solid-state drive, which Intel says can hold up to 600 processed pages (images and text) or 500,000 text-only pages.

Users of the device can create MP3 versions of printed text to be played on computers and music players. Certain audio books can also be loaded from computers directly onto the Reader.

The idea for the Reader sprang from Ben Foss, an Intel researcher who learned in elementary school that he suffered from dyslexia. As an adult, he continued to face challenges reading, unable to find many of his favorite books and journals in audio format.

“As someone who is part of this dyslexic community, I am thrilled to be able to help level the playing field for people who, like me, do not have easy access to the printed word,” said Foss in a statement. “The Intel Reader is a tool that can help give people with dyslexia, low-vision, blindness, or other reading-based disabilities access to the resources they need to participate and be successful in school, work and life.”

Intel said that the Reader has been endorsed by the International Dyslexia Association as an important advance in assistive technology. The company is working with organizations such as Lighthouse International, the National Center for Learning Disabilities, and the National Federation of the Blind to reach out to people who have trouble reading printed text.

The device will be available in the U.S. through select resellers, including CTL, Don Johnston Incorporated, GTSI, Howard Technology Solutions, and HumanWare.

Like other tech companies, Intel has ventured into the health care market with new products and services. In 2007, the company launched the Motion C5, a device to help hospitals better monitor and measure patient data. Earlier this year, Intel and GE announced a new alliance to develop health care technologies for seniors.

Researchers at the research firm STAR Analytical Services say that if medical experts are able to tell whether a patient has pneumonia or just a cold, or whether an infection is viral or bacterial just by the sound of a cough, then there’s no reason why a computer program shouldn’t be able to do it as well.

And they claim that they are developing a program that can do just that, potentially saving patients and insurers millions in expensive and unnecessary trips to the hospital, while at the same time alerting seriously ill patients to their possibly hazardous health condition.

In the medical field, where diagnostic devices and treatments for specific diseases have been growing ever more high-tech in recent years, Suzanne Smith of STAR posed the question: “Why haven’t we been measuring coughs?”

“It’s the most common symptom which a patient presents, and we are relying on doctors and nurses with good old technology from the 19th century,” explained Smith.

A cough can generally be described as a defensive reflex used by the body to help clear the respiratory passage of mucous, foreign particles and microorganisms.  The anatomy of a cough consists of three phases: inhalation of air to the lungs, forced exhalation against a closed glottis, and finally a forceful release of air from the lungs following a reopening of the glottis which is accompanied by a complex burst of sounds.  On average, the whole process lasts only about quarter of a second.

Despite the basic similarity of all coughs, however, significant variations exist between coughs and are typically dependent on the kind of illness from which the patient is suffering.  A voluntary cough, for example, is usually louder and more vigorous than the involuntary coughs of a sick person.  The degree to which the vocal cords vibrate after the initial outburst of the cough sound can also give clues as to what type of irritant is present in the respiratory tract.

STAR researchers say that their software will attempt to analyze a patient’s cough by comparing it with a pre-recorded digital library of various cough sounds, all of which will be labeled and classified according to sex, age, weight and type of illness.

At the moment, company researchers say that their database consists of coughs from several dozen patients, but they estimate that they will have to use nearly 1,000 before the program can be considered reliable and accurate.

While the nascent program is currently being tested and developed on a standard computer, engineers say it will likely not be a problem to convert the software into a smartphone-friendly application.

Cough specialist Dr. Jaclyn Smith at the University of Manchester, expressed enthusiasm over the project.

“If they can find certain parameters to use coughs to diagnose disease that could be fabulous.  It could really improve disease diagnosis and help improve people’s access to health care,” Smith told Discovery News.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world-renowned philanthropic organization, has donated $100,000 to STAR to pursue their digital cough-detecting research, which they hope could potentially become an effective and inexpensive early diagnostic tool in third-world countries where pneumonia kills millions of children every year.

The theory states that world will come to an end, based on deductions from the Mayan calendar, as a mysterious planet, Nibiru, collides with Earth.

The claims have fueled a Sony Picture, titled “2012,” which will come to theaters on Friday.

Some Internet theorists have blamed NASA for keeping information concealed about the Earth’s doomsday.

“There is no factual basis for these claims,” NASA said on its Web site.

“Astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye.”

“Obviously, it does not exist.”

“Credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012,” said NASA.

NASA added that the Mayan calendar does not end on December 21, 2012, as many have insisted. Instead, it begins another period as soon as the calendar comes to an end.

According to AFP, some theorists claim that the Earth’s rotation and magnetic polarity are related, causing a magnetic reversal roughly about every 400,000 years.

“As far as we know, such a magnetic reversal doesn’t cause any harm to life on Earth,” said NASA.

“We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs,” the space agency insisted.

In their place, Dodd proposes, should come a new regulator, the Financial Institutions Regulatory Administration (FIRA), which would also take on the work of two smaller financial regulators – the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Office of Thrift Supervision.

Senator Dodd’s aim is to eliminate what he calls the “alphabet soup of multiple bank regulators that has led to weak, confusing regulation where it’s easy for problems to fall through the cracks and difficult to know who is responsible.”

His proposals are the most wide-reaching in addressing some of the root causes of the financial crisis, and go much further than existing proposals backed by the US Treasury.

To date, existing regulators have opposed a single super-regulator, but Senator Dodd argues that placing all banking regulation under one roof will stop banks and other financial institutions from shopping around different regulators dependent on the ease of their regulations.

His proposals also include the creation of an independent systemic risk regulator, which would not be part of the Fed, as will be the case under the existing US Treasury proposals.

The risk regulator would have the power to break up banks deemed “too big to fail,” and would monitor the impact of institutions on the financial stability of the US.

Senator Dodd’s bill goes further than that of Congressman Barney Frank in this area, whose Treasury-backed legislation calls for the mechanism for the financial industry to bail out a large institution once it has failed.

Phones in Japan play a slightly different role to those in the United Kingdom. Handset technology has come so far that phones are now totally integrated into everyday life. For example, paying for a drink in your local shop can be done with your phone thanks to its integrated Felica system (essentially an electronic wallet). You can board the train here by tapping through barriers with your phone and then watch your morning TV on the handsets hi-def screen. Friends exchange details by infra-red business cards transferred between phones and shopping can be done by scanning barcodes from adverts on the train.

With the sheer level of technology found in every single handset in Japan, phone producers have been forced to produce some pretty special stuff to separate themselves from the competition. In Japan going shopping for a good phone is like walking into the future. You may have thought that getting google maps on your phone was exciting, but that is old news here. Every single phone has a TV tuner, at least a 3 megapixel camera and a massive screen capable of twisting and turning as if your phone is some sort of miniature Transformer.

Here are a few Japanese phones that laugh in the face of Apple’s technology in almost every respect. Just don`t expect to be showing them off to your iPhone buddies down the local pub any time soon as they are unlikely to ever be released in Britain.

1. Hitachi Mobile Hi-Vision Cam WOOO
Not exactly the easiest name to remember, nor is it the prettiest of handsets, bearing more of a resemblance to a cheap handy-cam than a phone. But it’s the technology within Hitachi`s latest offering that makes it so special. The WOOO sports a ridiculously oversized camera capable of recording 720p/ 30 frames per sec HD movie footage. It also, as is the norm with most Japanese phones, sports an enormous screen capable of transforming the phone into a widescreen tv (by flipping it on its side). Oh and of course, its available in a nice shiny pink colour.

2. Sharp Solar Phone
Can you imagine if your wallet was battery powered? Can you imagine if it ran out of battery or it got wet? Well in Japan for many their phone is their wallet and the battery running flat is precisely what you don’t want. Sharp hopes to combat flat-batt syndrome with a solar powered phone. The Sharp Solar phone has a large solar panel on the front which charges up the handset whenever it is out of your pocket. If that’s enough the phone is also waterproof, so its no big concern if you drop it in the sink while doing the washing up. A liquid paper display on the front shows you the intensity of the sun and how much juice its giving your phone. Don’t think a summer day is going to let you talk forever though as half an hours worth of sunshine equates to just two minutes of talk time.

3. Docomo T-01A or Toshiba TG01
A sort of gigantic version of the iPhone but running the horrendous Windows Mobile 6.1. The T-01A made by Toshiba has a 4.1″ display and a lightning fast Qualcomm 1ghz Snapdragon chipset. Thankfully Toshiba has designed their own interface for the phone which covers up the Windows Mobile misery. The handset itself is incredibly thin and lightweight, lightning fast and capable of matching a laptop in functionality terms. Bearing a dangerously close similarity to the iPhone but sporting all the capabilities of a normal Japanese handset, the T-01A could easily send a few shivers down the spines of Tokyo’s Apple store owners.

4. Emobile S22HT
Emobile is the definite Blackberry of Japan with the majority of its phones being targeted at businessmen and Windows Mobile users. Rather than going for the usual pocket-brick approach of the modern day smartphone, the S22HT is small and compact with a pop out keyboard. Weighing in at just 140 grams but with a powerful 528mhz processor it is in essence the smallest possible pocket PC. One thing of note is the design of this phone; it is seems to be two handsets stuck together, with a horrible white back and a sleek black front.

5. Sharp Aquos FullTouch 933SH
Sharp are a big deal out in Japan. Their mobile phones are the must-have accessory for Japanese youth. Most Sharp handsets have incredibly rich and high-contrast screens with high resolution cameras. The 933SH, however, is in a league of its own. It packs features more akin to a Digital SLR than a phone. The phone flips over to reveal a touch screen display and a massive 10 megapixel CCD camera with auto focus. Perhaps the most crazy thing about the camera is that it can hit 12800 iso sensitivity which is the sort of feature you would expect on a top of the range Nikon or Canon camera. Oh and if that wasn`t enough, you get 16gb of internal memory and an LED flash.

“It’s not important to be perfect here. It’s important to act, to move, to start the ball rolling,” the former president told reporters after the closed-door meeting, held on the cusp of Senate debate on intensely controversial legislation. The House cleared its version of the bill late Saturday night on a narrow, party-line vote of 220-215.

Clinton made an unusual visit to the party’s weekly closed-door caucus meeting at the invitation of Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has said he hopes the Senate can vote on a bill before the year is out.

Aides said Reid has yet to receive final information from the Congressional Budget Office on the costs and coverage implications of the still-secret legislation he submitted more than two weeks ago. As soon as he does, he intends to launch a historic debate on legislation to expand coverage to millions who lack it, crack down on insurance industry practices and curb the rise in health care spending nationally.

Several Democrats who attended the meeting with Clinton said the former president did not express an opinion on many of the controversial issues embedded in the health care debate. These range from calls for a government-run insurance option to the availability of abortion coverage in private and government insurance.

“He wasn’t asked that and he didn’t volunteer to solve Sen. Reid’s immediate problems,” said Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.

Instead, several Democrats said, Clinton told them that expanding health care is good policy, and at the same time the best politics.

“He did address it, essentially to say, ‘You’re going to do it, and then people are going to begin to see that none of the bad things people are talking about will come to pass,’” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., said the former president reflected on his own experience on the issue and told Democrats that “we got lost in the magnitude of the problem, and in search for a more perfect answer I lost the fight.”

Clinton’s attempt to enact nationwide health coverage collapsed in dramatic fashion in 1994 without ever coming to a vote in either house, and is widely cited as a contributing factor in the Democrats’ loss of control of Congress in that year’s midterm elections.

Republicans are attempting to stir echoes of that era, attacking various Democratic versions of the legislation as a government takeover of health care, and warning that moderate and conservative Democrats risk losing their seats if they vote for it.

Given the former president’s experience, he may have seemed like a curious choice to speak to the caucus. But Cardin told reporters Clinton has “great respect from every member of our caucus.” And his advice — not to get caught up in the details — is a message Reid and the White House hope rank-and-file Democrats will take to heart as they debate the complex legislation.

In the House, Democrats were torn for weeks over the design of a government coverage option, and once that was resolved, Speaker Nancy Pelosi had to confront a mini-rebellion among Hispanic lawmakers concerned with the bill’s treatment of illegal immigrants and a division over limitations on abortion.

Whenever Reid begins debate, Republicans say it will last for weeks if not months, calling the end-of-the-year timetable into question.

“We’re going to spend a number of weeks on this, reminiscent of important Senate debates in the recent past,” said the Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. “We spent four weeks on a farm bill last Congress. Eight weeks on energy in the last decade.”

There were political repercussions from the House vote.

Rep. Anh (Joseph) Cao, R-La., the only Republican to support the legislation, said some of his donors have asked for their money back and two of his fundraising events have been canceled.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., said he was disappointed by Cao’s vote, but he said he plans no political retaliation. Cao, a Vietnamese-American, represents a New Orleans-based district that is black, poor and overwhelmingly Democratic. He defeated William Jefferson last year after the veteran lawmaker was indicted on corruption charges.

The Tigard-Tualatin School District was in lockdown following the shooting at Legacy MetroLab, which was reported at 11:48 a.m.

“There were people running all over the place when the officers first responded,” Tualatin Police Chief Kent Barker. “It was pretty chaotic at first.”

One of the wounded was taken to Emanual Hospital, while the other was flown to Oregon Health & Science University hospital in Portland, police said. Their conditions were not available.

Witnesses said a woman in a bloodied lab coat ran into a nearby Subway sandwich shop after the shooting.

Alina Kurtavenao, who works at the Subway, said the woman had blood on a leg and on her forehead.

“She wasn’t crying, she wasn’t scared. I think she was in shock,” she said.

Other businesses in the area include a framing store, a bank and a locksmith. The office mall was evacuated when police arrived.

Legacy MetroLab conducts drug and alcohol testing for employers and others, according to company spokeswoman Kathleen Gorman.

“There were probably six people working there,” said Travis Bonser, a teller at a Chase Bank across the street. “It’s just a regular lab.”

With about 26,000 residents, Tualatin (pronounced Too-ALL-a-tin) is a middle-class community about 13 miles south of Portland. It is also the site of the practice facility for the Portland Trail Blazers.

“The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.

Funes said the possibility of alien life raises “many philosophical and theological implications” but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.

Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.

“Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe,” he told a news conference Tuesday. “There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe.”

Thirty scientists, including non-Catholics, from the U.S., France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Chile attended the conference, called to explore among other issues “whether sentient life forms exist on other worlds.”

Funes set the stage for the conference a year ago when he discussed the possibility of alien life in an interview given prominence in the Vatican’s daily newspaper.

The Church of Rome’s views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited.

Scientists have discovered hundreds of planets outside our solar system — including 32 new ones announced recently by the European Space Agency. Impey said the discovery of alien life may be only a few years away.

“If biology is not unique to the Earth, or life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound,” he said.

This is not the first time the Vatican has explored the issue of extraterrestrials: In 2005, its observatory brought together top researchers in the field for similar discussions.

In the interview last year, Funes told Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that believing the universe may host aliens, even intelligent ones, does not contradict a faith in God.

“How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Funes said in that interview.

“Just as there is a multitude of creatures on Earth, there could be other beings, even intelligent ones, created by God. This does not contradict our faith, because we cannot put limits on God’s creative freedom.”

Funes maintained that if intelligent beings were discovered, they would also be considered “part of creation.”

The Roman Catholic Church’s relationship with science has come a long way since Galileo was tried as a heretic in 1633 and forced to recant his finding that the Earth revolves around the sun. Church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

Today top clergy, including Funes, openly endorse scientific ideas like the Big Bang theory as a reasonable explanation for the creation of the universe. The theory says the universe began billions of years ago in the explosion of a single, super-dense point that contained all matter.

Earlier this year, the Vatican also sponsored a conference on evolution to mark the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species.”

The event snubbed proponents of alternative theories, like creationism and intelligent design, which see a higher being rather than the undirected process of natural selection behind the evolution of species.

Still, there are divisions on the issues within the Catholic Church and within other religions, with some favoring creationism or intelligent design that could make it difficult to accept the concept of alien life.

Working with scientists to explore fundamental questions that are of interest to religion is in line with the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI, who has made strengthening the relationship between faith and reason a key aspect of his papacy.

Recent popes have been working to overcome the accusation that the church was hostile to science — a reputation grounded in the Galileo affair.

In 1992, Pope John Paul II declared the ruling against the astronomer was an error resulting from “tragic mutual incomprehension.”

The Vatican Museums opened an exhibit last month marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first celestial observations.

Tommaso Maccacaro, president of Italy’s national institute of astrophysics, said at the exhibit’s Oct. 13 opening that astronomy has had a major impact on the way we perceive ourselves.

“It was astronomical observations that let us understand that Earth (and man) don’t have a privileged position or role in the universe,” he said. “I ask myself what tools will we use in the next 400 years, and I ask what revolutions of understanding they’ll bring about, like resolving the mystery of our apparent cosmic solitude.”

The Vatican Observatory has also been at the forefront of efforts to bridge the gap between religion and science. Its scientist-clerics have generated top-notch research and its meteorite collection is considered one of the world’s best.

The observatory, founded by Pope Leo XIII in 1891, is based in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside town in the hills outside Rome where the pope has his summer residence. It also conducts research at an observatory at the University of Arizona, in Tucson.

Addressing a hushed crowd of thousands of soldiers Tuesday, the president spoke forcefully if indirectly of the alleged shooter’s motives in last week’s massacre, never mentioning Maj. Nidal Hasan by name.

“It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy,” Obama said. “But this much we do know: No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts.”

It was an apparent reference to reports that Hasan had communicated with a radical Islamic imam. A vast investigation is under way, including questions about what the government knew about Hasan and whether action should have been taken.

The president’s remarks at a memorial service were personal, more about how the victims lived than how they died: the Eagle scout, the newlywed, the expectant mother, the soldier eager to catch Osama bin Laden by herself. The president spent more time meeting privately with the wounded and with loved ones of those killed than speaking in public.

His tone stern, Obama pledged to the crowd that “the killer will be met with justice — in this world, and the next.”

On a steamy Texas day, Obama stepped into a scene filled with military resolve and tender moments. Soldiers helped wounded friends to their seats. A little girl in a black dress and shiny shoes clutched her mother’s hand as hurting families streamed in.

Thousands upon thousands gathered on a field for the ceremony. Right below the stage was a traditional military tribute to the fallen — 13 pairs of combat boots, each with an inverted rifle topped with a helmet. A picture of each person rested below the boots.

Riflemen fired a last salute. A bugler played taps.

After the ceremony, Obama walked solemnly along the row of boots, placing a commander-in-chief’s coin next to each victim’s photo in tribute.

Then soldiers and loved ones traced the same path to remember those lost and give a final salute, one woman nearly collapsing with grief.

Even as Obama honored the dead, there was fingerpointing back in Washington about what the military knew of Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, before the shooting rampage.

Two U.S. officials said a Washington-based joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI was notified of communications between Hasan and a radical imam overseas and the information was turned over to a Defense Criminal Investigative Service employee assigned to the group. But a military official denied prior knowledge of the Army psychiatrist’s contacts with any Muslim extremists.

All of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the case on the record.

In Texas, one soldier who attended the memorial said the mood at Fort Hood was turning from sadness to anger as soldiers learned more about Hasan’s background.

“A lot of folks are angry because they feel this could have been prevented,” said Spc. Brian Hill, a 25-year-old soldier from Nashville, Tenn., who was injured in Iraq and walks with a cane. “Somebody should have been paying attention.”

Obama, in his public remarks, spoke of the tranquility and liberty enjoyed by most Americans, and said the 13 fallen gave their lives for it.

“That is their legacy,” he said.

As much as the president made the moment about the gunman’s victims, the ceremony also was about him. Presidents inevitably must take the lead in times of tragedy, and this was Obama’s moment to offer himself as consoler in chief.

The president worked through several drafts of his speech, including three on the Air Force One flight down to Texas. He viewed the personal stories as the most important part of the speech, a senior aide said.

About the victims and the soldiers who rushed to help them, Obama said, “We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes.”

Obama and first lady Michelle Obama devoted considerable time to three private meetings with those affected by the shooting rampage, meeting first with families of those killed, then with some of those wounded and their families, and later with those still hospitalized.

“Just the president being here was a great morale booster to show the country he was here for the families,” said Ronald Fiveash, a sailor whose brother was shot four times but survived.

Sheila Wormuth, whose husband is stationed at Fort Hood, came with her 3-year-old daughter to show their support. While her husband wasn’t at the shooting site, she said, “what happens to my husband’s brothers and sisters happens to us.”

Bonita Childs, 46, drove 30 miles to attend the ceremony, even though she had no connection to Fort Hood.

“I thought coming here today and showing my gratitude was the least I could do,” she said.

In a memorial offered in deeply personal terms, Obama spoke every victim’s name and told of their lives.

“These men and women came from all parts of the country,” Obama said. “Some had long careers in the military. Some had signed up to serve in the shadow of 9/11. Some had known intense combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some cared for those did. Their lives speak to the strength, the dignity and the decency of those who serve, and that is how they will be remembered.”

There are currently other libraries available that allow Facebook developers to develop with other technologies, such as JavaScript, PHP, ActionScript, and the iPhone. There are a variety of others as well, which can be seen here, but these are the ones that Facebook officially provides support for.

Microsoft, as you may remember, invested $240 million in Facebook back in October 2007. Many called this move more of a strategic play to keep Google and Yahoo from getting a stake in the company. The release of this SDK is a part of Facebook and Microsoft’s ongoing partnership.

If you’re interested in taking a look, you can download the SDK here.