After the woman’s jaw was infected, and effectively ruined by osteomyelitis, technicians at the University of Hasselt in Belgium built her a new one with their highly-advanced 3D printer. The team loaded the 3D printer with finely-ground titanium powder, and formed a jawbone to her specifications; a jawbone as good as the woman’s original. 3D-printed bone-replacement parts like this one are created by feeding information from MRIs and X-Rays into high-caliber 3D printing machines.

“This is a world premiere, the first time a patient specific implant has replaced the entire lower jaw,” says Jules Poukens, a lead researcher at the University of Hasselt. “It’s a cautious, but firm step.”

The experimental bone replacement project expanded on a similar operation in Finland in 2008 — where they replaced a man’s natural jawbone with a 3D-printed titanium partial upper jawbone.

The Belgian woman’s surgery took just 4 hours to completely replace her jaw, after which she regained near-full use of her face — thanks to a bio-compatible ceramic layer, muscular attachments and detailed shaping that allows mandibular nerves to pass through the jawbone. The jawbone even had places carved out for cavities and dimples.

“Shortly after waking up from the anesthetic the patient spoke a few words, and the day after was able to speak and swallow normally again,” says Poukens.

The technology gets even cooler than simply using 3D printers to print bone replacements though. The titanium scaffolding was marinated in stem cells (guess that technology isn’t coming to America any time soon).

Forgive my geeky side, but I am pretty sure this technology and surgery means that an 83-year-old Belgian woman is now officially The Terminator, replacing the Austrian-born Arnold Schwarzenegger as the world’s most bad-ass cyborg. Next step: Adamantium body parts to create real-world Wolverines.

The bone-replacement technology is already being investigated for use in other body part replacements, including: fingers, thumbs, dental implants, (other) facial reconstruction and spine-bone implants.

The team hopes that the technology can be used in the future to print skin grafts and build-up entire organs (by layering cells onto a 3D-printed organ frame) since 3D printers can now layer materials that are only micrometers thick.
“It’s only the start” says project-funder Layerwise’s managing director Peter Mercelis.

Patient specific implants can potentially be applied on a much wider scale than transplantation of human bone structures.

Or you can watch the video below to quickly understand the new Google Privacy Policy.

Do you think it’s handy? Or do you think it’s a menace? Well, it’s a fusion of both. While sites like YouTube will automatically load video suggestions based on your chats in GTalk, you might also get suggestions that are irrelevant to you just because of certain chats you’ve done. Now that not many people (including Microsoft) like this security breach even if it’s done by the so called Don of the Web, we will discuss certain ways on how to make yourself opaque to Google.

Google’s Dashboard

Ad Preferences

Alternatively, you can view the categories which Google has tied to your web activity and also modify any of them using an opt-out option. Additionally, you can permanently opt-out with the Advertising opt-out Plugin.

Disable Cookies

Go to browser options/settings and permanently disable cookies.

Minus the +1

Google +1 is the best example to prove the verses “Much Ado About Nothing”. Google +1 has been more trouble than it’s worth. If you too feel the same then de-personalize Google +1 therefore the non-google sites you +1ed will not be visible to others.

Google Analytics

Many non Google websites use this to know how many users are viewing their site. Inadvertently, Google too unearths these details and might store it. To avoid this you may add-on certain plug-ins which may restrict Google to know from where you have been.

These are few measures to block your personal information from being shared among 60+ Google Websites. However, we might not get a clear view of how much harm or how much yield we are going to get through the Google’s New Privacy Policy until it is launched. How to de-personalize your Google experience is an article by Digital Tech’s Molly McHugh which gives more information about restricting Google from finding all your information.

Google might be the mightiest company of the Web, but am not interested in having dealings with a website that is going to share all your personal information. Especially I don’t want my personal interests to pop up or be loaded while I search for important work stuff. Although we can maintain different accounts for personal and professional needs, still the new policy of Google is kind of breech to our personal security.

If you too are in the same lines as mine feel free to share your views on the Google’s new privacy policy and the ways to stop it from viewing our personal information.

What has given SOPA an impetus is the ability of intellectual property owners, such as movie studios and record labels. They now have an effective control on foreign sites against which they have a copyright claim. For example, if Warner Bros would claim that a site in Italy is perturbing a copy of The Dark Knight, the studio could make the following demands:

• That Google remove that site from its search results.
• That PayPal may no longer accept payments to and from that site.
• That Ad services pull out ads and finances from it
• That the site’s ISP would avert people from going there.

The most infuriating thing about SOPA is that, in its original structure, it permits IP owners to take these actions devoid of a single court appearance or judicial sign-off. It only needs a single letter claiming that the target site has violated its content. Once the notice is sent to Google or PayPal or whoever, the recipient would have five days to either abide or to challenge the claim in court. Right Holders still have the authority to demand that sort of blockade, but in the most recent version of the bill, the five day window has diminished and companies at present would need the court’s permission. In addition, the language in SOPA entails that it is directly aimed at foreign offenders. It centers on cutting off sources that finance the websites, instead of directly attacking a targeted site, based out of the US legal jurisdiction.

In reaction to this, a group of technology companies began an atypical form of protest. The forms shut down or replaced the content on their own popular web sites with protest messages to demonstrate their discontent with the two Internet Regulation bills grinding through Congress. One was SOPA and the other one was Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA); Both similar to each other. Both these acts are targeted to attack the problem of foreign Websites that sell pirated or forged possessions. They would oblige restrictions, forcing US companies to discontinue selling online ads to alleged pirates, barring the payments, for illegal online sales and refusing to list Web sites suspected of piracy in search engine results.

The tech tycoons argue that the bills would make them compel to huge regulatory costs and asphyxiate innovation over the Web. So there was no Wikipedia, no Reddit – a hub of links to stories and funny pictures, that attract millions a day and no I Can Has Cheezburger-the world’s best known collection of funny cat pictures. Even tycoons like Twitter, Google and Wikipedia came together by using their massive reach into Americans lives to get support from online users. In this fight they were placed against giants like Hollywood and the recording industry.

Since many years, The Unites States government has been undergoing a great deal of pressure from the entertainment and computer software publishing companies. They have been desperately trying to find a method of stopping online piracy that lets people to own copies for free. It is only reasonable that nobody would want someone else to own something they have worked hard on for free by disrespectfully attaining access to it. Tech tycoons such as Mozilla and Google who initially supported the bills, are now trying to ensure that they never get passed as they believe it is potentially creating a blacklist.

So what did SOPA lead to? January 18, 2012 was the largest online protest to stop internet censorship bills. Tech companies and users unanimously protested to defend their freedom. The network rebelled itself. On January 20th Congress shelved the bills until further notice. The final outcome is far from being resolved. But, the Web certainly does not like to be interfered with.

Let us find useful ways to build online community especially for startups;

Appropriate Platform

Select the most appropriate platform to reach your customers. If some discussions are already happening about your products on a platform like Facebook then you can involve more in those discussions. You should ensure that ‘Facebook Page’ reflects up-to-date information and talks about new launches, etc. It is right opportunity for you to add the required material and facts and figures to convince or substantiate the effectiveness of your products and services. You can reply user’s queries and ask for more questions. If you are doing well at one platform gradually you can extend to another affective platform.

Engagement

Engage your audience or customers. This is very much important. As your concern is in the initial stages of growth, you should listen to the requirements of your customers. If you are able to satisfy existing customers, satisfied customers will bring in more numbers of new customers. You should respond to the comment placed by a visitor on your blog. You should reach audience in various locations like forums and discussion groups. Instead of expecting a sudden surge of visitors you should be able to serve the needs of existing customers. With consistent engagement with customers, you will be able to remove the drawbacks of your products and launch better products in future which will invite many more new customers. By engaging customers in proper way, you can build community that will add-up on a continuous basis.

Socialization

You should offer users ways and means to socialize. There should be an option to subscribe to your newsletter. You can offer multiple ways to connect with customers. Connectivity icons of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. should be easily accessible on your site. They should be placed in the most prominent location so that icons can be easily noticed by users. You should offer links that can be shared by users’ friends. You should also expand your presence on social bookmarking sites. These sites will draw lot of traffic as they create authority on your product.

Quality over Quantity

You should focus on quality in every aspect. You should deliver the best product. The product should be optimized as per the changing times and lifestyles. A lack of one single simple feature can make a very big difference. Hence, you should be in the forefront of adaptation of technology and grasp things from the market. In addition to the product quality and quality of service, you should also implant quality conscious customers who will promote or rather advocate your products.

Quantification

At the end of the day, what you obtain from all your inputs will matter your business. You should have access to data that pertain to different aspects of business. By quantifying the results you should be able to know in which direction your business is going. You will be able to find the returns on investments. The quality community build over the years will attract many new visitors.

Igarashi’s (they will have to come up with a more marketable name for them-ya know, like the Empire would) new concept are universal earphones that are smart enough to compensate for incorrect ear insertion by switching audio channels. So if you put your ear bud in the wrong ear (which happens daily with my iPod thanks to those too damned small little white ear buds), it will auto-correct you.

By placing small proximity sensors in their earphones, they can easily determine incorrect placement by searching their surroundings. If it sits closely next to the back of your ear, it is in correct, but if it points forward, toward the fresh air, then it detects a mismatch and swaps audio circuits.

This of course is minor news for the audiophile community, but the potential purposes these proximity-sensored earphones are proving quite handy indeed.

The Sharing-with-a-friend Conundrum

In-Ear Detection and Split-Track-Playing in our Future

In addition to changing the audio output depending on the earbuds placement, the group has announced that they plan to move forward with additional earphone features, including using skin-conductance sensors and using the proximity sensors for shared-use detection.

Shared-used detection would pump different music into each bud for split-user listeners, using the unit’s proximity sensors and current disruption patterns. The group’s idea for conductance sensor use could allow earphones to recognize when they are removed from the ear, and could transmit a signal to audio players to automatically pause/resume the music when removed/reinserted in the ears.

All this might be small news overall to the audio-technology field—but as far as earbuds go, this is the greatest leap forward in their technology since their invention.

Twitter Bootstrap is a Simple and flexible HTML, CSS, and Javascript for popular user interface components and interactions.

Bootstrap is powered by LessCSS. For those more comfortable with Sass, I did the Sass version of Twitter Bootstrap v2.0.0 sometime back. It’s got both the SASS and SCSS syntax.

→ Get the Sass version of Twitter Bootstrap v2.0.0.

EGL is not just another language. The philosophy behind was to build up a new platform without implying to learn a new language. EGL has many great features like Source editing, Visual Editing, Rich Widget Library, Debugging, IDE Test Server, Database Access, Web services and Batch Programs.

As stated by Eclipse on the web, some of the features that make EGL different are:

• Common language, syntax and programming model across all parts of the application, regardless of where the code is deployed.
• Leverages proven, existing platforms such as web browsers and Java VMs and technologies such as Dojo, ExtJS, Java JPA by assembling into efficient, lower level code.
• Complements, does not replace existing technologies and existing infrastructure investments.
• Proven technology that is used by hundreds of enterprise customers all over the world.
• Extensible compiler and code generation framework that supports adaptation to the unique needs to specific developer communities and changing requirements.

What can you do with EGL?

The current set of Eclipse EGL tools (delivered in the 0.7.0 release) are focused on simplifying the development of web solutions. With these tools one can:

• Visually construct modern rich applications that run in all popular web browsers, utilizing Dojo and other standard HTML widgets.
• Integrate with existing JSON and XML-based web services.
• Create web services that perform business logic and interface with relational databases.
• Test and debug end-to-end (browser to server) across the entire solution without needing to configure or deploy to a server.
• Deploy to a local Java application server (like Apache Tomcat) and export as a standard Java web archive (WAR).

There are 4 project templates given on the official Eclipse EDT team blog to kick-start new projects:

• Basic – for developing EGL programs, services, and libraries.
• Web 2.0 Client – for developing rich web applications that use existing web services.
• Web 2.0 Client with Services – for developing rich web applications and new web services.
• Hello World – an example project that contains rich web application and service.

EGL is repeatedly illustrated as a 4GL. When EGL was only accessible in the context of IBM products and was a closed black box this view was reasonable. Nevertheless, the existing Eclipse operation is not just the repeat of that closed system in an open source arena. It is an entirely comprehensive and extensible framework for articulating domain specific concepts in a programming lingo, mutually with an extensible compiler / code generation framework. Being the programming language itself, EGL provides a syntax and compiler for producing and validating instances of the EGL meta model. The real deal is in the code generators that read these models to produce code.

In addition to that, any code generator can be extended to include new programming model elements, or modify existing code generation patterns without disturbing the original generator. For example an extended generator would be one that was constructed upon the base Java generator, but was extended to understand how to map user interface application concepts to an Anroid runtime framework. New generators can be written to aim for runtimes that may not subsist today. For example, a new generator would be one that targets an Objective C runtime instead of Java or Javascript.

IBM’s resolution to make the most out of its EGL tooling source, did not come as a bombshell to any person who has followed IBM’s action over the last few years as it relates to the a high level Enterprise Generation Language, that outputs Enterprise Java, Java Script, HTML and other Web Oriented languages. In a nutshell, EGL is a higher level, universal application development language. This tool is constructed on the free EGL community Edition software that IBM plant in 2008. It gives IBM i shops another option for developing rich Web applications that run on the IBM i operating system that can access RPG logic.

For sure, this is Big Blue’s Big Bang!

If you want the gist of the new Privacy Policy as stated by Google, here is the video.

Google’s new privacy policy, or rather anti-privacy policy changes their privacy paradigm from one of informed, optional consent to obligatory subjugation. The new policy forces their users to consent to Google collecting their personal information, across all of its myriad of services (including: Gmail, YouTube, Google+, Google Calendar, Google Wallet, Google Maps, Google Reader, Google search and viewing history, Google-based Android apps, and all other current and future Google services). The only way for users to opt out will be to permanently delete, one-by-one, their Google-owned profiles.

Google has been doing this for some time with Gmail but never before have they forced their users to comply, nor have they created service-wide profiles based on every service that they offer. Many are concerned that as the cloud-based computing trend builds more and more user information will be added to Google servers. Another concern will be with the increasing popularity of their latest foray into social networking, Google+, if that takes off then entire social profiles could be sold to the highest bidder.

The information Google will soon be compiling on their users will be cached and stored in a centralized location where detailed user profiles are created. User profiles will then be integrated into their search and advertising services to offer their advertisers highly-targeted opportunities, based on intrusive user data.

Google representative, and policy manager, Betsy Masiello, released a statement skirting around the issue of how Google will use this data and instead focused on the new policy’s effect on user experiences. “We’re not collecting more data about you. Our new policy simply makes it clear that we use data to refine and improve your experience on Google,” wrote Masiello. “We’re making things simpler and we’re trying to be upfront about it. Period.”

This move, regardless of ‘spin’, may violate the consent agreement that Google struck with the FTC wherein they agreed that Google could not sell user information to third parties without their optional consent.

This agreement was originally prompted by the FTC when Google attempted to use Gmail user data to launch Google Buzz, a now defunct social networking site added to the Google social graveyard. Inability to add their Gmail users to their social networking sites may very well have been a significant contributor to Google Buzz’s failure.

Privacy community supporters have already called the policy illegal according to Google’s FTC agreement, an agreement explicitly forbidding Google to force its users into new services–even ‘user enhancement’ services. Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Marc Rotenberg, put forward that, “Google is not allowed, under the settlement, to opt users in. If Google goes forward, they may be hit with serious monetary penalties.”

Google has defended the move saying that under their new privacy policy users will give tacit consent, and despite the fact that they will mine significantly more user information they will still not be releasing or selling it to any third parties–thereby not violating the spirit of the consent agreement with the FTC.

Leading privacy lawmaker, Representative Edward Markey, has announced a probe into how exactly Google is mining and using its consumer data. Markey, who has a strong reputation upholding American privacy rights, is one of eight representatives (Republican signatories include:Cliff Stearns, Joe Barton and Marsha Blackburn, and Democratic signatories are: Markey, Henry Waxman, Dianne DeGette, G.K. Butterfield, and Jackie Speier) sending a letter to Google to probe into the matter—before requesting an FTC investigation. “While Google suggests that the purpose of this shift in policy is to make the consumer experience simpler, we want to make sure it does not make protecting consumer privacy more complicated,” wrote the representatives in their letter to Google’s Larry Page.

Apart from the other seven representatives, Markey plans to pursue the matter personally, “I plan to ask the Federal Trade Commission whether Google’s planned changes to its privacy policy violate Google’s recent settlement with the agency.”

Thankfully privacy advocate groups and lawmakers are investigating (and hopefully appealing) the matter, since Google users have no choice in the matter.

“Social media has become a primary source of intelligence because it has become the premier first response to key events and the primal alert to possible developing situations,” wrote the FBI in their RFI.

The FBI quietly released a Request for Information (RFI) to the app-building public, looking for apps to monitor Facebook and Twitter—apps to “enhance [the FBI's] techniques for collecting and sharing ‘open source’ actionable intelligence.” Private-sector contractors have until February 10 to submit their theoretical app proposals, which the FBI will turn into a secure, light-weight social network monitoring system for their Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC). “The application must have the ability to rapidly assemble critical open source information and intelligence that will allow SIOC to quickly vet, identify, and geo-locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats”, wrote the FBI in their RFI.

The network-monitoring solutions must be able to monitor real-time information in addition to caching info for later use, link to specific global locations, and have easy-to-access information.

Proposed apps must capable of integrating into their existing social network-monitoring grid and have the ability to create “spot reports” that quickly summarize the who, what, when and where of identified incidents and threats. The geo-coordinates of the reported spy and terrorist threats must be included, so they can build a geo-political map of terrorist suspects around the world.

The information gathered on the network would need to be searchable via trending keywords as well as a myriad of other varying parameters. Apps would also have to offer powerful analytical tools, as well as quickly translate data into English.

The FBI asserted that intend to use this new network to monitor “publicly available” and “open source” information only, however many suspect the network will monitor far more than that given that US law enforcement agencies have subpoenaed both Twitter and Facebook on numerous occasions to access private user data in order to build legal cases (or detain suspects without a legal case via the Patriot Act and the new 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.

The nation-wide prescription drug ring sting setup by US authorities built websites designed to offer illicit pharmaceutical products, and then purchased ads on Google — implicating the company, and several of its high-level executives who purportedly knew about the drug fraud. The Mexican-pharmaceutical-product selling websites were openly accepted by Google into their online advertising platform.

The US Attorney’s office reported that senior Google execs, including Larry Page, “knew about the illicit conduct” but didn’t pull the ads—thereby implicating them in nation-wide criminal drug activity.

In 2009 the feds approached Google about their participation in the sale of illegal pharmaceuticals, and after two long years of negotiation Google finally bought their way out of criminal charges with a $500-million settlement. You may have read this in 2011 when it originally broke, but further details about it were released recently, including the use of David Whitaker — a 6-year term convicted felon — in order to nail Google.

Whitaker made a deal with the feds for a reduced sentence, agreeing to be recruited into the sting operation where he set up websites designed to skirt around Google’s illicit-pharmaceutical-blocking policies. Whitaker was able, under the expert tutelage of Google sales reps, to skirt company policies and advertise his illicit-pharmaceutical websites, simply by tweaking the sites.

“It was very obvious to Google that my website was not a licensed pharmacy,” Whitaker said in an after-the-fact interview. “Understanding this, Google provided me with a very generous credit line and allowed me to set my target advertising directly to American consumers.”

Whitaker’s series of sting sites were set up with super-obvious domain names like SportsDrugs .net and NotGrowingOldEasy .com — all of which offered drugs like HGH, steroids, RU-486, oxycodone and hydrocodone to American customers without the necessary prescription.

This isn’t the first time Google has been implicated in selling ads to less-than-legit websites, they have prior offenses that include profiting from ads space sold to copyright-infringing websites. Years ago however, Google did sever ties with one illegitimate copyright offender though, the recently-indited copyright-infringing Megaupload.com — whose owners, by contrast, were not offered the opportunity of buying their freedom. This is an interesting fact given that Google’s settlement was $500 million, while Megaupload earned less than half that during their entire time selling copyright-infringing subscriptions. You have to wonder what Google did to earn such brownie points with the federal attorney’s office.