Today’s guest post comes from Jose Sepulveda. Jose is a photography and tech enthusiast. You can keep up with what he’s up to at Click-Whirl and on Twitter.

With all the bad press 3-D Printing has been getting the past few weeks because of the printable gun, its nice to hear about the good things the technology can bring. According to Doctors at the University of Michigan, a bioresorbable Tracheal splint has successfully been created and implanted into an infant with tracheobronchomalacia. The Splint was created with the use of a 3-D printer and made from a biopolymer called polycaprolactone. The material will slowly dissolve and be reabsorbed by the body in three years as the infant grows. Its hoped that the childs bronchial tube will be remain open on its own after it has dissolved.

“The material we used is a nice choice for this. It takes about two to three years for the trachea to remodel and grow into a healthy

state, and that’s about how long this material will take to dissolve into the body,” – Dr. Scott J. Hollister, Ph.D. University of Michigan

The device was created directly from a CT scan of the infants bronchus, using an image-based computer model with laser-based 3D printing to produce the splint.

Even though we are just hearing about this splint today because of an article in The New England Journal of Medicine, the stint was placed in the infant, around its airway in February of 2012. Thankfully the infant is well and no longer has difficulty breathing. The doctors are already looking into further uses of the technology, such as building specific ear and nose structures. They have also rebuild bones in pre-clinical models.

It’s fantastic to find out all the incredible uses this technology has to offer. I for one am eager to see further use of this technology and to see what it really has to offer.

Check out the video below from the University of Michigan’s Health System’s YouTube Channel:

Billion-dollar acquisitions; now in .GIF format.

It’s not every day that one of Web 1.0′s largest players buys up another company in an all cash deal, but with one looping .GIF, Yahoo announced that its board had given the okay to buy up Tumblr for $1.1 billion. Cash. For those of you keeping score at home, that figure is roughly a fifth of Yahoo’s total available cash!

To compliment the GIF, Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, added the following:

We promise not to screw it up.  Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going.  We will operate Tumblr independently.

Yahoo has been on a buying spree as of late and though the actual amount of revenue that Tumblr brings in is a well kept secret (Tumblr is a privately held company and does not have to release financial data), the buy shows that Yahoo is serious about being your content distributor for all things internet. Going by last month’s earnings call, it appears that Mayer’s long-term vision for Yahoo involves keeping eyeballs on Yahoo even when pointing you somewhere else.

WHAT WOULD GOOGLE DO

Though many financial watchers seem at best perplexed and at worst outright cynical about Yahoo’s acquisition, it is in fact the very thing that Google has done well. By absorbing Tumblr, Yahoo hopes to gain traction in a younger demographic that has long been out of its reach. Let’s face it, most of us remember Yahoo as the original web search that Google killed; and judging by user-stats, if you’re on Tumblr you probably don’t remember a world where Google wasn’t king of the hill.

Mayer knows that Tumblr may be the only way to gain back some advertiser interest as it faces its next big competitor: Facebook. Even Google is cautious of Facebook’s stabs at being the webs largest content portal. After all, we aren’t paying for these services, we are probably their product. Tumblr is one of the few avenues for Yahoo to establish a significant presence to woo ad dollars. Google has Google Plus and the litany of free services to offer; now Yahoo has a connected social network of its own.

IS IT WORTH THE RISK

The truth is there’s no way of knowing ahead of time whether or not Mayer made the right decision in putting up a fifth of the company’s cash to buy Tumblr – a company that could not find a way to monetize on its own; and in that failure is an opportunity for two companies to create a mutually beneficial relationship and at least give them a fighting chance. By themselves, Tumblr would probably not find enough interest to continue to be the home to the internet’s vault of animated GIFs (note: Link takes you to a Tumblr search for “animated gifs” may be NSFW) and Yahoo would find itself feebly a current of fleeing users in their curated garden.

She was the only one out of innumerable victims.

Left with no memories and mechanical limbs, the woman dubbed ‘Lady Mechanika’ by the press uses her talents to pursue a career as a private detective, solving crimes others cannot in a turn of the century world where magic and science exist side-by-side while searching the world for her identity.
Written and illustrated by Joe Benitz, colored by Peter Steigerwald, Lady Mechanika is one of the best independently produced books today.

It is Steampunk done right. The artwork you see on these covers is the same quality as the artwork inside., which is probably one of the reasons why this title began in 2010 and is only on issue #3.

And it is worth the wait.

Within the last week, Joe Benitez announced, on the Lady Mechanika Facebook page, that they are shooting for a San Diego Comic Con release of issue #4.

So, one way or the other, within the next few months, we will get the next chapter.

Issues #0 – 3, and the Collected (#0 and #1) are extremely hard to find, though it is possible, and, if you have the inclination, they are available electronically on at least the Kindle. For those who do not like long waiting periods between issues, there is talk of a trade edition collecting all the issues, 1 through 5, when #5 is published.

If there is a book that made me ‘giddy’, it is this one and I cannot recommend it more, especially to those who are fans of Steampunk.

For those lucky enough to be in the area, Joe will be attending the Big Wow Comicfest this weekend, May 18-19, in San Jose.  http://www.bigwowcomicfest.com/

Hit the source link below for Joe Benitez’s official homepage and be sure to check out the Lady Mechanika Facebook Page as well.

Image via www.WPCentral.com

There have been plenty rumors of a new Lumia handset making its way to consumers in the coming months. The general consensus seems to be a change in design language, opting for an aluminum case instead of the now signature polycarbonate unibody design.

According to a report from The Verge, the rumored phone, (pictured at a left) code named “Catwalk”, may be officially announced at an event in London on May 14th. The timing may be more of Nokia’s guerrilla style PR – the event is scheduled for the day before Google’s I/O conference is set to open – hoping to steal the spotlight away from their competitors.

As far as the rumored device itself, the phone seems to be a decent enough upgrade from the Lumia 920 with a 4.5″ display, 1.5GHz dual-core processor, and 8.7MP camera with LED flash all wrapped up in a cleaner (read less bulky) and lighter aluminum casing. In fact if we had to point at something we didn’t like in the rumored spec-sheet, it would have to be the paltry 16GB internal storage (for reference, the 920 comes with 32GB).

We’ll have our eyes on London come mid May. Nokia, don’t disappoint.

AllThingsD has confirmed that both Sprint and T-Mobile are delaying their retail dates for the Samsung flagship device citing inventory delays. It appears that neither Sprint or T-Mobile will be able to stock their retail operations in time for the official Saturday release of the next gen Galaxy S but AT&T has confirmed in-store availability. If you’re on the 3rd and 4th place carriers in the U.S., chances are that the delay is a little disappointing to say the least.

In an effort to get in front of some possible bad press, Samsung released a statement indicating that the inventory shortages are “due to overwhelming global demand of Galaxy S4,” though we’ll take that with a grain of salt after Samsung’s J.K. Shin admitted to CNET that a prior omission of the Exynos5 octa-core processor in Galaxy S4s to be sold in the U.K. and U.S. was in large part due to component sourcing issues.

Is a new Galaxy S 4 in your future; let us know in the comments.

A PureView Lumia headed to Verizon?

Earlier today, a leak featuring the Nokia Lumia 928 made its rounds on the internet – the often reported on Lumia flagship has long been known to be headed to Verizon customers but what appears on the leaked image may well have made the wait worthwhile. According to the post in BGR.com, the images leaked on Twitter by user @evleaks show the same bulky Nokia we’ve come to know and love plus a Carl Zeiss optics and  PureView camera!

The PureView camera will be a welcomed addition if this leak ends up being true; considering the source of the leak and their current track record, we’re saying that this may very well be a possibility.

In Cargo, it is a post-apocalyptic world besieged by a zombie infestation, where a father struggles to survive long enough to see his most precious gift to safety, his infant daughter.
Directed by Ben Howling and Yolanda Ramke and clocking in at 7:05, Cargo is one of the most emotionally powerful films you will watch all year.

Or, if you need to watch it on vimeo it is available here.

via http://www.worldometers.info/

It’s no secret that this world has a finite number of natural resources. Everything we consume that we don’t put back is gone for good. Somethings take longer than others to exhaust and that makes understanding conservancy a vague proposition for many.

One of these items is oil – that black stuff that helps power cars, homes, industry, and yes, even the economy – is one of these finite resources that we’ve long been dependent on and show no sign of weening off of. Part of the problem is the seemingly never ending supply that we have access to, but according to the number crunchers at Worldometers.info, it seems we’ll be all out of juice within the next 40-or-so years.

Worldometers is a collective of developers, researchers, and volunteers that are pulling various statistical information and turning those numbers into one of the scariest, yet simple to read bits of information. The data is broken down and categorized into everything from Energy (like the Oil question) to Social Media and just about anything in between. Worldometers is not affiliated with any government agency or think tank and is therefore party-neutral; a pretty important thing to be when presenting information on topics that are politically polarizing.

Check out some other facts and win a few bar bets by hitting the source link below.

Screenshot via AndroidPolice.com

For the last few weeks, Facebook had been rumored to be making a big April announcement. Now with just a few days before the big reveal, the good folks at AndroidPolice seem to have gotten their hands on the APK of the upcoming Facebook phone. The short version of this story goes something like this – Another subpar-to-mediocre Facebook phone (helloooo HTC Status) by HTC. It doesn’t look good for HTC as it’s struggling with both consumer and supplier identity issues.

Based on the teardown, we can assess the following: 1. Facebook Home is nothing more than a phone specific launcher that will ship with an as yet unofficial HTC phone. 2. It’s spec sheet read like a decidedly middle of the road handset running HTC’s Sense 4.5. In terms of hardware, the new Facebook phone appears under the code name “MYST UL;”  sporting a dual-core processor, 4.3-inch screen at 720p resolution, 5MP rear camera and 1.6MP front-facing camera, 1GB RAM, running on top of Android 4.1.2. For a phone that’s been in development since 2011, it reads like a phone that’s about a year and some change out of date.

As the embattled HTC looks to gain back some of their mobile mind-share with the HTC One, the “MYST UL” may be the death knell for the once premiere Android manufacturer.

Hit the source link below for the full teardown.

Early in 2012 Microsoft broke many hearts when they announced that current Windows Phone 7 users would not be able to upgrade to the new hotness, Windows Phone 8. As a consolation prize, the Windows Phone faithful would get an update, version 7.8, that would bring some of Windows Phone 8′s features like the new start screen, Bing wallpapers, and more color themes. Many, this author included, felt they were getting the short end of the stick.

To make matters worse, Microsoft left it up to manufacturers and carriers to decide whether they would push this update at all. As Android users are all too familiar, this meant that there are tons of people not getting this update. My phone, an HTC Radar 4G on T-Mobile USA, was left in limbo by both HTC and T-Mobile with the standard “we’re not looking into updates at this time” response.

Thankfully there are many in the Windows Phone community that aren’t taking this lying down and the necessary files for the update are obtainable and installable on just about any Windows Phone 7 device. As a full-time dad with no time to spare this is not really ideal, so in comes the Seven-Eighter tool by Windows Phone Hacker. This tool allows you to force the 7.8 update (and previous updates as necessary) on to your Windows Phone 7 phone. And it is thanks to this tool that I can personally share my experience with Windows Phone 7.8.

The most obvious new feature is the updated Windows Phone 8-like start screen. I was skeptical at first, and thought this was no big deal. I’m happy to say that I was totally wrong about this. The different sized tiles add function to the start screen and allow you to more easily access apps and info without having to dig through the app list. I now have all of my email accounts on my start screen in an area that takes up just 1 1/2 tiles, where before this would have taken up 6 whole tiles. Another nice touch was the fact that a tile’s location can be switched with the one/ones next to it rather than being forced to start a new row with the first app, moving the app you want to switch places with to the new row, place the first app where you want it and then put second app in the place of the first. This is all nothing new to Windows Phone 8 users but to us outdated folks this is simply amazing. Maybe I’m easily impressed but this has certainly made me feel more productive.

It’s also fortunate that many developers are still actively supporting the Windows Phone 7 community. Apps ranging from small developers like Rowi and Note+ to big-name developers like Twitter have updated their app tiles to look good at the smaller/larger tile sizes. So, in some way you’re not missing out too much  if you’re stuck on a contract with a Windows Phone 7 device. Thanks to the dedicated developer community, the 7.8 update should make waiting the extra year or so to upgrade much easier.

The other major feature, at least for this user, is the additional color themes. I never felt the original colors looked “right”, but new colors like cobalt and indigo look absolutely gorgeous. There are even improvements to older colors like red and teal. For some reason they just look better than on 7.5. Perhaps the larger tiles emphasize the colors a bit more. Unfortunately if you’re like me and liked mango, you’re out of luck but amber is close enough, if not better. Also, on the topic of customization, is the new Bing wallpaper. This allows you to use the daily Bing photo as your wallpaper. If you love these photos as much as I do, this is pretty neat. These new color themes coupled with the Bing wallpaper should keep you from getting bored for a while.

There is some bad news though. The biggest is that Internet Explorer has not been updated, so if you use mobile versions of sites like Facebook or Google+, it still looks like you’re browsing on a Symbian device. Also, setting your camera roll to sync with SkyDrive still keeps photos at low resolution and there is no option to upload full resolution photos when syncing. There are apps that allow you to do this, but still, it sucks that SkyDrive is such an awesome service and its functionality is crippled by Microsoft on their own operating system. Speaking of photos, you still can’t “favorite” videos that you have on your Camera Roll. Also, there are no improvements to the lock screen, if you care about that sort of thing. And there is still no frickin’ way to take screenshots.

All in all the Windows Phone 7.8 update is actually pretty great. Over the week that I’ve had the update I’ve had no crashes or lag whatsoever. Battery life seems to be just as good as ever. The updates to the start screen in particular make you feel like you have a brand new phone. Coupled with continued developer support for Windows Phone 7, and hardware improvements aside (better cameras and screens, please), the need to get a Windows Phone 8 device seems a lot less imperative than before the update. So I can just sit around with my phone until Nokia releases a 4.3″ 720P Windows Phone 8 device.

It finally happened.

Today T-Mobile got their fowl-mouthed CEO on stage and they hoped he would bring the heat. Though I’m not exactly sure if it constitutes bringing that aforementioned “heat,” but T-Mobile has officially announced when you might be able to officially get an iPhone on America’s 4th carrier.

T-Mobile is betting you’d be willing to pay full-price for a little slab of Apple or at least their $100 deposit and a fixed payment plan. The iPhone will be available on April 12th and if you head over to their site now, you can pre-register for a reminder of the launch date.

Hit the box below for the full press release if you don’t believer our tl;dr version above.

T-Mobile Un-leashes iPhone 5 With Incredible New Pricing and No Annual Contracts

To the Summary!

James Bond goes after some hot ice (that’s stolen diamonds).  Along the way he runs into an odd pair of assassins   Oh, and Blofeld makes a return.

To the Cast!

Sean Connery – James Bond
Jill St. John – Tiffany Case
Charles Grey – Blofeld
Putter Smith – Mr. Kidd
Bruce Glover – Mr. Wint
Norman Burton – Leiter
Bernard Lee – ‘M’
Desmond Llewelyn – ‘Q’
Lois Maxwell – Miss Moneypenny

To the Deeper Thoughts!
Here we have the triumphant (?) return of Sean Connery to the Bond franchise.  Turns out this will truly be his last outing, but I digress.

Ahh, hell.  Back to digressing.  After a much publicized departure, Sean Connery returns to the role that made him famous.  We also have the return of Bond’s nemesis Bloefeld.  Oddly, there was no reference to the previous film where Blofeld is involved in the murder of Bond’s wife, but that’s for another review.

I like this one.  Even though Connery was basically bribed back to the role, he still put out a pretty good turn.  A bit on the silly side (Bond girl named Pleanty O’toole for one), its still not as bad as some of the later Moore ones.

So, a fitting end for Connery’s run as Bond.  Unless you count Never Say Never Again… which I don’t.

In their latest effort at bolstering their subscription numbers, T-Mobile  has made their plans to be the “Un-carrier” official. What this means to you dear consumer, is that soon you’ll be able to get your latest and greatest discounted phone without the hassle of a contract. T-Mobile’s plan will allow you to pick up said phone and tack on a surcharge to your monthly, contract-free bill until the price of the phone is paid in full. If that doesn’t sound like something you want to do; pay for the phone outright and enjoy a cheaper, contract-less plan.

Though it remains to be seen if this is truly something that customers will flock to but combined with T-Mobile’s existing “Bring Your Own Device” discounts, the fourth-place carrier may have some life in it yet. All they’d need to do now is announce an official iPhone variant on Big Magenta.

Vectidraco daisymorrisae, the official name of the newly discovered species of pterosaur. The fossil, originally found along the beach on the Isle of Wight, UK by Daisy at the age of five, had been donated and studied at the Natural History Museum. From early on, a dinosaur expert known to the family knew that daisy had stumbled onto a big find.

The fossil will remain with the Natural History Museum; as for Daisy, she tells The Daily Mail that she’ll continue to collect and study animals. Faith in humanity… Restored.

Source The Daily Mail

About a year ago, you may recall hearing that Twitter had acquired Posterous Spaces. Twitter has been on a tear buying up platforms like Posterous and Tweetdeck for quite some time now, to get rid of competition, to quell the growth of features they deem “not official”, to add features they need to stay competitive (Vine, for example, and its bid for Instagram), and, it has been widely suggested, to acquire the talents of the programmers in these companies.

So, it can be forgiven if you do not remember, there has been a lot of changes going on throughout the social media world. As long as it works, and works well, most of us do not care who owns what.

Posterous was a great place to blog. Simple, great support, and you could post from an email then autopost the entry to sites like Twitter, FaceBook and Tumblr. The speculation last year was that Twitter would shut down Posterous when the site’s former show-runners were appointed to various management positions at Twitter.

That prediction has come to pass. The date of Posterous’ execution has been set: April 30, 2013. If you have a Posterous page, you may contact them and they will archive it for you, no charge. You can find the information and links here on The Official Posterous Space.

I am sad to see it go, it is a great site, but, if we have learned nothing else from the demise of Myspace and countless other, something will fill the void.