It looks like the participatory panopticon is nearing the early stages of hardware proliferation – eight London beat coppers are to be issued with head-mounted cameras that can record twelve hours of footage from the point-of-view of the wearer. As a British citizen, I can only hope that this technology will be used to prevent and solve crime, rather than providing material for those tedious yet inexplicably popular “world’s most stupid criminal” programs – I’d rather have more street crime than more reality television.

The physics scene is in high spirits today, following the final green light for the ITER experimental fusion reactor project to be built in France. Not everyone is that impressed by the idea of chasing the tokamak model though, most notably Robert Bussard – one of its inventors – who intends to give away a better design to anyone who has $200 million to develop it (form an orderly queue, folks). I just don’t understand what’s taking us so long – after all, if a college student can build a fusion reactor in his basement, it can’t be that tricky, right?

Good news for ladies (and those of us who look like easy meat) who have to travel through the rougher neighbourhoods of the world – you can scrap that unfinished disposable camera hack. Why carry a crude and likely ineffective homemade taser when you can slip on a stylish waterproof jacket that will deliver 80,00 volts into anyone who touches you against your will? Personal security has never looked so fresh!

If you love science fiction or space exploration (or both), you’ve probably encountered the Fermi Paradox – to paraphrase crudely, if there’s alien life out there, why haven’t we met any yet? Paul Gilster of Centauri Dreams posts a newly proposed solution based on economics, and then rebutts it with a slightly more optimistic (if stunningly far-sighted) response of his own. Who’d have thought there could be an upside to your home star dying?

So many different levels of network! Internet, WAN, LAN … and now BAN, ‘Body Area Network’. That’s the idea behind a wearable PDA concept currently in development, designed to allow you to transfer files and data to compatible devices merely by touching them. The cyberpunk-chunky aesthetics may not be to everyone’s taste, but I rather like the look myself.