Space.com is featuring an article about space settlement and evolution of planetary bodies and the seriousness of impacts that a planetarium is showing that seems very interesting.

…and it costs less than $20,000. Of course it has a couple of drawbacks. It’s a three-wheeler, it only seats two, and it doesn’t exist yet.

The city of East Orange, New Jersey, is implementing a new community watch type program that allows community residents on two troubled streets to email the police department to point their video cameras at suspicious activity in progress. I’m not sure whether to be creeped out by the Big Brother implications or impressed by the diffusion of power to the community.

Among the many tech tricks and gizmos demonstrated at the CeBit trade show this year is a ‘mental typewriter’ system which allows a user to type by moving a cursor with thought alone. Designed with medical applications in mind, the games industry is going to be all over this like a rash once it becomes cost-effective, and the military boffins will probably be pretty keen also.

Researchers at Oregon State University have created the world’s first completely transparent integrated circuit from inorganic compounds. This opens the door for a whole gamut of applications, from displays integrated into vehicle screens to personal optical devices. Those Gibsonesque cybershades may not be a pipedream after all.