Communications Technology

It’s here Sonos fans, finally. The new touch-screen CR200 controller is announced and ready for purchase. After making an appearance at the FCC on its way to being leaked in full, the new CR200 controller for Sonos’ multi-room wireless music system is everything we heard including a 3.5-inch, 640 x 480 pixel (VGA) capacitive touchscreen with on-screen keyboard, beefier processor, and relatively tiny 2.9 x 4.5 x 0.7-inch / 6 ounce footprint with scaled-down charger to match. Those changes make the new CR200 pocketable, faster, and far more useful than the CR100 ever was. Not that the CR100 was a bad device, it wasn’t, but the $399 controller (plus $40 for the charging cradle) was definitely beginning to show its age as the only dedicated handheld controller available since Sonos launched back in January 2005. What really made the CR100 archaic though, was the 2008 release of the free iTunes App Store controller for the iPod touch and iPhone. It was faster, more graphically rich, and offered an on-screen keyboard unlike the CR100.

Fortunately, the price of the CR200 has dropped a bit to $349 list, a price that now includes the charging cradle. Still, we know what you’re wondering: is it worth it when an iPod touch can be purchased new for $229, or closer to $170 refurbished? Having used the CR200 for a week now, we found that the answer’s not as obvious as you’d think. Click through to find out why.

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In a twist on traditional smart-phone accessories, researchers have demonstrated fluorescent microscopy using a physical attachment to an ordinary cell phone. The researchers behind the device say that it could identify and track diseases like tuberculosis (TB) and malaria in developing countries with limited access to health care, or in rural areas of the U.S.

The “Cellscope” could capture and perform simple analysis of magnified images of blood and sputum samples, or transmit the images over the cell-phone network for analysis elsewhere.

The device works just like a traditional microscope, using a series of lenses that magnify blood or spit samples on a microscope slide. To detect TB, for example, a spit sample is infused with an inexpensive dye called auramine. An “excitation” wavelength is emitted by the light source–a blue light-emitting diode (LED) on the opposite end of the device from the cell phone–and absorbed by the auramine dye in the spit sample, which fluoresces green to illuminate TB bacteria. Then automated software can count the green bacteria for a diagnosis in real time, or the image can be transmitted via cell network to a separate facility where doctors can analyze it and respond.

“The cell phone approach is very valuable for all parts of the world where [medical] resources are scarce,” says Aydogan Ozcan, an assistant professor of electrical engineering at UCLA, who is working to develop a lens-free method for mobile cell imaging. “It’s a great step forward in this important area.”

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AS if your Facebook friends list didn’t make you feel lonely enough, now you’re bombarded with Twitter mates who seem to have racked up 10,000 followers before you’ve worked out what a hash tag is for.

There’s no need to panic - there’s nothing wrong with you. Those that matter really do care about your commute.

Just rest easy in the knowledge that all the others are buying their friends.

Yes, just as it was with other social networking sites such as StumbleUpon and Digg, web traffic and promotion company uSocial.net says it has had a “massive response” to offering Twitter users “follower packages” if they are having trouble attaining them on their own.

The packages are aimed at businesses and start with 1000 followers ($US87) and range up to 100,000 ($US3479).

From a business point of view, uSocial.net claims each follower is worth “about 10c” to a business.

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