Free Republic

Conveyor Belt Sushi, Japan A dining concept that lets you pick from a wide range of one of Japan's best-known foods. NOTE: Click on the referenced link to watch the video. P.S. This technology will doom the SEIU/$15.00 minimum wage movement.

Those splendid brainboxes at DARPA - the Pentagon's in-house bazaar of the bizarre - have outdone themselves this time. They now plan an entirely uncrewed, automated ghost frigate able to cruise the oceans of the world for months or years on end without human input. The new project is called Anti-submarine warfare Continuous Trail Unmanned Vessel (ACTUV), and is intended to produce "an X-ship founded on the assumption that no person steps aboard at any point in its operating cycle". The uncrewed frigate would have enough range and endurance for "global, months long deployments with no underway human maintenance", being...

Milwaukee, WI – Researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin, the Children's Research Institute, and the Children's Hospital of Wisconsin have developed a rapid, automated system to differentiate strains of influenza. The related report by Beck et al, "Development of a rapid automated influenza A, influenza B, and RSV A/B multiplex real-time RT-PCR assay and its use during the 2009 H1N1 swine-origin influenza virus (S-OIV) epidemic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin," appears in the January 2010 issue of the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics. In pandemic infection, such as the present H1N1 influenza outbreak, rapid automated tests are needed in order to make...

BAGHDAD — Under Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s legal system suffered from neglect, abuse and stagnation for nearly 30 years. Now, through a joint initiative by the United Nations, the U.S. State Department and the 3rd Infantry Division, the courts are being drawn into the 21st century with training on laptops and CD-ROMs loaded with ninety years of Iraqi case law. The technology will give Iraqi judges the tools they need to effectively and efficiently process through the country’s backlog of criminal cases. The software gives them access to the Iraqi legal code from 1917 through 2006. The software was made available...

Political automated phone calls are the most cost-effective way to reach your constituents. The cost is minimal compared to other media, and the effectiveness is unsurpassed. Automated calling will allow your campaign to target your message to your constituents, give them valuable information, and help you capture valuable data to win your election. Also, unlike other media, you will be able to reach your constituents exactly at the time of day of your choosing. You can place your calls in the middle of the day to target answering

4/5/2006 - HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE, Mass. (AFPN) -- One year after answering a call by the Marine Corps' that met an urgent need, the Force Protection Systems Squadron here is preparing to do it again. It is planning to deploy a Tactical Automated Security System, or TASS, to Al Taqaddum Air Base, Iraq. "The Marine Corps came to us saying, 'We want to make this our system of choice for expeditionary electronic security systems,'" said 1st Lt. Ted Boender, tactical systems program manager. With one system already deployed at Al Asad Air Base, Iraq, they wanted to install a...

"Can't take it with you? Mail it instead," reads a sign posted on one of ReturnKey Systems' Automated Mailing Kiosks (AMKs) in the Newark Liberty International Airport. Thanks to ReturnKey and the company's AMK system, airline travelers no longer must forfeit personal items to the Transportation Security Administration, which since 9/11 has been commissioned to keep airlines free of any potential weapons. With the kiosks, items that would've been confiscated can now be mailed ahead. The AMKs look much like ATMs. There's a touch screen where users can enter information and access directions, along with a mail slot for sending...

Modern technology is wondrous to behold. Even when it’s used for the most mundane of tasks. Take, for example, the Rejection Hotline. Since prehistoric times - any year before 1992 - a man interested in a woman might well ask for her telephone number. If she weren’t interested in him, she would handle his request in one of several ways. She’d say she was already seeing someone else. She’d say she didn’t have a telephone. She’d say she’d be busy washing her hair or matching her socks. She’d give out the number Beechwood 4-5789. She’d say that between her job,...