Matthew James, a 14-year-old boy in the UK, was born with a rare condition – his left arm stops at the wrist and he has no left hand. He had been fitted with a simple electric clamp of sorts that allowed him the freedom to pick up small objects but little else.

Young Matthew is also a big fan of motorsports, and he went to the same school as Mercedes GP head Ross Brawn. That connection was enough to pique Brawn’s interest when Matthew wrote the team a letter asking them to consider gifting him a new i-LIMB Pulse bionic hand from Touch Bionics.

Brawn took a personal interest in the young boy, and he contacted Touch Bionics to work out a deal. In exchange for access to technology services provided by Mercedes GP, Touch Bionics agreed to give Matthew the new hand he so desperately wanted.

Oh, and the F1 team also got to put its logo on Matthew’s new bionic hand. Not bad for a £35,000 investment… Check out video of the i-LIMB hand in action after the break. Read more…

Not too long ago, HTC announced that they would be allowing the bootloaders on their devices to be unlocked at the cost of voiding your warranty, and it looks like they have followed through with that promise on the HTCdev site.

Supporting devices that will launch from September onwards, the first HTC device that you’ll be able to officially unlock will be the HTC Sensation, and that will be followed by the HTC Evo 3D.

According to the helpful diagram above that’s found on the HTCdev site, it seems that the unlock process will be a simple plug-and-play process that shouldn’t take too long to complete. Just as long as your internet connection stays active that is.

So, if you have a HTC Sensation handy and would like to give the official unlock tool a try, then hit up the HTVdev site at www.htcdev.com/bootloader.

With the amount of rumors flying around here and there, many are confident that the Apple iPhone 5 will be available in the market later this year even though there is no actual confirmation from Apple themselves. If this proves to be true, how many units will be available for eager consumers out there then?

According to this report by Digitimes, Apple has ordered around 5.5 to 6 million units of iPhone 5 for the third quarter of 2011 together with more than 20 million units further for the fourth quarter of this year. Judging from that statistics, there might be some shortage during iPhone 5′s initial launch but for those who are willing to wait, more units should be available in the market towards this year-end holiday season.

Of course, the existing iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPhone 4 CDMA will still be around. In fact, Apple has also ordered around 28 million units of them for the second half of 2011. All in all, there are plenty of iPhone to go around for the rest of this year but if you are looking for iPhone 5 during its launch – provided that it does take place this year – get ready to be in the queue as swiftly as possible since its availability will be obviously limited, as always during launch.

SOURCE via Digitimes

Remember the space orbit lift that the Gundam Meisters used to travel around in Gundam 00? Have you ever thought of building such thing, or if such thing is even possible in our universe? Well, you’re not alone, and NASA even had it thought out. But how long will we need to wait until such technology arrives? Well, not in our lifetime apparently. “We try not to be narrow-minded and say it won’t happen for 150 years,” stated one NASA program manager. Well, there goes my dream of piloting a Gundam.

In fact, many of NASA’s dreams actually haven’t materialized yet. NASA’s related Beam Power Challenge ended without a winner for years on end, and the project’s Tether Challenge remains unconquered today. Not to mention that the week-long lift might expose you to deadly levels of radiation.

Lucky for us, attendees of the annual Space Elevator Conference aren’t ready to give up, and set to work last week brainstorming potential solutions. Could we replace the laser power system with solar panels? How strong are modern nanocarbons, and what issues do we need to be aware of to keep the carbon nanotube cables from breaking? Wouldn’t it be cool if the next design featured six cars instead of just three?

Although the outpouring of ideas flowed like water, the response towards many of them seemed to be the same: we really need to look into that. Despite the seemingly insurmountable issues, researchers remain optimistic

SOURCE via IT World

Earlier this year, Verizon CEO Dan Mead all but confirmed that an LTE Apple device would be making its way to Verizon. Eventually. And no 2011 Apple rumor spattering would be complete without at least a casual mention of the high-speed 4G network. Now, BGR claims to have received an internal iOS test build from a major carrier, revealing a property list file for LTE. This of course doesn’t guarantee that Apple will be shipping an LTE iPhone flavour later this year, but that it at least remains a possibility. Still, an October iPhone launch would fall nicely in line with recent confirmation that AT&T will be releasing an LTE smartphone in “late 2011,” and 4G compatibility could definitely explain Cupertino’s holdup in announcing the iPhone 4′s successor. So, will you be flying through the wireless web at lightning-fast speed later this year? Hopefully we need not wait much longer to find out.

SOURCE via BGR

We’ve had enough rumors of the next iPhone, be it iPhone 4G, iPhone 4S, or even iPhone 5 or 6, what we need is a stronger reference to the launch date, and it seemed that we’re granted another one.

Beginning August 22nd, Telefonica will begin scaling back its current iPhone stock through September 12th. According to Engadget, this three week program is a move that “will of course prepare us for the launch of a new smart phone.” While the date next month should sound familiar, we’ve heard recently that the launch will actually take place sometime in October.

Either way, a move like this is usually a telling sign that points directly to a new model launch. Keep your eyes pinned here, and prepare yourself, as it appears Mr. Jobs may have something planned for the fall.

SOURCE via Engadget

Google is taking first steps to protect its developers from potentially frivolous patent infringement lawsuits affecting the Android platform.

Wired reports that Google has filed a request with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine patents held by Lodsys and determine whether or not the patents should be invalidated. Google believes the patents, which Lodsys currently uses in 11 different lawsuits against app developers “should never have been issued.”

Google has been criticized as it remained relatively silent in the Lodsys drama as Apple has aggressively responded to the suits against iOS app developers. The IP firm sent cease and desist letters to app developers beginning in May and demanded damages and license fees for the use of its patented idea of in-app purchases. Among the Lodsys targets are Atari, Square Enix and Electronic Arts. Both Google and Apple have licenses to Lodsys’ patents, but the IP firm claims that app developers are not covered by the license.

SOURCE via Wired