The Menlo Briefs

Drink a brewski to live longer? - The resveratrol in red wine has long been touted as in the press. The chemical is believed to protect against diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer's and other age-related conditions. Now students at Rice University have created a special brewer's yeast that produces that same chemical. The result? A beer with all the benefits of red wine. [more]

The keys to the kingdom - Most people know they should not attach anything to their key chains that could be tied to their identity, but what if a thief could make a copy of your keys using nothing more than a picture posted to a photo-sharing website such as Flickr.com or a social networking site such as Facebook? It may sound far fetched, but researchers at the University of California, San Diego, proved it could be done. [more]

The magic behind the "Magic Wall" - If you watched CNN during the election -- or even Saturday Night Live -- you probably saw the "magic wall." Curious about this cool new multi-touch technology? The inspiration for the multi-touch technology came from a decidedly non-digital event: Jeff Han, founder and chief scientist of Perceptive Pixel, was drinking a glass of water. He noticed the way light was interacting with his fingers as they touched the glass, and an 'Ah ha!' moment was born that put him straight to work. [more]

That's money out the Window(s) - Going green to save the environment is one good reason to turn off your computer workstation every night, but here's another: according to a recent survey of 250 professionals, enterprises with 10,000 desktop workstations waste $1.26 million in energy costs annually. [more]

W@tch Out! - These days it seems everybody's thumbs are twiddling, texting or Twittering their friends all the details of their lives. The American College of Emergency Physicians warns of the danger of this behavior, citing rising reports from doctors around the country of injuries involving text-messaging pedestrians, bicyclists, even Rollerbladers and equestrians. [more]

Virtual historical tourism - Do you want to tour ancient Rome, but find that you're born a few centuries too late? Ta-dah! It's Google to the rescue! Recently Google added Ancient Rome as the first historical city to be added to Google Earth. Google's blog said the model contains more than 6,700 buildings, with more than 250 place marks linking to key sites in a variety of languages. [more]

How deep does the Rabbit Hole go? - I love the movie The Matrix -- particularly the scenes between Neo and Morpheus. My favorite moment is when Morpheus is standing in front of Neo offering him two choices: "After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes..."

Believe it or not, this is a lot like the software industry. Nearly all companies have failed investments in software initiatives -- many in the six and seven figure range -- and yet they continue on as if nothing's wrong. They're obviously eating those Blue Pills like Tic-Tacs!

The good news is that Menlo has a supply of Red Pills and we're willing to share them with anyone who wants to know the truth: the leading causes of these failures are preventable, and we can show you how. Join us for the next FREE 90-minute presentation on November 20th to learn how our approach creates the right software for the right application.

Time's Invention of the year - What can your genome tell you? Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey of 23andMe think you should know. Their company offers a $399 saliva test that estimates your predisposition for more than 90 traits and conditions ranging from baldness to blindness. [more]

A new artificial heart - French scientists have unveiled a working prototype of a fully artificial heart . The device could save millions of lives and beats almost exactly like the real thing using electronic sensors -- like those used in airplanes and satellites -- to regulate heart rate and blood flow. [more]

Air Guitar Hero - Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have made the popular Guitar Hero game into a tool for amputees who are being fitted with the next generation of artificial arms. Using just a few electrodes (and some very powerful algorithms), amputees can hit all the notes of Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” using only the electrical signals from their residual muscles. [more]

Crash - The Europeana digital library is an audacious undertaking, including paintings, photos, films, books, maps and manuscripts from 1,000 museums, national libraries and archives across Europe. One problem: it proved too popular. The site was overwhelmed at launch, causing several of its servers to crash, forcing the closure of the site. A more robust version of the online venture is expected by mid-December. [more]

Enjoying the Menlo Briefs? - If you enjoy reading the Menlo Briefs each month, you might also enjoy reading some of our white papers. Two that I would like to recommend are "Seven Keys to Building Great Software Products" and "Secrets of Software Success: Adapting Projects to an Accelerated Society". Check them out and let me know what you think!

Electronic brains can't be far behind - IBM will join five US universities in an ambitious effort to integrate what is known from real biological systems with the results of supercomputer simulations of neurons. The team will then aim to produce for the first time an electronic system that behaves as the simulations do. [more]

Amazon to tackle “wrap rage” - While some have argued that Amazon's new Frustration-Free^TM Packaging sucks all the fun out of the holidays, no one who has stabbed theirselves with scissors trying to open a clamshell package would agree. Amazon is doing away with clamshells, wire ties, and plastic bindings. They've even added a page that shows all the current items that are available in Frustration-Free^TM Packaging. [more]