The Menlo Briefs

There's no such thing as a minor bug in medicine - Despite having treated almost half-a-million people without trouble, a known software bug with the Gamma Knife resulted in hospital staffers having to manually pull a patient from the machine. [more]

Newsflash! - According to NASA scientist David Morrison, despite what movies, books, and Internet websites would have you believe, the world is not going to end in 2012. Morrison writes a column called "Ask an Astrobiologist," and to date he's fielded over 1,000 questions on the subject. [more]

Virtual memories - Genetically modified fruit flies have learned to fear a pain they never experienced. How? A small handful of their nerve cells were modified so that scientists could write false "memories" to the fruit fly's brain by flashing a laser light. [more]

Help is available - Yes, that's really me on the cover of Forbes magazine! I founded Menlo Innovations to help software product companies like yours. And at Menlo, we practice what we preach - making products more valuable to your customers, more friendly to your users, and more profitable to you! Come to Menlo for a Taste of how we use High-tech Anthropology^® to build highly useable and useful software for you and your customers.

The Smartphone War - This isn't what you think -- it's not Blackberry vs. iPhone. It's much more basic than that...it's QWERTY vs. DVORAK. On smartphones. August Dvorak, a professor of education at the University of Washington, spent most of his life trying to get the typewriter industry to ditch qwerty. Now others have taken up the charge. [more]

Busted! - How do you catch a crook who doesn't want to be found? In the case of Maxi Sopo, you just wait for him to update his Facebook page. [more]

"...other possibilities are ... a ray gun." - The University of Michigan is developing a new electrostatic thruster technology. Though the application can have many different applications, the primary target is satellite propulsion. [more]

Menlo curious? - We've written a book -- Innovative Exploration -- which is virtual tour of the Menlo Innovations Software Factory™. It describes Menlo's unique approach to software design and development which has been featured in Forbes Magazine, the Wall Street Journal and other local and national publications. You can preview the book by clicking on the book's thumbnail or by clicking here.

A FAST track through airport security - The Department of Homeland Security has developed a screening system that uses sensors and cameras located at security checkpoints to measure natural signals coming from your body -- your heart rate, breathing, eye movement, body temperature and fidgeting. It's taken about $20 million to develop the technology. [more]

The smell of virtue is...Windex? - A study by a professor at Brigham Young University found that there is a dramatic improvement in the ethical behavior of participants working in rooms that had been scented with a few spritzes of citrus-scented Windex. [more]

D'oh! - So it seems even the most Internet-savvy amongst us can be duped by hackers. The popular technology site Gizmodo recently ran Suzuki ads that were, in fact, the work of hackers who had purchased ad space under false pretenses. Last month the New York Times website was similarly duped. In both cases the ads served up "scareware" that told visitors their computers were infected with viruses and directed them to download harmful "remedies." [more]

The great Tweance of 2009 - William Shakespeare, Kurt Cobain, River Phoenix, and Michael Jackson will be (hopefully) making an appearance for a Halloween seance on Twitter. Psychic Jayne Wallace will be tweeting her way to the Great Beyond this Friday, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. EST. [more]