organization

Breakthrough in tissue engineering: 'Bio-Legos'

Researchers have been working on the problem of tissue engineering for years because the payoff would be so great. The ability to construct new organs would mean that patients won't necessarily have to wait for transplants.

But growing cells in lab dishes that are three-dimensional instead of flat has proved to be incredibly tricky. One group, however, claims to have made a major breakthrough.

The solution, according to a team at the MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), could be as simple (but incredibly elegant) as building the equivalent of biological Legos, whose structures far more closely … Read more

Photographer's friend

Digital photography can be a lot of fun, but editing, organizing, and sharing your images can be a hassle if you don't have the right software. JetPhoto Studio is a sleek tool that lets users manage their photos in an attractive, intuitive environment, turning a sometimes-frustrating chore into a fun and easy activity.

JetPhoto Studio's interface is well-designed and easy to navigate, with its featured arranged in commonsense menus. Users can import photos from their computers or even directly from their cameras, a nice timesaving step. Once photos have been imported into JetPhoto Studio, there's plenty to … Read more

Reclaim wasted corner space

So, you have a corner cabinet in your kitchen. And you have items you'd like to store there, but you'd also like to be able to reach them when you need them. You need the KorderKing Cabinet Module, which combines a drawer and a lazy Susan in a single unit.

Store frequently used items in the drawer to access your things easily. Spin the entire unit to take advantage of all the space offered in deeper cabinets to store--and reach--even more. Retrofitting an existing cabinet is straightforward, and there are plenty of how-to videos right on the site. … Read more

Face.com opens its face recognition tech to devs

The facial recognition technology that powers Face.com is now available to third-party developers. Those who are interested in using it inside of their applications will be able to take advantage of an open API that the company is making public Monday morning.

For consumers, Face.com's technology brings some very interesting things to the table. Face has already offered a tagging tool, as well as a recognition-based alert service for Facebook. But not everyone keeps their photos there. Using the new API, developers could build similar facial recognition tools into both desktop and Web based photo organizing apps … Read more

Manage your family's schedule

Cozi Family Organizer helps you stay on top of your responsibilities by letting you access your calendar, journal, and to-do lists from the Cozi.com Web site. The idea behind Cozi.com was to create a place where you could map out your busy family schedule, keep appointments, and make your family life easier. On the site you have access to Living Simply articles about family life and tools to help you maintain your home, plan meals and grocery shopping, and much more. The iPhone app ties the experience together, giving you access to to-do lists, grocery lists, and a … Read more

Feds hampered by incomplete MPAA piracy data

Last summer, not long after the U.S. government began a review of how piracy affects consumers and the nation's economy, the feds went to the major movie studios for help.

Representatives from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress' investigative arm, asked the studios for information about a survey the studios had commissioned (PDF) that concluded piracy and counterfeiting cost the film industry $6.1 billion in 2005.

But the GAO never got all of the information it requested from the Motion Picture Association of America, according to GAO administrators, including Loren Yager, the author of the summary report … Read more

Manage family schedules, play a 2D arcade game: iPhone Apps of the week

If you've been reading this column for any length of time, it should come as no surprise that I decided to buy an iPad last week. After reviewing the iWork apps on the iPad Apple loaned us for review purposes, I found that I could use it for both work and play. Now that I've had it for a week, I'm extremely happy with my purchase.

To me, buying the iPad was a pretty easy decision knowing that I would already be reviewing iPad apps for iPad Atlas, and (as I wrote in an earlier post) I … Read more

Easy albums

MyPublisher's BookMaker is a free photo album maker with a twist: You use it to create, organize, and edit your photo album, and then order online one of several printed photobook options at various prices, which are custom-printed and shipped to you. The choices range from paperback PocketBooks editions costing 10 bucks to coffee-table-style hardcover books that are three times more expensive, as well as calendars, postcards, and greeting cards. While we didn't go so far as to purchase any of them, the examples displayed on MyPublisher's Web site appear attractive and well-made and offer an alternative … Read more

An equal-opportunity player

Providing one-stop shopping for all your video needs, open-source and cross-platform Miro deserves much of the praise that's been heaped upon it. The latest major point to version 3.0 offers more speed and stability improvements, along with a few feature tweaks.

The concept is brilliant, yet simple: create a jukebox video and audio player that can subscribe to and download podcasts while managing your locally saved media. On the face of it, this might sound like iTunes, but the sharing component is an essential aspect of the program. Miro has always been geared toward video, and it shows … Read more

Picture pipeline

Getting pictures from a digital camera to a PC should be a snap, but too often it isn't. Smart Photo Import is an easy-to-use tool that greatly simplifies the process of importing and sorting digital images from a camera or other device to a computer. It automatically organizes image files into folders for easy archiving, neatly avoiding one of the biggest problems with digital photography: immense catch-all folders packed with thousands of images, and usually all jumbled up, too.

This neat little tool has a Windows-style installer and opens with a clean, basic interface that resembles a bare-bones media … Read more