There just might be another way for us to harvest solar energy and infrared radiation for us to be able to transform it into viable energy. Yes, as in we can use it for electricity - charge our iPods with it, make our cars run on it. This technology is the nanoantenna and the scientists from the US Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory thinks this just might be it.

Having to use your hands when browsing through music in your iPod can get really annoying (such a pain, really), so the tech savvy Japanese decided to develop a nifty gadget that allows control of your iPod by clenching your teeth. That's right, no need to squeeze your arms through people in packed trains to play the song you want.

The folks from Osaka University came up with the ingenious idea. Through a head gear equipped with infrared sensors, the actions of your teeth can now be enough to command your iPod. Clenching your teeth for around a second will issue orders, removing worries of the gadget activating when you talk or eat.

Laboratory head Fumio Miyazaki explained the idea, saying, "You are able to operate the devices without using your hands. You would be able to listen to music hands-free or operate your cellphone in a crowded train. Handicapped people would also be able to move wheelchairs."

Or at least, that's what they're planning. This little gizmo is yet to see a commercial release, and some money and man hours are still getting invested into research that will allow hand-free controls of mobile phones, wheelchairs, and other electronic devices in the near future.

Don't get any ideas now but Samsung has just filed a patent for a phone that can detect the chances of a lady getting pregnant. The phone calculates how far the lady is in the ovulation process, allowing them to know how safe it is to have sex. It would be very interesting to know what inspired such an idea.

The phone works by using a distance sensor (either laser or ultrasound based) to measure how far the ear is from the phone, and an infrared ray temperature sensor will measure process temperatures inside the eardrum.

The phone then translates the data taken from the ear to read the Basal Body Temperature of the body. The BBT data is essential in monitoring the cyclic ovulation of females.

It's a step safer than other measures for safe sex to be sure, but perhaps it wasn't wise to directly associate sex with a phone. Pavlov's dog effect will not bode well in this situation.

The human eye can only see the colors within the visible spectrum of light. What that basically means is that there's a bunch of other colors we can't see, but our cameras can though. Now new technology called Kameraflage is aiming to use it as their invisible ink.

Kameraflage basically puts in an extra layer of images - within the color range human eyes can't see - where it becomes visible through the lens of a digital camera. (That includes cameras built into mobile phones too!

 This actually opens up a whole new method of advertising and capitalization in a market that was once invisible (literally). Kameraflage has some pretty good ideas on how it can be used:

• Stopping movie piracy: If people record movies straight out from the cinema, their cameras will also record that extra layer of content, permanently tagging that recording as a piracy.
• Advertising: Now you can advertise in places where it would have been inappropriate before, like a museum. Now people don't have to see it unless they intentionally point a camera at it.
  
• Fashion: Uniforms? Boo. Now you can spice it up (secretly though) with the new Kamerflage technology.

So it's un-x-ray vision?

For those of us who have always dreamed of rocking it out with a wailing guitar in front of a mob of screaming fans but unfortunately born without the talents to make it big in the music industry (or a core hard enough to tear it up with Guitar Heroes), here's a neat little gadget from Takara Tomy Corps that lets you do just that - the Air Guitar Pro.

A small device that's modeled after the upper neck of an electric guitar, the Air Guitar Pro detects arm and hand movements with infrared technology. This means every slash or riff you do on your imaginary instrument's strings will actually be detected and have its corresponding note reproduced.

And you don't need to have any prior knowledge of handling a guitar at all - the Air Guitar Pro has 10 pre-loaded songs that plays as you rock out, with each hand movement playing a single phrase of that song.

But don't pass off the Air Guitar as being a simple toy because it can also be used as a learning tool for beginners, with corresponding buttons on the frets that identify each and every chord (major, minor, diminished, augmented).

Aspiring rockstars should be able to purchase the Air Guitar Pro come its release next month, at a price of  ¥2,525 (that's about US$ 27).

Toshiba is going full blast in this storage medium generation's face-off as it ups the ante with a revelation of an automotive HD-DVD player. That's right people, you may soon have high-definition visuals right in your ride.

At the Automotive Engineering Exposition 2007, the Japanese electronics trailblazer announced that it was developing the car HD-DVD in cooperation with respected car multimedia specialist Alpine Electronics. Using a video stream, spectators were given a treat and everyone witnessed what the player could do.

Another exciting development is the announcement of a new touch-panel LCD. What's special about this new panel is the fact that each of its pixels contains a transistor that senses shadows and touches to accommodate input from the user. The only problem seen with the project is that there needs to be two separate methods for processing input depending on whether it's day or night.

According to Toshiba, the sensors can detect shadows during the daytime to take in commands. However, it would have to rely on infrared detection means during nighttime. This also means that there would have to be two sets of software to accommodate the two systems. For the sake of expediency, Toshiba says that it's working on improving the infrared system so that it can work day and night for a single system to take full command.

You've seen Neubit's Acidmod of Chotto Shotto into an IR-based night vision camera, and suffice to say, you pray one's not looking down on you as you sleep. Keep praying. F00 f00 tells us that Neubit got around to posting in Acidmods, Part One of his how to turn Sony's Chotto Shotto into an invasion of privacy lawsuit waiting to happen a night-vision camera.

We'll leave it as a Read link for the technically inclined to work on, that they may have dark-room recording capabilities, too. We can explain some of the details of the mod (Part One), not to mention how night-vision works, so that people who are still confused as to how night-vision devices (NVD) work will understand the mechanics behind this mod.

This mod falls under the category of active IR NVDs: they use infrared light (e.g., a remote control IR diode) as a "flashlight" to light up the night. The NVDs you might be more used to are passive NVDs used in the military, such as the one pictured left. They rely on low-light amplification with image intensifiers to lift the blanket of the night. IR NVDs are not normally used in military applications, as the opposition can detect the IR flashlight with their own IR NVDs.

IR-wavelength light is invisible, so our eyes can't pick them up. The Chotto Shotto camera can pick up IR light, but an IR light filter in the assembly filters out the IR spectrum. Part One of the mod involves taking this filter out of the picture, which (in low-light conditions) turns the Chotto Shotto into an active IR-ready NVD. Part Two, when Neubit posts it, will cover the IR flashlight built into the mod, but even with Part One, you could probably use a remote control as a mobile flashlight for your purposes, if it's powerful enough.

Now if that purpose involves videos that may require HideMov/HideMedia BETA II video file stealthing... you did not get this idea from us.

Thanks, F00 f00, for getting this idea to us, but we swear we're not getting any ideas (on how to use this thing)!

We are all quite familiar with homebrew applications like games and programs for our DS. What we quite don't know is that somewhere in the DS universe (quite specifically in The Netherlands), Infrared function is being developed. And with 60% of all the work already done, it is fast nearing completion.

Dubbed InfrareDS, the idea was thought of by Mark (frozenone23@hotmail.com). And the whole project is exactly just that: it adds an IrDA to the Nintendo DS in just few minutes, allowing the user to send images and sounds from a mobile phone and vice versa.. As of now, InfrareDS is compatible with Sony Ericsson (T310, K750i),  Panasonic X60 and Nokia 8850.

Although it has not been tested yet for DS lite, InfrareDS features direct compatibility to all firmware versions of NDS, not to mention its high speed transmission capability. Currently, Mark is working on the touchscreen function and making a graphical interface.

We thank Kravos for this exciting heads up.

Let's think for a moment that your computer doesn't have a mouse, nor a touchpad. We'd all be typing in shortcuts, I guess. The mouse serves a purpose for now. We are addicted to the mouse. But in the future we may no longer need these little critters. Introducing: TrackIR, the Head Motion Tracker.

The TrackIR tracks the users head motions through 6 degrees of 3 dimensional movement. It supports 60 games (primarily flight and racing sims) like EVE Online, Colin McRae Rally, Flight Simulator X. An infrared cam sits on top of the monitor, capturing 120 images a second. It then processes this info to the computer via usb.

Naturally, you still need your other controller so to do the job. It's extremely easy to use, but it might take you around two days to tweak it to the way you want. Different strokes for different gamers, eh? There's a lot of ways you could customize the sensitivity of this add-on. It may offer a large advantage when participating in online dogfights, but hey it's a war out there. Try to get as much legal advantage as you can.

As for the future, they're planning to make it a bit more smaller and lighter. They're also finding out ways to use it in other genres like MMORPG, RTS, and puzzles. Sony's Eyetoy and the Xbox360 Vision Camera aren't really competitors as their gesture games aren't that advanced yet. So will you get this for your racing sim? If it makes gaming that more realistic, why not? The price? MSRP at $179.95, sold online now.

The war of technologies in automobiles heat up as BMW installs a night-vision display in the new 7-series models for evening driving. The Night Vision uses a special thermal imaging camera to "illuminate" pedestrians, animals or any objects emitting heat up to 300 meters ahead of the car. With the help of infrared technology, a clear image of the road is generated on the iDrive screen. The video below this article will surely dispel any of your doubts regarding its effectivity, as it obviously depicts just how amazingly well the night vision works even on the darkest, longest stretch of unlit roads or motorways.

Other than this, BMW has also set-up their new high-beam assist feature, which automatically sets the Bi-xenon headlights to the optimum range and brightness depending on other traffic movements. Together with the QGVA (320 x 240), the technology scans up to about 1,000 feet in front of the vehicle, even swiveling horizontally with the headlights during turns.

Now if car makers would raise the standards of their safety technologies in the name of competition, then this is definitely one war I wouldn't mind to have.