Legal Technology

Multipurpose Cell Phones

Of course, we have them now. Voice, e-mail, and application platforms at the palm of our hand. What next? Motorola is starting to plan for it. Its venture-capital arm made an investment in contactless and mobile-phone payment technology company ViVOtech, Inc. ViVOtech's tech lets users pay for goods and serivces using RF-enabled credit and debit cards. Just when you think you got the hang of your phone, it turns into your pocket book.

Keeping a Secret

Computers were not designed to keep a secret. Really. From the ground up, computer security was, and is, an afterthought. But Princeton researchers put security in forethought and invented a computer architecture (secret protected or SP) that enables the secure transmission of critical information to first responders during life-threatening events such as natural disasters, fires or terrorist attacks using a key and a hash. Princeton University, Engineering School. "New Computer Architecture Aids Emergency Response." ScienceDaily 2 November 2007. 9 November 2007.

In Memory of ... Memory

When our own memory gets filled up, we tend to write more things down then we used to. I have notes and lists about notes and lists for important things to remember. But what happens when our PDA, iPod, or cell phone memory hits a wall. In the usual case, we buy a new one and attempt to transfer applications and data from one device to another. But computer engineers at Northwestern University and NEC Laboratories America, Inc. give us some options. They developed technology that doubles the usable memory on cell phones and other embedded systems without any changes to hardware or applications.