Actually, reading Locus Magazine's write-up, it sounds like MacNeill predicted handheld devices connected to a mainframe, which was more in line with what we actually had in 1980. MacNeill told Locus:

I came up with the one about 'home computer terminals with interactive access to other home, business and academic terminals, and including hand-held terminals' mostly because I had been using the PLATO terminals in Uris Hall at Cornell and wished very, very much that I could have one of my own (and especially one that I could carry around with me).

Ed Ferman, who was editor of F&SF in 1980, says it's disappointing to see how optimistic many of the 30-year-old predictions for 2010 were, and how far short we've fallen. (Although there are still a couple months left — everybody innovate really really hard!) [Locus Magazine]

[via Tokyomango]

In this week's episode, "Implosion," we finally see Warehouse 13 break out of its artifact-of-the-week plot, even as we see it continue to scramble to try to find its footing.

We know from talking to actor Saul Rubinek that his character, Artie, has a deep, dark secret, and tonight we finally got to delve into Artie's past, a past that includes espionage charges and a stint in prison. But first, Peter and Myka have to steal a Japanese sword (one that, incidentally, can make its bearer invisible) and replace it with a fake, when an implosion grenade goes off in the Japanese agency, apparently taking the artifact with it.

This week's episode had its share of great moments. For one thing, the artifacts were more gadgety and less mystical this time around: the implosion grenade, the mesmerizing Ice Flower firecracker, the gun that vaporizes people — the writers even attempt to give the Japanese sword's powers of invisibility a physical explanation, albeit a vague one. And the interactions between Peter and Myka and their fellow Secret Service agents offered some moments of levity while promising to make the series a little richer. Watching Peter and Myka try to explain their assignment (Myka smugly describing it as "archival") and convince the other agents that they've been hit with a gun that erases short-term memory when obviously the agents recall no such thing brings the show's absurdity a bit into the real world, and reintroducing their former boss Dickinson as the anti-Artie adds another dimension. I like the idea that it's not always the Warehouse vs. the artifacts and their abusers, but the Warehouse vs. the rest of the Secret Service vs. competing artifact hunters.

And we soon learn that there is indeed a rival artifact hunter behind the implosion grenade and the theft of the invisibility-granting sword. James MacPherson, Artie's professional and romantic rival, disapproves of the Warehouse's mission, and uses exactly the sort of technology Artie and company want to keep from the public. James adds a nice bit of intrigue to the episode and brings us out of the weekly drudgery of finding some havoc-wreaking device. And, from the title of the season's final episode "MacPherson," he could function as the season's Big Bad.

But there's also a great deal about this episode that's strangely abrupt. For one thing, the absence of Claudia (which is mentioned, but never satisfactorily explained) feels like a step backwards and an excuse for alienating Artie from the rest of the cast. And too much of Artie's past is revealed too quickly — we meet James, who is a character from Artie's past, as well as the woman who once chose James over Artie, and get the handle on Artie's criminal record all in one episode. Also, when it comes to Myka and Peter's respective relationships with Artie, previous episodes haven't led up to this episode in a satisfactory way. Myka complains that Artie treats his field agents like redshirts (and Peter is adorably too excited that she understands the terminology), a feeling supported by their trips to the hospital, though we haven't seen this sentiment bubbling nearly enough. And Peter's sense of betrayal at learning about Artie's past doesn't hit home as much as if he'd developed more paternal feelings toward his new boss.

I keep waiting for the relationships between the characters to gel into something a bit more familial (as well as a more distinct role for aura-reader Leena who feels too much like a mere social balm). I suspect Claudia could be the glue to bind the team together, and the new developments with the rest of the Secret Service and James could push and prod the team into shape. I'm encouraged by the new plot elements, but I do wonder if, in just five more episodes, Warehouse 13 can get where it's trying to go.

The researchers, led by Associate Professor William Richard and researcher David Zar, have developed technology that makes your smartphone compatible with commercial USB ultrasound probes. That would allow you to use your phone for "imaging kidneys, liver, bladder and eyes, prostate and uterine screenings and biopsies, as well as using vascular probes for imaging veins and arteries for starting IVs and central lines," according to United Press International.

Said Richard:

You can carry around a probe and cell phone and image on the fly now. Imagine having these smart phones in ambulances and emergency rooms. On a larger scale, this kind of cell phone is a complete computer that runs Windows.

Oh, it needs to run Windows. Oh well. In any case, the researchers hope the technology will help people in remote areas of the developing world to have more access to scans. Plus they can use the scans to send data to a centralized area, on the other side of the world, where the experts can make a diagnosis. But it's also one step closer to small hand-held medical diagnostic devices, like Dr. McCoy's salt shakers.

Everything in Ghostbusters. This is the movie that perfected the magic-handling gadgets motif, from the "ghost sniffer" to the ghost detector, to the ecto-goggles, to the giga-meter... pretty much any kind of gizmo you might need to figure out the location of an evil spirit, Egon whips up at one point or another. And they all look awesome, as a bonus.

The BTRS detector in The Middleman. Our studly science hero uses a BTRS (Beyond The Realm Of Science) detector to scan for things that are, well... beyond the realm of science. As Wendy says: "Handy."

The Dragon Detector from Questors by Joan Lennon. In Lennon's fantasy novel, our hero Bryn has a gadget called a "dragon detector" which gives off an awful noise when the dragon Dagrod comes near it. As Bryn explains to Dagrod, "Apparently you give off a sort of radiation, and if I wanted to know if you were around, or coming closer, or something, this would tell me..."

The EMF detector, from Supernatural. Turns out that ghosts and other nasties give off electromagnetic fields, which you can detect with a handy gizmo. So in almost every episode of Supernatural, Dean Winchester whips out his flashing whizbang at some point. Which is very DIY, as Sam discovers in "Phantom Traveler":

Sam: What is that?
Dean: It's an EMF meter. It reads electromagnetic frequencies.
Sam: Yeah, I know what an EMF Meter is, but why does that one look like a busted up walkman?
Dean: Cause that's what I made it out of. It's homemade.
Sam: Yeah, I can see that.

People actually use these things in real life, and the guys on Ghost Hunters also use a similar rig to look for ghost signatures. And I love these gizmos.

Fairy detector in The Fairly Odd Parents. Mr. Crocker, the only adult who believes fairies exist, builds a fairy detector. And before his memories of his own godparents were taken away, he scrawled "Fairy Godparents Exist" on the back of a fairy detector.

Tricorder from Star Trek. The crew of the Enterprise frequently visits worlds where magic, of some sort, appears to work, including in the episode "Catspaw" and the animated episode "The Magicks Of Megas-Tu." Frequently, even if these magical mind-energies are not susceptible to human technology, they can be tracked to their source using Spock's tricorder, and some good old human ingenuity.

The "Ectoplex" Paranormal Energy Detector, from Sabrina The Teenage Witch. It zeroes in on paranormal energy fields and supernatural phenomena, as you can see in this clip (around the four-minute mark):


Dragon Radar from Dragonball. It's used to find the mystical dragon balls which summon the wish-granting dragon Shenron when you gather all seven of them together.

The Spook Detector in Caballistics, Inc., a comic that's been running in British anthology series 2000 A.D. since 2002. One of the paranormal investigators in the newly privatized Department Q is Hannah Chapter, who comes equipped with her own "spook detector."

Vampire Detector in Tales From The Crypt, "Fare Tonight." Two young girls, Mildred and Camille, decide to become amateur vampire hunters, and so they build their own homemade "vampire detector" gun, in this 1993 episode. And here's a picture of a cool Steampunk vampire detector that someone built as part of a costume.

The Emergency Detector in Ultraman. The Science Patrol all wear special tie-pins which blink and react when a monster gets too close. This is their "emergency detector."

So what did we miss?

Additional reporting by Alasdair Wilkins.

Okay, so not really spoilers. But here's all the dirt on the Herman Miller Embody chair. We wrote about it a while back, and Herman Miller was nice enough to send us a sample for review purposes. Since I have been sitting in the same office chair for 10 years (which I bought on sale at Office Depot for like $50) I had been trying to figure out how much blood plasma I would have to sell to get a nice new chair. So yay!

As we wrote before, it has this weird-looking and awesome network of high-tech springs in the back which adjust to the shape of your back. Not just lumbar support — which is super important — but upper back support as well. It sort of "floats" behind me, as I lean back and tilt forwards. Whenever I sit more upright, it feels like it's slotting into place behind me. (You can also adjust it so that it doesn't tilt, or tilts less.)

The chair has about five hundred levers and knobs, one of which has a knob joystick inside the knob. You can adjust the position fo the springy things on the back, how much it tilts, how high the arms are and how far apart they are, how long the seat is (for people with longer thighs), and other stuff. Instead of sliding the seat up and down, you actually adjust how fat the seat is. To be honest, when I first got the chair, I spent about an hour fiddling with all the knobs and adjusting it, and since then I haven't touched it much. Except to tinker obsessively with the thigh-length thing.

And supposedly it improves blood flow ("perfusion") all over my body. Dude!

The Embody is made according to green "cradle to cradle" standards, and meanwhile the company has a new site where you can post your own ideas for fixing the environment. Thoughtpile.org is sort of a social media site for green ideas, and the submissions vary from the no-duh (carbon taxes) to the wha-huh? (jewelry that stores solar power.)

In any case, if you have $1600 laying around, you should totally get one of these chairs. It feels like a huge advance, even on the Aeron chairs I've sat in a few times. It's totally futuristic. It reminds me of several years ago, when I was writing about ergonomics for a local newspaper and I interviewed one of the set designers for the 1990s Star Trek shows. We talked all about the clunky, non-ergonomic chairs the original Trek bridge crew sat in, and how much nicer and more comfortable the chairs on the TNG bridge were. (Plus the TNG consoles have nice curved surfaces.) This feels more like a Next-Gen bridge chair and less like a TOS bridge chair, if you see what I mean.

G-Dog
Price: $705
Features: Once assembled, G-Dog takes commands from a wireless remote to perform a basic set of canine commands.
Pros: Some assembly required, so the girls will learn a little something before they can play with their new mechanized pet.
Cons: G-Dog lacks the autonomy of a real dog. Plus, it’s pretty ugly.

Wrex the Dawg
Price: $149
Features: Built to look like a literal junkyard dog, Wrex is a cartoon dog brought to robotic life. He walks, talks, farts, and performs all manner of doggie tricks. His infrared sensors allow him to roam free, or he can be programmed too perform up to 80 operation steps using a remote control. His mood shifts between happy, angry, or crazy, which changes the way he interacts with his surroundings.
Pros: Wrex provides hours of fun, can stand guard outside Malia and Sasha’s rooms, and is unlikely to crash into the furniture.
Cons: Wrex’s toilet humor may not be appreciated by White House guests.

robuDOG
Price: €3200
Features: This French doggie bot can dance, play soccer, and take color photographs. It can also interface with Windows, allowing the girls to play with it in a virtual environment.
Pros: It will not only provide companionship, but also document those early White House years.
Cons: Obama uses a Mac.

BJ
Price: ¥600,000
Features: Aiming to be the successor to Sony’s discontinued AIBO, BJ is a fully programmable pooch with a movable jaw, neck, legs, and tail, and the ability to sense distances and the proximity of people and animals.
Pros: BJ runs on Linux and is tinker-friendly, showing support for the open source community.
Cons: Needs to be renamed.

Pleo
Price: $349
Features: Pleo is an autonomous robotic dinosaur with the ability to recognize sounds, sights, and touch. It expresses hunger, craves affection, explores its environment, and displays a wide range of emotions.
Pros: More pet-like in its ability to react to sensory information and interact with its owner.
Cons: Not actually a dog.

Paro
Price: $5,531
Features: Paro is a baby harp seal that responds to petting by moving its tail, opening and closing its eyes, and making seal-like noises. It can also respond to sounds, learn a name, and show emotions. All of these features are designed to have a calming effect on humans.
Pros: Has been deemed the world’s most therapeutic robot.
Cons: It may be possible for children to get too attached to a robotic pet. Also, it’s still not a dog.

Mio Pup
Price: $49.99
Features: Mio Pup is an interactive toy that accepts petting, plays music, and flashes emoticons in its eyes to signal its mood.
Pros: Considerably less expensive than most robotic dogs.
Cons: Essentially the canine equivalent of a Furby.

Robopet
Price: $99.99
Features: The biomechanical pup performs the full array of canine tricks, responds to sound and human movement, and can be trained to perform tricks on command through positive and negative reinforcement.
Pros: Easier to train than a real dog.
Cons: For some reason, it has the capacity to become depressed.

Dacky the Healing Partner
Price: $149.99
Features: Dacky reacts to petting thanks to its internal sensors. It also asks about your day, sings karaoke, and appears to learn up to 650 words of Japanese.
Pros: Not only is Dacky furrier than most robotic pets, it could encourage the girls to learn a foreign language.
Cons: Only comes in elitist purebred retriever.

Sakadachi-Lucky
Price: $129.99
Features: Sakadachi is another furry bot who responds to voice commands. It can recognize its name, do a headstand, and play tug of war with its rope.
Pros: Unlike Dacky, Sakadachi is of indeterminate breed.
Cons: Also unlike Dacky, it only knows 13 words of Japanese.

BigDog
Price: $10 million (at least that’s what DARPA paid)
Features: Billed as “the most advanced quadruped robot on Earth,” BigDog can maneuver all manner of terrain, run, jump, climb stairs, and recover from a fall.
Pros: Malia and Sasha could spend countless hours exploring the White House on BigDog's back.
Cons: It’s not commercially available.

[NMT's AutoFish, via Vision Systems Design]

• The Masks from Mission Impossible: The latex masks which could apparently turn a thin Tom Cruise into a chunky Philip Seymour Hoffman weren't exclusive to the movies. They used a fair share of these disguises throughout the television show, and the best part was when they'd cut from the live person to the dead looking fake mask being peeled away to reveal the operative underneath. At least MI:3 showed us a bit of how the machine that makes them works, but it still doesn't explain how they fit so well. The company that makes those could have made a fortune at Halloween every year.
• The Translator Microbes in Farscape: Science fiction properties have tried for years to get around the problem of everyone speaking English on new worlds lightyears away from Earth, and this has led to everything from The Universal Translator in Star Trek, to the Babel Fish in Hitchhiker's Guide, and the telepathic translating done by the TARDIS in Doctor Who. So, by the time Farscape came around, the writers decided to make them injectable translator microbes that let you understand whatever languange was hurled at you. Other people could understand you as well, but only if they were likewise injected. They didn't work perfectly, and often failed to translate slang like "dren" and "frell."
• Almost Everything in the 1960s Batman TV Show: Batman has had a slew of his own wacky gadgets, both in the comic books where he has an outfit for every possible encounter, and in the television show which really took the cake in creating bizarre items for Batman. Almost everything he used was a "Bat" something. In this clip from the show, you've got probably the lamest Batman gadget ever invented: The Bat Ladder. What exactly makes this a Bat Ladder, and why did he need to label it? In case he lost it somehow? Que ridiculo. Then there's the Bat-copter, the "Bat Auto Mode," and the Shark Repellent Bat Spray, which apparently makes sharks explode. He even has Barracuda, Whale, and Manta Ray repellent in there too.
• The Psychic Paper from Doctor Who: While this seems cool at first, eventually you start thinking it was an easy stopgap by the writers to get around the Doctor showing identification. In the old Tom Baker episode "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" (featuring the Doctor as a sleuth in Victorian London) the Doctor is asked to turn out his pockets, and he has everything in there from jelly babies to a toy Batmobile. We sure would have loved to see what Christopher Eccleston or David Tennant has crammed in there. Maybe a junior g-man badge would have worked just as well.
• The Giant Amplifier from Back to the Future: Doc Brown was an eccentric inventor, to be sure, but why on Earth would he create a massive speaker? Watching this movie again, it seems like it was just created for comic effect, and surely it would have blown out both of Marty's eardrums, scrambled his brain, and broken a bone or two in the process. Slight chance of overload my ass. Maybe the terrorists had asked him to build this thing too.
• Reed Richards and his Unstable Molecules: Unstable molecules sound like they'd be, well... unstable. Seems like just an easy way to explain why the Human Torch's clothes don't burn up, or why Sue Storm doesn't have to strip naked every time she turns invisible. Were the Thing's blue shorts made out of unstable molecules too? No idea what he needed them for. Reed supposedly made a fortune for the Fantastic Four by selling the patents to all of his inventions, but were most of them stolen? One thing is for sure, while he could seemingly invent a teleportation device out of a wristwatch and sticks of gum, he sure couldn't invent anything to turn Ben Grimm human again. So, how did Reed invent these things? In the movie the cosmic rays did it, but in the comics, it was just pure Reed Richards pseudogenius. It's also the name of an awesome graphic novel about the "real life" Fantastic Four by James Sturm.
• The Jetpack from The Rocketeer: Now, don't get me wrong, I wanted one of these things so bad that I could taste it. Who wouldn't want to slap on a funky helmet that makes you look like a hood ornament, a cool leather jacket, and just take to the skies? The problem was that later I realized this thing would totally burn your ass off. I mean, the flames shot out mere millimeters from his butt... how on Earth did he not scorch himself? Asbestos pants? Even one little throwaway line could have someone explained this, but now I just imagine Cliff Secord in a hospital bed with third-degree burns covering his backside. Plus, how could he even bend his legs upwards without melting those boots?
• Dick Tracy's Magnetic Space Coupe: Dick Tracy is probably best known for his two-way wristwatch radio, which later became a two-way television and eventually housed a computer to help him solve crimes. However, in the 1960s things got a lot more ludicrous when Tracy and Co. traveled to the moon via his Magnetic Space Coupe. While they were there, Tracy met "The Governor of the Moon" and his daughter, "Moon Maid." She eventually married Tracy's adopted son Junior, and they had a daughter together who... sorry, my brain just exploded.
• The Antigravity Belt Buckle in Ultraviolet: Or "Ultraviolent" as I like to call it. Milla Jovovich's badass vampire, er... "hemophage" with a conscience used this round little belt buckle to change her personal gravity, meaning she could walk on the ceiling, climb up walls, and it could even make her motorcycle drive up the sides of buildings. While we could (barely) buy the nanotech/portable hole technology in her wristbands and in that white plastic backpack, this thing just sent it over the top. What would keep her from flying off into the sky?

According to the official Exmocare site:

By interpreting an information-rich, individually-tailored physiological context, we can determine the emotional state of a person wearing an Exmocare device. Emotional information, very simply, can be characterized in two dimensions.

* Arousal: How excited is the person?
* Valence: How positive is the person?

Different emotional states are revealed through patterns of these two dimensions. How? Any emotional state leads to a specific change in our body. We can detect these patterns, and to an even greater extent, differentiate between them.

The BT2 Control Panel runs silently from your taskbar in reporter mode. In reporter mode, the software checks your physiological and emotional data for dangerous situations and sends status updates and alerts to the website automatically.

From the Evaluation Kit website, you can monitor anyone's physiological and emotional data from anywhere in the world. You can also view their full history and assign and resolve alerts.

BT2 [Exmocare]

• The Sonic Screwdriver from Doctor Who: This is probably one of the most versatile gadgets in all of science fiction creation. It could be used to disable robots, rewire security grids, repair dead machinery, open locks, and yes, even turn screws. They were never quite clear about how this worked, just that it was "sonic," but it got The Doctor out of more scrapes than McGuyver's Swiss Army knife, and won't raise eyebrows at airport security.
• The Lightsaber from Star Wars: Sure, it was just a sword... or was it? You could use this to open up tauntauns for warmth, melt steel blast doors open, deflect laser blasts, and light your way. Plus, if you have a really steady hand you could probably shave and cut the Thanksgiving turkey with it, and that's just for starters. Plus it has a handy belt loop so you can accessorize with it.
• The Handheld Replicator from Star Trek V: We only saw this thing once on-screen when Spock used it to create a marshmallow while he was camping with Kirk and Bones, but think about how awesome it would be to have this in your pocket. Especially while on a road trip or at the movies. Of course, it's so small in size that you wouldn't be able to get anything substantial out of it, but we envision a river of never-ending candy streaming out that would make your house a pretty popular stop on Halloween. You could even get a toy version of this by mailing a coupon in to Kraft, creating one of the lamest movie tie-in toys ever.
• Ziggy from Quantum Leap: Although unfortunately named after the world's lamest comic-strip, Ziggy was the sentient supercomputer that told Scott Bakula where and who he was, and what he was supposed to be doing. It looked like it was made out of see-through Legos and frequently got whacked by Al in an effort to make it work right, and it would make the perfect PDA. Don't like the lunch meeting it has scheduled for you? Just slap it around a bit.
• Mr. Igoe's hand from Innerspace: Igoe was the mute henchman of Mr. Scrimshaw, and he wanted nothing more than to cause you pain. He had a fake right hand that could pop off and be interchanged with several different tools, including a blowtorch, a corkscrew, a drill, and... a vibrator. Which he puts to good use on the red-haired vixen in the film. Talk about your ultimate handheld gadget, and his license plate even read SNAPON.
• The Neuralizer from Men In Black: Seriously, this pen-sized gadget could come in handy in millions of different ways, and it has the bonus benefit of giving you Jedi-like powers of persuasion as well. Not only could it make you forget things (at user-tweaked intervals), but you could plant suggestions in the newly erased mind the way Will Smith has that woman sass up her life. I'd like to have one just for all the times I get pulled over by traffic cops.
• Honorable Mention — The Bathroom Buddy from Gremlins: In the movie, Billy's dad (who is also the guy who bought the damn Gremlin in the first place) spends most of the movie trying to invent a "Bathroom Buddy" that will revolutionize going to the bathroom. Need a shave? Time to brush your teeth? Thanks Bathroom Buddy! No idea what else it could do, because thankfully the film didn't get too graphic with it. Alas, he never got it to work right, leaving us with a hunk of useless plastic and an empty spot in our pocket.