Sears Tower - Willis Tower

The world famous Sears Tower in Chicago is getting a name change to the Willis Tower after new tenants London-based Willis Group Holdings. The new name is part of the terms of a rental agreement between the owners of the Sears Tower and the Willis Group. Willis Group is not paying any extra money to make the name change. Somehow, that just doesn't sound right.

Life Expectancy

Which country has the lowest life expectancy and spends the most per capita? Scary isn't it.

Bionic Eyes

The artificial eyes use a camera and video processor mounted on sunglasses to send captured images wirelessly to a tiny receiver on the outside of the eye. In turn, the receiver passes on the data via a tiny cable to an array of electrodes which sit on the retina - the layer of specialized cells that normally respond to light found at the back of the eye.

When these electrodes are stimulated they send messages along the optic nerve to the brain, which is able to perceive patterns of light and dark spots corresponding to which electrodes have been stimulated. The hope is that patients will learn to interpret the visual patterns produced into meaningful images.

The bionic eye has been developed by US company Second Sight. So far 18 patients across the world have been fitted with the device. One totally blind man, who had seen total blackness for 30 years, reports being able to sort out socks by color, see white lines on the road, and more. The technology still a long way to go, but this is major progress.

Email to Home Address

How about this for a new concept, you can mail or receive mail electronically to your home address. This site has set up an email for every home address. Free for personal use, cheap for bulk mailers. It takes input directly from billing systems and sends them off to your street address. You open it like an email. It might work once more people know of it. For now, I'm not sure, but it would save the trip to the mailbox to collect paper to throw in the trash. You can just hit the delete button, or better yet, don't open the mail and you will never see it.

Honk

Pay Toilets on Airplanes

Ryanair in England is considering charging airline passengers a pound ($1.45) to use the toilet onboard the plane. Is this the beginning of another new crappy trend? Passengers better remember to bring cash.

Nanotechnology

The easiest way to describe the size of a nanometer is by comparison. If a baseball is a nanometer, the whole earth would be a meter. A meter is 39 inches and a yard is 36 inches.

The Wilson Double Core tennis ball, the official ball of the Davis Cup tournament, has clay nanoparticles embedded in the polymer lining of its inner wall, which slows the escape of air from the ball, making it last twice as long.

Search Me

Want to find out what is going around the web about you, go to searchme.com or try and find yourself on zoominfo.com Type in your name or the name of someone you know. You might be surprised at what information they are collecting about you.

Smell This

When the odor becomes truly out of this world, try this almighty air freshener. You can actually buy these on the web.