Laser-tattooing of fruits and vegetables may replace those annoying little stickers:
"With the right scanning technology the produce could even be bar-coded with lots of information: where it comes from, who grew it, who picked it, even how many calories it has per serving," said Fred Durand III, president of Durand-Wayland. "You could have a green pepper that was completely covered with coding. Or you could sell advertising space."
Bland Farms, the Vidalia grower, started using the technology this year, shipping laser-coded onions to customers including Wal-Mart and Publix. Sunkist has used it on oranges sold at Stater Brothers markets in California and is testing it on lemons, using blueberry-based ink to create greater contrast.
Henry Affeldt Jr., director of research for Sunkist, said the technology worked the same way lasers work in surgery, cutting and cauterizing almost simultaneously. The skin of fruit that has been etched with a laser is still airtight, Dr. Affeldt said, and the mark is as permanent as a tattoo. - nytimes.com
I can't say that a green pepper totally covered with writing grabs me in the slightest, but an alternative to those stickers would be nice. I keep eating them by mistake.
We Learnt Lots
NASA is examining several ways to launch the space shuttle Discovery next week even if it has not completely solved the puzzle of the faulty fuel level sensor that caused the launching to be scrubbed last week, officials said yesterday. - nytimes.com
That sounds clever; last time, a problem during launch fried a whole bunch of astronauts on the last shuttle, Columbia. This time, we know for sure it has a problem coming up to launch, but they're desperate to launch before the 'window' closes. Otherwise (gasp) they might have to wait until the 9th of September. Yay shortcuts. I wonder how the astronauts feel about it.
I Wonder If NZ Counts As A Cartel
The statement said that, where fee-charging machines had been introduced alongside free ATMs, they offered a genuine extension of choice - for example, consumers could opt to pay for a withdrawal instead of joining a queue for a free machine. This, it said, was an example of the market working as it should.
However, the government said it would be concerned if customers were in the situation where there was no free way to access their cash. It said that it did not believe that free ATMs in the UK are under threat, but it would continue to monitor the situation. - guardian.co.uk
They have standard, free ATMs in the UK? Why the hell am I paying 50c a transaction? KiwiBank is weird like that. You pay for using any ATM, but manual transactions are free. Probably because it's linked to PostShop, so the employees are there regardless. Might as well use them.