Google Nexus One.

One sweet little phone.I may have a relatively new phone (LG Versa) but that does not stop me from wanting a phone with a little more oomf.  Oomf in the way of a bigger screen, faster processor, beefier graphics capability… not to mention a decent web browser or GPS.  I have always been a fan of the iPhone, but have steered clear of it because… well… it’s an Apple product.  Now if you don’t know me, you may be saying, “how can this guy not like Apple products when his site looks just like Apple’s?”  Well to make it short I love Apple as a design company, as a marketing company, and as a minimalistic guru.  I however have issues with Apple’s  business model.  They put mediocre parts in a sleek case and charge you easily twice what you should be paying.  Anyway I won’t get in to the whole discussion at the moment.

The point is that I have been on the lookout for a comparable phone to the iPhone and it is getting close.  The Nexus One is a phone designed by Google Labs and will soon be released to just about every major cell service.  One of the main reasons this phone stands out from the pack for me is its Active-matrix OLED display.  OLED displays are far superior to the usual LCD display in terms of black levels, color balance, power consumption, and generated heat.  This is one of the first cell devices (besides overseas) to have one of these awesome displays.  The phone also runs on the newest Android OS which is also another huge plus.  I won’t go on and on about the specs.  There is a pretty good review over Engadget if you are interested.

Google search your brain.

The type of brain map that used to grace high-school biology texts looked like a quilt: A pink chunk labeled “vision” bumped up against a blue blob that was the seat of language and a yellow swath representing motor perception. Those crude representations were the result of centuries’ worth of painstaking dissection, coupled with case studies of people suffering from brain damage and disease.

It took only three years for a Seattle lab founded by Microsoft mogul and philanthropist Paul Allen to revolutionize the landscape of neuroscience by creating a map of the brain that goes far beyond topography to pinpoint the workings of individual cells. The Allan Brain atlas is one of his biggest philanthropic endeavors. “The federal government would have been reluctant to fund a project on such a scale”, said Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health.

Neuroscientist Marc Tessier-Lavigne says, “This really just bolts us ahead in our ability to understand brain function and brain disorder,” — and what goes wrong in conditions ranging from schizophrenia and autism to Parkinson’s disease and drug addiction. “I really can’t live without it. Mapping the genes myself would be far too time-consuming,” said Ben Barres, professor of neurobiology and developmental biology at Stanford University.

The free program and tutorials on how to use it can be found at the Allan Brain Atlas website.