Turning ashes into space dust
Memorials
For those of us who first mourned the passing of James Doohan last summer, the wait for his final voyage into space has been a long one.
But Doohan, who played the bold and boozy engineer Montgomery Scott on ''Star Trek," will make it into orbit around the beginning of 2007, according to Space Services (www.memorialspaceflights.com).
For about $1,000, you can send a sample of your loved one's cremated remains into space along with Scotty, aboard the ''Explorers Flight."
The Explorers ''crew" already includes the ashes of more than 200 people, stored in special capsules.
The Space Services website has touching written tributes, including one to Doohan, from his former drinking buddy and Trek costar, George Takei (a.k.a. Lieutenant Sulu). ''Jimmy was Scotty," Takei writes. ''He loved his Scotch."
Wireless Tech
Monitoring people and their gadgets
Ekahau, based in Reston, Va., has developed a marketer's dream: a way to track individuals by their WiFi devices, which these days can be anything from a laptop or PDA to a phone or digital camera, not to mention Ekahau's own ''WiFi Tag."
The company's WiFi tracking software can pick up your trail where GPS signals typically drop off -- inside buildings, for example, or under elm trees. It can then signal other software to beam promotions to you, based on where you are standing.
Ekahau's positioning server software measures radio signal strengths to pinpoint the location of any WiFi device within 3 to 6 feet. The standalone WiFi Tag, the size of a matchbox, can also receive unique alert signals (such as restricted area warnings) from the positioning server.
Ekahau is promoting its WiFi Tag as a tool for monitoring Alzheimer's patients and locating miners and underground excavation workers.
The Smithsonian museums next month will offer some wireless self-guided tours using Ekahau's software and WiFi-equipped PDAs.
Once it spies your location, the position server prompts the Smithsonian's multimedia software to push audio, video, and text about the exhibit you are viewing to your device.
The Ekahau (www.ekahau.com) technologies could tap into some of the paranoia already swirling around RFID tags, the radio transponders that are turning up in credit cards and passports and on retail goods.
RFID reader networks in public spaces do not yet exist. WiFi networks, on the other hand, already blanket many college campuses and business districts, and may soon cover entire cities. And while many RFID readers only have ranges of a few inches or feet, a WiFi access point has a potential range of up to 300 feet.
Unlike RFID tags, Ekahau's WiFi software and tags are completely opt-in technologies, the company says. You must have Ekahau's client software running on your WiFi device in order to be tracked. As for the WiFi Tag, you can easily push a button to control whether it can be detected by the positioning server.
DIY
Some neat, fun things to do with 'arfids'
I am fascinated by the neat things you can do with RFID tags, such as those detailed in Amal Graafstra's new project book, ''RFID Toys (www.rfidtoys.net)."
I am especially keen on the ''extreme" applications for ''arfids," which is what techno-hipsters are calling the radio tags nowadays. In ''RFID Toys," Graafstra boasts the he has implanted RFID tags in each of his hands. He describes how artist Meghan Trainor uses arfids to create objects called ''spime," which can be tracked individually by RFID readers and through databases.
''RFID Toys" does not encourage do-it-yourselfers to sharpen their blades for home surgery. But it will have nerds heating their soldering guns, so they can hack their locks around the house to open when they sense certain RFID tags.
My favorite ''RFID Toys" project is a wireless, automatic doggie door that unlocks only when it detects the unique serial number emitted by an RFID tag you place on your dog's collar.
