BigPond, Dodgy ISPs, Soundbug, Roller Coasters & Nanotechnology

Across Australia, people will soon receive phone calls from Telstra explaining why they cannot access their e-mail on their BigPond broadband connections With customer complaints repeatedly unanswered and lack of co-operation with telecommunications regulatory watchdogs, two local ISPs — Australis Internet Pty Ltd and Internet TV Australia — have been given 14 days to explain their lack of action It may be more famous for making typewriters, but Olympia has just revealed what some observers are calling one of the sexiest gadgets of this year's CeBIT — the Soundbug is a small device that can turn pretty much any flat surface into a soundboard John Ivers got tired of waiting in line to ride a roller coaster so he decided to build his own — the Blue Flash — in his backyard The Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to create anime-based military uniforms that can block out biological weapons and even heal their wearers as part of a five-year contract to develop nanotechnology applications for soldiers