If you’ve ever had to rely on multiple physicians tag teaming an ailment, chances are it wasn’t the smoothest process. Between the Doctor-Patient privacy laws and the half dozen middle men involved, the process nearly assuredly hit a snag or two along the way. Now, take away the widespread internet access that allows for instant communication - the process would grind to a halt.

That lack of communication is the problem Brian Levine, a fourth year Med student at New York University, is looking to tackle in Ghana. After setting out to build an on the web social network for physicians in the region, he found that the required infrastructure just wasn’t there. Few physicians had personal, and even fewer had access to the web. What they did have, however, were cell phones. If he couldn’t link them across the web, he’d link them through cell towers.

The main obstacle was cost; though doctors had access to phones, calling one another was costly. Brian teamed up with Ghana Telecom to build a new mobile network, “Medicare Line”, on which registered doctors can call each other at no expense. With the help of the Ghana Medical Association, they’ve already signed up more than two thousand physicians who have since made over a million calls on the network.

Awesome work, Brian. In a country with far too few physicians for its ever expanding population, any mission to improve the health care system is a valiant one.

[Via AfricanLoft. Thanks for the tip, Kaushal!]

Via Mobilecrunch

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Following the lead of Nissan and NEC, which both recently have started down this track, the German carmaker is looking into lithium-ion batteries to improve its hybrids and electrics. It sounds like the Nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries in their automobiles are both heavier and more toxic than the alternative. The Li-ion batteries would lower the weight […]

Following the lead of Nissan and NEC, which both recently have started down this track, the German carmaker is looking into lithium-ion batteries to improve its hybrids and electrics. It sounds like the Nickel-metal hydride (NiMH) batteries in their vehicles are both heavier and more toxic than the alternative.

The Li-ion batteries would lower the weight of the vehicle by hundreds of pounds, improving handling and mileage. You’ve already got them in your phones, media players, and so on, but adapting them for the high-capacity, high-throughput application of powering a car is a serious endeavor — which must be why Sanyo is pledging almost a billion dollars over the next couple years to developing the technology.

Via [crunchgear]

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Volkswagen states they are planning to produce a 1-Liter vehicle, ready for sale by early 2010. The body of the vehicle will be made of plastic and magnesium. A one-cylinder engine with a top speed of about 74 mph will power the gas sipping automobile. With the rising price of fuel, the main selling point for […]

Volkswagen says they’re planning to produce a 1-Liter automobile, ready for sale by early 2010. The body of the vehicle will be made of plastic and magnesium. A one-cylinder engine with a top speed of about 74 mph will power the gas sipping car.

With the rising price of fuel, the main selling point for this vehicle is that it will get 235 mpg (hippies are going to love this thing). That might sound like a fantasy to some, but its true. VW developed a concept version back in 2002.

Via [crunchgear]

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Forget those GPS graves in the jungle we brought you a few weeks ago, because in the future what we’re really going to do is pour—yes pour—our loved ones down the drain with the help of some lye and an iron coffin contraption from BioSafe Engineering. The last hurdle, as always, will be to overcome the yuck factor many people experience when they realize this really does mean turning mom and pops into coffee syrup.

The lye (alkaline hydrolysis) process is as old as dirt, and until the enterprising chaps at BioSafe molded it into a human-sized coffin, farmers used it to dissolve dead animals like Charlotte the spider to save on burial, cremation or other environmentally unsound disposal costs. It was only recently engineers got the stones to apply the technique to humans.

The process […] uses lye, 300-degree heat and 60 pounds of pressure per square inch to destroy bodies in massive stainless-steel cylinders that are similar to pressure cookers.

Before you break out the checkbook, remember that the option isn’t on Funeral Home checklists just yet, and US lawmakers are predictably against legalizing the practice in all 50 says (Minnesota and New Hampshire are the only says where lye burials are technically legal).

Even so, the mortuary pubs are already singing lye’s praises. “It’s not often that a truly game-changing technology comes along in the funeral service,” said a source in the newsletter Funeral Service Insider. “But we might have gotten a hold of one.”

On an editorial note, I’m pretty sure the geeky jokes will write themselves in regard to this new way of dealing with death, but I’ll get things started anyway. SLURM! [The Associated Press]

Via [Gizmodo]

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Just foolin around…. Linux is cool

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For those living in the UK, the BBC iPlayer is a pretty fantastic VOD service with one drawback: you have to watch shows in-browser. Now one philanthropist coder has written a Vista Media Center interface for the iPlayer. So you can view BBC content on your Television without the PS3 and Wii workarounds, or, at the very least, break free of your browser’s annoying viewing restrictions. It’s a free download, so all you Physician Who fanatics should have plenty of cash left over for living-room-destroying merchandise. [Milliesoft via eHomeUpgrade]

Via [Gizmodo]

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This is insane. The hard drive crashed to earth with the rest of the wreckage, and at first they couldn’t even tell it was a drive at all. Data recovery expert Jon Edwards took a shot at it and due to a combination of technical skill and luck, he was able to recover the data […]

This is insane. The hard drive crashed to earth with the rest of the wreckage, and at first they couldn’t even tell it was a drive at all. Data recovery expert Jon Edwards took a shot at it and due to a combination of technical skill and luck, he was able to recover the data on the drive, which was information on an experiment written up here.

I say luck because whatever was writing to the hard drive happened to be running DOS of all things, which applies the data to the drive in a very straightforward way. It’s unnerving that after such a trauma they were able to recover all the data, but it’s also reassuring. With all my hard drives, I live in constant fear of fire or flood (well, not flood here on the second floor, but you know what I mean). It’s good to know there are experts who can fix a drive that’s fallen from 39 miles up at 12,000mph.

Too bad it doesn’t mention what brand of HDD it is. [via HardOCP]

Via [crunchgear]

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Hey, Justin Timberlake here. Just checking to see if you senoritas are n*sync with my plans to bring sexy back to reality TV. Next season, MTV’s going to rock your body with a new reality game show called “The Phone,” to be executive-produced by yours truly. Here’s the premise:

Each episode will start with two hidden cell phones ringing at opposite ends of a major city. Contestants who answer the phones will get to go on a timed mission for a cash prize. While they’re racing through the city, a helicopter will track their each move. Kind of like that scene in the Bourne Ultimatum where Matt Damon’s trying to get that journalist dude to follow his instructions—but sexy. Also nobody’s going to get their heads blown off.

What? You think this sounds unbelievably lame? You’re not lovin’ it? Well buddy, cry me a river, because last time I checked, I was Justin Timberlake and you weren’t. I get to do things like make out with Scarlett Johansson and have four cellphone channels devoted to my life. I think I would be the king of knowing what’s lame and what’s not. Where is the love, man? God, you guys are such dicks (in a box). [Reuters]

Via [Gizmodo]

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With just around a month to go before the iPhone 2.0 software hits, does RIM have reason to sweat? Apple pundit extraordinaire and co-creator of the Markdown syntax, John Gruber, thinks they might.

He brings up a pretty big point: once the iPhone gains its enterprise wings, won’t it do just about everything Blackberry users call for? Push email? Check. Remote wipe? Check. Calendar and contact syncing? Double check. Add in the iPhone’s already extensive catalog of features and the sure-to-be-ridiculous number of third celebration applications coming with the new app store and.. well, let’s just say RIM’s got their work cut out for them.

RIM’s still got at least two cards left: their devices have physical keyboards, and they’ve got a userbase that’s simply big. The first point is an absolute must for some (myself included). But the second? Many enterprise users are only as loyal as their company’s IT guy. It’s time for some innovation, RIM.

PHOTO CREDIT: presta

Via Mobilecrunch

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There’s plenty of room left to build in the world’s major cities; we just have to be MacGyver about it. Because when one group of architects looked at an alley, they saw the perfect lot for a five-story building that’s less then eight feet wide.

Built on a steel frame, this home office took only a few weeks to construct. It’s particularly eco-friendly (as it can piggyback off heat from adjacent buildings otherwise lost to the alley’s air), and while each level is absurdly small, the floor to ceiling windows do wonders to cut through the jail syndrome (evoking more of a caged hamster vibe). Really though, it all makes sense…other than the bathtub on the roof.

For more images from the project, hit the link. Next up: sewers. [Archinect via Treehugger] [Images by Luc Roymans]

Via [Gizmodo]

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