99-cent FPGAs from Actel

Actel announced two new low-density FGPAs: IGLOO and ProASIC3 starting at only 99-cents! The target markets are communicatinos, consumer, medical and industrial applications (including smart phones, system controllers, portable medical devices, wireless sensors). With the example spec of 128 macrocells, 15k gates, 5 uW, and 1 Kb nonvolatile Flash ROM, it promises to beat the power consumption by 10x compared to the leading PLDs!

PLDesign Article

UWB News

- August 13, 2007: UK is the first EU state to deregulate indoor use of UWB technology [vnunet]
- US and Japan (deregulated at the end of 2006, beginning of 2007) [vnunet]
- Canada (March 2004, Rogers Wireless Inc. acquired the first UWB license for experimental testing) [Canadian Amateur Radio Society]

The Aging Brain: How to age successfully

Here are a few advices that I've heard at one of UBC's open lectures "The Aging Brain: How to age successfully." Here is the podcast of the full speech and here is the link to UBC podcasts blog.

Good indicators of long life, as suggested by the speaker. Some of them are rather funny.
- Be happy, avoid chronic stress that depresses immune system (stress hormone secreted by the adrenaline eventually comes back to the brain and kills neuron cells)
- Acute stress is not bad
- Choose your carrots (parents, genes are important)
- Good for men to be married (even though sometimes it decreases life) . Here, I'd like to add that my teacher of Aikido says that "even though married man live longer, at the end, they are more willing to die".
- For women by statistics usually unmarried women live longer
- Get higher salary (the more money you make and save, the more you'll have when you retire, hence, prolonging your life)
- Get higher position (the higher you are, the more stress you can pass to subordinates)
- Eating less prolongs life (think of it as if you start eating 30% of food now, you gain 30% more life)
- many more others...