Make Out Online

A "kiss transmission device"  is being developed in Japan to enable simulated french kissing via the internet.

"If you take one device in your mouth and turn it with your tongue, the other device turns in the same way," says the device's inventor in a YouTube video. "If you turn it back the other way, then your partner's turns back the same way, so your partner's device turns whichever way your own device turns."

Read the article here.

Ethics of Human Enhancement

The US National Science Foundation published a report on ethical considerations over using technology to enhance human capabilities beyond normal functioning.  

Corrective eyeglasses, for instance, would be considered therapy rather than en-hancement, since they serve to bring your vision back to normal; but strapping on a pair of night-vision binoculars would count as hu-man enhancement, because they give you sight beyond the range of any unassisted hu-man vision. As another example, using stero-ids to help muscular dystrophy patients regain lost strength is a case of therapy; but steroid use by otherwise-healthy athletes would give them new strength beyond what humans typ-ically have (thereby enabling them to set new performance records in sports). And growing or implanting webbing between one’s fingers and toes to enable better swimming changes the structure and function of those body parts, counting then as a case of human en-hancement and not therapy.

Read the report here.

(Thanks to C3C Dan Pickett for forwarding)