Current Issue:
Vol. 17 No. 1

Claudio Torghele has Italian chefs steaming. He has invented a vending machine that makes pizza from scratch in less than three minutes. And, it only costs a few euros. According to Reuters, the Let's Pizza machine uses infra-red rays and technology developed at the University of Bologna to mix and knead flour and water into dough, spread it with tomato sauce and a choice of topping, and cook it. Torghele hopes to install the machines across Europe and the United States, offering cash-strapped citizens another type of quick, cheap meal.

Are you too busy to speak to God yourself? Visit InformationAgePrayer.com, and pay a fee to have voice-synthesizing software recite your chosen prayer. LiveScience.com reports that subscribers may choose prayers from their religious tradition-Protestant, Catholic, Jewish or Muslim-and pay for single prayers or a month's supply. Even the unaffiliated may choose from a selection of prayers. The subscriber’s name appears on the computer screen while each prayer is voiced individually. Co-founder James Mcarlos of Boston, MA, acknowledges that the new site has not attracted a rush of subscribers.

Saya, Japan's robot teacher, calls the roll, assigns simple tasks, smiles and scolds. Her lifelike face expresses six basic emotions-surprise, fear, disgust, anger, happiness or sadness. This is made possible with the help of motors and wiring that pull her soft, rubber skin in the appropriate directions. Saya creator Hiroshi Kobayashi, a professor at the Tokyo University of Science, does not believe she will take the place of humans. "The robot has no intelligence," says Kobayashi. "It has no ability to learn. It has no identity. It is just a tool." News.com.au notes, however, that Saya does represent another step toward Japan's goal of placing a robot in every household by 2015.

McDonald's has recently received approval to award its own nationally-recognized qualifications in Britain. ABC News reports that David Fairhurst, the company's "chief people officer," believes the new power has made it "a university in its own right." He hopes titles awarded will eventually be equivalent to university degrees-perhaps even including PhDs. Progress toward graduate-level degrees will take time since the current training regimen is rated as high-school level.