A vibrating vest for soldiers could put an end to cryptic battlefield hand signals. The spandex vest, developed by the US army, has 16 vibrating motors on its back to indicate commands such as 鈥渢urn left鈥�, 鈥渟peed up鈥� or 鈥渟low down鈥�. In tests, volunteers distinguished between 15 different signals used to direct them around an obstacle course. Commands are sent to the vest via Bluetooth.
Xerox is helping people who want to browse paper documents but don鈥檛 want to risk sensitive information falling into the wrong hands. The company has developed a system that prints most of a document鈥檚 text but replaces selected words and figures with a bar code. To read the full text the paper is scanned; a password or fingerprint plus special software reveals the encrypted content (US patent 2006/0259983).
