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• GPS and TV-enabled supermarket trolley hits Australia
  www.3news.co.nz video, 20 April
  The next big thing in supermarket shopping is about to make an entrance.
  It's a futuristic trolley that comes with a TV screen and a GPS navigation system, and does just about everything but pay the bill.
  Damian Murphy road tests the state-of-the-art trolley invented in Australia, and set to be in supermarkets there from July.
• NZ joins Google Buzz privacy backlash
  www.nzherald.co.nz, 21 April
  "It would be better to have this as an opt-in - in other words, allow people to consciously choose what they make public. At the moment, it takes an extra step to protect your personal information," Ms Shroff said. Google New Zealand spokeswoman Annie Baxter, said she would get back to nzherald.co.nz on what the company would do in the future. Another spokeswoman pointed nzherald.co.nz to its privacy principles . The status-quo is not good enough for the Commission.
• Low-power Bluetooth for watches
  www.stuff.co.nz, 21 April
  A new version of the Bluetooth wireless technology could expand what can be done by watches, toys, home sensors, medical monitors and other devices that typically have been limited in their functions because they don't get their batteries changed or charged very often.
  Imagine your wristwatch now telling you who's calling on your phone and showing your text messages.
• China's 'robot dad' aims to show inventions to world
  www.stuff.co.nz, 21 April
  Wu Yulu, a 49 year old farmer from the outskirts of Beijing, has become a household name in China for his homemade robots. Now, the creations that he calls his children are about to gain international renown.
  Made from scrap materials including wire and screws, Wu has invented over 47 robots which can pour tea, offer smokers a light and paint pictures.
  Wu, who received no education after primary school, has become a hero in Chinese media for his whirring, ticking and talking inventions, and now foreign media have taken an interest in him ahead of his appearance at the Shanghai World Expo which runs from May to October.
• Sun shines on kiwi bach design
  www.stuff.co.nz/, 26 April
  The humble Kiwi bach, powered only by the sun, is on its way to Washington to compete against the world's best solar homes.
  The 60-square-metre house, designed by a group of architecture students – one from Taranaki – has been selected amongst 19 other teams from around the world for the United States government-run competition next year.
• Plugging the Gulf oil leak
  TV3 News video, 27 April
  Crews raced to protect the Gulf of Mexico coastline as a remote sub tried to shut off an underwater oil well that is gushing 42,000 gallons a day from the site of a wrecked drilling platform.
  If crews cannot stop the leak quickly, they might need to drill another well to redirect the oil, a laborious process that could take about two months while oil washes up along a broad stretch of shore, from the white-sand beaches of Florida's Panhandle to the swamps of Louisiana.
  Discussion starters:
  • Characteristics of Technological Outcomes: Catastrophic failure
• Robot sub used in bid to stem Gulf oil spill
  www.odt.co.nz/, 27 April
  Coast Guard crews raced to protect the Gulf of Mexico coastline as a remote sub tried to shut off an underwater oil well that's gushing 42,000 gallons a day from the site of a wrecked drilling platform.
• Electric cars may kick-off before RWC
  www.nbr.co.nz/, 27 April
  Wellington City Council hopes to have electric vehicles on the streets before Rugby World Cup kick-off in September next year.
  The council's draft annual plan allocates $50,000 toward an electric vehicle pilot programme in conjunction with private and state-owned enterprise partners, with emphasis on the development of a business fleet.
• NZ students win at World Robotics Competition
  TV1 Breakfast Show video, 28 April
  Rangitoto College students discuss their participation at a global robotics completion held recently in Texas, USA.
  Discussion starters:
  • control technology
• Cellphones as learning devices in school
  www.nzherald.co.nz, 30 April
  Most schools have banned mobile phones in the classroom - but Howick College isn't like most schools.
  Discussion starters:
  • Characteristics of Technological Outcomes: alternative function
  • m-learning
• Technology hits the slopes of Everest
  www.msnbc.msn.com, 4 May
  NEW YORK - As Canadian mountaineer Jamie Clarke scales Mt. Everest this month, he's wearing a suit that's just a few millimeters thick, only slightly thicker than a windbreaker.
  But despite the lack of the pillow-puffy down parka, he'll likely be more worried about overheating than freezing, because of a space-age insulator outfitter Champion is using in his one-piece full-body "Supersuit."
  Aerogel, silicon modified to contain microscopic pockets of air — it's often compared to "solid smoke" — was developed for use as industrial insulation, and it's one of the best, lightest insulators around.
  Discussion starters:
  • New materials formulation
  • Properties of materials and their performance capability
• How green is your workplace?
  TV3 Campbell Live video, 6 May
  We're already recycling at home, but what would we find in our work places?
  Do the places we work in take recycling as seriously as many people do at home?
  Discussion starters:
  • recycling strategies
  • carbon footprint
• Plugging the Gulf oil leak (update)
  TV3 News, 8 May
  A BP-chartered vessel lowered a 100-ton concrete-and-steel vault onto the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico - an important step in a delicate and unprecedented attempt to stop most of the gushing crude fouling the sea.
  Discussion starters:
  • Testing design ideas
• Gulf Oil Leak - potential causes suggested
  TV3 News, 13 May
  Bad wiring and a leak in what's supposed to be a "blowout preventer". Sealing problems that may have allowed a methane eruption. Even a dead battery, of all things.
  New disclosures Wednesday revealed a complex cascade of deep-sea equipment failures and procedural problems in the oil rig explosion and massive spill that is still fouling the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and threatening industries and wildlife near the coast and on shore.
  Discussion starters:
  • system malfunction: reliability; redundancy; fail-safe
• Burger King's beef with Seabreeze Whopper
  TV3 Campbell Live video, 13 May
  The Seabreeze takeaway restaurant – world famous in Nelson.
  The Seabreeze was calling its prize burger a Whopper Burger and that got Burger King's heckles up.
  Burger King sent a legal letter telling them to stop using the name that instant.
  So did they?
  Discussion starters:
  • Intellectual property (IP) issues