PR officials at The University of Texas Medical Center and the Children’s Medical Center in Dallas is preparing to live tweet a kidney transplant.  John Gilbreath, a 3 year old will be receiving a kidney transplant from his firefighter father Chris Gilbreath.

This is the first time that a pediatric kidney transplant surgery will be live-tweeted from the operating room.  The event will be taking place on Monday May 18 at 6AM.  Dr. Dev Desai will be performing the surgery.

About 85,000 people are on the waiting list for kidneys and the most pediatric transplants have taken place at the Children’s Medical Center.  The Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan has previously live tweeted the removal of a kidney tumor.

[via USAToday]

Above is a screenshot of multiple toolbars being used here that I pulled from an experiment at Rev2.org.  It includes a web toolbar from Krumlr, Ow.ly, Digg, and Facebook.  When I see a screenshot like this, I cannot help but think how this reminds me of GeoCities circa 1990′s when there was that stupid web banner that dragged up and down as you scrolled through content pages.  That banner alone helped contribute to the downfall of GeoCities.

The first one to come up with the toolbar out of all of the Web 2.0 companies was StumbleUpon.  Their web toolbar was just an alternative to the Firefox or Internet Explorer toolbar.  StumbleUpon just made it easier to use the service for those who did not have access to their own computers with the toolbar already installed.

But then Digg decided to replicate StumbleUpon’s web toolbar even though it was not necessary whatsoever.  The community was much better off without the Digg toolbar.  Given Kevin Rose is such an avid Twitter user and Digg wanted more traffic, this is why they created the toolbar and shortened the links for Digg.com URLs.

It didn’t stop at Digg.  Facebook decided to get into the web toolbar game by creating that feature for shared links on the social network.

All of these web toolbars are doing something worse than what the GeoCities banners were doing back in the 90′s.  These web toolbars are absorbing more traffic since it is their domain names being used but loading the content owner’s website in an iFrame.

By not getting the traffic that other websites are taking from you and if for some reason you aren’t getting the link-bank credit, then you could be potentially losing traffic.  Fortunately for Pulse2.com, our main traffic sources are not from these content-stealing web toolbars.  This is why I personally don’t mind it as much as many others.

For those of you out there that are using WordPress, there are some plugins available that automatically kill off the web toolbars.  One of them is called “Frame Breaker, aka Die Digg-bar die!“

Everyone’s personality has a certain type of color.  Let’s say that you are obsessed with money or nature, you would probably go with green-colored products.  If you consider yourself as a metro-personality or are a girl, then you would most likely go with pink.

Dell has decided to make their Inspiron line including the 537 available in 8 different colors.  The models also vary between Intel Celerons, AMD Semprons, Core 2 Quads, or Phenom X4s.  The CPUs can be upgraded to up to 8GB of RAM.  The pink colored model is sponsored by Susan G. Komen for the Cure program.

Starting prices for the lowest end model is $299.

[via Engadget/DesktopReview]

For those of you that use Amazon.com for purchases, you may recall how obnoxious the URLs are for individual products.  Back in 2002 Google even had to increase the number of URL characters that can be indexed.  For example, below is the URL of a purple 14GB Apple iPod nano (4th generation):

http://www.amazon.com/Apple-iPod-nano-Purple-Generation/dp/B001FA1NF0/ref=br_lf_m_1000274311_1_2_ttl?ie=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=electronics&pf_rd_p=471618271&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_t=1401&pf_rd_i=1000274311&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1K9D0AM24F1SDP4RPBF7

A lot of this URL is just extra fluff for analytics and inventory purposes, but within that URL is an Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN).  In the case of the URL above it is B001FA1NF0.

A developer by the name of Dustin has created a Mozilla Firefox plugin that automatically changes the URL from the big one above to a smaller one and still take you to the same page.   The plugin is called AmazonLinks.  The above URL is converted would be converted to http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B001FA1NF0/

Currently the add-on is experimental so it would require registering with Mozilla’s download directory.

[via CNET]

Vodafone is planning to release a set of APIs that will give developers the opportunity to build applications with capabilities to directly charge consumers for micro-payments and has the ability to detect location.  Developers will be able to reach Vodafone’s 289 million customers through the selling of games and other applications.

Vodafone will allow developers to use direct billing capabilities for customers to pay for application services wirelessly through pre- and post-paid accounts.

Another fortunate opportunity for developers through Vodafone is access to the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) SDK.  The JIL is a partnership between Softbank Corporation, Vodafone, and China Mobile Limited.  This will allow developers to create widgets for a total customer base of up to one billion consumers.  JIL will be launching a formal website and the SDK this summer.

[via Vodafone press release]

Fujitsu has been out of the server game for a while, but now they are back with a bang.  Fujitsu will be getting a new CEO next month and will see their hard drive business get taken over by Toshiba.  Fujitsu has also recently bought out the share of a partnership that they had with Siemens AG called Fujitsu Siemens Computers which will now be called Fujitsu Technology Solutions.  Now Fujitsu is introducing a new product called the “Dynamic Cube.”

The Dynamic Cube is a nickname for the BX900 blade server system.  The Dynamic Cube also refers to the collection of hardware and software needed for virtual servers.  Below are the components needed for the Dynamic Cube:

1. PRIMERGY BX900: The third generation of blade servers with 10U-high enclosure.  The enclosure holds 18 Intel Xeon 5500 (“Nehalem”) processor-based blades.
2. VMware ESX, Microsoft Hyper-V, and Xen: Abstraction layer between the network, servers, and the storage.
3. ServerView Resource Coordinator (SVRC) Virtual Edition: A feature that unifies virtual and physical management.

[via CNET]

Sony Corporation claims to have created the first coin-sized high definition camera module.  The camera module was designed for the security industry.  It features an 8.3 megapixel resolution and is smaller than a dollar coin.  The camera size is about 9.5×7.1mm.

It is called the MCB1172 and was developed by Sony Europe’s Image Sensing Solutions Division.  The MCB1172 has the ability to deliver 720p video at 30fps.  Other features include slow-mo function, 16x zoom, movie stabilization, face detection, autofocus, and motion autofocus.  The MCB1172 is ready for mass production and will become available later this year.

[via PocketLint]

Earlier this week, Microsoft Corporation has sold $3.75 billion worth of bonds to their investors.  The sale gave investors a small amount of extra yield over Treasury bonds.  Microsoft has a credit rating of AAA.  This was the first time that the company ever offered a long-term bond offering.

Why did Microsoft want to raise all of this extra cash?  Perhaps they want to look into more acquisitions.  Microsoft said that they wanted to take advantage of good market conditions and their great credit rating.  On September 22, 2008 Microsoft’s board of directors authorized an offering of up to $6 billion in debt.

“Someone probably told them there is no AAA paper out there, and there’s demand for the name for diversification,” stated bond trader and co-head of structured products/emerging markets at MF Global Andrew Brenner. “It’s pretty good for long-term money.”

AAA-rated corporate debt yields are about 211 basis points about the Treasurys.  JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley took the lead of the bond sale.

[via MarketWatch]