MRM is produced by removing all the good portions of meat (breast, thigh, etc.) and then crushing the remaining skeleton along with connective tissue and fat against a mesh in a mechanical device to produce a pile of crushed bones and and a slurry. The resulting meat slurry is called MRM and is typically used in Hot Dogs, Chicken nuggets and burgers. Also, cheap brand frozen foods (meat pies, kievs, etc.) cost less because they typically use MRM. MRM has been around for a while, but not so well known to the general public.

Alex was able to create a Chicken Kiev that met the FSA requirements, but had only 19% chicken (MRM-type stuff). And he was able to sell the Kievs to rich dudes at a food fair! Alex tried to  get the FSA’s attention with a sarcastic “Eat Waste Save Animals” (by eating rubbish like MRM products, you maximize utilization of an animal, thereby saving the slaughtering of more animals) demonstration in front of the FSA office in London. Check out the video below:

There are other documentaries in this series. You can check them out on YouTube.

Another startling revelation in this documentary was the manner in which most frozen meat products are imported into the UK (and being very cheap). Here’s an example : Chicken slaughtered in Brazil, salted and frozen, then shipped to Netherlands, unsalted and thawed, then injected with water, frozen again and then shipped to the UK. Yikes!

I remembered a pair of American-style Hot Dog (Ye Olde Oak) cans in my Kitchen cabinet (bought them a year ago, but hadn’t consumed them as I’ve been avoiding processed meats). I checked the label and just besides the banner “Highest Quality Hot Dogs”, the list of ingredients read – 60% Mechanically Recovered Chicken, Pork collagen, EXXX, etc……the cans went straight into my dustbin! So, every time you think of popping into that Burger shop around the corner, think about MRM!

Watch Michael Pritchard’s demo of the Lifesaver bottle (at TED) below:

The Lifesaver bottle or jerry can could save the lives of millions of people around the world in dire need of drinking water, but for this ultra filtration technology to really change the world, it must be affordable, safe to use and easily accessible.

The Lifesaver bottle scores well on safety. The bottle has been tested and certified by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (laboratory test results). Also, when the bottle’s filtering mechanism expires, the filtering system simply shuts down preventing unsafe consumption of water.

Regarding affordability, you can check the cost of Lifesaver products here. They are expensive and will not be affordable by the people who need them most. Michael Pritchard believes that developed countries which provide massive aid to developing countries can include these bottles as part of their aid packages. However, for Lifesaver products to be more affordable and easily accessible, perhaps Michael should license the technology to manufacturers around the world with utmost importance given to adherence to quality. The developing and poor countries wherein people are more likely to fall short of drinking water are typically also the countries where corruption is widely prevalent and so many fake bottles could be manufactured thereby putting several lives in danger. So, while this technology is wonderful in the benefits it can bring to millions, there’s still more to be done to realize the benefits.

The downside to this wonderful innovation is that the MH907 works only with Fast ports on Sony Ericsson phones. There are Fast port to 3.5mm jack adaptors available, but I don’t know if the adaptors prevent the motion activation functionality.

The motion activated headphones work as follows (image adapted from Sony Ericsson’s website):

Watch Sony Ericsson’s ad video below:

Visit the Sony Ericsson website for more details

Well, I’m far from being a fan of Microsoft. Yet, I cannot deny that Microsoft has introduced the world of computing to many millions of people, primarily with their desktop Operating Systems. Microsoft may not be a technology pioneer, but it has certainly been excellent at doing business and dominating the world software market with its products.

Here are the key rulings passed against Microsoft by the EC:

• March 2004: Microsoft penalised with a $613 million fine, 120 days to divulge some Windows code to enable other vendor products be interoperable with Windows and 90 days to offer a Windows Operating System without Windows Media Player.
• July 2006: Microsoft fined $357 million for failing to comply with the anti-competition ruling made against in in March 2004 (mentioned above).
• February 2008: Microsoft fined £1.35 billion for failing to comply with the anti-competition ruling of March 2004

In addition to the above rulings, the EC also announced:

• May 2008: EC was going to investigate Microsoft Office’s OpenDocument Format Support
• January 2009: EC was going to investigate Microsoft’s bundling of IE with its Windows Operating Systems.

Unsurprisingly, companies that goaded the EC to push Microsoft to one corner are Microsoft’s competitors – Novell, Sun Microsystems, Opera, Mozilla and Google. Well, I am surprised that Google became involved as I thought it usually just lets its products speak for themselves.

Well, I believe that the EC’s rulings against Microsoft and other investigations are unfair. Microsoft has every right to keep its own code proprietary and why should Microsoft pay the price of being so successful and dominant in the software market? Why can’t Microsoft’s competitors develop better products and market them better to remove Microsoft’s dominance? Yes, Microsoft has the great advantage of using its Operating System to enable its other products reach the masses. So what? Why can’t other companies develop better Operating Systems and bundle them with better products? I do appreciate the requirement to release code to enable other vendors make their products interoperable with Windows (that’s the only part of the ruling I agree with), but requiring Microsoft to strip down its OS and remove products like Windows Media Player and IE is simply ludicrous.

The EC’s ruling, in effect, stipulates an upper limit for a successful software business. If you’re doing great and nobody else can do better, you got to slow down to allow others to catch up.

Why isn’t the EC bothered about the following?:

• Apple bundling the Safari browser with the Mac OS X
• Google striking a deal with Sony to ship all Sony PCs/laptops with the Chrome browser

Perhaps, the EC believes that Microsoft enjoyed its success for too long and now while Microsoft is being punished for moving too fast towards world domination, other companies should be allowed to catch up!! And which browser do you think Google will bundle along with its Chrome OS due to be released next year? The EC’s ruling against Microsoft has set a bad precedent.

According to Distilled, “The jury may still be out on whether Electro Magnetic Fields from mobile phones hurt us but phones are legally allowed to emit 1.6 watts per kilogram of radio frequency and one might prefer some insurance. Hence this pant with copper and nickel plated pocket bags that block potentially harmful radiation.”

The EMF Blocker pant design pattern has been open sourced by Distilled and is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Some photos of the EMF Blocker pant (courtesy mattymerrill’s photostream) are shown below:

Like the tagline “Protect yourself and your future progeny”