Awesome! I’ve always had a warm spot in my heart for the number pad, something I’ve had to give up since working on iBook, Power Books and MacBooks for so long. But thanks to Balmuda Software’s brilliant NumberKey app I’ve turned my iPhone into an external number pad on my desk.

Available on the iTunes store, NumberKey creates a wifi connection to your mac via the NumberKey Connect app, which detects your iPhone running and converts it into a number pad. After first-time setup, you don’t even need the wifi network anymore!

No surprise to anyone, but Africa is a huge huge piece of land! A bit old but really awesome nonetheless. Coming from the Times Atlas we have an amazing graphical comparison of the African continent in comparison to other landmasses we all are much more familiar with.

The graphic shows how Africa (30.3 million km²!) is larger than the combination of China, The USA, Western Europe, India, Argentina and the British Isles. Very cool!

Brilliant! Internet wonder-man Dustin McLean has put together a series of literal music videos, including the brilliant debut video, a literal take on A-ha’s “Take On Me”, which is one of the most popular videos on YouTube and was featured as a top hit on Funny or Die. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a contract coming McLean’s way from Funny or Die in the future, as these are just too good to keep as mere YouTube releases.

McLean as since followed up with Red Hot Chili Peppers “Under the Bridge” and Tears for Fears’ “Head Over Heels”.

For the past few days word has been flying around the internet that a German physician, treating a 42 year old American in Berlin for leukemia, ‘accidentally’ cured him of HIV, of which the patient was also suffering. Come to find out that Dr. Gero Hütter didn’t necessarily cure him accidentally, it was more a theory he was putting to the test.

In need of a bone marrow transplant, Dr. Hütter chose specific marrow from a donor who carries the naturally occuring genetic mutation that renders cells immune to almost all strains of HIV, the virus that causes Aids. After a successful transplant, the patient appear to be recovering well and more importantly, appears to be free of HIV as well, even after over 600 days without antiretroviral medication.

More tests using this method will be conducted on HIV+ patients, but if they prove to be successful, this type of gene therapy will become much more accepted as a treatment for the HIV virus.

Revealed in a recent Army request to the Department of Defense, a search appears to be underway for a good team to create a next-generation sensor package to enable a robot, or teams of robots, to detect unruly humans. Or as the Army puts it:

Develop a software and sensor package to enable a team of robots to search for and detect human presence in an indoor environment.

As robotics engineers get more and more worried that their creations will become tomorrow’s oppressive machines, objections are popping up from robo-ethicists and robotics engineers around the net.

I for one am interested to see how much closer our lives will be like living in an episode of Half-Life 2.

Happy National Beard Month everybody! November is a great time of the year, getting closer to Christmas, leaves are turning, snow is beginning to fall. As the weather begins to cool (well, at least in places with ozone coverage), it becomes necessary for men to begin covering their face, and I mean covering them well. And what better way than with a full face of hair!? We’re not talking about a wimpy middle-management, corporate sales goatee or anything, we’re talking a full-on, Grizzly Adams bush of facial hair, with ample room for bird nests and sandwich crumbs.

If you need a little guidance, Matt Evans took a look at a bunch of beard options over at The Morning News, making it a bit easier for you to decide how you and your face will be celebrating this glorious month of facial hair worship.