New "Eagan's Law" Passed in NJ
Under a new law designed to protect minors, local police departments will now be required to inform residents any time a known Roman Catholic priest or bishop moves into their neighborhood. The law also mandates that Catholic priests register with authorities, wear electronic monitoring devices, and be prohibited from moving to within a half-mile radius of a school.

A follow-up to Megan's Law, enacted by New Jersey in 1994, the so-called "Egan's Law" is named for Cardinal Edward Egan of New York and Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston, who are both accused of covering up sexual abuse by priests under their authority. Like Megan's Law, Egan's Law is expected to spread quickly to other states.



Creed Tour Cancelled
In a related incident, Cristian rock act Creed was forced to cancel the remainder of their North American tour because of a car accident involving lead singer Scott Stapp. According to a band spokesman, the singer is suffering from back and neck pain after Stapp's SUV was hit in the rear by another car on Interstate 4 near Orlando, Florida on Friday, April 19th. According to Orlando police, no injuries were reported at the time of the accident. It is uncertain at this time if Stapp was rear-ended by a priest.



Major Advancement in User Interface Technology
A new glass is able to tell bar or waitstaff when it is empty and needs refilling. Developed by Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the intelligent glass is fitted with a radio-frequency coil in its base and emits a signal to a receiver set in the table when it's empty, New Scientist magazine reported last week.

The iGlassware system works by coating each glass with a transparent conductive film and embedding a microchip and a thin radio-frequency coil in its base. The conducting material makes the glass behave like a capacitor, a device that stores an electrical charge between two conductive plates separated by an insulator. In this case the glass's base and sides are the conductive plates, while the drink is the insulator. As the level of drink falls, so does the insulation, and this progressively raises the charge that goes through to the microchip in the glass's base. When the microchip receives the "full" charge, that means the glass is empty, so it sends a top-up signal to the waiters' station via a small radio coil built into the table, using a frequency similar to those used by mobile phones. Every glass has its own ID, and its charge is provided by a radio frequency signal also provided by the table coil.

The downside to iGlassware is that it is intrusive - the restaurant knows what you have ordered and how fast you have drunk it. However, iGlassware is bound to be a hit, says Ronald Cole, an expert in hotel and restaurant management at the University of Delaware, .

"Our studies show that if there is a long delay between beverage order time and fill and subsequent refill, customers tend to feel less satisfied about the entire dining experience," he told New Scientist.

This is user-centered design at its best.