The full story is over at Wired, and is quite interesting, but one of the effects achieved was to basically reverse Parkinson's disease in mice. You should head over to find more, including what they'll do to get around the need to thread fiber through your skull. [Wired]

Coverage of the game includes 35 high-end cameras, all focused on never missing even the smallest of details. They've rewired Tampa's stadium with 50 miles of fiber-optic cable to transmit the feeds from all of them, and are nearly doubling the on-site production crew compared to a typical Sunday Night Football broadcast. Aside from the expected overhead and goal line cameras, they've placed a camera in each goal post and in the hallway leading to each locker room for reasons I wouldn't want a football fan to explain to me.

The main cameras are Sony HDC-900/950s, with HD Canon lenses, and several "X-Mo" cameras for frame-by-frame analysis of the sidelines and goal lines. And just to be on the safe side, NBC is bringing along "several" 450-kilowatt backup generators.

Luckily, NBC won't be carrying over Fox's horrible dancing robot. Thank god for that. [Broadcasting and Cable]

Verizon technology director Vincent O'Byrne declared 2009 the year America finally breaks the 100Mbps barrier that Hong Kongers have, well, long since passed. O'Byrne was quick to note that the bump in speed isn't really essential to most Verizon customers, but that the number represents more of a marketing milestone that could give them a one-up on chief competitor Comcast.

Later, a Verizon spokesperson contacted Telephony Online, the original reporter, to perform some spectacular hedging: "Verizon expects to have its delivery processes for speeds like that locked down in 2009 so that service with speeds approaching 100 Mb/s would be enabled in the very near future," the spokesperson said. So Verizon is going to hit that landmark 100Mbps soon, but it appears for now there's no guarantee. No pricing was made available, either, although the current fastest tier, at 50Mbps, costs $145 without bundled phone service. [DSL Reports]

The system utilizes a modified version of Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) technology to take measurements and it can be mounted directly on the turbine itself. Three lasers fired from the device measure vertical and horizontal wind speeds at different distances, as well as sudden changes in direction. Currently, Vindicator is undergoing ground testing with the goal to have a production version available by 2010. If everything goes as planned, this could be big for wind power as a whole—more power at less cost. [Catch the Wind via Technology Review]

Obviously, that means you could easily tuck it into a groove or run it right along a wall without creating an eyesore. Plus, you don't have to worry about the hassle of tearing up your walls. The only problem is that sending your high definition video, audio, and control signals simultaneously over one of these "transparent" cables is going to set you back a hefty $600 for the FO2800 TV kit and $800 for the FO2850 PC kit. [OWLink via Electronic House]

The team actually made "completely harmless" black hole and white hole horizons in pairs, at a rate of 80 million a second, by piling up and stretching out ultrashort light pulses in the modified optical fiber. They even detected blue-shifting effects at the white hole horizons, which is predicted by theory.

Next on their agenda may be examining even more interesting quantum stuff like the radiation predicted by Stephen Hawking in his "black holes ain't so black" theory. And that's just cool. [Sciencemag via Wired]

Sure, Time Warner might have been using "fiber optics for over a decade" but can you get disgusting bandwidth through them? Not yet. Also, hello irony, Time Warner is the company trialing pay-per-byte internet. Sign me up! Actually, I would like a bowl of cereal right now. I love cereal. Mmm. Verizon says it's soggy cereal, though. I like mine of kind of soft, depending on the brand, but not soggy. [Consumerist]

Whether it's some sort of glowing undergarment or just a good old fashioned "I put no thought into your personality or the nature of our relationship" red/pink Nano, the word of the day is "restraint." Gizmodo's unsolicited advice: go classic on Valentine's Day. And no, you don't actually need to put thought into it, just a bit of money and an equal amount of taste.

And as with any holiday gift, avoid the words "fiber optic" like the plague.

The upstream magic—where cable is so sorely gimped right now—is going to remain hobbly, at least at first. And it's not 'cause Comcast is incompetent (for a change). As "a reflection of the status of upstream channel bonding technology" we won't see upstream on steroids until deep into 2008 or even 2009. Consequently, while downstream's getting a Rosie O' Donnell plumping with initial offerings in the 20-50Mbps range—what Verizon's offering now—upstream speeds still aren't going to stack up, dulling the competitive edge DOCSIS 3.0 was supposed to bring against fiber.

That means The Flash is going to stay ahead of Quicksilver for the foreseeable future, since by 2009 Verizon's GPON-based FiOS will probably cover the majority of its footprint, allowing them to flip a switch to out-juice whatever cable's got by then. [Broadband Reports]

The cruel irony is that places already saturated with uber-broadband will probably take priority as cable ISPs look to compete with Verizon and AT&T fiber. But since they can forgo the lengthy and expensive process of laying down fiber optic cable, most of us will see fatter pipes this way long before fiber could make it to our doors. We're used to longing for real broadband with no relief in sight anyway, so feel free to take your time, cable companies. Kidding. Get it here now. [Ars Technica]

Fiber Optic HDMI Cable [DVIGear via Audioholics]