The Vatican announces new Web sites for John Paul 2

A Facebook page and a YouTube page have been added by the Vatican to honor the memory of Pope John Paul II and to prepare for the May celebration.

New technlogy experiment

An experiment with AudioBoo

As reported yesterday in SDR News, the Catholic University of the Low Countries has come up with Mind Speller, which converts brain signals into words and sentences.

The instrument, no bigger than a matchbox, was developed by the microelectronics laboratory Imec and is connected to a type of shower cap containing electrodes. These electrodes register the electrical activity of the brain and the signals captured by the instrument can be transferred to a computer by USB stick and decoded using a specially-developed program.

"The Mind Speller is a generic device that can be easily adjusted to different users. Therefore, it could be a cost-efficient communication solution for people with temporal impairments for whom the existing solutions are too expensive. Moreover, the Mind Speller may help those patients that are not helped with the existing devices driven by motor activity, as the Mind Speller is based on a different principle, using P300 EEG potentials to read people's thoughts," said Professor Van Hulle.

K.U.Leuven is the oldest Catholic University in the world and the oldest university in the Low Countries.

A new item for the iPod is the now free iBreviary. The app not only includes the Breviary, available in many languages, but also contains Mass readings and many prayers.

The Breviary, sometimes called the Liturgy of the Hours, is a collection of Catholic prayers to be recited daily.

It was $.99, but as the Word is priceless get the app now, at its new price, FREE.

Follow the Vatican on Facebook from your iPhone

The Vatican continues to remain at the leading edge of all media with the addition of a Facebook application to spread the Word. For the 43rd World Communications Day a new web site has been published. This site is a central location for the new Facebook and iPhone Apps, YouTube channel and Wiki. Pope Benedict XVI has added these tools to assist in the New Evangelization.


So in addition to print and broadcast, the Pope has joined the U.S. Bishops on Twitter in addition to many other Catholic new media outlets. The Holy Spirit is calling from many places. We need only have ears to hear (Mark 4:9) or a browser, to get the message from the Holy spirit.

Discover the hidden Catholic secrets in popular movies

Today’s hit movies often contain Catholic themes and messages. By developing universal themes, the stories can parallel tales from the Bible and other Christian writings. A good source for uncovering these hidden messages are the “Secrets of…” series at the Star Quest Production Network. The latest movie to have its secrets revealed is ‘Angels & Demons’ based on the Dan Brown book. (Purchase the book series)


The Secrets of… series includes Narnia, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Harry Pottermany more.


For traditional movie reviews, connect to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office for Film and Broadcasting. But do listen to the latest “Secrets of Angels and Demons" recorded on location in Rome, about Angels and Demons or subscribe to the series, for free, from iTunes. Search for SQPN. plus

Prayer when Gmail is down

By Fr. Roderick • May 8, 2009

Sometimes we are faced with a sudden outage of Gmail and other Google services. A disaster when you ‘live’ in The Cloud. That is why I wrote this short prayer for help:

Dear God,

You created clouds

to liven up the skies

Man created cloud computing

but it sometimes dies

Gmail went off-line again,

I’m sure You heard our cries

Help us to stay calm and pray

that it will soon reprise.

Thanks in advance,

Fr. Roderick

P.S. God, before I forget: if you need to reach me, don’t use Gmail - try Twitter (and save us from the fail whale!)