FlashVideoReplacer Replaces Flash Videos with Windows Media, QuickTime Equivalents [Downloads]

Firefox: Everyone's trying to avoid Flash these days, what with its CPU-hogging and battery draining. If you need to watch videos on sites like YouTube or Vimeo, though, you can replace them with lower-power Quicktime and WMV plugins with FlashVideoReplacer.

After installing FlashVideoReplacer in Firefox, any time you go to YouTube, Vimeo, or Blip.tv, your videos will stream through a plugin other than Flash (QuickTime on the Mac, QuickTime or Windows Media on Windows, and a slew of other plugins on Linux). Not only will this reduce the strain on your computer, but these plugins are also usually more cooperative than certain Flash video players that can be temperamental (Vimeo). I was surprised at how well it worked on my Mac—just install the extension and watch some videos. They play remarkably smoothly, and you can even choose your preferred YouTube resolution in the extension's settings.

Note that you still need flash installed for this to work; it just won't use Flash to play the entire video. So you can't use the Gruber method of going completely Flash-free here, though you could still easily use a Flash blocking plugin to block all other sites but those that are compatible with FlashVideoReplacer.

FlashVideoReplacer is a free download, works wherever Firefox does.

FlashVideoReplacer [via AddictiveTips]

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Man Officially Cured of HIV [Hiv]

For the first time, a man has been declared officially cured of HIV. The remedy may nearly have killed him, but it opens a door—just a crack—to hope that we may someday kill off the scourge for good.

Strangely enough, the diagnosis that most concerned Timothy Ray Brown in 2007 was acute myeloid leukemia. HIV has been increasingly thought of as a manageable disease, though certainly a terribly burdensome one. What brought the 42-year old Brown under the care of Germany's Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin hospital was the more immediate threat his cancer posed.

The treatment Brown underwent was aggressive: chemotherapy that destroyed the majority of his immune cells. Total body irradiation. Finally, a risky stem-cell transplant that nearly a third of patients don't survive—but that appears to have completely cured Brown of HIV.

Doctors were savvy when they chose a stem cell donor for Brown. The man whose bone marrow they used has a particular genetic mutation, present in an incredibly small percentage of people, that makes him almost invulnerable to HIV. With Brown's own defenses decimated by treatments, the healthy, HIV-resistant donor cells repopulated his immune system. The initial indications that the virus had abated were promising. But only just now, having taken no antiretroviral drugs since the transplant, and following extensive testing shows no signs whatsoever of HIV, have his doctors given the official word:

He's cured.

What does this mean for the future of treatment? It's not as though every HIV patient can or would want to go through the tremendous suffering that was prelude to Brown's recovery, or be able to afford the procedure if they could or did. But for the first time, we know that HIV can be cured, not just managed. It opens new avenues of research—gene therapy, stem cell treatments—that may otherwise have been thought dead ends. [AIDS Map]

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Heel Worn Down? Nevermind, Just 3D Print a New One [3D Printers]

Isn't it frustrating when a shoe part wears out, but everything else is fine? Like when the rim of your Converse cracks, but the upper looks—well, not new, but satisfactory. 3D-printing replacements could save our landfills—and wallets.

I suppose it's like going to the cobbler to get a heel replaced—instead of tossing the shoe out completely, you make do and mend. In Dutch shoe designer Marloes ten Bhömer's case, she 3D prints replacement parts. This also ensures the shoe fits its wearer perfectly, as every measurement can be input to CAD and printed out in minutes.

This particular shoe, the Rapidprototypedshoe (made like it says on the tin, I suppose) is made from various parts which slot together, so when they're worn out from much trampling, they can be replaced easily. It's on display at the Design Museum Holon in Israel now, as part of the "Mechanical Couture" exhibition. [Marloes ten Bhömer via Dezeen]

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The Most Super Amazing Science Photos of 2010 [Imagecache]

Science—cool when it's invisible and behind closed doors, but much, much cooler when it produces spectacular photos. Lucky for all of us, Popular Science has a stunning gallery of the year's best. Check below for our favorite picks.

The full selection is massive—but we thought these were the coolest. And like any captivating science photo, it might not be obvious what each is at first glance. Try to guess before reading on.

If you managed to navigate the gallery without getting sucked into a simulated black hole, hit the rest of the photos—this is only a small sample of a big year in science. [PopSci]

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Android's Facebook App Has Been Updated With Chat Functionality [Android Apps]

Hey, fire up the ol' Android, and update that clunky Facebook app. Notice anything? It's not as buggy! Plus, it now has Chat integration (with push notifications). It's a free download. [Droid-Life via Lifehacker]

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