If you live in the environs of Detroit, Michigan, then you already know that we are in the midst of political controversy. Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick had a more than business relationship with his... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 12:43 pm
By Evan Ackerman Just in time for Valentine’s Day (which is February 14th, guys, FEBRUARY 14th) are these 8-bit dynamic life shirts from ThinkGeek. Normally, the shirts light up with two and a half... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 11:12 am
By Evan Ackerman If you’re still looking for ways to use your PC Card slot, here’s a good one… a wireless USB adapter. Even though you can get wired USB wireless USB adapters (if that... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 10:44 am
[Click on image to enlarge] Like I hinted in November, The Blue Monster has turned up in a video game. Ryan Anderson from Fuel Industries in Canada sent me the following update:Just wanted to let you know... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 10:27 am
By Andrew Liszewski Fuel Cell technologies definitely hold a lot of promise, but it looks like the first devices to hit the market are probably going to only appeal to early adopters. The HydroPak from... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 9:26 am
By Andrew Liszewski I don’t know about you, but when it comes to flash card readers I’m always trying to find the smallest one possible. Not only because it’s easier to travel with, but... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 9:14 am
Experts on both sides of the bitter feud on whaling wrapped up two days of talks here Thursday aimed at finding common ground on the future of the deadlocked International Whaling... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 9:01 am
When Jeff Taylor launched old-people social network Eons in August 2006, he couldn’t use the site. That’s because the minimum age was 50, and he was just 45. That was the first warning sign... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 8:40 am
The British government has granted McDonald's the right to hand out A-levels, " a qualification ... recognized around the world and ... used as a sort of entrance exam for some universities " on the basis... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 8:17 am
Venture capitalist Josh Kopelman has stated that he likes startups that shrink markets - “We love investing in technologies and business models that are able to shrink existing markets. If your company... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 8:03 am
Seattle-based GlobalScholar is announcing today a $27 million B Round from existing investors Ignition Partners and Knowledge Universe Education. This is on top of a previously undisclosed $15.5 million... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 8:01 am
The first NASA spacecraft to visit in 33 years reveals surprising new data about the planet closest to the sun. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 8:00 am
Infants are shown to rapidly metabolize the type of mercury used in the preservative thimerosal, still widely used in vaccines around the world. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 8:00 am
In Germany, a study finds a spike in heart attacks on soccer game days. Super Bowl viewers, take heed. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 8:00 am
Many symptoms they report appear to be related to PTSD, not mild traumatic brain injury, research finds. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 8:00 am
Results from the Messenger spacecraft reveal a heavily cratered surface and widespread evidence of volcanic activity. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 8:00 am
Shipwack writes "Tens of millions of internet users across the Middle East and Asia have been left without access to the web after a technical fault cut millions of connections. The outage, which is being blamed on a fault in a single undersea cable, has severely restricted internet access in countries including India, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and left huge numbers of people struggling to get online. Observers say that the digital blackout first struck yesterday morning, with the Egypt's communications ministry suggesting it was caused by a cut in a major internet pipeline linking it to Europe."
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said Thursday its fourth-quarter net profit rose 23.5 percent from a year ago to $1.07 billion. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 7:49 am
Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels around the world, this electronic noticeboard from the UN's Palais des Nations in Geneva, advising delegates on which rooms to go to for meetings of the "Working Group on Arbitrary Detention" and "Committee Against Torture." I was at the Palais (which used to be a Rothschild family home and still has their peacocks roaming the grounds -- the home was given to the UN on the condition that the peacocks got to stay) to give a press conference to the UN press corps about the goings-on at WIPO, the copyright treaty body down the street.
Link
Andy Baio has caught a "search engine optimizer" working for The Times -- a venerable British newspaper -- posting thousands of spams for times.co.uk to various social sites, including Metafilter, Mahalo, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Yahoo! Answers, Ma.gnolia, and Netscape's Propeller. The spammer works for Sitelynx, a contractor to The Times, as "SEO Manager."
Since 2004, The Times retained the established SEO consulting firm Sitelynx to handle their search engine marketing. Working on behalf of The Times, a Sitelynx employee posted thousands of links to community and social news websites, including Mahalo, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Metafilter, Yahoo! Answers, Ma.gnolia, and Netscape's Propeller. His actions were done without any disclosure of his affiliation to Sitelynx or The Times and were, in some cases, posted under the assumed identity of his wife.
The accounts were all created by Piotr "Peter" Wyspianski, an SEO Manager at Sitelynx since June 2007. (Though his LinkedIn resume says "Executive.")
Before coming to Sitelynx, Piotr had a history of promoting his own business, an online jewelry store called Signature Gems, by using his profiles on sites like Myspace, Flickr, and Yahoo 360 to manipulate his search engine rankings. After coming to Sitelynx, he continued to use this technique to promote The Times. (A full breakdown of his accounts on each site is below.)
A handy tip -- if you use Thunderbird to get your email, don't forget to occasionally run File -> Compact Folders. I did so yesterday and reclaimed nearly 20GB of hard drive space! Comparing my mail folder to my backup, I discovered that every single email that I'd "deleted" for over a year (by putting it in the Trash and then emptying it) was still lurking on my disk.
Washington subway trains shut down; seaport computers in New York City go dark; bloggers reveal locations of railcars with hazardous materials; airport control towers are disrupted in... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 6:29 am
SAN DIEGO (Hollywood Reporter) - Brash Entertainment is developing a video game based on the upcoming movie "Space Chimps," from Vanguard Animation and Starz Media. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 6:07 am
Myanmar's junta has stepped up surveillance of the Internet, arresting one blogger who wrote about the stifling of free expression in the military-ruled nation, a media advocacy group... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 5:28 am
This year isn't looking quite as sweet for Amazon.com shareholders as 2007. Despite a possible recession in the U.S. economy, the Web retailer said it expects sales to rise briskly again in 2008. But the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 5:10 am
This year isn't looking quite as sweet for Amazon.com shareholders as 2007. Despite a possible recession in the U.S. economy, the Web retailer said it expects sales to rise briskly... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 5:04 am
Frustrated by long airport-security lines? Certain those screeners aren't paying attention? Wondering why your grandma always gets frisked? The federal government wants to hear _ or at Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 5:02 am
DJMajah writes "News.com.au reports that Australian Federal Police chief Mick Keelty has called for a media blackout on reporting of terrorism investigations and cases before trial in a speech to the Sydney Institute last night. Although he doesn't believe public institutions be immune from public accountability, he goes on to say that public discussion should be delayed until information is made available by the courts or legal proceedings are complete. This all comes after last years widely reported case of Dr. Mohammed Haneef who was detained then later deported from Australia on evidence described as weak — and seen by some including Haneef as a conspiracy."
Never mind your profile. Social networking sites are tracking what you do and buy, and the you they see may not be the you you really want everyone else to see. From Wired magazine.
The internet suffered severe disruption across the Middle East after two undersea cables in the Mediterranean were damaged. In Egypt, the Ministry of Communications and Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 4:48 am
Records of more than 10,000 Naval servicemen who fought alongside the Army during the First World War were launched online for the first time. The records, loaded on to Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 4:23 am
Lenovo Group, the world's No. 4 personal computer maker, said Thursday that profit in its third fiscal quarter rose 198 percent and forecast strong sales this year despite a possible U.S. economic slowdown.... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 4:17 am
Lenovo Group, the world's No. 4 personal computer maker, said Thursday that profit in its third fiscal quarter rose 198 percent and forecast strong sales this year despite a possible U.S. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 4:15 am
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese researchers have implanted a small camera inside a mouse's brain to see how memory is formed, in an experiment they hope to some day apply to humans to treat... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 4:00 am
A 37-year-old Japanese man has been arrested after placing 10,000 calls to directory assistance. He did not need to get phone numbers, rather, he called because he enjoyed having the operators chide him.
He reportedly told police that he was lonely and grew to enjoy annoying the operators.
"I would go into ecstasy when a lady scolded me," he was quoted as saying by Jiji Press.
Telephone operators - who in Japan are almost always women - nicknamed him the "don't-hang-up-man".
His calls usually came late and sometimes exceeded 200 times a night, Jiji Press said.
This commercial from 1961 features an especially ugly robot named the Great Garloo. It was designed by Marvin Glass, the genius game designer who made Ants in the Pants, Dynamite Shack, Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots, Gnip Gnop, Hands Down, Haunted House, Lite Brite, Odd Ogg, Operation, Mouse Trap, Time Bomb, Tip-It, and Toss Across, among other masterpieces of primary-colored plastic. (Via Endless Parade of Excellence)
It may be a little late to the game, but business travel is now the subject of a variety of blogs. In the last two years, companies in the travel business including Starwood Hotels and Resorts, Marriott... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 3:35 am
Ninety-two-year-old Peter Davey of New Zealand says he invented a unique water boiling gadget 30 years ago. He claims it uses sound waves, not a heating element, to boil water in seconds.
Davey noticed as he played the saxophone at home that everything resonated at a different frequency.
"The glasses will tinkle on one note. Knives and forks in the drawer will tinkle on another note and I realised that everything has its point of vibration," he said. "In the same way, a component in the ball is tuned to a certain frequency."
A retired engineering professor, Arthur Williamson, was invited to look at the boiler in action. He said:
"I don't know enough about sound to know whether you can transfer that amount of energy via soundwaves. I doubt it," said Williamson.
He did remember an alternative kettle years ago that had two perforated metal plates inside. The power ran between the plates, through the water. "The resistance through the water provided the load. I wonder if it isn't working like that? Without taking it to bits, you can't tell."
Following up on a pair (1, 2) of Boing Boing tv episodes in which monochrom explores the posthumous legacy of '80s pop icon Falco, who is memorialized in Austria with honorific stairs, Jacob Appelbaum says:
Some anonymous fans of both Vienna, San Francisco and Falco appear to have taken their love to the stairs. Specifically the Coit Tower stairs! Snip:
"The original Falco staircase (or Falcostiege) in Vienna was dedicated after the Musician's death in 1998. The staircase is quite small and unimpressive. Apparently the city was unable to find a street or bridge named after a dead fascist which could be rededicated. As of this week, San Francsico honors Falco with a plaque on the stairs leading to Coit Tower. At last, a fitting tribute!"
The new Falco Stairs were done as part of a task on SF0.org, and you can see the task "proof" here.
I don't know how familiar you are with SF0 (I'm sure BoingBoing has done stuff on it) but we are doing all sorts of things like this. SF0 was responsible for Doorhenge in the park last year (I and my daughter got to add my own piece to that wickedcool story, actually). Anyway, it is worth your time for the Falco thing specifically and for a whole lot more, including some damn wonderful creative people (Jane McGonigal and Chicken John are both members).
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The US Department of Justice has extended its anti-trust oversight of Microsoft by two years. This only applies to the requirement that Microsoft make protocol documentation available to competitors, though. All of the other requirements have expired, and Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly did not give the states complaining the full five years of oversight they requested. Still, this should prove useful given that one of Microsoft's new tricks is to use OOXML extensions to tie businesses to Sharepoint."
A damaged undersea cable caused internet connectivity links to Egypt, India and several Gulf region countries to be disrupted today. Authorities in Egypt say services may not return to normal for several days:
It was not immediately possible to gauge the impact of the disruption on financial institutions. Egypt's telecoms ministry said 70 percent of the country's Internet network was down and India initially said it had lost over half its bandwidth.
"This cut has affected Internet services in Egypt with a partial disruption of 70 percent of the network nationwide," the Egyptian ministry said in a statement.
TOKYO (Reuters) The Sony Corporation, the electronic products maker, said Thursday that its net income in the third quarter rose 25 percent to 200.2 billion yen ($1.9 billion). Sales increased 9.6 percent,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 31 Jan 2008 | 2:37 am
1sockchuck writes "Google is pitting foreign governments against one another in a battle for a major new data center in Asia. In the past week, both the prime minister of Malaysia and economic minister of Taiwan have said their countries are leading candidates for the Google project, with Japan, South Korea, India and Vietnam also mentioned as contenders in an 18-nation site selection process. Google typically invests $600 million in each new data center. Tech companies often use multi-site searches as a tool to coax incentives out of local governments, which sweeten their offers to outbid rivals from other regions. Google's Asian initiative appears to be taking this strategy to a new level, coaxing heads of state to invest political capital in their lust for one of Google's mega-datacenters."
You only need two wheels for that bike, but we review three models to choose from: the Mavic R-SYS, the Lew Racing Pro VT-1 and the Reynolds DV46C. Got bucks?
You only need two wheels for that bike, but we review three models to choose from: the Mavic R-SYS, the Lew Racing Pro VT-1 and the Reynolds DV46C. Got bucks?
electricbern writes "Scientists have accidentally discovered how to reverse memory loss by stimulating a specific part of the hypothalamus. Good news for people with Alzheimer's and those that just forgot where he left his car's key."
The New York Times profiles Stephen Chao, a former Fox executive who was fired in 1992 by Rupert Murdoch for hiring a male stripper at a Fox meeting (Here's an old NYT story about it). He has a new web directory of how-to videos called WonderHowTo.com. It has links to 100,000 how-to videos.
Here are some fun quotes from the article:
(Photo by Ann Johansson for The New York Times)
Mr. Chao is an expert at getting attention, but it will be difficult to top some of his previous stunts. Once, during a party at Mr. Murdoch’s home, Mr. Chao nearly drowned his host’s purebred puppy after throwing it in a swimming pool to see if it could swim. Mr. Chao then had to jump into the pool, while in a business suit, to save it.
After parting ways with Fox, Mr. Chao spent six weeks working at a McDonald’s in Redondo Beach, Calif. He went on to head programming for USA Networks, where he helped develop the popular series “Monk.” But a fiery relationship with Mr. Diller, the head of the network, overshadowed that experience. The two executives had a hard time living down an incident when both were at Fox in which Mr. Diller hurled a videocassette at Mr. Chao with such intensity that it created a hole in the wall. Mr. Chao framed that section of the wall.
inghamb87 writes "Scientists have studied flocks of starlings and cracked the mystery behind the birds' ability to fly in large formations, and regroup quickly after attacks, without getting confused and ramming into each other. While the information is cool, some scientists seem to think that the best use of this knowledge is not to aid our appreciation of nature, but to make more effective robot swarms. We've talked about swarming robots many times before, but usually researchers look to insects for inspiration."
EBay isn't winning a whole lot of fans with its controversial new fee structure. Sellers say the new system equates to a rate hike. The company, by contrast, estimates that 60 percent of sellers will pay less in fees, so long as they provide quality customer service.
Jeremiah Cornelius writes "Techdirt columnist, Timothy Lee, hit the metaphoric nail on the head, claiming that e-Voting undermines the public perception of election fairness - even when there is no evidence of wrongdoing. 'In a well-designed voting system, voters shouldn't have to take anyone's actions on faith. The entire process should be simple and transparent, so that anyone can observe it and verify that it was carried out correctly. The complexity and opacity of e-voting machines makes effective public scrutiny impossible, and so it's a bad idea even in the absence of specific evidence of wrongdoing.' Add to this the possibility technical faults, conflicts of interest and evidence of tampering, how long before the US vote is viewed as an electronic pantomime?"
NASA's Messenger probe sends scientists a treasure-trove of data, and with two more flybys and an orbital mission to follow, these images are just the beginning.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Not content with current statutory damages, the RIAA is pushing for higher damages for infringement, damages that would total $1.5 million for copying a CD with ten songs. It's all part of debate over the proposed PRO-IP Act. William Patry, a lawyer who wrote the seminal seven-volume reference on US copyright law, called it the most 'outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US.'"
Mitchell's Boy Toy writes "Firefox's market share has hit 28.0% in Europe as of December 2007, according to a French web metrics firm. That's a 20.7% increase from the beginning of 2007. 'Finland currently has the highest Firefox market share in Europe with 45.4 percent, followed by Slovenia with 44.6 percent and Poland with 42.4 percent.' IE share fell to just 66.1% in December, a 0.9 point loss in just a month. It should also be noted that Firefox's success could spell trouble for Opera's antitrust complaint: 'Firefox's continued success in Europe may undermine some of the arguments made by Norwegian browser maker Opera in an antitrust complaint filed against Microsoft in December of last year. Opera accused Microsoft of abusing its dominant position in the web browser market by tying Internet Explorer to Windows.'"
mahuyar writes " Microsoft executives have accused IBM of leading the campaign against their initiative to have Office Open XML approved by the International Organization for Standardization. 'Nicos Tsilas, senior director of interoperability and IP policy at Microsoft, said that IBM and the likes of the Free Software Foundation have been lobbying governments to mandate the rival OpenDocument Format (ODF) standard to the exclusion of any other format. "They have made this a religious and highly political debate," Tsilas said. "They are doing this because it is advancing their business model. Over 50 percent of IBM's revenues come from consulting services."'"
The GeekDads are joined by special guest "Z" from Hipsterplease.com, who comes on to chat about Nerdcore Hip-Hop, RPG tattoos and why home-made silly putty and snow are both so great.
Davey noticed as he played the saxophone at home that everything resonated at a different frequency.
It was not immediately possible to gauge the impact of the disruption on financial institutions. Egypt's telecoms ministry said 70 percent of the country's Internet network was down and India initially said it had lost over half its bandwidth.
(Photo by Ann Johansson for The New York Times)
