In the interview with Sam Gustin last week , I said: I think we have to be mindful of the overall macro environment that we're in... It will be less attractive to sell our companies, so we may choose... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 12:52 pm
The same talking heads who unanimously declared Senator John McCain to be on a campaign bus to nowhere a few months ago, now unanimously bob that, as the frontrunner, he MUST reach out to the Republican... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 12:35 pm
Think yours was rough? Be glad you're not Ray Lines or Allan Erb, whose Clean Flicks movie-editing service came in for some rough sledding this week after Daniel Thompson, whom we talked about earlier... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 11:32 am
Shaitan Apistos writes "British scientists have discovered a way to turn female bone marrow into sperm, allowing women to reproduce without the need of male companionship. All children born of this method would be female, due the lack Y chromosomes, and there is high chance of birth defects. Eggs also can be created from male bone marrow, but men looking to reproduce would still need to find a surrogate mother to handle the gestation period. I'd like to take a moment to welcome our new amazonian overlords and remind them that men are still very good at mowing lawns and fixing cars."
Albatross looking for a free meal on the high seas often pay the price of being killed or injured going after baited hooks. Now, fishing fleets around the world have agreed to use... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 10:54 am
A farmer in the Green Belt outside London secretly built an elaborate castle without planning permission, hiding the work behind a wall of hay-bales. Now that the word has gotten out, they're going to knock it down:
A British farmer named Robert Fidler is fighting to keep the city from bulldozing his castle that he built by hiding the construction with hay bales. Officials were unaware of the elaborate castle because hundreds of bails of straw concealed it for four years, the UK Daily Telegraph reported Friday. After Fidler, 59 unveiled his home to neighbors in 2006 he was served a planning contravention notice the following March, which ordered demolition of the structure.
Beloit College has just published its 10th annual "Mindset List," detailing a list of significant things that have been true for the whole lives of the 1990-born Class of 2011. Here's my favorite skiffy/Christ-I'm-old bits:
1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
3. For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.
12. Smoking has never been permitted on U.S. airlines.
23. Bar codes have always been on everything, from library cards and snail mail to retail items.
33. They have no idea why we needed to ask "...can we all get along?"
Mascots Unlimited is a manufacturer of custom hood ornaments. There's an amazing variety here (almost makes me wish I still owned my horrible used Hyundai!), but then, Mascots does supply the British... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 9:46 am
Mascots Unlimited is a manufacturer of custom hood ornaments. There's an amazing variety here (almost makes me wish I still owned my horrible used Hyundai!), but then, Mascots does supply the British Royal family with their blingy hood-candy.
Link
(Thanks, AJ!)
Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels over the years, this stroppy "no playing in the churchyard" sign from Seven Sisters in London.
Link
Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels over the years, this stroppy "no playing in the churchyard" sign from Seven Sisters in London. Link ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 9:42 am
Marilyn sez, "A father in Muncie, Indiana was tired of cars that didn't stop at the stop signs at the intersection outside his house, so he asked the city to make a crosswalk. The city refused, so he painted his own, and got arrested for criminal mischief."
"I used spray paint on the outline, and went to Wal-Mart, where they had a sale on ... white paint and rolled it out," he said.
Stump said he didn't hear about the second charge right away, causing him to miss a court appearance. Because he missed his court date, he spent 10 hours in jail.
Marilyn sez, "A father in Muncie, Indiana was tired of cars that didn't stop at the stop signs at the intersection outside his house, so he asked the city to make a crosswalk. The city refused, so he... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 9:41 am
Several readers have written to tell us about one users rant in which he tells the story of being so frustrated with gaming on Windows Vista that he tried comparing gaming on Vista to that on Linux using Wine, with surprising results. "This post is clearly a bit biased. What shocked me though was how easy it was to find games that didn't run under Vista but did in Linux by using Wine or DOSBox. I'm not a huge gamer, so I don't have a huge collection of games to try out, but even still with just a few hours of frustrating work, I have been able to show that not only is Linux a reasonable alternative to Vista for gaming (XP is still king though), but also that Linux handles application failures more gracefully than Vista. Every game but Blackthorne crashed my Vista box, this didn't happen a single time under Linux."
Finnish scientists at the Regea Institute of Regenerative Medicine at the University of Tampere have successfully grown a human jawbone in a man's abdomen and the implanted it in his face. The procedure used the man's stem-cells, and took nine months.
A 65-year-old Finnish man received a new upper jaw that was grown in his abdomen using his own stem cells. Scientists had isolated stem cells from the patient's fat, and sorted out the type of cells that could grow into bone tissue. The cells were applied to a custom jaw-shaped scaffold and implanted in his abdomen for nine months. Tissues grew around the scaffolding, which was removed and attached to the man's skull to replace his upper jaw, which had been removed due to a tumor.
Finnish scientists at the Regea Institute of Regenerative Medicine at the University of Tampere have successfully grown a human jawbone in a man's abdomen and the implanted it in his face. The procedure... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 9:30 am
Chris writes in with his Triple Stuf Deluxe Superbowl snacks, which contain Oreos, pepperoni and cheese (topped with a sprig of parsley), artfully arranged. He promises that they're "actually really... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 9:26 am
Chris writes in with his Triple Stuf Deluxe Superbowl snacks, which contain Oreos, pepperoni and cheese (topped with a sprig of parsley), artfully arranged. He promises that they're "actually really tasty in a perverse way." He's documented the creation with a spiffy photocomic.
Link
Jim sez, "The cover story of this month's California Lawyer Magazine is a pretty nice story on the Electronic Frontier Foundation, its history and the current fight against AT&T; for its role in... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 9:21 am
Jim sez, "The cover story of this month's California Lawyer Magazine is a pretty nice story on the Electronic Frontier Foundation, its history and the current fight against AT&T for its role in the NSA's domestic spying program:"
One sunny day in San Francisco two winters ago, a retired telecommunications technician with an understandable distrust of telephones stepped off a BART train after a short but fateful ride. His name was Mark Klein, and his destination was a red brick office building in an untouristed part of the city dominated by low-rise warehouses. There he met with a small group of maverick, tech-savvy lawyers called the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
For Klein, then 60, this trip was a long time coming. As a veteran telecommunications technician and computer network associate at AT&T, he had in recent years obtained several company documents that described in specific, technical terms a secret room he says the National Security Agency (NSA) had set up on the sixth floor of an AT&T building downtown. Klein entered the room itself only once, and that was just for a couple of minutes. (Generally, people needed a security clearance to gain access.) However, just one floor above, he managed the Internet-traffic room to which it was electronically connected.
Through that work, the documents he gathered, and conversations he had with other employees, Klein came to understand that his employer was colluding with the federal government to siphon a copy of billions of domestic Internet communications into that secret room, every second of every day. And all without a warrant. "Even Nixon didn't go that far," Klein thought.
As he later told MSNBC, the situation made him think of George Orwell's classic 1984. "Here I was, being forced to connect the Big Brother machine." However, after complaining to a supervisor, with no result, he did not pursue the matter. He retired in 2004.
Then, in December 2005, the New York Times outed the Bush administration's warrantless domestic-surveillance program, which the administration subsequently defended as an effort to monitor no more than a handful of phone calls to the Middle East. This convinced Klein that the time was finally right to share his inside information.
His timing was better than he imagined: When he knocked on EFF's door that day in January 2006, the lawyers inside were already working feverishly to craft a class action against the nation's largest telecommunications company.
Clayton sez, "This awesome game company is releasing their second title using a blissfully elegant DRM free system. The game installs from the DVD, then you play the game. No DVD required in the tray,... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 9:19 am
Clayton sez, "This awesome game company is releasing their second title using a blissfully elegant DRM free system. The game installs from the DVD, then you play the game. No DVD required in the tray, no internet connection. The Code Key that comes with the games allows you access to updates, patches, extra content, and the free ability to simply download the game to any computer should you lose your disc. Considering the crappy DRM on BioShock last summer, this is a huge step forward. The link containts their no nonsense understanding that to truly avert piracy, you must make your product worth buying, not loaded up with non user friendly DRM. These guys really deserve some credit. The game, a Turn Based, RTS strategy hybrid set in space, looks fantastic too."
With Galactic Civilizations II, we put no copy protection on the CD. But to get updates, users had to use their unique serial # in the box. That’s because our system is backed by TotalGaming.net’s unique SSD service (secure software delivery) which forgoes DRM and copy protection as we know it to take a more common sense (I think so anyway as a gamer) approach of just making sure you are delivering your game to the actual customer.
Any system out there will get cracked and distributed. But if you provide reasonable after-release support in the form of free updates that add new content and features that are painless for customers to get, you create a real incentive to be a customer.
Evoke is an art project that paints the face of the gothic cathedral York Minster with light in response to the voices of the audience who watch it. It's a sweet blend of the psychedelic and the gothic.
Link
(via IO9)
After their long-running antitrust battles with Microsoft Corp., the last thing U.S. and European regulators want is for the software giant to get even bigger. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 8:00 am
Soft-spoken, cerebral but competitive, the CEO has struggled to reposition the Internet giant he co-founded. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 8:00 am
It makes an unsolicited $44.6-billion offer for the struggling titan in a battle with Google for online supremacy. ... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 8:00 am
Lucas123 writes "IM Flash Technologies, a joint venture between Intel and Micron, announced they've been able to improve NAND memory and its circuitry in order to boost read/write speeds by five times their current ability. The new 8Gbit single-level cell, high-speed NAND chip will offer 200MB/sec read speeds and write speeds of up to 100MB/sec, which means faster data transfer between devices like solid-state drives and video cards. IM Flash Technologies plans to begin shipping the new chip later this year."
The Church of England is venturing into cyberspace to urge people to "take something up" for lent. Church leaders will use social networking sites, blogs and websites... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 7:23 am
U.S. and European antitrust regulators aren't likely to prevent Microsoft from buying Yahoo , analysts said Friday, though scrutiny of the deal could drag on for months. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 6:34 am
Motorola Inc.'s investors were placated for at least a day -- and sent its battered stock soaring 10.3 percent Friday -- after the company signaled it may get out of its trademark cell-phone business. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 6:25 am
Unable to topple Google Inc. on its own, Microsoft Corp. is trying to force crippled rival Yahoo Inc. into a shotgun marriage, with a wager worth nearly $42 billion that the two companies Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 6:09 am
When 1,800 workers lost their jobs after a Maytag appliance factory and headquarters closed last year in the small town of Newton, Iowa, a wind turbine blade company saw opportunity _ an... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 6:03 am
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a ruling by a lower court that Dish Network DVRs infringe upon TiVO's patent on a 'multimedia time warping system'. According to some analysts, this could not only make Dish liable for damages, it could force them to shut down their DVR service, harming their customers. The patent in question has already been reexamined once and the ruling on appeal (PDF) was unanimous."
NewScientist is reporting that NASA has kicked their previous space partner, Rocketplane Kistler, to the curb and is in search of a new commercial space partner. The new partnership will try to develop a new shuttle to service the International Space Station. "The GAO's decision clears the way for NASA to select a new COTS partner in addition to SpaceX, whose partnership with NASA continues. Only $32 million was paid to Rocketplane Kistler, leaving $175 million for new partnerships."
BOSTON - A combination of Microsoft and Yahoo could reshape the Internet landscape for millions of web users: Would the two companies join their online portals? Could they rethink the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 2:21 am
Planning a Super Sunday shindig? Still trying to figure out where to plug in the HDTV? Consult our Super Bowl How-To guide for tips on geeking up the big game.
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The TSA has opened their own blog. According to Ars Technica, it's beginning to attract complaints from people who are sick of removing their shoes and having to forfeit their drinks. 'The blog's first post has 131 comments so far, almost all of which fall into one of two categories: TSA employees who got the internal memo about the blog launch and dropped by to post positive things, and citizens who are really mad about the liquids screening policy.'"
CHICAGO - Motorola Inc.'s investors were placated for at least a day - and sent its battered stock soaring more than 10 per cent Friday - after the company signalled it may get out of its Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 1:07 am
An anonymous bidder has met the reserve price for the so-called C-block of 700 MHz in the FCC's ongoing auction, virtually guaranteeing that the FCC's open-access conditions will be met. Open-access advocates greeted the news with mixed reactions.
Wired News presents a gallery of highlights from the Photo Marketing Association's 2008 trade show in Las Vegas, including digital cameras, high-end lenses and other photo goodies.
Wired News presents a gallery of highlights from the Photo Marketing Association's 2008 trade show in Las Vegas, including digital cameras, high-end lenses and other photo goodies.
WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc so dominates the online search and advertising market that regulators are seen approving any merger of Microsoft Corp and Yahoo after giving... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 2 Feb 2008 | 12:55 am
deal as a way to catch up with market leader Google Inc., by far the best at turning Web searches into cash. 1975: Microsoft founded. 1995: Yahoo founded, begins serving ads online.... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 1 Feb 2008 | 11:58 pm
The Beatles are about to become radio stars in a whole new way. NASA on Monday will broadcast the Beatles' song "Across the Universe" across the galaxy to Polaris, the North Star. This Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 1 Feb 2008 | 11:55 pm
The Pirate Bay says it won't shutter, even if its operators are convicted. Its servers are scattered across the globe, out of reach of the Swedish authorities. Defendant Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi says the charges are "lame."
Engadget has a couple of great videos depicting the new 'Noahpad' laptop offering from E-Lead. This laptop offers a new kind of touchpad that is integrated with the keyboard. An interesting idea to be sure, but I doubt I could ever get used to typing on something this strange.
invisibastard writes "Linux Tech Daily has an interview with KDE's Sebastian Kuegler. Sebastian talks about the KDE 4.0 release event, goes into detail about how KDE has improved its processes and much more. '[...] there are many easy ways to help. The most obvious is helping people installing KDE, answering questions on forums, IRC and other media. Lately, we're getting also an increased amount of requests for speakers. Often local LUGs are interested in talks by KDE knowledgeable people. It might sound a bit scary, representing KDE in your local LUG, but it's really what KDE is about. Everybody comes from a local community, that is where our grassroots are. People often don't think that they are entitled to represent KDE, but that's just not the case at all. In fact, the marketing and promo team have a hard time finding enough speakers for all events. Slides are usually available, so it doesn't need all that much preparation.'
Can't afford $98,000 for a Tesla Roadster? ZAP's Alias costs 69 percent less and has 25 percent fewer wheels. ZAP says to look for it in 2009; analysts say don't bother.
The key to Microsoft's proposed $44.6 billion acquisition of Yahoo is both companies' desire to build an advertising platform that can compete with Google's AdWords.
philetus writes "An article in New Scientist describes a robotic system composed of swarms of electromagnetic modules capable of assuming almost any form that is being developed by the Claytronics Group at Carnegie Mellon. 'The grand goal is to create swarms of microscopic robots capable of morphing into virtually any form by clinging together. Seth Goldstein, who leads the research project at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, in the US, admits this is still a distant prospect. However, his team is using simulations to develop control strategies for futuristic shape-shifting, or "claytronic", robots, which they are testing on small groups of more primitive, pocket-sized machines.'"
Revel in the coolest and most-expensive marketing spots following the Patriots-Giants showdown, as the video site serves up a post-game advertising blitz.
A new company, Delver, is offering a new take on web searching that plans to make your social network a part of the equation. "Liad Agmon, CEO of Delver, says that the site connects information about a user's social network with Web search results, "so you are searching the Web through the prism of your social graph." He explains that a person begins a search at Delver by typing in her name. Delver then crawls social-networking websites for widely available data about the user--such as a public LinkedIn profile--and builds a network of associated institutions and individuals based on that information. When the user enters a search query, results related to, produced by, or tagged by members of her social network are given priority. Lower down are results from people implicitly connected to the user, such as those relating to friends of friends, or people who attended the same college as the user. Finally, there may be some general results from the Web at the bottom."
On the eve of Microsoft's $44 billion bid for Yahoo, former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel announced his resignation from the Yahoo board of directors. Semel presided over a multiyear decline in Yahoo's market share, while collecting nearly half a billion dollars in compensation.
A small but vocal minority on Flickr are already staging cyber-protests at the prospect of a Microsoft takeover of Flickr's owner, Yahoo. Flickr is one of several popular Web 2.0 sites owned by Yahoo that loyal users fear will suffer under Microsoft ownership.
A British farmer named Robert Fidler is fighting to keep the city from bulldozing his castle that he built by hiding the construction with hay bales. Officials were unaware of the elaborate castle because hundreds of bails of straw concealed it for four years, the UK Daily Telegraph reported Friday. After Fidler, 59 unveiled his home to neighbors in 2006 he was served a planning contravention notice the following March, which ordered demolition of the structure.
1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
Mascots Unlimited is a manufacturer of custom hood ornaments. There's an amazing variety here (almost makes me wish I still owned my horrible used Hyundai!), but then, Mascots does supply the British Royal family with their blingy hood-candy.
Link
(Thanks, AJ!)
"I used spray paint on the outline, and went to Wal-Mart, where they had a sale on ... white paint and rolled it out," he said.
One sunny day in San Francisco two winters ago, a retired telecommunications technician with an understandable distrust of telephones stepped off a BART train after a short but fateful ride. His name was Mark Klein, and his destination was a red brick office building in an untouristed part of the city dominated by low-rise warehouses. There he met with a small group of maverick, tech-savvy lawyers called the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
With Galactic Civilizations II, we put no copy protection on the CD. But to get updates, users had to use their unique serial # in the box. That’s because our system is backed by TotalGaming.net’s unique SSD service (secure software delivery) which forgoes DRM and copy protection as we know it to take a more common sense (I think so anyway as a gamer) approach of just making sure you are delivering your game to the actual customer.
