Jeremy LaCroix suggests in an editorial at Linux.com that the phrase "ready for the desktop" is ready for retirement. As anyone who's been using Linux for several years (or even a few) for everyday tasks knows, "ready for the desktop" is in the eye of the beholder.
Ezratrumpet writes "A recent PC World article notes that 20 percent of the U.S. population has never sent an email. Does this number over- or underestimate the actual number of people who know nothing of email? What are the implications of this statistic to our society? Or are these people just Luddites who mourned the demise of the telegraph and have also never used a telephone?"
By Perkins, Sid Scientists work to put the greenhouse gas in its place ONE MORNING EACH WEEK, a scientist takes a stroll on the barren upper slopes of Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano, a basketball-sized glass sphere in hand. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Anonymous CHEMICAL SAFETY The federal environmental agencies of the U.S., Canada and Mexico have agreed to coordinate efforts to accelerate and strengthen national and regional chemical assessment and management in North America. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
WELFARE as we knew it ended years ago. But not for farmers. Congress has passed wasteful legislation that will set farm policy on the wrong course for five more years. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Ash, James R Finneran, Catherine Brownfields sites are prime plots for parks. The derelict closed gas station down the street or the abandoned textile plant next to a thriving community may seem to be perfect locations -but terrible conditions-for a place to play. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Anonymous ENFORCEMENT BP Products North America Inc. has agreed to pay a total criminal fine of more than $60 million for violations of federal environmental regulations in Texas and Alaska. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Marc Freeman, South Florida Sun-Sentinel May 18--BOCA RATON -- He's not mentioning $4 a gallon gas and the troubled economy, terrorism or homicide statistics. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
No on 98 I need to alert your readers to a Trojan horse amendment that will be on the ballot this June. Both amendments would bar the government from using eminent domain to seize private property to hand over to a privately owned business. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Vaira, Douglas Revitalizing cities through the rehabilitation of urban forests and greenery? ACT can dig it. With help from nearly half a million volunteers, the members of the Alliance for Community Trees have planted 7.8 million trees in cities and towns across the country. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
We Love Long Beach's events, which include breakfasts, book clubs and other activities, are designed to encourage neighbors to get to know one another in a safe, welcoming environment. (c) 2008 Press-Telegram Long Beach, CA.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Anonymous Ultrasound Tag Tracking System The PC-Detector from Sonitor Technologies uses ultrasound indoor positioning and realtime location systems (RTLS) technology to automatically track the realtime location of patients and moveable hospital equipment. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Tolkoff, Sarah Man Gets Gateway Tattoo, Free Computer; Synoptek Lands Another Government Contract TECHNOLOGY Funding in chip startups declined last year, according to statistics from the Global Semiconductor Alliance, a Dallas-based trade group. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Sofia Santana, South Florida Sun-Sentinel May 18--DEERFIELD BEACH -- Four dozen Deerfield Beach High School students received free laptops Saturday morning. Yes, free. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Jon Burstein, South Florida Sun-Sentinel May 18--Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale and its school face a multimillion-dollar lawsuit accusing church officials of failing to protect a teenager who was being sexually abused by her adoptive father. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Bellantonio, Jennifer WunderMarx Creates Online Arts Networking; Magic Johnson Creates Buzz at I Love Bagels MEDIA & MARKETING Expect to see several of Orange County's surfwear makers at the Action Sports Retailer tradeshow May 28 and 29. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Stella Chavez, The Dallas Morning News May 18--PLANO -- A Prestonwood Baptist Church minister arrested for soliciting a minor online has resigned from the church, Pastor Jack Graham told his congregation Saturday evening. Dr. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Crow, David When Microsoft made its unsolicited $44 billion bid for Yahoo in February, a match looked distinctly possible. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By Andrew Edwards SAN BERNARDINO - The City Attorney's Office has its eye on an Italian restaurant that is in the process of being transformed into a bikini bar. But the prospect of scantily clad women isn't the reason the place is on City Hall's radar, City Attorney James F. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
There are plenty of summer spots where you can entertain your brood and barely spend a penny - the beach, a nearby park or Grandma's house. But let's face it, a lot of kids want to spend their summer meeting cartoon characters and riding roller coasters until they lose their lunch. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
By McBride, Michael On Feb. 28th, at the 2008 annual HIMSS conference, Google announced its first product for healthcare - Google Health - a new personal health record (PHR) that will be free to use and available just about anywhere in the United States. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 18 May 2008 | 8:00 am
Raver32 points out an article in the Victoria Times Colonist about an interesting advance in robotic surgery: "Calgary doctors have made surgical history, using a robot to remove a brain tumour from a 21-year-old woman. Doctors used remote controls and an imaging screen, similar to a video game, to guide the two-armed robot through Paige Nickason's brain during the nine-hour surgery Monday. Surgical instruments acting as the hands of the robot -called NeuroArm — provided surgeons with the tools needed to successfully remove the egg-shaped tumour."
Two devices use GPS technology to make it hard for dogs to get lost. How do you know when a dog is a geek? Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 18 May 2008 | 7:00 am
Scribd, the “YouTube for documents”, has announced that it will be removing all pornographic material from the site beginning May 21. Here’s the announcement from the site’s blog:... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 May 2008 | 6:18 am
There's an interesting, but tiresome discussion going around about whether FriendFeed contributes to the conversation or the noise. While we've already reviewed how FriendFeed can contribute to other... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 May 2008 | 5:15 am
How much are your friends worth? That is the question behind the big debate going on around social networks and data portability. In the last ten days, Facebook, Google, and MySpace have all announced... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 May 2008 | 4:39 am
Nic Doye writes "Dag Wieers responds to Mark Shuttleworth's recent request to ask major Enterprise Linux distributions to synchronise releases, claiming that it 'is no more than a wish to benefit from a lot of work that Novell and Red Hat are already doing in the Enterprise space.' He's confessing to playing Devil's Advocate here, but it is an interesting view from someone with a large amount of experience in the Red Hat/Fedora/CentOS space."
RA'ANANA, Israel, May 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- NICE Systems (Nasdaq: NICE) announced today that in a patent infringement case brought in January 2006 against... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 18 May 2008 | 2:45 am
Roland Piquepaille writes "The St. Petersburg Times, Florida, reports that a well-known robot designer, Robin Murphy, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of South Florida (USF), 'plans to add a heart to robot rescuers.' As says USF, the goal is to develop 'a robot that will be a companion to a person who may be trapped after a car crash or in building ruins following an earthquake, or someone pinned down by sniper fire.' As said Murphy, 'robots can provide not only a sense of being a 'buddy' by playing soothing music or providing other entertainment, the robot also can be the audio and video link between survivor and family.' Murphy will develop this robot with some money coming from Microsoft. But read more for additional references and a picture of Murphy with her robot rescuers."
Just last week we wondered if video messaging services Seesmic will take over the world. Looks like we won't have to wait for our answer any longer. A service that was once just just a blip on the radar... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 18 May 2008 | 12:57 am
Sepiraph writes "In a letter sent to the Canadian Association of Internet Providers and Bell Canada on May 15, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) have ordered Bell Canada to provide tangible evidence that its broadband networks are congested to justify the company's Internet traffic-shaping policies. This is a response after Bell planned to tackle the issue of traffic shaping, also called throttling, on the company's broadband networks. It would be interesting to see Bell's response, as well as to see some real-world actual numbers and compare them to a previous study."
Update: Please check the details below carefully -- I idiotically put the wrong headline on this one, saying I was at the library -- that's TOMORROW!
Tonight, I kick off the Seattle leg of my book tour for my new young adult novel, Little Brother, with an appearance at the Elliott Bay Book Company. I've got a jam-packed schedule here, including appearances at the Seattle Public Library on Sunday, All For Kids Books and More on Monday and Third Place Books on Tuesday. Hope to see you!
Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA
101 S. Main Street
Seattle, WA 98104
Saturday, May 17, 2008
7:30 pm
Update: Please check the details below carefully -- I idiotically put the wrong headline on this one, saying I was at the library -- that's TOMORROW! Tonight, I kick off the Seattle leg of my book tour... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2008 | 11:50 pm
Nate sez, "An Ars editor (me) put the whole Comcast P2P filtering issue to music with 'Ballad of a TCP Reset Packet.' Thought y'all and the BB readers might enjoy."
I'm not an ordinary packet flowing through the tubes
I need to scrub them out to keep the neighborhood's connection lubed
I'm here to make you see a cable company morality
Obfuscation is alright but not uploads that take all night
Nate sez, "An Ars editor (me) put the whole Comcast P2P filtering issue to music with 'Ballad of a TCP Reset Packet.' Thought y'all and the BB readers might enjoy." I'm not an ordinary packet flowing... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2008 | 11:46 pm
bughunter writes "Internet consultant firm Gartner claims that only 1 in 10 commercial virtual worlds succeeds, and most fail within 18 months: 'Businesses have learned some hard lessons," Gartner analyst Steve Prentice said in a statement released Thursday. "They need to realize that virtual worlds mark the transition from Web pages to Web places and a successful virtual presence starts with people, not physics. Realistic graphics and physical behavior count for little unless the presence is valued by and engaging to a large audience."'" Hard to believe it's even as high as one in ten -- most "virtual worlds" with obvious commercial trappings certainly don't inspire much besides mockery.
Fashionistas, Iris is still looking for great Summer fashion to write about... What to do this weekend? Let Lanna's List guide you... How Douglas Gayeton made HBO's "Molotov Alva" (featuring a hobo superstar)... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2008 | 11:25 pm
The McNoot awards visited Surrey last week. You, my devout and regularly church-going readers, will be familiar with the McNoot (or 'My Church Needs one of Those') awards: ceremonies in which religious... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 17 May 2008 | 11:05 pm
Much heat and little light were generated last week by the announcement, made jointly by Microsoft and the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, that Windows XP is to be made available on the project's... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 17 May 2008 | 11:03 pm
BMW X5, £40,550 Miles per gallon: 34.9 Seats: 7 Good for: Rich tastes Bad for: Cheap tricks Each month a gardener arrives to tend the small patch of land owned by the electricity board opposite... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 17 May 2008 | 11:02 pm
There's no doubt that the focus of the web is shifting to the community. At the forefront of this shift is social media. Social media can be loosely defined as the movement of community contributions in... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2008 | 11:01 pm
(TrendHunter.com) Google Earth is as entertaining as it is informative. In this feature, we profile some of the interesting Google Earth innovations and applications. People are using the Google Maps... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 17 May 2008 | 10:48 pm
Stating the obvious: "Two scientists write that obese people are disproportionately responsible for high food prices and greenhouse gas emissions because they consume 18% more food energy due to their greater body mass -- and require increased quantities of fuel to transport themselves and the food they eat. 'Promotion of a normal distribution of BMI would reduce the global demand for, and thus the price of, food,' write the authors, Phil Edwards and Ian Roberts of the evocatively named London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine."
I just finished re-reading (for the nth time) Bruce Sterling's 1998 novel Distraction. I didn't mean to -- I picked it up in a used bookstore in Milwaukee on my way to a quick dinner in my hotel room, thinking I'd just read a few pages of this old friend and then leave it behind for the next guest to discover and enjoy. Now it's 18 hours later and I've read all 500-some pages of it, and, as ever, my mind is a-whirl with the incredible ideas, people and speculation in this remarkable, remarkable book.
Distraction is the story of an America on the skids: economy in tatters, dollar collapsed, unemployment spiked, population on the move in great, restless herds bound together with networks and bootleg phones. The action revolves around Oscar Valparaiso, a one-of-a-kind political operator who has just put his man -- a billionaire sustainable architecture freak -- into the Senate and is looking for some downtime. But a funny thing happens on the way to the R&R: Oscar and his "krewe" (the feudal entourage who trail after him, looking after his clothes, research, security, systems and so on) end up embroiled in a complex piece of political theater, a media war between the rogue governor of the drowned state of Louisiana, the Air Force, the newly elected president, and a weird, pork-barrel science park in its own glassed-in dome.
Every single chapter -- every one! -- has at least enough material for five great speculative short stories. From the net-gang hobos (and their remarkable, cellular-automata driven fleamarkets) to the weird economic boom in cognition research, to the idea of leisure unions and anti-work activist techno-triumphalists, this book fizzes with awesome ideas.
But that's only one of its three signal virtues. The other two are: the insight Sterling brings to the nature of politics and the political process in the age of networked economies and systems; and the vivid, larger-than-life characters who populate this book. They are, to a one, likable, frustrating, believable, admirable and enraging.
It's a powerful concoction, this book, and now, ten years after its initial publication, it's possible to asses just how prescient, how visionary, Sterling is. I love all of Bruce's books, but this one may just be my favorite. It's the kind of friend you end up staying up all night chatting with, even when all you plan on doing is saying a quick hello.
Link
theodp writes "You probably saw media coverage of Bill Gates showing off touch-screen technology to his CEO play group last week. With the introduction of the iPhone and iPod Touch, touch (and multi-touch) technology — which folks like Ray Ozzie enjoyed as undergrads way back in the early '70s — has finally gone mainstream. The only question is: Why did it take four decades for its overnight success? Some suggest the expiration of significant patents filed during '70s and '80s may have had something to do with it — anything else?"
andrewmin writes "SoC 2008 has begun, and with 175 organizations and 1125 students it looks better than ever before. Here's a quick run-down of a few programs that, if they are finished, will definitely be making their way onto your machine."
The destruction of flora and fauna is costing the world two trillion euros (3.1 trillion dollars) a year, or six percent of its overall gross national product, according to a report trailed Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2008 | 7:09 pm
In the comments for my post about The Hoodlum, Mr. Bali Hai said: "A while back, I dug through the IA and pulled out every cult film that had also made an appearance in Mike Weldon's Psychotronic Video guide. I came up with quite a long list."
I've been spending a lot of time digging around in the Internet Archive. In the course of my excavations, I uncovered a metric buttload of old cult filmage in the public domain, and in a fit of obsessive-compulsive mania, decided to make a list that included every film in the archive that also makes an appearance in Michael Weldon's essential guide to midnight movies, The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film.
Click on the Extended Entry to view them all linked in one place for your free downloading pleasure, or order your own DVD w/jewelbox from my favorite purveyor of Psychotronica, Sinister Cinema.
The Amazing Mr. X
The Amazing Transparent Man
The Ape
Assignment: Outer Space
Atom Age Vampire
The Atomic Brain
Attack of the Giant Leeches
Attack From Space
The Beast of Hollow Mountain
The Beatniks
Bloody Pit of Horror
The Brain That Wouldn't Die
Bride of the Gorilla
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Carnival of Souls
The Corpse Vanishes
Creature From the Haunted Sea
Daughter of Horror
The Day the Sky Exploded
Dead Men Walk
Dementia 13
Detour
The Devil of the Desert Against the Son of Hercules
Doomed To Die
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)
That's just A-D. For E-Z, with the links to the videos, visit Mr. Bali Hai's blog, Eye of the Goof. Link
SUWANEE, Ga., May 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ARRIS (Nasdaq: ARRS) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Comcast, the nation's leading provider Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2008 | 4:00 pm
Biofuels must not deprive the world's poor of food, a senior European official said, as he proposed a greater focus on second-generation biofuels that would be more environmentally... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2008 | 3:22 pm
Doctors should offer genetic screening to immigrant communities that encourage marriage between cousins, experts say Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 17 May 2008 | 2:50 pm
AP Video A company rooted in bringing the Internet to the masses, AOL is shifting its focus toward serving niche audiences with the launch of dozens of specialty Web sites. The latest Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 17 May 2008 | 11:44 am
Comment by Carl Pope Executive Director, Sierra Club
Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, WA
I just finished re-reading (for the nth time) Bruce Sterling's 1998 novel Distraction. I didn't mean to -- I picked it up in a used bookstore in Milwaukee on my way to a quick dinner in my hotel room, thinking I'd just read a few pages of this old friend and then leave it behind for the next guest to discover and enjoy. Now it's 18 hours later and I've read all 500-some pages of it, and, as ever, my mind is a-whirl with the incredible ideas, people and speculation in this remarkable, remarkable book.
I've been spending a lot of time digging around in the Internet Archive. In the course of my excavations, I uncovered a metric buttload of old cult filmage in the public domain, and in a fit of obsessive-compulsive mania, decided to make a list that included every film in the archive that also makes an appearance in Michael Weldon's essential guide to midnight movies, The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film.
