We’re live in Berlin, Germany at the HP Connecting Your World event. During yesterday’s keynote, Voodoo PC, HP’s enthusiast line, announced what’s essentially a competitor to the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 7:21 pm
AP - The shoe phone on TV's "Get Smart" wasn't just a sneaky spy gadget, it was a technological marvel: a wireless, portable telephone that could be used anywhere though it did require a dime to make a call.
MojoKid writes "Researchers at Ohio State University and the University of California, Irvine conducted a telephone study by randomly surveying individuals employed full-time who use computers in an office environment at least five hours per week. They netted 912 respondents, of which 29.8 percent claimed to use IM in the workplace "to keep connected with coworkers and clients." Neither occupation, education, gender, nor age seem to have an impact on whether an individual is an IM user or not. The study theorizes that using IM enables individuals to "flag their availability." Doing so can limit when IM interruptions occur. Even if an IM interruption comes when it is not necessarily convenient to the recipient, it is "often socially acceptable" to ignore an incoming message or respond with a terse reply stating that the recipient is too busy at the moment to properly respond." Also another study recently found that water is wet, and a third study found that most studies waste money.
Canadian copyfightin' law prof Michael Geist sez, "Gordon Duggan of Appropriation Art has created a remarkable comic book [PDF - 2.8 MB] chronicling the recent battle over Canadian copyright reform. The book includes over 100 links to websites, articles, and other resources as every quote or reference is hyperlinked. It concludes with references to groups actively involved in copyright issues and suggestions for how to get active. This left me absolutely speechless."
I concur 100 percent -- this is just staggeringly great, the perfect primer on the shameful attempt by Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice to smuggle the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act into Canadian law without debate or public input.
Link to PDF of comic book,
Link to Appropriation Art
Canadian copyfightin' law prof Michael Geist sez, "Gordon Duggan of Appropriation Art has created a remarkable comic book [PDF - 2.8 MB] chronicling the recent battle over Canadian copyright reform. The... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 1:26 pm
I had a chance to speak with Bebo co-founder Michael Birch last weekend at the Founders Brunch event at Loic Le Meur’s house in San Francisco. It was the first chance I’ve had to congratulate... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 1:03 pm
By Andrew Liszewski One of the approaches to making a highly efficient electric car is to basically add a body and other car-like amenities to an electric scooter. You end up with something like the ultra-thin... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 1:00 pm
The Pluggd team is used to switching gears. The startup began in February 2006 as a destination site for podcasts. But after witnessing iTunes “suck the air out” of the market, it began developing... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 1:00 pm
Hypnobirthing is a technique that requires meditation, practice, and a quiet atmosphere during labor and delivery. No drugs are used and if done correctly, women who use the technique are said to experience... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 1:00 pm
I went on a bike ride this morning with my friend Jimmy and we got to talking about business (not the venture business because Jimmy's not in tech/venture/web/startups). I asked him if he takes a lot of... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:55 pm
An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix has up an article looking at the release of X Server 1.4.1. This maintenance release for X.Org, which the open-source operating systems depend upon for living in a graphically rich world, comes more than 200 days late and it doesn't even clear the BugZilla release blocker bug. A further indication of problems is that the next major release of X.Org was scheduled to be released in February... then May... and now it's missing with no sign of when a release will occur. There are still more than three dozen outstanding bugs. Also, the forthcoming release (X.Org 7.4) will ship with a slimmer set of features than what was initially planned."
SAN JOSE, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- GDA Technologies, Inc. a Global Electronics Design services and IP provider, 100% owned subsidiary of L&T Infotech today... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:36 pm
Leading Interactive Marketing Agency Adds Pep Boys, SourceMedia, NewsMarket, United Water, and Tablet Hotels to Customer List NEW YORK, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Zeta... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:31 pm
PALO ALTO, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Varian Medical Systems (NYSE: VAR) today announced the execution of a three year, $320 million contract for Varian to Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:30 pm
Enterprise Installs Motorola Wireless LAN and RF Management Suite in 745 stores to Mobilize Business Processes SAN JOSE, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:30 pm
LENEXA, Kan., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ICOP Digital, Inc. (Nasdaq: ICOP), an industry-leading company engaged in advancing digital surveillance solutions, today... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:30 pm
MILPITAS, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- JDSU today announced that its WaveReady 3000 series has been verified by Brocade Communications Systems Inc. as... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:30 pm
ORLANDO, Florida, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Omada ( href="http://www.omada.net">http://www.omada.net ), a leading Microsoft Solution Provider for Advanced Role Based... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:30 pm
Scheduled to Present at 3:30 p.m. (Central) RUTHERFORD, N.J., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AXS-One Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: AXSO), a leading provider of... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:30 pm
VENTURA, Calif., June 11 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Turbodyne Technologies, Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: TRBD; TUD-Frankfurt) announced today that it has received an order... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:30 pm
A Nasa telescope due for launch today will enable scientists to "look under the hood and see how the universe works" Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:29 pm
BusinessWeek Online - For those seeking sun protection this summer, Peter Thomas Roth has given new meaning to the phrase "take a powder." Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:08 pm
UBC Media's instant music download service Cliq has suffered a blow with the closure of its loss-making mobile phone platform. The company blamed the closure on the slower than expected takeup of the mobile... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:07 pm
In January we discussed a blog entry revealing that Apple had "crippled" its DTrace port. As the author notes in a followup post, to say that DTrace had been "crippled" was at least overstated: "Unfortunately, most reactions seized on a headline paraphrasing a line of the post — albeit with the critical negation omitted." In an updated entry, the poster notes that Apple has made good (so we have too): "One issue was that timer based probes wouldn't fire if certain applications were actively executing (e.g. iTunes). This was evident both by counting periodic probe firings, and by the absence of certain applications when profiling. The good news is that Apple has (quietly) fixed the problem in Mac OS X 10.5.3."
Redlasso, a useful but controversial service that lets users grab video clips from television, has just established a Media Advisory Board to help manage relations with litigious content providers. The... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:01 pm
PC World - In an effort to avert regulation by the EU, mobile phone operators said Wednesday that the market is expanding rapidly and... Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2008 | 12:00 pm
AP - Attackers could gain control of water treatment plants, natural gas pipelines and other critical utilities because of a vulnerability in the software that runs some of those facilities, security researchers reported Wednesday.
Attackers could gain control of water treatment plants, natural gas pipelines and other critical utilities because of a vulnerability in the software that runs some of those facilities, security researchers report. So far there's no evidence anyone else has found or exploited the flaw.
Telecommunications equipment maker Nortel Networks on Wednesday stood by its 2008 outlook at an investor meeting. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:30 am
Estonia’s Forticom, which runs Lithuanian social network one.It and owns a 25% stake in Russian social network Odnoklassniki.ru, has acquired a controlling stake in Polish web portal nasza-klasa... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:26 am
I just finished listening to the audiobook of Michael Chabon's new novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, a hardboiled alternate history novel set in a world where Israel falls in 1948 and its population... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:21 am
I just finished listening to the audiobook of Michael Chabon's new novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, a hardboiled alternate history novel set in a world where Israel falls in 1948 and its population of Jews relocate to a territory carved out of Alaska, a territory that is theirs for 60 years only. Now it is 2008, and the Alaskan settlement is to revert to the USA (or possibly to the native population, depending on the outcome of political struggles over its disposition), and in the final two months, Detective Meyer Landsman finds himself embroiled in a murder investigation.
In true hard-boiled style, the murder unpicks the seams of the whole rotten, corrupt mess, unearthing a political scandal that spans several continents, three major religions, a dead junkie messiah resurgent, and the resolution of Landsman's failed marriage to the woman who is now his boss in the Sitka police force.
I'm a great Chabon fan, and I think that this is his best book to date, better even than The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, as it so perfectly marries the deadpan ironies of hardboiled fiction and Yiddish storytelling, in a word-drunk reel that spanned ten CDs of bitter humor and insight. In this regard, the book is nicely complemented by a virtuoso reading from Peter Riegert, who hasn't been this fantastically understated and sly since his asides in Animal House.
I was raised by Yiddish speakers of some fluency -- and still have whole swaths of my family with whom I can only converse in my execrable Yiddish, learned through seven years of Sunday school at the Arbeiter Ring center in Toronto -- and I've always loved the language for its slope-shouldered, wry, witty flavor. It's hard to capture that in English, but Chabon really nails it here, and it merges so perfectly into the hard-boiled storyline that you'd think that Chandler had been written by Sholem Aleichem.
Link to audiobook CDs,
Link to hardcover
When I got back from my book tour earlier this month, I was delighted to discover that the handmade steampunk keyboard I'd ordered from Datamancer had arrived. I unpacked and connected it right away and I've been using it ever since, every day, here in my office. The action is great, a little like well-oiled manual, a little like one of the classic indestructible IBM clacky sysadmin keyboards. The keys are shaped like tombstones (I got to specify that) and the three little crystalline lamps on the top right corner light up for power, caps-lock and numlock. There are plenty of gracenotes, too -- like the heavy metallic keyboard cable and the legend "Aether" on the spacebar. It wasn't cheap, and it took eight weeks to arrive, but man, was it worth it.
Link, Link to pictures of my keyboard in situ
LUDWIGSHAFEN, Germany, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- A little fabric softener is a big comfort in a tough world. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
Canadian Zinc Corporation (TSX: CZN)(OTCBB: CZICF) (the "Company" or "Canadian Zinc") is extremely pleased to announce that applications have been submitted to the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board (the "MVLWB") for permits for the proposed operations and production at the Prairie Creek Mine (the "Project") in the Northwest Territories. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
By Frank Urquhart DONALD Trump yesterday claimed his status as a celebrity and the world's best-known tycoon had prevented him getting speedy approval for his ambitious plan to build the world's greatest golf resort in Scotland. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
By Mike Amos LONG beached on the Cornish coast - he has a fish and chip restaurant on the sands - Middlesbrough-born former Yorkshire and England allrounder Chris Old reveals in The Observer's "Where are they now" slot a perhaps predictable occupational hazard - he's right off fish and chips. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
By Keith Rogers; Scott Wyland By KEITH ROGERS and SCOTT WYLAND REVIEW-JOURNAL The operator of Sunrise landfill was ordered Monday to submit plans for covering the closed trash dump and installing storm controls to prevent a repeat of the 1998 incident when floodwaters ripped open the earthen cap and carried garbage and smelly debris to the Las Vegas Wash. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency) [Xinhua: "1st Ld: More Affected as Torrential Rains Continue To Wreak Havoc in China"] HANGZHOU, June 11 (Xinhua) - Torrential rains continued to lash China on Wednesday, affecting almost 1 million people, disrupting traffic and threatening reservoir safety. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency) [Xinhua: "1st Ld: Water Level of China's Main Quake Lake Keeps Falling, dangers Remain"] MIANYANG, Sichuan, June 11 (Xinhua) - The water level of the Tangjiashan quake lake was still dropping on Wednesday, while experts warn that dangers remain. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
VoIP equipment provider Avaya has announced that its president and chief executive Lou D'Ambrosio is to step down for medical reasons. Charles Giancarlo will take over as chief executive and president until a successor is named. D'Ambrosio will continue as an adviser to the company. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
IBM (NYSE: IBM) today said it would expand its efforts to deliver energy efficiency technologies to global businesses facing skyrocketing energy costs, environmental concerns and corporate sustainability requirements. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
Citrix Systems has upgraded its Access Gateway Appliance to provide secure access to virtual desktop environments. It said Citrix Access Gateway 8.1 will integrate with XenDesktop to enable organizations to control access to applications and desktops regardless of user location. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
Math learning center opens second local site Mathnasium - The Math Learning Center opened its second Las Vegas location at 1990 Village Center Circle, Suite 10. *** Cash America/SuperPawn named Caroline Ciocca community relations director. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
IBM (NYSE: IBM) has signed an agreement to help build a $ CDN 75 million, 150,000 square foot "green" data center in the heart of British Columbia with gigaCENTER Services Corporation, in partnership with RackForce Networks. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
By Jon Swartz Some of the most important issues in technology are being debated -- and defined -- in a yellow wood-frame house on the edge of Harvard Law School's campus. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
Text of report by independent daily newspaper Fiji Times website on 11 June Sotia Central is gaining popularity since its launch last Saturday [7 June], being a social networking website dedicated to absolutely everything in regards to Fijians serving in foreign legions. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
By Al Gibes To click or not to click? That was the question for at least one of the recipients of a thank-you message I sent following my recent survey. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
Globe7 HK Ltd. enters into a strategic partnership with Asia Times and to provide news hosting services including videos, texts and photos, on www.atimes.com. The cooperation marked a turning point for Asia Times as it provided value-added feature on its existing Internet news platform. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 11 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
The Marginal Revolution blog poses the musical question, "If you were transported back to the middle ages, what would be the top strategy for thriving?" Given that most of us can't make gunpowder from scratch (and don't have up-to-date smallpox vaccinations), dreams of becoming a technological pre-Enlightenment billionaire guru are probably not realistic (stipulating that "realistic" is probably not a good word to use in respect of responses to hypothetical time-travel questions).
First build grubstake by minstrelsy. I hope you remember some three chord Stones songs, or perhaps some blues. Next, I would suggest the magic of fractional reserve banking in a market town. Expand the banking operations to other market towns. Hire bodyguards. Loan money to the king. Loan money to the other king. Start a war. Loan money to the Pope, etc.
Posted by: Rebunga at Jun 6, 2008 12:15:47 PM
Oxford Industries Inc.'s weak full-year profit and sales outlook may pressure shares of the apparel maker on Wednesday. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 10:33 am
Apple overturned not one but two prevailing expectations on Monday, abandoning the iPhone revenue model by which carriers paid it a slice of monthly income in favour of application sales, and announcing... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 11 Jun 2008 | 10:23 am
MrSnivvel writes "H.R. 4279, Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, is gaining momentum in Congress. It passed the House a few days back. It would allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from 'dubious origins,' e.g. downloaded from P2P. If passed into law, the bill would establish an Intellectual Property Enforcement Division within the office of the Deputy Attorney General. Rep. John Conyers says the goal is to 'prioritize intellectual property protection to the highest level of our government.'"
Reuters - SQS Software Quality Systems (SQSGn.DE)
, a German software-testing company, acquired Nordic
peer Validate Technology Svenska on Wednesday, and said France
and Benelux are its next target markets. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 11 Jun 2008 | 9:10 am
AP - Attackers could gain control of water treatment plants, natural gas pipelines and other critical utilities because of a vulnerability in the software that runs some of those facilities, security researchers reported Wednesday.
Architect Skylar Tibbits has been working out a scheme for "flat panel tessellation derived from complex surfaces" -- big graceful structures made from snap-together panels. The results are documented in loving detail on the Tesselion blog.
Tesselion is a project by Skylar Tibbits which proposes a system of flat panel tessellation derived from complex surfaces to enable ease in constructability and a directly evolved spatial environment through lighting, programmatic adaptation and structural simplicity. Each panel’s uniqueness is afforded by the efficiency of digital fabrication while coded parametric relationships allow an emergent structural efficiency, from a single panel to the complete adaptability of the surface as a whole.
The Chemicals, Materials & Foods practice of Frost & Sullivan, a global growth consulting company, is for the first time, organizing a four day Executive MindXchange titled, "Accelerating Growth in Chemicals, Materials & Foods," which will focus on four emerging markets such as Functional Foods, Flexible Packaging, Performance/Specialty Chemicals and Carbon Credits. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2008 | 8:00 am
By Laurie Edwards Striped bass are one of the lake's most sought-after and most elusive fish. The 40- or 50-pound bass put up a strong fight as they're being reeled in. But at that size, they're 15 to 20 years old and have long stories to tell. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 11 Jun 2008 | 8:00 am
Roland Piquepaille writes "In recent years, we have become increasingly dependent on applications using the Global Positioning System, such as railway control, highway traffic management, emergency response, and commercial aviation. But the American Geophysical Union warns us that we can't always trust our GPS gadgets because 'electrical activity in the... ionosphere can tamper with signals from GPS satellites.' However, new research studies are under way and 'may lead to regional predictions of reduced GPS reliability and accuracy.'" Roland's blog has useful links and a summary of a free introduction, up at the AGU site, to a special edition of the journal Space Weather with seven articles (not free) regarding ionospheric effects on GPS.
Reuters - Business software maker Red Hat Inc
said on Wednesday that it has settled two of three
pending patent lawsuits that the company has been fighting.
smithtuna33 writes "Ever wondered what the metal skin on your car is actually good for? Engineers at BMW have decided that fabric might work just as well. The doors literally peel away from the side of the car, the engine bay opens up down the middle, and pretty much everything (such as headlamps) is hidden until the fabric reveals it. It is a stunning concept that has already been influencing BMW's designs. The video is well worth watching."
AP - Government lawyers tried Tuesday to revive a 1998 law designed to keep online pornography from children, amid questions that it is significantly outdated and blocks too much legal speech while having no effect on content posted from overseas.
1985: Karen Ann Quinlan, brain-dead and nine years removed from the respirator doctors employed to keep her alive, finally dies. Her case is a landmark in the ethical debate over the lengths medical science should go in trying to preserve a life that is deemed irretrievably lost.
Karen Quinlan was a 21-year-old college student in 1975 when she ingested a combination of drugs and alcohol at a party. Feeling unwell, she was put to bed by friends who later returned to find that she had stopped breathing. By the time help arrived, Quinlan's oxygen-deprived brain was severely damaged, and she was reduced to what doctors describe as a persistent vegetative state.
Quinlan was kept alive with life-support technology, including feeding tubes and a respirator that enabled her to breathe. While there was some low-level brain function, her cognitive abilities were wiped out. When months passed without any improvement in her condition, Quinlan's parents asked that she be removed from life support and allowed to die.
Doctors refused, saying she didn't meet the criteria for brain death, meaning she could not be declared legally dead by existing medical standards. The state of New Jersey also intervened, saying it would prosecute any physician who helped end Quinlan's life.
Joseph Quinlan, Karen's father, sued to have life support discontinued, but was denied by the court. He appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court, where he based his case on the First (freedom of religion) and Eighth (cruel and unusual punishment) Amendments. Although the court rejected both arguments, it ultimately ruled in Joseph Quinlan's favor on the basis of U.S. Supreme Court precedents affirming an individual's right to privacy.
It also rejected the state's argument that removing life support constituted a homicide, saying that Quinlan's death would result from natural causes. Following the court's ruling, Karen Quinlan was removed from the respirator.
But she did not die.
Instead, she continued breathing unaided and lived for another nine years before infection and pneumonia finally killed her. She was 31. The autopsy disclosed severe damage to her thalamus, that part of the brain that controls -- among other things -- the processing of sensory information.
Quinlan's case is a milestone, a legal precedent for other right-to-die cases. It is also a milestone in bioethics, touching as it does on a number of moral and ethical issues surrounding the end of life. As a direct result of the Quinlan case, in fact, hospitals and other health care facilities nationwide established ethics committees.
It's not an issue that will resolve itself anytime soon. The implications of prolonging life under extraordinary circumstances are only bound to multiply with every advance in medical technology.
Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor, shameless self-promoter, and masterful catnapper. Legend has it that he would sleep in his chair, holding ball bearings in the palms of his hands. After an appropriate number of z's, he'd relax enough to drop the balls, waking himself up. Then he'd go back to inventing lightbulbs and other bric-a-brac. In celebration of Edison's commitment to innovation and snoozing, we've compiled the most impressive-sounding nap-tech of the 21st century.
1 Sleeptracker Pro Bully: "Hey, nerd, nice giant watch."
Geek: "You are mistaken. This is a sensor that wakes me at the optimal point in my sleep cycle."
Bully: "Huh?"
Geek: "It tracks movements to determine sleep stage."
Bully: "You have bested me!"
What would Edison think? "Even at $179, it beats my ball bearings."
2 Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Neuroscientist Giulio Tononi discovered that a magnetic pulse can trigger the same brain-wave activity that occurs during deep slumber. Can an electromagnetic nap-cap be far behind?
What would Edison think? "Does this Tononi have a patent?"
3 Pzizz Energizer
By randomly playing music, nature sounds, Neuro Linguistic Programming (aka talking), and binaural audio tones (don't ask), this $30 app can create a near-limitless number of lullabies.
What would Edison think? "I particularly like the fact that you can export tracks to your iTunes player."
4 MindSpa
This "personal development system" combines white light and pulsating sounds to shift your brain waves into the alpha and theta — or la-la — frequencies.
What would Edison think? "Intriguing, but $280 seems a bit steep for a rudimentary drum machine and blinking sunglasses."
5 MetroNaps EnergyPods
Bosses, it's fatigue risk management. Recharge your drones in this $12,500 bed — knees level with heart to reduce back strain — until lights and vibrations nudge them back to the hive.
What would Edison think? "Only for those not ashamed to say, Me likey nap time.'"
destinyland writes "Wired magazine ran a table listing the scientific effects of prescription drugs (and one illegal drug) — leading to an accusation from the NYTimes that they were 'promoting' drug use. But this routine controversy led to a fierce pushback online from bloggers and from Wired's reporter, who discussed his past drug use on his own blog and called for an honest discussion of scientific evidence and straight talk about medical effects."
Sprint, Verizon and Time Warner are agreeing with New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to block and filter kiddie porn. Perhaps it's a salvo to head off congressional action that might lead to even broader censorship. But the Cuomo deal, anounced Tuesday, is an indication that the dynamic that's kept the internet largely free of government intrusion is beginning to crack.
Waiting around at Jiffy Lube for someone to change your oil is overrated. Wired.com's How-To Wiki shows do-it-yourselfers how to clean the grease out of your engine in six easy steps.
It's time to retire the NSFW acronym and associated phrases. I've simply seen far too many electrons sacrificed in long, pointless arguments about what "not safe for work" means.
Whose work? Are you bleaching the hot tubs at Playboy Mansion or arranging candlelight vigils for Citizens Against Potty Mouths? Are you European? To hear some Europeans tell the story, everyone over there watches hard-core porn and smokes hashish between staff meetings where they discuss where to find the best porn and hashish.
Most people end up taking one of two stances, each filling in important words. First, there are those who read the classic warning as "not safe for (my) work." These people are touchy. They're the first to dive into the comments and sear off your eyebrows for not realizing that some people have jobs where the boss does not look kindly on the word jockstrap. In fact, as far as I can tell, these people have such strict work policies that the only web activity they're allowed to do on company time is complain about improper blog post labeling.
Most people, however, read NSFW as "not safe for (the platonic ideal of) work." Apparently there's this archetypal concept of a workplace that exists in the universal consciousness, and you should consult the great mother mind before putting anything on the web. Of course, not everyone is hooked into the same plane of hyper-awareness, and thus you get arguments.
For instance: bikinis? Are photos of women in bikinis safe for work? What about one-piece bathing suits? Tight pants? I've seen someone argue that a cartoon of a fully-clothed wolf-lady in a turtleneck sweater and slacks was just too steamily erotic to be work-safe. (I don't know where the arguer worked, but I hope it wasn't the Disney Store.)
And then there are those sad, twitchy souls who get hung up on the work-safety of URLs. You could post a link to a recipe for baked chicken, but if the URL contained the word breasts, they'd be convinced they're going to be shoved roughly out the backdoor of the building, to be unemployed forever as each new workplace hears of the unforgivable sin of that fateful day when you ruined their life.
Now, I know geekfolk love their acronyms and all, but I'm tired of the whole stupid conflict. Maybe, possibly, we could agree that the scope and depth of human reaction to matters biological can't be flattened into a binary designation as if stomping on a soda can? Hell, even the Motion Picture Association of America has five different categories for the relative acceptability of a movie, and its system is arbitrary and biased. What makes us think we can get away with only work-safe and not work-safe?
Here's my cutting-edge solution: How about if we actually describe things? This isn't semaphore, people. Unless you routinely blog in the middle of a desperate escape from a burning building, you've got plenty of time to say something like: "Warning: visual depiction of pert nipples and raspberry jam" or "Beware: contains pictures of Drew Barrymore in a business suit, eating ice cream and giving the camera that look" or "Cuidado: cloacas!"
If we just added those extra few words, a few additional strikes of the keyboard, then everyone could make an informed, adult decision to look around real quick before clicking through, and people could stop complaining. Except for those URL guys -- they're hopeless.
- - -
Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to insist that NSFW is pronounced "nossfaw."
AP - Online forums where thousands of child-porn images have been posted have been stricken from three Internet providers, including two of the nation's five largest, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday.
Science generates tons of data, and we want to bring you better visualizations of all that information. In this post, we threw together newly published risk-of-death data in a new chart, now help us make the data visualization better.
vsync64 writes "Last night, Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) spent 4 hours reading into the Congressional Record 35 articles of impeachment against George W. Bush. Interestingly, those articles (63-page PDF via Coral CDN) include not just complaints about signing statements and the war in Iraq, but also charges that the President "Sp[ied] on American Citizens, Without a Court-Ordered Warrant, in Violation of the Law and the Fourth Amendment,' 'Direct[ed] Telecommunications Companies to Create an Illegal and Unconstitutional Database of the Private Telephone Numbers and Emails of American Citizens,' and 'Tamper[ed] with Free and Fair Elections.' These are issues near and dear to the hearts of many here, so it's worth discussing. What little mainstream media coverage there is tends to be brief (USA Today, CBS News, UPI, AP, Reuters)." The (Democratic) House leadership has said that the idea of impeachment is "off the table." The Judiciary Committee has not acted on articles of impeachment against Vice President Cheney introduced by Kucinich a year ago.
A lot of people offered their opinion, but there wasn't consensus on what kind of plants they are. A few people asked me to post photos when the plants blossomed. Well, they did blossom, and they flowers are pretty -- some are white and some are purplish / mauve.
chrplace forwards an article in which Gartner's Brian Lewis offers his perspective on what led to last year's Xbox 360 recall. Lewis says it happened because Microsoft wanted to avoid an ASIC vendor. "Microsoft designed the graphic chip on its own, cut a traditional ASIC vendor out of the process, and went straight to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd., he explained. But in the end, by going cheap — hoping to save tens of millions of dollars in ASIC design costs, Microsoft ended up paying more than $1 billion for its Xbox 360 recall. To fix the problem, Microsoft went back to an unnamed ASIC vendor based in the United States and redesigned the chip, Lewis added. (Based on a previous report, the ASIC vendor is most likely the former ATI Technologies, now part of AMD.)"
schliz alerts us that ISO, in response to the four appeals (Venezuela, India, Brazil, South Africa) filed in recent weeks, has put the OOXML standardization process on hold. Here is ISO's press release, which says that ISO/IEC DIS 29500 will not be published for at least "several months" while the appeals process goes forward. Update: 06/11 10:13 GMT by KD : Reader Alsee points out that the fourth officially recognized appealing country is Venezuela, not Denmark as originally stated. The protests of Denmark and Norway are being disregarded, as they do not come from the administrative heads of their national organizations.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg says he'd ban bikes on New York's subways if he could because they take up too much room. But there are easier ways to solve the problem, and it's odd that so bike-friendly a mayor wouldn't think of them.
I'm a regular Boing Boing reader. Here's something that's kinda strange, maybe you can help. Here's a link to a picture of my tongue. Perhaps other Boing Boing readers can help me out.
I've had these things hanging under my tongue all my life. Only recently have they been bothering me. I've been accidentally biting them and/or getting them caught on my lower teeth. It hurts a lot when this happens. Nobody else I know has these, except for my 5-year-old son; I figure it's genetic. As an adoptee though, I have limited access to my genetic history. My birth mother says that she doesn't have these. Anyone out there have these? Anyone have them removed? I searched Gray's Anatomy online, and of course have googled, but haven't found anything on this. Any tips or information would be appreciated.
Anyway, if you could post this, cool, I'd like to hear what others have to say about it.
Anyone have an idea of what these things are? Post it in the discussions area.
AP - The new iPhone and the way it will be sold look set to shut down a small industry that arose to make the first version of the iconic phone available around the world.
Is the U.S. Running out of emergency grain reserves?
“According to the May 1, 2008 CCC [USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation] inventory report there are only 24.1 million bushels of wheat in inventory, so after this sale there will be only 2.7 million bushels of wheat left the entire CCC inventory,” warned [Larry Matlack, President of the American Agriculture Movement (AAM)].
“Our concern is not that we are using the remainder of our strategic grain reserves for humanitarian relief. AAM fully supports the action and all humanitarian food relief. Our concern is that the U.S. has nothing else in our emergency food pantry. There is no cheese, no butter, no dry milk powder, no grains or anything else left in reserve. The only thing left in the entire CCC inventory will be 2.7 million bushels of wheat, which is about enough wheat to make 1⁄2 of a loaf of bread for each of the 300 million people in America.
Nifty piece of plastic keeps computer cables from falling behind your desk. I wonder if there's an easy way to make something like this from plastic that most people throw awa
For sheer bang-for-the-buck, these cord management cards are tough to beat. They're cheap polyethylene sheets you either stick or screw to the edge of your desk and then snap the cables coming from your computer and peripherals into the recesses. I was tired of picking my iPod connector off the floor when it would fall off my desktop. With this, the ends of the cables are kept at the ready on your desk, which is especially great for stuff you are regularly plugging and unplugging. You can also use it to neatly route other cables coming from the back of a PC tower, like speaker and ethernet, which really helps cut down cable clutter.
BMW says its radical concept is just a design study headed straight for the company museum, but the innovative car -- which actually runs -- could influence future models.
There are plenty of ways to embed maps into your website -- Yahoo's Geocoder API is the easiest. Mash up some HTML and XML into your website or application and you'll have the world in your hands. Get started by exploring our step by step guide.
Scandyna is known for making top-shelf audio equipment. But not desktop speakers. Guess what? Its latest set of desktop speakers provide exquisite audio. But be prepared to pay far up the wazoo for it.
AP - The shoe phone on TV's "Get Smart" wasn't just a sneaky spy gadget, it was a technological marvel: a wireless, portable telephone that could be used anywhere though it did require a dime to make a call.
AP - Attackers could gain control of water treatment plants, natural gas pipelines and other critical utilities because of a vulnerability in the software that runs some of those facilities, security researchers reported Wednesday.
I just finished listening to the audiobook of Michael Chabon's new novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, a hardboiled alternate history novel set in a world where Israel falls in 1948 and its population of Jews relocate to a territory carved out of Alaska, a territory that is theirs for 60 years only. Now it is 2008, and the Alaskan settlement is to revert to the USA (or possibly to the native population, depending on the outcome of political struggles over its disposition), and in the final two months, Detective Meyer Landsman finds himself embroiled in a murder investigation.
Reuters - Business software maker Red Hat Inc
said on Wednesday that it has settled two of three
pending patent lawsuits that the company has been fighting.
AP - Government lawyers tried Tuesday to revive a 1998 law designed to keep online pornography from children, amid questions that it is significantly outdated and blocks too much legal speech while having no effect on content posted from overseas.
Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we saw this pretty and entirely pedestrian HP Calculator; the Konami code for Google Reader; a industrial shredder eat an Asteroids cabinet; GPS-maker TomTom's intention to make iPhone software; the mystery of Macbook Air's optical illusion beveled design (and other nice laptop design tricks); a way to project trippy Hello Kitties all over your ceiling; a fancy shisha maintenance kit that looks like a espresso maker; fancy Italian asymmetric sunglasses; a whole bunch of alarm clocks; beautiful Pac-Man-inspired art; and a way to store your shoes that has a better name than execution.
We also glanced at Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard; saw not one but two different all-in-one desktop PCs; discovered a way to cheat at Guitar Hero with a machine; played Star Wars 'Imperial March' on a floppy drive; shuddered at a phone shaped like a giant butterfly; saw that Bob Moog's company has a guitar with infinite sustain; applauded a outdoor router from D-Link used in a Native American wind generation system; saw a vending machine that crushes fine china (yup, it's art!); and found another DIY project we'll never make: a bank of Commodore 64 SIDs made into a big synthesizer.
But the best thing we found all day? (At least in my opinion?) The Little Red Riding Hood’s Zombie BBQ game for the Nintendo DS.
AP - Online forums where thousands of child-porn images have been posted have been stricken from three Internet providers, including two of the nation's five largest, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday.
AP - The new iPhone and the way it will be sold look set to shut down a small industry that arose to make the first version of the iconic phone available around the world.
