Spotted on Ubergizmo, a patented slider Mouse Skype Phone featuring an integrated microphone and speaker. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 3:32 pm
An anonymous reader writes "The Pirate Bay, in response to Sweden's new wiretapping law, will start offering SSL encryption to its user base this week. Although copyright issues really have little to do with national security, The Pirate Bay knows its population is uneasy with the recent legal change. The encryption will mostly benefit Swedish users living under the current law. Since The Pirate Bay and its servers are not hosted in Sweden, the additional security offered to outside users could be comparatively minimal."
CNet is running a story speculating on the potential for full-length television shows and movies on YouTube. Google has been looking for ways to improve the popular but unprofitable video-sharing site, including some experiments with movies that exceed the typical 10-minute limit. Incorporating a system similar to Hulu could draw the interest of more advertisers. "[Mark Cuban] wrote that Hulu is crushing YouTube in revenue per video and revenue per user primarily because 'Hulu has the right to sell advertising in and around every single video on its site,' Cuban wrote. 'It can package and sell any way that might make its customers happy.' YouTube doesn't have the same luxury because it can advertise only 'on the small percentage of videos on its site that it has a licensing deal with.'"
Can a geek-driven video portal beat YouTube in Japan? One of the most spectacular success stories in the Asian web market is currently being written by Nico Nico Douga (”smiling videos”), a... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:08 pm
Text of report in English by official Chinese news agency Xinhua (New China News Agency) [Xinhua: "Olympic Torch Relay Starts in China's "Salt Lake City""] GOLMUD, Qinghai, June 22 (Xinhua) - The Olympic torch relay kicked off its Qinghai leg Sunday morning in Golmud, China's "salt lake city". Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
By Sam Powell, Tulsa World, Okla. Jun. 22--Free fishing clinics continue for most of the summer at the Zebco casting pond, adjacent to the Oklahoma Aquarium in Jenks. They are open to all ages and taught by personnel from Oklahoma Wildlife Department. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
No retreat on beautification On Tuesday, the City Council will consider the adoption of a new zoning ordinance that would, once and for all, eliminate the spectacle of large trucks driving around the busiest roads in the city for no genuine purpose other than to expose as many people as possible to the large billboards on their trucks. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
By MEGHAN HOYER By Meghan Hoyer The Virginian-Pilot PORTSMOUTH Upset citizens pointed to pictures of their neighbors' sagging porch roofs, shattered windows and yards filled with debris. Portsmouth needed to beef up its code enforcement , they demanded. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
By Dan Heath, The Press-Republican, Plattsburgh, N.Y. Jun. 22--The assembled reporters and photographers weren't the only ones focused on Parc Safari's three new white lions when they were introduced Wednesday. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
By Kathy Marks Environment: A tale of two rivers Australia's two mighty rivers, the Murray and the Darling, irrigate the nation's food bowl, an area the size of France and Germany combined. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
By Sarah Watson, The News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va. Jun. 22--A recently released state water quality report designates 45 Lynchburg area streams and lakes as impaired -- most because they contain too much E. coli. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
By Bryan Gentry, The News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va. Jun. 22--Officials at Virginia's Region 2000 partnership are keeping an eye on where high-speed Internet access is available. And, almost more important to them, where broadband is not. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
SARCASM ON: It's a good thing the future of information and education - as well as the U.S. economy - won't have anything to do with the Internet. Otherwise, the emerging trend to start charging people for how much they use would be bad news indeed. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
By Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune Jun. 22--Arianna Huffington is planting her flag--or at least a Post--in Chicago this summer. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
Name Stephen Michael Talley Age 18 GPA 4.12 Parents Carolyn and Michael Talley College Virginia Tech Major Landscape architecture Most likely to be playing on my iPod Pink Floyd Favorite online social network MySpace In 10 years I'll be ... Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
By PHUONG CAT LE U.S. consumers are expected to receive about 1.5 billion unwanted text messages in 2008, up 1.1 billion from last year, according to Ferris Research, a San Francisco-based market research firm. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
By STACY PARKER By Stacy Parker Correspondent OCEANFRONT Virginia Beach United Methodist Church's patriotic program June 29 is set to honor the stars and stripes. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
Name Harvequa Chantara' Fogg Age 17 Parent Sharon Fogg-Abbott College Old Dominion University or Virginia State University Major Pre-med Most likely to be playing on my iPod Kirk Franklin and R&B Favorite online social network Yahoo In 10 years I'll be ... Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
By Becky Orr By Becky Orr borr@wyomingnews.com CHEYENNE - Ten graduate students at the University of Wyoming are part of a unique posse. These members of UW's Science Posse help junior high and high school students get excited about science. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:00 pm
I happened to tweet this morning about two crowdsourcing moments — student tries to crowdsource his tuition; Michael Arrington crowdsources his rats/ship/flee list for Yahoo — when Mark Comerford... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 1:28 pm
dstates points out a recent article from guardian.co.uk which discusses a new method by which to recover fingerprints from metal. The method relies on corrosion caused by sweat and other biological residues on the metal's surface. Quoting: "The patterns of corrosion remain even after the surface has been cleaned, heated to 600C or even painted over. This means that traces of fingerprints stay on the metal long after the residue from a person's finger has gone. The chemical basis of the change is not yet clear, but [Dr. John Bond] believes it is corrosion by chloride ions from the salt in sweat. These produce lines of corrosion along the ridges of the fingerprint residue. When the metal is heated, for example in a bomb blast or when a gun is fired, the chemical reaction actually speeds up and makes the corrosion more pronounced."
A few days ago, commenting on one of my posts, a reader inquired about my health, in particular whether or not I was behaving myself. While on the one hand I found it mildly amusing, as it felt like my... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 1:06 pm
Earlier this month, I shared with you my post that called for a big wake-up call for Social Networking sector, thanks to the presence of too many me-too players at a time when recent traffic trends are... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 1:00 pm
New data shows that Facebook is growing really fast in key overseas markets. That doesn???t necessarily mean more dollars for the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company or end of MySpace, though it seems bad... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 1:00 pm
Macworld.com - Macware on Friday announced the release of Logo Design Studio Pro 1.8, an update to their logo design software for Mac OS X users. It costs $59.99, though updates for registered users are free. Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 22 Jun 2008 | 1:00 pm
theodp writes "On the eve of the company's move from Albuquerque to Seattle in 1978, a famous photo was taken (in a shopping mall no less) of the original Microsoft team, looking mighty sharp in their '70s outfits. Almost 30 years later, as Bill Gates prepares to depart from Microsoft, the group (looking older, but better) reconvened for a retake."
Whenever you want to show how soft big media are on Barack Obama, refer back to Howard Kurtz’ column on their coverage of the candidate’s hypocritical flip-flop on campaign financing. Chapter... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 11:27 am
By Clinton Thomas, St. Joseph News-Press, Mo. Jun. 22--Summer is approaching and the desire to be outside and enjoy the farm ponds comes right along with it. Excessive surface plant growth takes away the beauty of the ponds and can also destroy the natural balance of the pond. Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 22 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
By J. Peder Zane, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C. Jun. 22--Americans greet each new technological advance as if it had been delivered by the stork. We coo over each bundle of perfection, foreseeing only a brilliant future. But eventually reality sets in. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
By Heidi Freeman, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C. Jun. 22--Carolina Renaissance Festival: Auditions for the king will be held from noon until 3 p.m. July 12. General auditions for street characters, musicians, dancers and variety acts will be held from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 22 Jun 2008 | 11:00 am
Make a last-minute decision and come to the Personal Democracy Forum in New York tomorrow. I had to scour the schedule to find a slot when I could sneak off for a meeting — in any conference, that’s... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 10:44 am
I believe we’ve all experienced some of the repercussions that have come from having so much information at our fingertips. We’ve seen plenty of social bookmarking sites pop-up and we’ve... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 10:37 am
Piranhaa writes "I currently use an IPTV box that runs software by Minerva Networks. When you ssh into the box, you are greeted with a BusyBox v1.00 (ash) shell. It's clearly running a flavor of Linux (uname -apm outputs: Linux minerva_10_0_3_99 2.4.30-tango2-2.7.144.0 #29 Wed Mar 16 16:16:16 CET 2005 mips unknown). However, when you look at their Web site there is no publicly available source code. Since the GPL in both BusyBox and the Linux kernel require that anyone using and distributing the binaries of this software make source available to everyone, what would one do in order to enforce this? I've personally emailed Minerva and left voicemails with no reply."
Ian Lamont writes "Montreal is preparing to launch a Web- and RFID-enabled public bike system that allows residents and visitors to rent bicycles at special depots scattered throughout the city. Using a Web site, riders can check out a real-time inventory of available bicycles at the depot locations. At the depots, a solar-powered base station will process credit cards or member cards. The bike docks use RFID, and the system is supposedly easy to install and maintain. A pilot program will launch in September with four bike depots."
Last night, Locus Magazine held its annual Locus Awards Ceremony in Seattle, the winners include several of my favorite books of the year -- and my novella, "After the Siege" -- which was collected in my short story collection Overclocked and adapted for comics in my new collection Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now". (The story's first publication was in the Russian magazine Esli, and the translation is also downloadable). This marks my fourth consecutive Locus Award win!
Many thanks to all who voted for this story, to Eileen Gunn for publishing the story and accepting the award on my behalf, and especially to my grandmother, Valentina Rachman, for sharing her stories of life as a child-soldier in the civil defense corps during the Siege of Leningrad.
SF NOVEL
The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Michael Chabon (HarperCollins)
FANTASY NOVEL
Making Money, Terry Pratchett (Doubleday UK; HarperCollins)
YOUNG ADULT BOOK
Un Lun Dun, China Miéville (Ballantine Del Rey; Macmillan UK)
FIRST NOVEL
Heart-Shaped Box, Joe Hill (Morrow; Gollancz)
NOVELLA
"After the Siege", Cory Doctorow (The Infinite Matrix Jan 2007)
NOVELETTE
"The Witch's Headstone", Neil Gaiman (Wizards)
SHORT STORY
"A Small Room in Koboldtown", Michael Swanwick (Asimov's Apr/May 2007)
COLLECTION
The Winds of Marble Arch and Other Stories, Connie Willis (Subterranean)
ANTHOLOGY
The New Space Opera, Gardner Dozois & Jonathan Strahan, eds. (Eos)
NON-FICTION
Breakfast in the Ruins, Barry N. Malzberg (Baen)
ART BOOK
The Arrival, Shaun Tan (Lothian 2006; Scholastic)
EDITOR
Ellen Datlow
MAGAZINE
F&SF
PUBLISHER
Tor
ARTIST
Charles Vess
Hong Kong has joined the international carbon trading structure with a promise to slash emissions, but analysts say the move will fail to produce any serious reductions in greenhouse gases. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 5:46 am
Findings presented to ENDO 2008, the Endocrine Society's annual meeting in San Francisco this week, show that a spice found in curries has remarkable properties when administered to obese and diabetic mice:
"It's too early to tell whether increasing dietary curcumin [through turmeric] intake in obese people with diabetes will show a similar benefit," Dr. Tortoriello said. "Although the daily intake of curcumin one might have to consume as a primary diabetes treatment is likely impractical, it is entirely possible that lower dosages of curcumin could nicely complement our traditional therapies as a natural and safe treatment."
For now, the conclusion that Dr. Tortoriello and his colleagues have reached is that turmeric – and its active anti-oxidant ingredient, curcumin – reverses many of the inflammatory and metabolic problems associated with obesity and improves blood-sugar control in mouse models of Type 2 diabetes.
Gerard Brion's garden in the south France town of Vaissac contains a replica of Paris built from junk, trash, glue and paint.
The Frenchman, 29, has spent 15 years crafting landmarks including the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe and Sacré Coeur out of old concrete blocks, baby food jars and soup tins.
Here's a fine little dance remix of Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice ducking questions about his terrible new copyright proposal, Bill C61 (AKA the Canadian DMCA), on the CBC Radio show Search Engine.
Link
(Thanks, Rick!)
In a sprawling greenhouse with shiny silver ducts running through, stacks of cardboard boxes feature prints of a flower alongside the distinctive red Toyota logo. In an... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 5:21 am
AFP - After weeks of tumultuous protests inspired largely by South Korea's netizens, the country which claims to be the world's most wired society is considering new ways to monitor the Internet.
Croakyvoice writes "Only days after Nintendo shipped Wii Menu 3.3, which stopped the Twilight Hack from working, the team lead by Bushing brought out a new version of the Homebrew enabling hack for the Nintendo Wii using the Zelda Game and a hacked save game."
More than two decades after the start of a leaky moratorium on whale hunting, the most majestic of sea mammals have made little headway in recovering their once robust populations, say... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 3:05 am
University of Nevada, Reno Engineering Students Win National Concrete Canoe Competition in Montreal MONTREAL, June 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- From a distance, the... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 22 Jun 2008 | 2:50 am
eweekhickins writes "The 'country' drop-down menu on one organization's donations pages omits Israel as a country and includes 'Palestine.' Among other things, this means that Israelis can't donate to the organization from these pages; it also presents the risk of a PR nightmare for the organization. This EWeek story cautions that while basic Web 2.0 technologies combined with open source can be incredibly powerful and productive, they can also lead to disastrous results for an organization that isn't paying close enough attention."
MonsterMagnet writes "The US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has affirmed (PDF) a ruling that a plain, unadorned wireframe model of a Toyota vehicle is not a creative expression protected under copyright law. The court analogized the wire-frame models to photographs: the owner of an object does not have a copyright in all images of the object, but a photographer may have a limited copyright over a particular image based on artistic choices such as costumery, lighting, posing, etc. Thus, the modelers could only copyright any 'incremental contribution' they made to Toyota's vehicles; in the case of plain models, there was nothing new to protect. This could be a two-edged sword — companies that produce goods may not be able to stop modelers from imaging those products, but modelers may not be able to prevent others from copying their work."
Spotted on Joi Ito's blog: quick and dirty directions on how to "hack" Firefox 3 into delivering richer, brighter colors more faithful to the original photograph (or graphic).
Snip:
I think that the esoteric discussions about color are interesting, but for most people, the bottom line is, if you turn color profile support "on" on Firefox 3, many images will end up appearing much closer to the color of the original and less washed out. You do this by typing "about:config" in the address bar of Firefox 3. Click thru confirmation page and find: gfx.color_management.enabled. Double click that until it says "true". Then restart Firefox 3.
There are a number of monitor color calibration gadgets and software packages like Eye One Match which will allow you to calibrate your monitor (and camera and printer). If everyone actually did this, we'd all be seeing the same colors.
Downside: you void your warranty (browsers have warranties? who cares) and apparently this tweak causes a non-insignificant performance hit.
Whatever, I'm just thrilled that favorite snaps I shot, caressed lovingly in Photoshop, then uploaded to Flickr don't look so anemic anymore. Like "Daniela," above, an aging camioneta cooling her heels on a beach along the Pacific coast of Guatemala. Or these women from the Gaddi tribe in Northern India, at bottom, climbing a mountain to reach a shrine.
It's 150 years since Darwin made one of the the most significant breakthroughs in scientific history - the theory of natural selection. Robin McKie tells the extraordinary story behind The Origin of Species Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 21 Jun 2008 | 11:03 pm
TihSon writes "I'm building a large shed out back and I want to power the lighting using a surplus solar panel. In searching for information on how to go about this, I have found a lot of rough DIY guides for various projects that are close to my goal. But none seem to explain the reasoning and theory behind using solar panels, so hacking their project to suit my own needs could be pretty much hit-and-miss. I don't want to do a hacked-up job, and future solar projects are not out of the question, so something a bit more in-depth is required. Do you have suggestions for books or Web sites you have used to learn the ins and outs of using solar panels? Something that starts with basic theory and ends with the ability to wire a house would be perfect."
PARIS, June 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Telnic Limited, the Registry Operator and Sponsoring Organization for the new sponsored top level domain (sTLD) .tel, today announced... Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Jun 2008 | 10:01 pm
Here's a fine instructable for making a YipYipYip Martian costume from Sesame Street, consisting primarily of lots of fabric, a couple styrofoam balls, sponge and pipecleaners.
Link
(Thanks, Kevin!)
Russia's environmental problems are a threat to national security and could make parts of the country uninhabitable within 30 years, President Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday. Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Jun 2008 | 8:12 pm
A plan making solar panels mandatory in the German university town of Marburg sparked a furore Saturday with critics accusing municipal authorities of being Green "dictators." Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 21 Jun 2008 | 6:49 pm
Scott sez, "I hosted director Greg Maletic and screened his excellent 60-min documentary, "Tilt," last week. In 1998, Williams saw pinball sales going down and their slot machines going up. Pinball was losing ground in the arcades to the new video machines.
In a valiant effort to save their livelihoods, a team of great designers from the video and pinball world decide to combine the technologies into Pinball 2000, a platform the seemed like a great new gaming experience. (I've never played it.)
Maletic made a film that is part game history, part product design, and part tragic business story. Well worth watching, and the clip on the website gives a good sense of its quality. "
Link
(Thanks, Scott!)
Photographer Clayton Cubitt (disclosure, he's a personal pal) recently returned to NYC after a few weeks in New Zealand on an editorial assignment. During that trip, he also took a series of beautiful (and formal) portraits of interesting people there, including Maori people whose bodies and faces are embellished with traditional tattoos.
He also took one short, informal little video interview (Clayton, what'd you shoot this with?) with a man named Vic Taurewa Biddle, shot with a Sigma DP1 digital snappy cam "as an afterthought during a portrait session." Mr. Biddle speaks about his face tats, known as moko in the Maori language, and shares some insight on how homo/bi/trans-sexuality are viewed among his people -- both historically and now. I wish Clayton had shot more of these, this is short, simple, really interesting stuff.
I've embedded the Veoh video above, here's Clayton's tumblr post with a YouTube version. Incidentally, when Clayton first sent me this link I was in Guatemala, and couldn't view that Veoh item at all. I learned that this is because Veoh is blocked in like 37 countries around the world. WTF, what's up with that?
The folks from Open Source Cinema have reedited their "Copyright Criminals" video to feature Canadian Member of Parliament Charlie Angus and a host of Canadians who don't want Bill C-61, the Canadian Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to pass. You can re-edit it to your heart's content, natch.
Link
(Thanks, Brett!)
Listening Post scored an interview with the editor of the only publication that refused to pull their review of Metallica's upcoming album. As heavy metal continues to evolve, its publicists remain tragically rooted in the past.
AFP - After weeks of tumultuous protests inspired largely by South Korea's netizens, the country which claims to be the world's most wired society is considering new ways to monitor the Internet.
