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AT&T profit rises on wireless growth (Reuters)Reuters - Top phone company AT&T Inc posted on Wednesday a higher quarterly profit as stronger-than-expected growth in wireless subscribers compensated for shrinking traditional landlines.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:09 pm Benjamin Moore Aura PaintWhen my husband and I moved into our new apartment recently, we knew a coat of fresh paint would spiff up the place, but with a new baby we wanted to pay special attention to the kind of paint...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:00 pm Slimmed Down MySQL Offshoot Drizzle is Built For the WebIncon writes "Builder AU reports that Brian Aker, MySQL's director of architecture, has unveiled Drizzle, a database project aimed at powering websites with massive concurrency as well as trimming superfluous functionality from MySQL. Drizzle will have a micro-kernel architecture with code being removed from the Drizzle core and moved through interfaces into modules. Akers has already selected particular functionality for removal: modes, views, triggers, prepared statements, stored procedures, query cache, data conversion inserts, access control lists and some data types."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:00 pm Palm Update for Sprint Centro ReleasedPalm Releases Centro Software Update for Sprint: Now Includes Google Mobile Maps My Location + Gmail IMAP, Direct Push, Bluetooth, IM and More Improvements. An important software update for your Sprint...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 12:23 pm Child Online Protection Act Overturned - ABC News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 23 Jul 2008 | 12:18 pm Twitter searches for the next stepOn his Blogger.com profile page, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams describes himself as "a farm boy from Nebraska, who's been very lucky in business and life". That luck seemed to be running out in recent...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 12:06 pm Speculation On a Second Internet Economy CollapseDavid Barrett writes "If you sell three billion ads a month and can't break even, what do you do? Drop prices by 40% and switch business models, apparently. Is this an isolated incident, or does it contribute to the growing pile of evidence that ad inventory is overpriced industry-wide, with Google being the worst offender due to its policy of requiring minimum bids on keywords that would otherwise go for cheap? Check out this analysis on my blog and make up your own mind."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 23 Jul 2008 | 12:06 pm Astronauts To Test New Technology On Moon - WIBW
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 23 Jul 2008 | 12:01 pm shigginbothamIsraeli chip startup Animon, which is pushing a form of whole-home, uncompressed wireless HD, has teamed up with Sony, Samsung, Sharp, Hitachi and Motorola to create the WHDI special interest group. Animon...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 12:01 pm Photograph Virtual Ancient Japan For Fun And Lindens"Gion" is the name of a district in the famed city of Kyoto, Japan; it's also the name of a region in Second Life that painstakingly recreates Gion in its historic heyday. New World Notes partner Koinup...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 12:00 pm AT&T 2Q profit up 30 pct, matching Street's viewAT&T Inc. says its second-quarter earnings rose 30 percent, but its revenue missed analysts' estimates. The nation's largest telecommunications company said Wednesday it earned $3.77...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:59 am Yahoo CEO remains upbeat despite lackluster quarter (AP)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:32 am Electronics giants to create wireless HD standard (AP)AP - Sony, Samsung and other consumer-electronics heavyweights are uniting to support a technology that could send high-definition video signals wirelessly from a single set-top box to screens around the home.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:31 am McAfee: SMBs Underestimate Cybercrime Risks (PC World)PC World - A survey by McAfee found that SMBs in North America wrongly conclude their revenue is too low to draw the attention of...Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:30 am Attention to lighting can make a huge difference in your photos (USATODAY.com)USATODAY.com - It's the middle of summer, and you have a brand-new digital camera, but your pictures aren't looking as stellar as you had hoped. Perhaps there are huge shadows under the eyes of your subjects, or a whole lot of squinting faces. It doesn't have to be that way. We checked in with Scott Kelby, author of the best-selling, two-volume The Digital Photography Book, for five basic lighting tips that can dramatically improve anyone's pictures - even those made with the most inexpensive point-and-shoot cameras.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:26 am Sonic Foundry Selected to Webcast Campus Technology 2008MADISON, Wis., July 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- href="http://www.sonicfoundry.com/">Sonic Foundry , Inc. (Nasdaq: SOFO), the recognized market leader for rich media...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:16 am Cuomo strong-arms Comcast over Usenet images - CNET News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:13 am Cincinnati Bell Joins VHT Partner ProgramAKRON, Ohio, July 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Virtual Hold Technology, LLC (VHT), the leading developer of virtual queuing solutions, announced today that it has entered into a...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:06 am Alliance Data Systems Corporation Announces Proposed Offering of $700 Million Convertible Senior NotesCompany to Use Net Proceeds to Repurchase Common Stock DALLAS, July 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alliance Data Systems Corporation (NYSE: ADS) announced today that itSource: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:00 am Redpine Signals' Lite-Fi(TM) 802.11n SoC is Among the First Devices Certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance(R) for Voice-Over-Wi-Fi(R) ApplicationsRedpine's RS9110 SDIO based design is Wi-Fi CERTIFIED(TM) for Voice-Personal SAN JOSE, Calif., July 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Redpine Signals, Inc., a leading developer of...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:00 am CEVA, Inc. Reports Second Quarter 2008 Financial Results58% YoY increase in royalty revenue and 61% YoY increase in net income, Strategic licensing agreements with leading Asian customers SAN JOSE, Calif., July 23...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:00 am Yucheng Technologies Limited Announces a Major Call Center Expansion Project with China Construction BankBEIJING, July 23 /Xinhua-PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Yucheng Technologies Limited (Nasdaq: YTEC), a leading local IT and outsourced service provider to the Chinese banking...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:00 am Verizon Wireless to Host PDA and Smartphone Workshops at Monmouth County Communications Stores"20 Things a PDA Can Do For You" Teaches Customers Productive New Wireless Applications; Workshops Offered in Hazlet on August 5, and Manalapan on August 20 MORRISTOWN,Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:00 am Verizon Wireless to Host PDA and Smartphone Workshop at Suffolk County Communications Stores"20 Things a PDA Can Do For You" Teaches Customers Productive New Wireless Applications; Workshops Offered in Suffolk on August 5, 14 and 21 ORANGEBURG, N.Y., July 23...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:00 am Verizon Wireless to Host PDA and Smartphone Workshops at Bergen County Communications Stores"20 Things a PDA Can Do For You" Teaches Customers Productive New Wireless Applications; Workshops Offered in Paramus on August 5 and 19 MORRISTOWN, N.J., July 23...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNewsTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 11:00 am Its Facebook Day! Say Hello To The Three Tier App SystemToday is definitely Facebook day as they hold their second annual F8 developers conference in San Francisco. Last year they released their developer platform, which led competitors to hurriedly release...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 10:55 am Zittrain's "The Future of the Internet" -- how to save the Internet from the Internet
I've just finished reading Jonathan Zittrain's The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, a provocative, well-reasoned, well-informed and sometimes frustrating book about the power of the Internet to allow people to be more effective at taking action -- whether that action is good or bad.
Zittrain talks about the principle of "generativity" in technology: the capacity of some technology to allow its users to make new things out of it, things the designer never anticipated, and does a very good job in enumerating the characteristics that make a technology more or less generative. Zittrain is more-or-less in favor of generativity: he talks about all the amazing things that the human race has accomplished by using that most generative of technologies: the public Internet and the general-purpose PC. But Zittrain points out that generativity contains the seeds of its own destruction, because it allows bad people to leverage their malicious intentions -- with malware, spyware, DDoS attacks and so on -- to the point that an average person using the Internet is at constant risk from creeps and thugs. And what's more, all average people use the Internet because it's been so thoroughly woven into our lives. Zittrain fears that the power of the Internet to let creeps do bad things will lead to a regulatory backlash and a series of Draconian laws that take away all the social benefits of the Internet, and that this will be enabled by a consumer backlash against general-purpose PCs in favor of "tethered appliances" -- TiVos, iPhones, etc -- that grant a measure of security by taking away the user-modifiability that is at the heart of the principle of generativity. Here's where I started to get a little frustrated. I agree that the legislative backlash is here -- it's impossible to miss -- but I disagree that it's being driven by identity thieves and spyware vendors. I think it's being driven by the same authoritarian urge that gave rise to all the other spying and control laws that have been passed for centuries. Net-creeps may be the rubric, but that's as far as it goes. More importantly, I disagree about the security offered by tethered appliances. Zittrain identifies the particular risks of these technologies that spring from governments and commercial partners remotely reprogramming them to attack their users -- for example, a court ordered EchoStar to remotely disable its PVRs, Google locked Google Video customers out of their purchases, the FBI has forced car-vendors to use OnStar to spy on drivers' conversations and location. But that's only a tiny piece of the risk arising from "tethered appliances." The DRM wars have shown us that motivated attackers can always break code-signing trusted hardware platforms, given enough motivation. Tethered appliances are designed to allow remote parties to enforce policy on them without the knowledge or consent of their owners -- they're designed to treat their owners as attackers. So while it's possible to torque a PC into attacking its owner with spyware, it's even more possible with tethered appliances, because once you figure out how to slip inside, the whole device is designed, from the ground up, to stop the user from interfering with the "authorities" who have the keys. Take CALEA, the law that forces phone-switch manufacturers to build in back-doors that allow cops to snoop on voice-traffic without physically accessing the switch. It's pretty implausible that the "police override" built into phone switches has never leaked outside of the police force. After all, the police leak all kinds of "confidential" information (ask a private eye, off the record, how easy it is to get a cop to look up a license plate number). All it would take is one leak to organized crime and the bad guys would have the same off-site phone-monitoring capability as the folks in blue. I think that Zittrain takes the security claims of appliance vendors at face value, and that this really undermines the argument. Appliances are neither generative nor secure, and it's likely that appliances will be broken in more interesting ways by more creeps as they increase in value as targets. The backlash against PCs will be quickly met with another backlash against everything else, and no one is going to be able to opt out of the system altogether. Nevertheless, the principle of generativity is a powerful lens through which we can view proposals for regulating and policing technology. The last third of the book offers "solutions" -- more like "directions in which solutions may reside," really -- that look to mitigate the harmful effects of generativity without clobbering the good effects.
The book is a cracking read -- smart and engaging as Zittrain himself is in person and at the podium -- and while I didn't agree with everything in it, it got me thinking about 200 miles a minute, and that's always a good thing.
Link
Source: Boing Boing | 23 Jul 2008 | 10:48 am Zittrain's "The Future of the Internet" -- how to save the Internet from the InternetI've just finished reading Jonathan Zittrain's The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, a provocative, well-reasoned, well-informed and sometimes frustrating book about the power of the Internet...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 10:48 am Under it allI so like that underwear ad that’s over to the right right now that I think I might pay the advertiser to keep it. A reader complained that it is irrelevant advertising but I say: Isn’t underwear...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 10:26 am Slydial Lets You Be A Jerk To Your Coworkers, Friends, And Family - InformationWeek
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 23 Jul 2008 | 10:18 am China arrests dissident in pre-Olympics crackdown (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Jul 2008 | 10:10 am Video: Scoble Tells the Comment Trolls To Go Back to DiggRobert Scoble caused a stir yesterday with a post on how tech bloggers are failing our readers. We all chase the same stories, get spun like a top by the PR machine, and can’t sustain a conversation...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 9:58 am Video: British Motor Show goes greenFrom a car with no dashboard to one partly made of hemp: Patrick Barkham casts an eye over the green offerings at this year's British Motor Show, which opens to the public tomorrowRelated StoriesMobile...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 9:50 am MySpace signs up to OpenID scheme - BBC News
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 23 Jul 2008 | 9:30 am World's Oldest Bible Going Online99luftballon writes "The British Museum is putting online the remaining fragments of the world's oldest Bible. The Codex Sinaiticus dates to the fourth century BCE and was discovered in the 19th century. Very few people have seen it due to its fragile state — that and the fact that parts of it are in collections scattered across the globe. It'll give scholars and those interested their first chance to take a look. However, I've got a feeling that some people won't be happy to see it online, since it makes no mention of the resurrection, which is a central part of Christian belief."On Thursday the Book of Psalms and the Gospel According to Mark will go live at the Codex Sinaiticus site. The plan is to have all the material up, with translations and commentaries, a year from now.Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 23 Jul 2008 | 9:22 am Nintendo, Fujifilm start Wii online photo service (Reuters)
Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:47 am San Francisco's Mayor Gets Back Keys to the Network - PC World
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:31 am MAPK Signaling Regulates Nitric Oxide and NADPH Oxidase-Dependent Oxidative Bursts in Nicotiana Benthamiana(W)(OA)By Asai, Shuta Ohta, Kohji; Yoshioka, Hirofumi Nitric oxide (NO) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) act as signals in innate immunity in plants. The radical burst is induced by INF1 elicitin, produced by the oomycete pathogen Phytophthora infestans.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am The Razz: LILY ALLENBy BEVERLEY LYONS AND LAURA SUTHERLAND LILY ALLEN'S Chemical Brother boyfriend, Ed Simons, is desperate for the Smile singer to cut back on her partying now that the pair have reunited. A friend said: "Lily is besotted with Ed.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Be Wary When Using Chemicals in GardenBy Joe Lamp'l Editor's note: This is the second part of a five-part series on gardening mistakes.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am City's Fuel-Saving Efforts Fall ShortBy Kim Sloan, The Daily Citizen, Dalton, Ga. Jul. 23--Fuel conservation efforts proved futile during June for Dalton fire officials.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Suburban Wildlife Needs More Habitats to SurviveBy Kathleen Kernicky SOUTHWEST RANCHES, Fla. - Christina Brownlow unfolds the welcome mat whenever a family of raccoons, foxes or squirrels strays into her yard. With its canopy of fruit trees and foliage, and colorful gardens of butterflies, Ms.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Proposed Radio Towers Face Residential ConcernsBy Claudia Palma WALNUT - The City Council could take a stand tonight against a broadcast radio tower project proposed for a vacant property on county land.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Illness Associated With Red Tide - Nassau County, Florida, 2007By Reich, A Blackmore, C; Hopkins, R; Lazensky, R; Geib, K; Ngo- Seidel, E A "red tide" is a harmful algal bloom that occurs when toxic, microscopic algae in seawater proliferate to a higher-thannormal concentration (i.e., bloom), often discoloring the water red, brown, green, or yellow.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am BRIEF: Judge Rules Prosecutors Can Still Seek Death Penalty Against HallBy Diane Carroll, The Kansas City Star, Mo. Jul. 23--Johnson County prosecutors can still seek the death penalty against Edwin R. Hall, although there was a problem with the paperwork, a judge ruled Tuesday.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Commission OKs Development Of TractBy George Wilkens, Tampa Tribune, Fla. Jul. 23--PLANT CITY -- City commissioners have approved a comprehensive plan amendment to allow development of the 1,009-acre Cone-Graham tract.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am North Siders Criticize Railroad MediansBy Samantha Marcus, La Crosse Tribune, Wis. Jul. 23--Residents of La Crosse's lower North Side are clamoring over a city plan that would keep passing trains from sounding off -- but also would cut access or parking for 18 homes.Source: RedOrbit News - Science | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Biz BitsBank of America down but beats expectations CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Bank of America Corp. has become the latest in a string of big banks whose second-quarter earnings, while hurting from the impact of the credit crisis, still managed to beat Wall Street expectations.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am No Time for Rush Jobs at City Hall Print Shop: Instead, Web Surfing Occupies Its Workers, Auditor's Report SaysBy David Ress, Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va. Jul. 23--In-house customers of Richmond City Hall's print shop have found it takes a long time to get work done -- but then some of the shop's workers have been awfully busy lately.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am You Can Avoid Knockoffs When Shopping OnlineThe market for counterfeit luxury items is wide and deep, with everything from jewelry and perfume to handbags and sunglasses being sold.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Letter: Your View - Pound FoolishBy J. W. BRITAIN is going into meltdown, we're talking about borrowing more money to bail us out, and how does Gordon Brown see things...? He promises pounds 30million to the Palestinians. J. W., Irvine (c) 2008 Daily Record; Glasgow (UK).Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am SIYBO.Com Announces Launch of FreeFridayListings.Com: Free Site for Real Estate SalesSIYBO.com, created around the acronym "Sell it Yourself By Owner," is excited to announce the launch of FreeFridayListings.com, a new site and service by SIYBO.com that assists owners in selling their homes in today's real estate market.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Aruba Networks Delivers Secure Wireless Access to Students and Faculty at CaltechAruba Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: ARUN), a global leader in wireless LANs and secure unified mobility solutions, today announced that the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) has deployed Aruba's adaptive wireless LANs across its Pasadena campus.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Tips to Improve Your Web Life Why Business Should Invest in Communicating OnlineBy Rankin, Bryan At a Leinster Society meeting on Tuesday 22 April, John Coburn of PraxisNow presented a simple and accessible 'how-to' guide to improve your company's presence on the Internet. Bryan Rankin reports.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am A Congregation Bound By TraditionBy Sarah Rothwell, Tampa Tribune, Fla. Jul. 23--NEW TAMPA -- There are no electric guitars, neon lights or television screens at Grace Baptist Church of New Tampa. On Sunday mornings, members don't arrive expecting to see a good show. They come to listen and to learn.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Passengers Have Trouble Using Midwest Airlines Refund SiteBy Tom Daykin, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Jul. 23--Midwest Airlines customer Dennis Stevenson, following the carrier's advice, hit the company's Web site Monday to request a refund for a canceled flight.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am FoodNetwork.Com Keeps On Cooking: Two Years As Nielsen's No. 1 Web Site in Food & CookingScripps Networks Corporate Communications: Jerilyn Bliss, 865-560-4181 jbliss@scrippsnetworks.com or Kristin Alm, 865-560-4316 kalm@scrippsnetworks.com Logo: http://www.foodnetwork.com Newly released Nielsen Online numbers show that FoodNetwork.com completed June 2008 with a unique audience of 8.3 million users making it the No.Source: RedOrbit News - Technology | 23 Jul 2008 | 8:00 am Mosquito Inspired Needle Takes Away The Pain Of VaccinationsBy Jonathan Kimak The prospect of going to the doctor to get vaccination shots can be a total nightmare for kids and even adults. Some of that fear of needles can be attributed more to the intimidating...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:59 am Apple iLife 08 updates bring MobileMe supportOf you’re a MobileMe user who has been annoyed at the lack of integration of iLife 08 apps with the service, fret no more. Apple has just unleashed a few updates for the application suite, aimed...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNBlogTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:54 am GigaOm Buys A Mobile Blog - One Less Independent Blog In The World - Washington Post
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:47 am Step away from the hype: 5 ways where iPhone 3G still lags ... - Computerworld
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:31 am 'Spam King' Sentenced to Nearly 4 Years for Millions of Junk E-Mails - FOXNews
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:31 am Yahoo's earnings avoid a 'disaster'Legal wrangling weighs on the firm, which misses Wall Street expectations. Still, the Internet company's shares rise after hours. ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:00 am Viagra helpful to women on antidepressants, study findsIn a small study, 72% of those on SSRIs -- which can have debilitating sexual side effects -- reported improvement when taking the male impotence drug. ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:00 am Internet citizen posses investigate some sellersAuctions of supposed Hollywood memorabilia on eBay provoke an angry response from some buyers. The pieces of Hollywood...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:00 am Appeals court affirms that online content law is unconstitutionalA federal appeals court agreed Tuesday with a lower court ruling that struck down as unconstitutional a 1998 law intended to protect children from sexual material and other objectionable content on the...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:00 am Cancer drug dramatically shrinks prostate tumors, study findsThe survival rate more than doubles among most of the men with aggressive cancers. A second, wider test shows similar results. 'Spectacularly effective,' a researcher says. ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:00 am National BriefingPassport cards will speed border crossings / Plane of Ron Paul, lawmakers makes emergency landing in New Orleans / Bond set for missing Florida toddler's mother ...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:00 am Medpedia Project aims to create an online encyclopedia of health informationInternet entrepreneurs are teaming with medical professionals to build the comprehensive clearinghouse. Internet...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 7:00 am Old typewriters turned into beautiful, expressive animals and people Brilliant assemblage sculptor Jeremy Mayer has put up a new gallery of his work, which transforms parts from old typewriters into exotic, fanciful and expressive humans and animals. Link
See also: Humanoid sculptures made from old typewriters Source: Boing Boing | 23 Jul 2008 | 6:46 am Kaminsky on the net-shaking DNS bugWired's Danger Room has a good interview with Dan Kaminsky, whose DNS hack has been burning up the wires. Dan figured out a means of disrupting the entire Internet by poisoning DNS. The exploit's existence and scope have been hotly debated ever since, and it all came to a head when details of the exploit leaked:Well you know, there were people who said, Dan, I wish I could patch but I don't know the bug and I can't get the resources I need to patch it. Well you know the bug now.Link Source: Boing Boing | 23 Jul 2008 | 6:42 am Next Generation SSDs Delayed Due To VistaPoliTech notes in a journal entry that "Vista is the gift that just keeps on giving." "Speaking during SanDisk's second-quarter earnings conference call, Chairman and [CEO] Eli Harari said that Windows Vista will present a special challenge for solid state drive makers. 'As soon as you get into Vista applications in notebook and desktop, you start running into very demanding applications because Vista is not optimized for flash memory solid state disk,' he said... 'The next generation controllers need to basically compensate for Vista shortfalls,' he said. 'Unfortunately, (SSDs) performance in the Vista environment falls short of what the market really needs and that is why we need to develop the next generation, which we'll start sampling end of this year, early next year.' Harari said this challenge alone is putting SanDisk behind schedule. "We have very good internal controller technology... That said, I'd say that we are now behind because we did not fully understand, frankly, the limitations in the Vista environment.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 23 Jul 2008 | 6:42 am Wargames: finest geek movie everWired's got a long, loving feature on the cultural significance of War Games, perhaps the greatest geek movie of all time, a film that inspired a generation of hackers and nerds. They interviewed a wide variety of nerds, hackers, and some of the original filmmakers for the piece.Link Source: Boing Boing | 23 Jul 2008 | 6:38 am Viscous keyboard-cleaning goop This Swiss goop ("Cyber Clean") is a viscous slime that you roll around on your keyboard, so that all the food particles and fingernail parings are swept away, while the germicidal surface de-germifies your icky, filthy, disgusting keyboard. Link (via Red Ferret) Source: Boing Boing | 23 Jul 2008 | 6:32 am Modded VW van toy in a fez Virtuoso toy-modder Doktor A created this modified toy VW van for a special show at this year's San Diego Comic-Con. The toy modders were one of the highlights of last year's show for me -- but this takes the cake. Link (via Neatorama) Source: Boing Boing | 23 Jul 2008 | 6:30 am Science! tees for the scientist in you WearScience's SCIENCE! tees illustrate many of the useful and salutary applications for science. Link (via Negatendo) Source: Boing Boing | 23 Jul 2008 | 6:27 am Iain Banks interviewed by the InternetAuthor Iain Banks answered questions solicited by his publisher from the general internet, and it came out just fine:From Mark Wilson:Link (via Oblink) Source: Boing Boing | 23 Jul 2008 | 6:24 am XKCD role-players reenact "I Love the World" stripThese XCKD live-action role-players have reenacted the recent strip in which Randall paid tribute to the Discovery Channel's "I Love the World" commercial. It's just one of several on YouTube (and I confess that I recently donned cape and goggles and recorded a video of myself singing "I love the blogosphere" for a friend who's making her own version). I'm meeting Randall "XKCD" Munroe for the first time this summer and I'm really looking forward to it! Also: don't miss the WoW orc-dance! Link (via Making Light) Source: Boing Boing | 23 Jul 2008 | 6:21 am Hand-cranked hard drive erasotron -- Boing Boing GadgetsOver on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel's discovered this fantastic, apocalyptic hand-cranked hard-drive erasifier:Link, Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadget Source: Boing Boing | 23 Jul 2008 | 6:17 am SF mayor gets codes to hijacked city network (CNET)CNET - The computer network hostage crisis in San Francisco is over, thanks to the city's mayor.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Jul 2008 | 5:45 am Is Anyone Using the Google Web Toolkit?eldavojohn writes "After seeing some applications from Google and participating in the Google Codejam (which seems to be built using the GWT), I kind of expected to see websites spring up left and right based off the GWT. Well, it's been a year and a half since they open sourced it and I have to admit that I am more than a little disappointed by its low profile in the UI community. I've been trolling their blog and have seen a few books out on it. But the one thing I'm not seeing is its use outside of Google. I've worked through the examples and tutorials at home and though I've been impressed with the speed, I am disturbed by the actual result — a whole ton of generated Javascript. But this is the first UI technology I've found where I can write in the native language of the server (Java) to generate and unit-test the UI code. Aside from Google's use and the games of Ryan Dewsbury like KDice & GPokr, does anyone know of major sites using the GWT? If you don't and you've used it yourself, why isn't it taking off? Is it too immature? Is it a solution to a problem that already has too many solutions? Is it fundamentally lacking in some way?"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 23 Jul 2008 | 4:52 am Electronics giants to create wireless HD standardSony , Samsung and other consumer-electronics heavyweights are uniting to support a technology that could send high-definition video signals wirelessly from a single set-top box to screens around the home...Source: Infocious RSS raw feed - channel BNPaperTech | 23 Jul 2008 | 4:13 am Sun readies Web stack featuring choice of OSes (InfoWorld)InfoWorld - Sun is announcing on Wednesday availability of Sun Web Stack, which puts the company???s own twist on the popular open-source LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL Perl/Python or PHP) stack.Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Jul 2008 | 4:01 am July 23, 1956: Bell X-2 Sets Aircraft Speed Mark1956: A Bell X-2 rocket plane sets the record for fastest speed by an aircraft, reaching Mach 2.87, or more than 1,900 mph, 60,000 feet above the dry lake bed at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The X-2 Starbuster, an experimental plane built by Bell Aircraft to test stability and control at supersonic speeds, made its debut in June 1952. Two were built, but only one became operational: The other was lost in a captive-flight explosion that killed its pilot in 1953. Lt. Col. Frank "Pete" Everest was at the controls for the record flight. Everest, who flew over 150 combat missions during World War II, became a test pilot after the war, setting several speed marks and establishing an unofficial altitude record of 73,000 feet in a Bell X-1. The 1950s were the golden age for test pilots, with numerous high-speed, experimental aircraft rolling out of Bell, Northrup and Douglas factories to test the limits of manned flight. Everest piloted almost every single aircraft type during his stint as a test pilot. His July record-setter was the X-2's ninth powered flight, which began with the plane being carried to altitude and released from its mother ship, a B-50 bomber. Everest engaged the Curtiss-Wright XLR25 liquid-fueled rocket engine, and was off to the races. As he recalled in a 1998 interview with Aviation History magazine:Once [the rocket is] going … you’re hanging on and trying to fly a prescribed flight path to give you the best performance. This isn’t easy to do, because you have to climb and try to get to about 60,000 feet, then level off and perhaps dive a little to try and get the maximum Mach number out of the airplane. You do this until your propellants are exhausted and then head home.
Simple as that. Even as he set the speed mark, Everest was gathering data. He reported later that the X-2's flight controls were not completely reliable at top-end speeds, the aircraft becoming more difficult to handle. Pressure shifts were also a factor, and Everest's impression was that the plane would encounter significant stability problems as it approached Mach 3. Everest's record was broken a little over two months later by Capt. Mel Apt, flying the same X-2. Apt reached Mach 3.2, becoming the first pilot ever to top Mach 3, but that flight ended tragically when he attempted to adjust his course and the aircraft spun out of control and crashed. Apt's death was the end of the X-2 program, and most supersonic research was suspended until the North American X-15 arrived three years later. Source: Various 
Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Jul 2008 | 4:00 am Sun Moves to Indirect Sales for Most US Customers (PC World)PC World - Sun plans to stop selling directly to all but its very largest customers in the US, and will rely on its channel partners...Source: Yahoo! News: Technology News | 23 Jul 2008 | 3:40 am Nintendo Loses Controller Patent Lawsuitkryogen1x alerts us to coverage at 1up indicating that Nintendo controller may soon become scarce — Nintendo lost in court to Anascape over analog sticks in their Wii and GameCube controllers.This isn't the first time the big manufacturers have been targeted in lawsuits involving features in their controllers. From the article: "The lawsuit concerns the analog sticks in the Classic Controller and GameCube controllers, which Texas-based Anascape Ltd. claims to hold a patent on that Nintendo violated. The court has ruled in favor of Anascape, and US District Judge Ron Clark has rejected Nintendo's request for a new trial. As a result, Clark said he will put a ban on the sale of the controllers (which includes sales of GameCube systems) starting tomorrow, July 23, unless Nintendo posts a bond or puts royalties into an escrow account."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 23 Jul 2008 | 2:59 am 500000 Wiis sold in Australia - GameSpot
Source: Google News - Sci/Tech | 23 Jul 2008 | 2:45 am Alt Text: Back to the Batcave: Grading More of Batman's GearPart of the enduring appeal of Batman is that he accessorizes. He was toyetic before toyetic was even a word. A horrible, horrible word. In that sense, he's much like those who fanatically follow his adventures: He avoids the sun, dresses in a, shall we say, idiosyncratic manner, collects neat stuff and spends a lot of time on a computer looking for excuses to get into fights. We'll just gloss over the fact that he's in tip-top physical shape and probably doesn't have the complete Buffy series on a hard drive somewhere. This, then, is Part 2 of our look at Batman's stuff. We look at the Dark Knight's various possessions, and subject them to the harsh, cold light of judgment. Because when you don't spend every night wiping crime from the streets like a vengeful Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, you have plenty of time to write stuff like this. Batcave
The Batcave has aged well. Underground bunkers never go out of style! If anything, in this age of constant surveillance your secret base would have to be underground to avoid space lasers and Google Maps. I am, however, disappointed whenever the Batcave is depicted without a life-size dinosaur statue. I don't care how gritty and morally ambiguous your story is, there's always room for an anatomically inaccurate T. rex. On the other hand, Wikipedia informs me that the Batcave originally just held a desk and filing cabinets. Bat-cubicle! Rebreather
This is usually depicted as a small device that Batman can hold in his mouth like a Binky. A Bat-Binky. However, rather than providing Batman with comfort while teething or tripping on ecstasy, the rebreather turns Batman's superheroic exhalations back into life-giving oxygen, allowing him to survive unpleasant gases or even breathe underwater. Carbon dioxide into oxygen? Batman could solve global warming on his own, but he won't. Global warming didn't kill his parents. Batplane
I'm not even going to consider how Batman deals with air-traffic control. I assume he just tells them he's the god-damned Batman and they'd better get all the other planes out of the sky because some villain is launching a series of awkwardly themed crimes and needs to be flied at. I like to think that Batman also has another Batplane, a simple woodworking tool he uses for home improvement. One shaped like a bat. Explosives
Batman has explosives? Many sources agree. It seems to me that if you have explosives you don't need much else. Really, Explosives Man is probably going to frighten more cowardly, superstitious criminals than a bat theme. Criminals have one main superstition: "If someone explodes you, you die." Yeah, I know Batman doesn't kill, but if he plays his cards right, nobody ever has to find that out. Just convince them you're completely crazy. In that outfit, that's not tough to do. Flashlight
In some incarnations, Batman has night-vision lenses, but I like it when he just has a plain old regular flashlight. Why? Because I carry a flashlight. That means I am, in some small way, like Batman, if Batman had a key chain. Which I guess he doesn't? At any rate, I'm hoping in the future Batman will carry around a Leatherman, a BatPod MP3 player and a miniature bottle of Tabasco. Then the parallels will be uncanny. Shark-Repellent Bat Spray
Whenever I talk about Batman's utility belt -- and I do that far too often -- someone always mentions the Shark-Repellent Bat Spray from the Adam West Batman movie. Yeah, that was pretty awesome. - - - Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Lore Sjöberg eventually overcame these handicaps to become a dark knight, a white knight and Michael Knight.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:00 am The Coffee Fix: Can the $11,000 Clover Machine Save Starbucks?It's 10 am on a Thursday, and the line at Ritual Coffee Roasters in San Francisco snakes out the door. Inside, an espresso machine hisses like an angry tomcat as customers order their cappuccinos. But the real action is taking place a few steps away, where a scruffy barista stands at a stainless steel contraption, introducing the coffee he's about to serve to his rapt audience. "The Honduran is sweet," he says, "with a refined acidity and an excellent finish." He lets one perfectly measured scoop of fresh grounds shimmy deep into the machine, then goes to work, twiddling knobs, pushing buttons, and whirling a whisk in a chamber at the top of the silver box. Forty-five seconds later, he sets down a single cup of custom-made coffee that's Jessica Alba hot, Bill Gates rich, and as unique as a snowflake. No foam. No caramel. No whip. Just beans and water — pushed through a cool little machine called the Clover — for a pricey $4 a pop. The Clover coffeemaker debuted in a handful of cafés in 2006 and was promptly hailed as the best thing to happen to coffee lovers since the car cup holder. With an $11,000 asking price, the Clover has become a fetish object among the coffee-obsessed. Long queues signal its arrival in new cities, and self-described "Cloveristas" post videos on YouTube demonstrating the machine's flashy brewing process. There are more photos on Flickr paying homage to this shiny gadget (700 and counting) than actual Clovers in existence (roughly 250 worldwide). Writer Mathew Honan tries out the Clover machine at Ritual Coffee Roasters in San Francisco.
For more, visit video.wired.com.
The Clover also wowed Howard Schultz, founder and CEO of Starbucks. Last year, Schultz stumbled upon the machine in New York City when he had spotted a line of people standing outside a tiny joint called Café Grumpy. He tried a sample and declared it "the best cup of brewed coffee I have ever tasted." In March 2008, Starbucks announced the acquisition of the Coffee Equipment Company — the Seattle-based startup that manufactures Clovers in a converted trolley shed. His hope is that the Clover will bolster Starbucks' bottom line. Chalk up some of the excitement — and the equipment's hefty price tag — to artisanal tech. A robotic hybrid of a French press and a Dirt Devil, the Clover is the first coffeemaker that lets the user program three key variables: dose, water temperature, and brew time. (Example: 37.5 grams of Brazilian Fazenda São João at 204 degrees for 43 seconds.) After the coffee steeps, a piston mechanism extracts the liquid from spent beans, resulting in a fresh cuppa in less than a minute. A filter platform pops a hockey puck of grounds out of the top, where it's easily wiped away. An Ethernet port connected to an online database is designed to let users save favorite recipes for specific beans. Made of stainless steel and copper, a single Clover typically takes several hours to assemble by hand. Fast, fancy, and idiot-proof? No surprise that Starbucks is all over the Clover — the company has been rolling them out since last summer. Half-caf nonfat toffee-nut latte lovers, get ready for a real cup of coffee. I'm a coffee achiever, as that old ad campaign goes. I own two French presses, a stainless steel Cuisinart grinder/drip, a retro De'Longhi espresso machine, an Italian Vev Vigano moka pot, and a Vietnamese drip that I purchased in old Hanoi for making ca phe sua nong. My San Francisco neighborhood has five coffee shops within a five-block radius: four mom-and-pop operations and a Peet's. But compared with David Latourell, CEC's 42-year-old resident coffee expert, I'm a Sanka-slurping rube. Latourell and I are standing in the middle of CEC's cupping room, a tasting area next to the company's small Seattle factory. The Clover is specifically designed to bring out the nuances of high-end coffees like Los Delirios, which comes from a Portland, Oregon, company called Stumptown Coffee Roasters. Los Delirios is a blend of Caturra, Typica, and Bourbon beans grown near Esteli, Nicaragua. Actually, it's on a micro lot located at 13° 22'45.99"N x 86° 28'50.45"W, between 1,050 and 1,450 meters above sea level, according to a manila "origin" card that comes with each bag of beans. Underneath the farm's GPS coordinates are flavor descriptions that read in part, "violets and black cherry, baking chocolate, and chocolate covered raisins." Latourell hands me a cup of Los Delirios coffee made in the Clover. We both take slow, even sips. "I'm picking up a little chocolate," he says with a toss of his shoulder-length hair. I sip again, summoning every taste bud. I just taste — well, coffee. Delicious, sure, but coffee. Like wine and, more recently, chocolate, a quality coffee bean must reflect a certain terroir — the climate, soil composition, and elevation of its place of origin. At least in theory, this gives a bean its unique and desirable flavor. Whether or not your average caffeine fiend can tell a Guatemalan Maragogype bean from a Honduran Catuai is debatable, but terroir explains how Stumptown can sell bags of beans for $40 a pound (about 10 times the price of commercial-grade coffee) and cafés can charge from $3 to $7 for a single cup of joe. "For $7, you can get a bad glass of wine," says CEC cofounder Randy Hulett. "Or you can get one of the best cups of coffee in the world." 
Illustration: Jameson Simpson
Clover, From the Grounds UpClover looks like just another countertop coffee machine. But peek under the hood and you'll find an innovative brewing system. Here's how it works: 1. A barista selects dose, water temperature, and steep time. 2. A piston pulls down the filter platform while freshly ground coffee is poured into the chamber. 3. Hot water flows into the chamber. 4. The barista briskly stirs the grounds with a whisk, and the water and beans steep for several seconds. 5.The piston rises, creating a vacuum that separates the brew from the grounds, then lowers, forcing the joe out of a nozzle below. 6. The piston rises to the surface again, pushing up a disc of grounds, which are squeegeed away. Then there's the top-shelf stuff. Stumptown sells beans from Nicaragua called Las Golondrinas for $80 a pound. On the international market, Esmeralda Special, a rare kind of Panamanian bean, can go for $130 a pound wholesale. And consider Kopi Luwak, also known as catshit coffee: It's an Indonesian bean that's eaten by a civet cat, then "harvested" from the animal's dung. (The bean's bitter flavor is apparently greatly improved by passing through a cat's digestive tract.) A single cup of Kopi Luwak at the Peter Jones espresso bar in London goes for $100, and a pound of the beans can cost as much as $600. If you're going to pay that much for beans, of course, you want to have the right machine. Back in the cupping room, Latourell fires up the Clover and goes to work on a second cup of Los Delirios: He measures out 46 grams of beans, grinds them, and then slides them into the recessed chamber on top. Next, he programs a new brew time and temperature, raising the heat from 205 degrees to 207 and increasing the brewing time from 45 seconds to 50. As the hot water rushes into the chamber from a topside nozzle, Latourell stirs the blend with a metal whisk, being careful not to break the stream, which would cool the water. "The temperature has a massive effect on the extraction of chemicals that affect flavor," he explains. I take a swig. Bang, there it is: chocolate. Scharffen Berger, eat your heart out! A few tweaks and I have a new beverage. And it's not just the chocolate flavor; the mouthfeel and acidity are completely different from the first cup. All Latourell did was adjust the brew time and temperature and add 6 grams of beans. Taste-testing it against the earlier brew, I wouldn't have guessed they were the same bean. I'm starting to become a Clover convert. 
Photo: RJ Shaughnessy
Brewed coffee is awful.That's what Zander Nosler thought back in 2001, when he was developing a commercial coffeemaker for — of all places — Starbucks. The bespectacled, rail-thin product designer had previously spent 18 months at Ideo developing everything from sunglasses to medical supplies. As he tinkered with a revolutionary single-serve, push-button brewing machine targeted for the workplace, he realized that most makers were as stale as the coffee. "I got to see firsthand how coffee was better by the cup," Nosler says. "The coffee coming out of those glass office pots is wretched." (Starbucks later called the prototype the Interactive Cup.) When the project was finished, Nosler kept thinking about the single-brew concept. He soon decided he could do better, making a superior brewer that wasn't one-size-fits-all. By 2004, Nosler had cooked up a business plan. He recruited other Stanford alums, including Hulett, 34. Within a year, the team raised half a million dollars from friends and family and set up shop inside an old trolley shed a few minutes north of downtown Seattle. The Coffee Equipment Company was born. For months, the group reworked the design. They abandoned the office market in favor of cafés, ditched the grinder, and shrunk the countertop footprint. By spring 2005 they had the first Clover prototype. Code name: Chalupa. Made of particleboard, with its guts bolted crudely on the outside, it looked like Mr. Coffee designed by Dr. Frankenstein. But to roasters wanting a high-end single-serve option, it was gorgeous. CEC demo'd a final prototype that October at a local party and sold three units before they were even built. When Clover debuted at the Specialty Coffee Association of America event in 2006, Nosler was mobbed. "People saw us walking in and began chanting, 'Clo-ver, Clo-ver!'" he says, his eyes wide at the memory. To the little indie guys, Nosler was a god. While interest in CEC was percolating, Starbucks was crashing. Its share price had dipped from nearly $40 in 2006 to around $19 in January 2008. The company that brought macchiato to the masses had lost its way — and a chunk of its profit margin. Was Starbucks in the market of selling coffee drinks or fancy milk shakes? Cappuccinos or compact discs? Was it competing with Peet's or Mickey D's? After just three years, CEO Jim Donald was on his way out, and Schultz, Starbucks' founder, retook the helm. On Valentine's Day 2007, Schultz wrote an internal memo (later leaked to the press) lamenting the state of the company. "I'm not sure people today even know we are roasting coffee," the missive read. "You certainly can't get the message from being in our stores ... At a minimum [we] should support the foundation of our coffee heritage." Schultz announced that Starbucks would return to its roots. No more vacuum-sealed bags of beans or breakfast sandwiches (the smell of bacon and eggs overwhelmed the coffee aroma). Starbucks would once again grind beans in the store. It would introduce new blends and better espresso machines. But most important: It was going to road-test a little machine that Schultz had discovered a few months before on a walk through New York's Chelsea district. "In my 25 years at Starbucks, the Clover machine unquestionably delivers the best cup of brewed coffee I have ever tasted," Schultz later gushed to his stockholders. "And we want to share this experience with our customers." Starting in summer 2007, Starbucks discreetly purchased and installed a few Clovers at stores in Seattle and Boston. It sold a cup of Clover-made coffee for as much as $3.05, about a dollar more than Starbucks' regular brew. The early reviews were glowing. As one Yelper put it, "If you're a coffee snob who normally scorns Sbucks and its burnt offerings, you might try the Clover pressed coffee at this location and be pleasantly surprised." After roughly six months of successful trials, Schultz proposed buying Clover's maker, the Coffee Equipment Company. "We thought Starbucks wanted to take us out on a few dates," Nosler says of the deal. "But they wanted to go steady." Michelle Gass, a senior VP of global strategy for Starbucks, is slightly less romantic: "Frankly, we just don't want anyone else to have it." Starbucks is willing to share custody, however, of the 250 machines already out there, plus maintain and repair them, but it won't sell any more Clovers to independent cafés. The company has already pulled the plug on CloverNet, the online database that tracks sales, maintenance, and brewing preferences for Clover owners. Clover's early adopters are outraged to see their coffee machine become part of the Coffee Machine. "We made the decision to purchase the Clover to support this small independent manufacturer," says Stumptown owner Duane Sorenson, who bought the first Clover in the US. "When we found out that CEC was sold to Starbucks, we made the decision to sell our Clovers." Nosler shrugs off the criticism: "Everyone has their favorite little band that they've watched change as it signs with bigger labels," he says. "But I can defend to anyone that selling to Starbucks was absolutely the right thing for us to do. Starbucks has a larger market than all the independent roasters and specialty shops combined. I'm a product designer first, a coffee guy second. I love coffee; I'm passionate about it, but I want to make products, plural. Having a gigantically hungry customer is appealing on a lot of levels. It was the best of all possible paths for us — and the coffee industry as well." By the end of 2008, there will 80 machines installed in upscale urban markets across the country. Next year, Starbucks plans to remodel those stores with the Clover as their centerpiece. "Other than espresso, there's been no innovation in brewed coffee to speak of," Schultz says. "Now we're driving new traffic because of the Clover." Then there's that other counter where the Clover is destined to end up — the one in your kitchen. "The Clover is a commercial machine," he says, "but there's potential to create more consumer-based opportunities, specifically at home." Today, you buy a $10 bag of Starbucks French Roast to take home. Soon, you might buy a $40 bag and use your very own Clover to brew it. 
Photo: RJ Shaughnessy
Coffee snobs are skeptical. "Clover will differentiate them from the Dunkin' Donuts, the McDonald's," says Tony Konecny, an industry consultant who runs the coffee blog Tonx.org and was one of the first to see a Clover prototype. "But it comes down to the coffee." The machine is only as good as the beans you put in it. Which is a problem for Starbucks, a chain that purchases coffee in mass quantities and can't deliver fresh bags of beans as quickly as the indie cafés. Then there's quality control: "By the time the customer experiences it, the beans have been blended and have been sitting in a bag for six weeks. Anything special about the coffee is lost." A few days after my cupping room challenge, I'm standing in line at a hilltop Starbucks in Seattle's Queen Anne neighborhood — one of Clover's beta sites. I do a taste test: a cup of Clover coffee versus brewed coffee. A young barista tells me they're out of the first two specialty coffees I request and suggests instead Starbucks' everyday blend, called Pike Place. During brewing, the barista stirs the grounds into the Clover with a clunky rubber spatula — not a metal whisk — and pours the concoction into a crummy paper cup. I smell, I sip, I inhale. I can't tell which cup of coffee is which — and neither is anything special. Is it the beans? My palate? After a few minutes, I finally pick it out: This coffee tastes a little bit like hype. Mathew Honan (mhonan@gmail.com) offers tips on Twittering in our How To: Self Promote package. Source: Wired: Gadgets | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:00 am How to Ace Your Math SATsWired's How-To Wiki offers some expert test-taking tips sure to boost your math-geek cred as well as your SAT score.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:00 am Higher, Faster, Stronger: 1950s Experimental Aircraft : Photo: U.S. Air ForceThe 1950s was the decade of the test pilot and the experimental aircraft, as aviation technology turned to the jet engine and pushed its limits in both speed and endurance. With the world divided in Cold War, the stakes were high. Jet aircraft dominated both U.S. and Soviet arsenals and the data returned by subsonic and supersonic test flights had implications for the coming space race as well. A number of aviation companies turned out experimental aircraft, primarily for the armed forces. The pilots who flew them measured success in ways their predecessors could only dream of. They set records for speed and altitude that were unimaginable only a few years earlier, piloting aircraft that were volatile, unpredictable and often flat-out dangerous. When the time came to select astronauts for the nascent U.S. space program, it's not surprising that NASA recruiters turned to their ranks seeking the guys with the right stuff. Hiller X-18The X-18 was an experimental cargo-transport aircraft designed to be the first testbed for tilt-wing and STOVL (short takeoff and vertical landing) technology. The Hiller Aircraft Corporation began design work in 1955 and received a manufacturing contract and funding from the Air Force, resulting in the only X-18 ever produced.  : Photo: NASAThe Bell X-2 Starbuster was built to investigate flight characteristics in the Mach 2-3 range. This 1952 photograph shows an X-2 with a collapsed nose landing gear after a rough landing on its first glide flight at Edwards Air Force Base in California. The aircraft pitched and slid along its main skid, causing the right wingtip bumper to hit the ground and break off. The nose wheel collapsed upon making contact with the ground.  : Photo: NASAA composite photograph showing the Bell X-5's variable-sweep wing. The Bell X-5 was the first aircraft capable of changing the sweep of its wings in flight. It was inspired by the untested wartime P.1101 design of Germany's Messerschmitt Company. The German design, however, could only be adjusted on the ground. Bell engineers devised a system of electric motors to adjust the sweep in flight.  : Photo: NASAThe Bell X-14 was an experimental aircraft flown during the 1950s. It was built to demonstrate unorthodox maneuverability, including vertical takeoff, hovering ability, transition to forward flight and vertical landing.  : Photo: NASAThe Douglas X-3 Stiletto was a 1950s experimental jet aircraft with a slender fuselage and a long, tapered nose, manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Its primary mission was to investigate the design features of an aircraft suitable for sustained supersonic speeds, which included the first use of titanium in major airframe components. It was, however, seriously underpowered for its purpose and could not even exceed Mach 1 in level flight.  : Photo: U.S. ArmyThe Goodyear Inflatoplane was an experimental aircraft made by the Goodyear Aircraft Company, a subsidiary of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The Inflatoplane was roughly equivalent to the commercial Piper Cub. Although a capable enough aircraft, the Inflatoplane project was discontinued after the Army was unable to find a valid military use and remarked, unkindly perhaps, that it "could be brought down by a well-aimed bow and arrow."  : Photo: U.S. Air ForceThe Ryan X-13A-RY Vertijet, Ryan Model 69, was another vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. This one was used by the Air Force.  : Photo: NASAThe Vertol (later Boeing Vertol) VZ-2 (or Model 76) was designed in 1957 to investigate the tilt-wing approach to vertical takeoff and landing. The aircraft had a fuselage of tubular framework (originally uncovered) and accommodation for its pilot in a helicopter-like bubble canopy. The T-tail incorporated small ducted fans to act as thrusters for greater control at low speeds.  : Photo: U.S. ArmyThe Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee was a unique, direct-lift rotor aircraft, using a counter-rotating ducted fan inside a platform carrying a single pilot. The craft, which first appeared in 1953, was maneuvered by the pilot shifting his body weight to tilt the platform in the desired direction.  : Photo: U.S. Air ForceThe North American X-15 rocket-powered aircraft was part of the USAF/NASA/USN X-series of experimental aircraft, begun with the Bell X-1. The X-15 set numerous speed and altitude records in the early 1960s, reaching the edge of space and bringing back valuable data that was used in the designs of aircraft and spacecraft. The altitudes reached by the X-15 remained unsurpassed by any piloted aircraft (except the space shuttle) until the third space flight of SpaceShipOne in 2004.  : Photo: U.S. Air Force
The Lockheed X-7 (dubbed the "Flying Stove Pipe") was an unmanned testbed for ramjet engines and missile-guidance technology. It was carried aloft by a B-29 or B-50 Superfortress carrier aircraft. The booster ignited after launch and propelled the vehicle to a speed of 1,000 mph (1,625 km/h). The booster was then jettisoned, and the underslung ramjet took over from that point. The X-7 eventually returned to Earth, its descent slowed by parachute. A maximum speed of 2,881 mph (4,640 km/h, or Mach 4.31) was attained, setting a record for fastest air-breathing aircraft. A total of 130 X-7 flights were conducted between April 1951 and July 1960.  : Photo: NASAA Convair XF-92A in flight over Edwards Air Force Base around 1953. Powered by an Allison J33-A turbojet engine, with an afterburner, the XF-92 was America's first delta-wing aircraft. The delta wing's large area, thin airfoil cross-section, low weight and structural strength gave this design a great potential for a supersonic airplane.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:00 am What Works, What Doesn't, on Mobile WebRemember when your phone couldn't do much more than make phone calls and send text messages? We've come a long way in a short amount of time, but, as Webmonkey Scott Loganbill explores in this analytical essay, we still have some work to do before we can ditch our desktops for good.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:00 am Pentagon Slices and Dices Darpa BudgetThe Pentagon's storied research and development arm turned 50 years old this year. Its birthday present from the Pentagon brass: another $100 million in budget cuts.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:00 am New Geoengineering Scheme Tackles Ocean Acidification, TooA geoengineering scheme that could fight ocean acidification and climate change has resurfaced -- and it's got some early backing from a big oil company.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:00 am Google Maps Gets More PedestrianThe popular mapping site added walking directions to its arsenal of on-the-go search info. While the results aren't perfect just yet, the service is capable of finding and recommending the most direct, flat and pedestrian-friendly route.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 23 Jul 2008 | 1:00 am New Rifle Tech Offers Variable Muzzle SpeedPonca City, We love you writes "A gun that fires variable-speed bullets that can be set to kill, wound, or just inflict a bruise is being built by a Lund and Company Invention, a toy design studio that makes toy rockets powered by burning hydrogen obtained by electrolyzing water. The company is being funded by the US Army to adapt the technology to fire bullets instead. The new weapon, called the Variable Velocity Weapon System or VWS, lets the soldier use the same rifle for crowd control and combat, by altering the muzzle velocity. It could be loaded with 'rubber bullets' designed only to deliver blunt impacts on a person, full-speed lethal rounds, or projectiles somewhere between the two. Bruce Lund, the company's CEO, says the gun works by mixing a liquid or gaseous fuel with air in a combustion chamber behind the bullet. This determines the explosive capability of the propellant and consequently the velocity of the bullet. 'Projectile velocity varies from non-lethal at 10 meters, to lethal at 100 meters or more, as desired,' says Lund. The existing VWS design is a .50 caliber (12.7 mm) rifle weapon, but Lund says the technology can be scaled to any size, 'handgun to Howitzer.'"Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 23 Jul 2008 | 12:56 am UOF Vies to Be a Third Contender in ODF–OOXML BattleAndy Updegrove writes "Long-time followers of the ODF-OOXML story will recall that there is a third editable, XML-based document format in the race to create the documentary record of history. That contender is called UOF, for Uniform Office Format, and it has been under development in China since 2002. Last summer, UOF was adopted as a Chinese National Standard, and on Friday the first complete office suite based upon UOF was released. It's called Evermore Integrated Office 2009 (EIOffice 2009 for short). How successful could this new entrant be in China? For starters, Evermore Software Co. Ltd., its developer, is reportedly the largest software vendor to the Chinese government. And then there's price: Evermore's professional edition is less than a quarter of the price of the comparable version of Office 2007. And finally, it's clearly no coincidence that on July 11, Evermore Vice President Cao Shen called for Microsoft to be the first target for China's new anti-monopoly law, which will take effect in just ten days' time. Whether Shen is speaking to, or for, the government remains to be seen."Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 22 Jul 2008 | 11:27 pm Buy From Amazon With Your TiVoPunkOfLinux writes "From The NYTimes comes news that TiVo and Amazon have reached an agreement to allow consumers to purchase products from Amazon through their television sets using their TiVo remote control. TiVo will launch the new service to consumers by merchandising products related to several high-profile programs, including The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Colbert Report, and Burn Notice. Broadband-connected Series2, Series3, and TiVo HD DVRs will be able to take advantage of the new feature." This sounds like the latest incarnation of the dream of television executives who in the early '90s talked about the "information superhighway," before it was clear that the Internet was going to fill that role. What they envisioned was "interactive TV," i.e. buying stuff with your remote.Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 22 Jul 2008 | 10:34 pm COPA Suffers Yet Another Court DefeatA US federal appeals court today struck down COPA, the Child Online Protection Act, a Clinton-era censorship law that the Justice Department has been struggling to get implemented for a decade. (The ACLU filed suit as soon as COPA was signed in 1998 and won an immediate injunction.) The battle has made it to the Supreme Court twice, and the DoJ has essentially never gotten any satisfaction out of the courts. This was the case for which the DoJ famously went trolling for search histories. In the ruling issued today, the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower-court ruling that COPA violates the First Amendment because it is not the most effective way to keep children from visiting adult Web sites. The law would require sites to check visitors' ages, e.g. by taking a credit card, if the site contained any material that is "harmful to minors," whatever that means.Read more of this story at Slashdot. Source: Slashdot | 22 Jul 2008 | 9:41 pm Yahoo Q2 Profit Down, Below Analyst ViewsYahoo's performance isn't as bad as many investors feared after its rival, search and advertising leader Google Inc., posted second-quarter earnings that disappointed Wall Street last week.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Jul 2008 | 9:20 pm Details of DNS Flaw Leaked; Exploit Expected by End of TodayThe details of a critical vulnerability in a core internet infrastructure have leaked onto the web, despite efforts to keep the information under wraps. The security researcher who found the hole the the Domain Name System is now urging everyone to fix the vulnerability before it's too late.
Source: Wired Top Stories | 22 Jul 2008 | 9:15 pm Distant Wildfires Cause Arctic CoolingWildfire smoke from North America may cool the Arctic for weeks or months.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 22 Jul 2008 | 8:22 pm Oldest Bible Pieced TogetherThe oldest surviving copy of the New Testament becomes complete...at least online.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 22 Jul 2008 | 7:40 pm Cuckoo Chicks Change Calls to Mimic HostChicks of Australian cuckoos are found to be masters of deception.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 22 Jul 2008 | 2:21 pm Amazon River Powers Atlantic Carbon SinkNutrients carried by the Amazon River help create a carbon sink deep in the Atlantic Ocean.Source: Discovery News Top Stories : Discovery Channel | 22 Jul 2008 | 1:08 pm
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The hard drives come out of the cage in mid-write, heads skittering across platters. Doesn't matter. Can't bother with an overwrite now. Terabytes stacked on terabytes, all into the Fujitsu ME-P3M. The big old machine that Sarah had helped carry down here. Laughing at the hand crank, screwing her face up as she pantomimed. Amazed at the grant for $35,000, but proud that she'd wrangled it. Please be dead, Sarah. Be dead and asleep.
