technology filter: On This Day in Tech

Today in Tech; 3/2

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 17:21:48 GMT

Web 2.0 apps still struggling. In yet another attempt to keep up with the Web 2.0 hype, Adobe moved a version of its Photoshop photo processing software online. But though the concept was cool from a programmer's perspective, it didn't do much for photographers. Seem they prefer the old-fashioned way. (Source: InformationWeek)
Mystery of Peru's 13 towers solved. Scientists say they've figured out what those 13 stone towers in Peru have been doing there for the last 2400 years. Turns out they're some kind of solar observatory. Seems watching the sun is popular in Peru, since there's an even older observatory in Lima. (Source: Playfuls)
Microsoft not innovative enough? The EU has found a new reason to nuke Microsoft. In its recent statement regarding its objections to Microsoft pertaining to the EU's 2004 antitrust ruling, they've decided that Microsoft has completed the interoperability information required, but that the communications protocols it uses in Windows aren't innovative enough for Microsoft to be charging royalites for their use. Basically, that things like TCP/IP networking and Kerberos encryption are technologies that are freely available, so why should Microsoft charge for them. Someone in Redmond is popping Advils. (Source: BetaNews)
Treo to move to Finland? Seems Nokia is in talks to buy Palm, the maker of the Treo smartphone. Palm's been trying to find someone to buy it for some time and recently Nokia has come out as the leading suitor. Seems a strange move for them, tho, since Nokia already has smartphone market share and an excellent product line all its own. Then again, maybe they're just tryigng to grab the Palm OS since their own smartphone OS isn't nearly as popular among third-party developers. (Source: InfoWorld)

Today in Tech; 3/1

Thu, 01 Mar 2007 05:23:00 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: Looking for a new email service? Likely, you're using a POP3 account, but just as likely that you've seen an offering for IMAP. That's the Internet Message Access Protocol, and it's definitely a step up from POP3. Currently in version 4, IMAP accounts allow you to read and manipulate your messages without having to download all of them. You can also create folders and even screen your emails using things like the subject line. Bottom line: IMAP is better.

More Second Life goodies. The Web's second-fastest growing virtual world, Second Life, is going to add voice over IP functionality. This means more than being able to use a virtual phone. It means that your SL avatar will be able to use VoIP to actually talk to another SL avatar--no matter where that avatar's human user might really be. Purty cool, but they better manage that network pretty carefully. (Source: MSNBC)
The Weather Channel gets local. To make users feel more..at home, The Weather Channel has partnered with Microsoft to offer detailed road maps online combined with satellite weather imagery. So you not only know what the weather's like in your part of the state, you know what it's like on your particular street. (Source: MSNBC)
SimCity goes dual screen. The venerable SimCity franchise is coming back for yet another version, and this time Electronic Arts is giving it the dual screen treatment. It's called SimCity DS and that stands for the Nintendo DS for which the game is being specifically built. No word on when it'll be on the PC platfrom. But in addition to multiple screens, you'll also get more interactivity in the form of trading city data with other SimCity DS players online, and things like blowing into your microphone to put out fires. Gonna have to try that to see if it's cool or just dorky. (Source: IGN)
Leakage on Firefox 3.0. The current Firefox 2.0 browser is darn skippy, but in anticipation of an explosion of Web 2.0 applications, the folks at Mozilla are giving it a serious overhaul for version 3.0, due out later this year. It's in alpha right now, but the gearheads at Mozilla are claiming they intend to build the browser so it can run Web apps that will perform as smoothly as regular desktop apps. More power to 'em. (Source: InfoWorld)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech 2/28

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 06:57:57 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: You've heard about it, but what exactly is Open Source? You've probably heard it as a quick way to get free software, but it's a bit more involved. This term refers to principles that outline a different way to distribute software. YOu build some software under open source and when you distribute it you must make the source code--the stuff your programmers actually wrote--available to the public. Other folks can then use that source code in their own projects and even modify it as long as they also submit those changes for modification. No one can use your source code in a straight commercial product, that's against all open source licensing agreements. There are over 50 different open source licenses, however, though most of them agree on the rules above. How do open source companies make money? They don't charge for software, they charge for support.

Ozzie comments on Google. Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief technical officer, came out and commented on Google publicly. He says watching the Googlers rake in all that ad money was a wake-up call for Microsoft, but that Redmond won't simply follow Google. Hey says they're laying the groundwork for new online technologies all their. Wonder if this will be a new round in the battle for control of the Internet. (Source: MSNBC)
Space debris a real threat to ISS. A recent study did some math on the likelihood of a some kinf of space debris tagging the International Space Station, penetrating its hull and pretty much taking it out. Turns out that math says there's about a 55% chance of this little disaster occurring. Someone needs to invent shields. (Source: MSNBC)
Corel dubuts free WordPerfect in beta. Everyone's hopping on the Web 2.0 pie, so why not Corel. The company just released a version of its venerable WordPerfect word processor in a free version with both online and offline functionality. The version is still in beta, but expect to see a load of press on it in the next few days. (Source: BetaNews)
Addicted to your BlackBerry? Check out CrackBerry. A new site launched today, CrackBerry.com, that's aimed at helping BlackBerry addicts, users and abusers, to find help separating themselves from their digital additictions. You can find folks with similar problems, find articles on helping yourself and discussion threads where you can discuss how strange you are in a really cutting-edge way. (Source: PC World)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/27

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 05:07:53 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: (I wonder if I'll be able to sell these next year on one of those once-a-day calendars. Probably not. Sigh.) It's called Usenet and it's the ancestor of all those innovative 'social' networking sites popping up today--including Spaces, by the way. Usenet is just a huge library of discussion threads on all kinds of topics, anything from science to religion to hobbies to new kinds of porno. All this stuff is stored on a vast arsenal of private and commercial servers around the globe. Accessing these discussions requires a special kind of reader software (sometimes part of your browser [Firefox] or maybe regular email program [Outlook 2007; Thunderbird]) called, appropriately enough, a news reader. Plug this in, get a subscription to one of these news servers and you get access to this huge library of discussion threads with names like alt.binaries.misc.woodworking. Complex names, but still pretty easy to see that this one would include lots of tool nerds like me messaging each other about woodworking in general. Because it requires special software and a subscription to a news server, however, Usenet is fast losing popularity to blogging sites or social networking sites, which are mostly free and usable with just a Web browser. But it's far from dead today, so if you're interested in making new friends, get a news reader and check it out.

Environmentalists get trendy. Guess they got tired of infomercials on Animal Planet. So environmentalists are spreading awareness another way: cell phone ring tones. Call me and my phone rings the theme to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Call a cell phone using one of these greentones and you might hear the snarl of a tiger or the grunting of a chimpanzee. Okaaayyyy. (Source: MSNBC)
Apple TV gets delayed till March. Stevie Jobs hyped a home entertainment gadget a little while back, called Apple TV. Just a box that would stream TV and home media content to your computer from your television using your home network or the Internet. Supposed to be out now, but now not till March. That's pretty close, but if you absolutely must have this feature today, check out the original TV streaming gadget: the Slingbox. Their Mac client just got done, so you're good to go. I think it's cheaper, too. (Source: MSNBC)
More MP3 patent madness. Now another patent troll company has gotten into the act. It's a small Texas-based firm, called Texas MP3; and it's just filed patent infringement suits based on patents it says it bought from SigmaTel, apparently another little-known MP3 pioneer. Armed with these patents, this new company is suing Apple, Samsung and SanDisk. Not sure what would happent to us if they actually won--'cause I ain't giving up my 22GB of MP3s. (Source: BetaNews)
SanDisk builds a read-only Flash card. Despite the HUGE <g> threat posed by the above Texas patent troll, SanDisk has managed to keep rolling out products. The next one to come down the pike will be SanDisk's read-only flash memory card, aimed at digi-cams. Why? Because it'll be able to store photos without degradation for 100 years. Pretty cool backup device. Just have to build a new kind of photo album to hold those things. (Source: PC Mag)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/26

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 06:22:00 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: It's a history lesson. There once was a man named Norm Abramson--no, not the New Yankee Workshop guy, that's Norm Abrams. Abramson was a computer scientist who wanted to surf, so he moved to Honolulu. The ocean kind of surfing; the Internet hadn't been invented in the late 1960s. But that other kind of surfing was on Abramson's subconscious so he invented something called ALOHAnet. One of the first computer networks, it was ALOHAnet's protocols that formed the basis for what we now call Ethernet, the stuff that largely powers the Internet and your home networks. Another reason to love Hawaii.

Surveillance cams hype their smarts again. Companies making surveillance cameras are partnering with bleeding-edge software companies to bring Big Brother all kinds of new smart eye capabilities. So a computer analyzing images sent by a surveillance cam might soon be able to know how tall and heavy you are (not too hard nowadays) or analyze how you're walking and estimate the chances you're hiding something (that's the hype). I use the word hype there because the last time they pushed this it was facial recognition. And that didn't work too well in the real world. Guess we'll see how they do this time. (Source: MSNBC)
NASA spells out how to control flaky astronauts. So Britney's self-inflicted skull buzzing didn't quite drive the NASA kook story out of the news. Could have, but NASA went and leaked their procedures for dealing with loopy astronauts--not in general, just in space. Not too sophisticated, by the way. Lots about tying them up with duct tape or bungee cords and maybe hitting them with tranquilizers. (Wasn't that what they did in Armageddon?) (Source: MSNBC)
A search engine for Web videos. Seems everything is getting its own search engine these days. This one is by a company called Blinkx, and what that startup has done is build a search engine specifically designed to let you find whatever Web video you're looking for. Based their search tech on actually searching inside the video data rather than just associated text and tags. (Source: New York Times)
BitTorrent links up with Hollywood. If you haven't used BitTorrent then just imagine a giant menu of ripped CDs, DVDs, software, even books and other sundries all available for free download from random sites around the globe. All spread around the Web in such a hopeless tangle of peer-to-peer hosts that authorities have no chance of trapping the content pirates. Well, BitTorrent just made a deal with Hollywood to open its own digital content store, featuring officially sanctioned content from the big movie and record houses...for sale, not free download. No word that the original BitTorrent network will die, but we'll see what happens. (Source: Variety)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/23

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 06:59:10 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: It's Wine. Sure, one definition is the delicious grape-based beverage that sometimes makes life bearable. But it's also an emulation technology that lets Unix folks run Windows application on operating systems like Linux.

Alberta boys heavy porn users. A study shows that 13-year-old Alberta boys have used porn more times than they can count because their parents aren't paying attention. 'Course, I sincerely doubt this relegated either to Alberta or 13-year-old boys. (Source: MSNBC)
Chimps learning about tools. While 13-year-old Canadian boys are devolving, scientists are watching chimps evolve; finding out that the primates are fashioning spears to hunt smaller animals for meat. It also looks like real new behavior since the adult males aren't doing it, only the younger adolescent males and females. Hey, it's a technology story. Just a really early technology story. (Source: MSNBC)
Microsoft down another $1.5 billion. Ouch. Alcatel-Lucent filed suit against Microsoft recently regarding some supposed infringements by Microsoft on patents owned by Alcatel-Lucent. Those patents regarded MP3 technology, and it turns out they were true enough to cost Redmond a billion and a half in damages. (Source: InfoWorld)
Reward for VA hard drive. The Birmingham Alabama VA Medical Center apparently lost an external hard drive last week. Not that big a deal except it carries personal info on about a half million people. So the FBI is investigating and the hospital is now offering a $25,000 reward for return of the drive. Just hope whoever returns it doesn't just copy the whole thing first. Gonna be a hell of a HIPAA audit for that hospital. (Source: BetaNews)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/22

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 05:09:29 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: Since we're in a numeric mode: Nanosecond. We banter it about a bit, but how fast is that really? A billionth of a second, that's how fast. Used most often to measure the speed of PC RAM chips.

Cisco and Apple settle the iPhone thing. Both companies announced yesterday that they've settled their differences over the iPhone name and brand. Apple will be allowed to use the name in exchange for exploring loads of 'interoperability' possibilities between the two companies' technologies. I'm assuming that means the Linksys folks, not the Cisco folks. (Source: MSNBC)
Cyberbullies prompt state legislators to act. Give kids new toys and they'll find ways to abuse them. So some teens did exactly that, sending this Vermont kid incessant text messages calling him gay. The kid couldn't handle it and killed himself. He was in the eighth grade. This tragedy has prompted state legislators in Vermont and Oregon among other states to begin issuing anti-cyberbully laws designed to punish kids who engage in this kind of harrassment. More laws to deal with. (Source: MSNBC)
Vista software certification going a little slow. Microsoft published a list of the most popular third-party Windows applications based on user experiences with XP and earlier Windows versions. Of the roughly 800 apps on the list only 103 are actually Vista certified. Gotta get on the stick with that--and it's probablu why the OSes sales figures into business aren't as big as Microsoft would like. (Source: BetaNews)
First woman to win the Turing Award. The Turing Award, named after computer pioneer Alan Turing, has been awarded in the industry since the year I was born, 1966. But this is the first year that the award went to a woman. Frances Allen started out as a dairy farmer's daughter, became a math teacher and then a computer science researcher for IBM. Now, at age 74, she's received the Turing Award for her ground-breaking work helping programmers right the most efficient code possible. Congratulations. (Source: San Jose Mercury News)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/20

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 05:10:36 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: So what's the diff between a worm and a virus? Both are malware, both do damage to your computer, both, in other words, suck. But while a virus is never good and worms are sometimes used to bait fish hooks for peaceful afternoons on the lake, worms also burrow. And that's what malware worms do. They burrow from computer to computer, looking for network connections they can exploit to infect an ever-growing victim list of PCs. Viruses, on the other hand, just infect different files. If one file happens to move from PC to PC, so be it, but by itself a virus really only messes up more and more files on the original PC it infected. And yeah, you guessed it: Most of the so-called 'viruses' out there right now are really worms. Crap.

Satellite radios to merge. Until recently, we all had two choices when it came to satellite radio: XM and Sirus. That's about to change as both companies announced their agreement to merge. Supposedly an equal merger, but XM shareholders will be getting about $4.57 billion in stock from Sirus shareholders. Man, I gotta get in the market. (Source: MSNBC)
Watches losing turf to gadgets. For once I'm with it. Seems a recent survey found that two thirds of today's teens don't wear watches, instead telling time by one of their many high-tech gadgets; all of which seem to come with a clock nowadays--PDAs, cell phones, smartphones, even MP3 players. Hey, I'm the same way. Sometimes I don't see my watch for weeks, but the Motorola Q is there every day. (Source: MSNBC)
Microsoft releases Virtual PC 2007 for free. So a virtual PC is just another PC you're running entirely in software. The second PC is called a 'guest' and simply gets a smaller share of the computer's hardware resources. Virtual PC 2007 is Microsoft's latest entry into this deal. Good stuff, except it only supports various Windows versions as guest operating systems. Means I can't run Mac OS X on my Vista PC. See other virtualization products, like the Parallels package, let you run other operating systems. That's why I'm running Windows Vista on my MacBook Pro. (Source: BetaNews)
Citizen tracking comes from Europe. You'd think the Dept. of Homeland Defense would have been the pioneer here, but it turns out some legislators from Germany are going to get the honors. There, their Ministry of Justice, has proposed laws that would make it illegal to use false info to create email accounts--so no more anonymous Web usage. Another law from the Netherlands would require that all phone companies serving the European Union keep detailed records of callers' locations during mobile phone conversations--now that one's scary. Neither law has passed yet, but they sure do bring some dark clouds on the horizon. (Source: New York Times)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/16

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 05:06:56 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: Just in case you're wondering what it means when your browser or software is XML-compatible. Web pages started out being written using a technology called HTML (hyper-text markup language). HTML is simply a large and standard collection of tags that tell your text how to display itself. Once the Internet was being used for more than just reading text, however, a smarter technology was required; enter the eXtensible Markup Language. Similar to HTML, XML allowed page designers to create custom tags specific only to their document. That quickly allowed it far greater flexibility when manipulating data, fast making the Web a place to run software, not just read text.

Laser brush nukes baldness. An entry for the way-strange gadget category: The FDA just approved a handheld brush, called the Hairmax Lasercomb. It's a brush/comb with a low-level laser built-in. The laser is supposed to increase the number of thick hairs on the scalp. And you can give yourself a scalp tattoo at the same time! (Source: MSNBC)
Microsoft YouTube rival hits public beta. Hey, if YouTube's founders can score one and half billion, why not Redmond? Microsoft announced its YouTube rival last year, but the deal has been behind the curtain since the announcement. The platform, called MSN Soapbox for now, just went into public beta, so you can find out how to access it here. (Source: PC World)
NASA denied budget increase. President Bush may have publicly backed NASA and the need for further space exploration, but the US Senate ain't on that page. They sent a new stripped-down spending proposal to the White House that denies budget increases to a number of agencies, including NASA. To be fair, it also froze Homeland Defense's budget, too. Wonder if senators also don't get a pay raise. (Source: MSNBC)
Novell says it's going to attack Vista. Supposedly, these two companies are allied, but Novell's CEO came out in an interview and announced he was happy with Vista's slow rate of adoption and said his company would continue to attack it. Hey, not for nothing, but while Novell's desktop Linux operating system is pretty cool--it ain't Vista. Not even close. The boys from Utah have quite a bit of work ahead of them if they're going that route. (Source: BetaNews)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/15

Thu, 15 Feb 2007 12:50:02 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: Just in case you skipped Valentine's Day to write your own bit of software, you might want to publish it under the GPL. This stands for GNU Public License, and forms the basis of the open source software concept. Placing your software under this license protects your copyrights, but requires that you place all your source code into the public domain. Mens anyone can modify that source code to do something else, as long as they also put their code into the public domain. Kind of a pay it forward thing.

Judge drops MySpace suit. The family of a 13-year old girl who says she got sexually assaulted by a 19-year old perv she met on MySpace decided to file suit against the social networking site. Since that announcement, MySpace has been introducing new security technologies, including additional member filters, a sexual predator database and more. Now the suit has gone before a judge who...threw it out. The judge says MySpace can't be expected to verify the age of every user. Wonder if porn sites will use this as a precedent. (Source: MSNBC)
Docs call for eithcs on neuro science. Seems medical science is moving ahead so fast with unlocking the brain's secrets that it's making some doctors nervous about the potentialities. So they're calling for a debate on the ethics of neuroscience, understandably called neuroethics. Unfortunately, it's being conducted in France. (Source: MSNBC)
MIT grad student builds wall crawling device. Nathan Ball, an MIT graduate student, led a team of geeks who invented a device to let emergency workers zip up the side of buildings. It's a pulley-based system, called the Atlas Powered Rope Ascender, and can carry around 250 plus equipment. (Source: CNET)
NVidia demos 3D GUI for cell phones. NVidia is known for fast gaming video cards to most of us, but they have a much deeper portfolio. That now includes an advanced cell phone interface the company just demoed at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona. The new interface is platform-agnostic (meaning it doesn't care about which cell phone it's on) and it's 3D meaning it looks really, really cool. (Source: BetaNews)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/14

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 18:29:00 GMT

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Tech Term of the Day: Just like your heart has a one and only, your computer does, too. It's called a MAC Address (stands for Media Access Control). What makes it one-and-only is that it's a 128-bit address key assigned by the manufacturer while the device is being made. Typically, every network interface on your computer gets its own MAC address, so you've got one for your wired LAN port and another for your wireless. MAC addresses can be used by security equipment as another way to make sure that you are really you.

IBM says it's increased computing guts. While Intel and other companies are focused on speeding up CPUs, IBM just announced that it's figured out a way to triple the amount of RAM in a computer and thereby double the performance numbers of big-data operations. IBM's calling the new tech, eDRAM, and figures it'll be out and about by 2008. (Source: MSNBC)
Congress messes with Daylight Savings time and that messes with us. Seems Congress has decided that Daylight Savings time will arrive a month earlier this year, March 11 to be precise. Supposed to help with energy conservation. But it also means that all electronic systems that rely on internal clocks will need to be reset manually in order to keep up. Turning into a mini-Y2K. ARGH! (Source: MSNBC)
ID thieves like specific areas. Security firm ID Analytics has studied reported ID theft cases and determined that identity theft victims are mostly found in New York, California or Nevada. Danger zones. But if you live in Montana, Vermont or Wyoming, you're the safest. 'Course, there's also supposedly several hundred thousand cases every year that go unreported, so these numbers may change. (Source: BetaNews)
BlackBerry enters own iPhone competitor. Unreal how a product that hasn't even shown up yet is freaking out the competition. For example, RIM is billing its upcoming BlackBerry 8800 as yet another iPhone killer. Supposed to be a biz-oriented phone but with added bennies like a 2.4-inch color screen, a built-in GPS, a full QWERTY keyboard and even a trackball. Will also connect to cell networks, broadband wireless data networks as well as WiFi. Plus, pretty thin. This summer is shaping up to be a major Battle of the Cell Phones. (Source: InfoWorld)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/13

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 06:02:29 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: What we geeks wish the Internet would FINALLY move to: IPv6. The IP part refers to the TCP/IP protocol, the set of rules the Internet uses to manage data flow. Right now, TCP/IP is commonly used in version 4. However, an improved version has been around for some time, and that's version 6. What happened to 5--who cares? Point is that we're running out of address space in version 4 with another few hundred million users still to go on the Web; moving to 6 would solve that little problem right away by moving IP addresses away from the 32-bits they're formed on now to 128 bits. More combinations of bits, more addresses, easy peasy. It's also easier to manage, more secure and comes with free cappucino in the morning. Okay, maybe not the last one.

More security from MySpace. Gonna wind being the tightest site on the net if they keep this up. Now it's a video content filtering system. Unfortunately, it's not to block sex vids or child porno, but to filter out copyrighted material so Hollywood doesn't lose even a single dime in revenue. I feel all warm and fuzzy. (Source: MSNBC)
And more security in general. While MySpace is looking out for Hollywood, a newly relaunched Internet rating site is looking out for child safety and other Internet concerns. The site is now called the Family Online Safety Institute and intends to protect both child safety and free speech (gonna have some constituency problems there). And they'll do this through public policy (law suits), education (online documentation) and events (all-nude scotch-tasting rallies). (Okay maybe not the last one.) (Source: MSNBC)
HP does its own smart phone. Can't be a tech company these days and not have a smart phone. So HP just introduced the iPaq 500, which is based on the just-released Windows Mobile 6 operating system. Looks cool, does all the big broadband wireless data plans and also does WiFI. Purty cool. (Source: CNET)
Global pandemic could clog the Internet. So this report got pubbed which says that if a global disease hits, lots of isolated folks will begin turning to the Internet for news and entertainment--apparently causing massive Internet cloggage. Not sure how this works logically, since if they have Internet access, then they also have TV...don't they? (Source: PC World)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/12

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 06:57:03 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: All the beeping that happens when you're computer gets powered on is called P.O.S.T., which has nothing to do with email and stands for Power On Self Test. This is a test that your computer hardware is running on itself using firmware programmed into dedicated chips on the motherboard. And it happens before the computer ever starts talking to your operating system (Windows, Mac OS X, etc.). If there is serious hardware trouble (like no keyboard, no monitor, dead hard disk, etc.), POST finds it first. Usually you can dig into specific hardware problems by hitting the F2 or F10 keys when the POST process is working.

Happy Darwin Day. That's right, today is anti-creationist day. Darwin Day is the geek party marking Darwin's 198th birthday with more than 850 celebratory events being held around the world in the venerable sage's honor. Go science go. (Source: MSNBC)
New child monitoring technologies coming from Japan. Seems there's been a rash of child murders in Japan over the last decade, partially because school children in Japan ride public transportation at a very early age. So Japanese electronics makers are supplying new gadgets to parents, including child-oriented cell phones that use GPS and panic buttons to contact authorities and parents. This type of tech has also hit things like book bags and clothes. (Source: MSNBC)
Quantum computer to debut in Canada this week. The computers we use every day utilize a mathematical language known as "binary". Means everything boils down to either a '0' or a '1'; on or off. Quantum computers, on the other hand, use qubits capable of being in both states simultaneously. Means a quantum leap in processing speed. Great for researchers, worrisome for the NSA because these computers can make real fast work of breaking our exisring encryption schemes. Means we need to make sure at least a few of these quantum machines remain in private hands or big brother is going to have a field day. Fortunately, next week's supposed Canadian entry isn't from a gevernment-sponsored lab, but a private company, called D-Wave. (Source: ITWire Australia)
But don't count Intel out. Quantum computing may be coming, but Intel's architectures still have juice. The company will be demoing a new experimental computer chip today. An 80-core machine. By contrast, Intel's award-winning Core 2 Duo CPU only has two cores. That's quite a jump, considering that Intel intends to use the new chip in production PCs in five years. Wow. (Source: New York Times)
Dean Yaeger gets the Ghostbusters. Remember that scene at the beginning of Ghostbusters when the gang loses their grant for the paranormal lab they were running at what looked like Columbia University? The real life deal is happening at Princeton U near the end of this month when its small, but highly controversial Extra Sensory Perception (ESP) lab will close its doors. The lab, known as PEAR for Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research lab, has spent the last 30 years trying to prove that thoughts can affect physical events. Maybe Bill Murray will fund it somewhere else. (Source: New York Times)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/9

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 05:42:33 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: Well, rather Tech Slang Term of the Day: Nagware. This refers to those annoying dialog boxes that pop up and ask you to press a button to activate software. Usually killable only by buy the software and/or registering it. Nowadays, however, there are nagware screens that pop up off of Web sites, only they aren't nagware, they're malware. These screens say something like "Do you want to really leave the site?" with an Okay or Cancel underneath. Hit the Okay and something bad executes instead of you leaving. Best thing to do there is to just hit that big red X in the upper right hand corner.

More wierd stuff on eBay. Somehow, Oswald's sniper window is now on eBay. Apparently being sold by the son of the gentleman who owned the School Book Depository building. The window is going for $100,000. How would you even know it was the actual window, tho? Maybe I can sell a seat from a theatre box and say it was Lincoln's. (Source: MSNBC)
Are we in an Internet war and don't know it? Recent studies, conducted in part because of the recent attack on the Internet's core routing servers, show that hackkers are attacking Internet-connected computers once every 39 seconds. Could be a war, or it could just be a proliferation of software bots. Little bits of machine software that constantly look to crack firewalls' weak spots. (Source: MSNBC)
Internet DNS to get major overhaul. Okay, DNS servers are what translates those pesky Internet address numbers (123.456.789.012) into the URLs we know and love (www.msn.com). Problem is that we're running low on names and address numbers. So VeriSign, which manages the Internet's DNS, announces a $100 million overhaul of the DNS system to prepare for the Web's population to double to 1.8 billion within the next three years. Hopefully, that'll include IPv6, but I won't hold my breath. (Source: BetaNews)
Samsung beats iPhone to market, too. Apple shows the iPhone last month with that cute touch screen that covers the whole front face. So its competitors buckle down to beat the thing to market. LG is first, already delivering its K850 'Prada' phone in late January. Now, Samsung takes second place with its F700, which is also compatible with the latest broadband wireless data networks. Apple better get off its butt and deliver its phone or it'll be old news. (Source: InfoWorld)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/8

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 16:29:44 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: You've heard it on TV when the amazingly good looking hacker decides to break into a system: A logic bomb. But it's not a Hollywood invention, it's an actual attack method. It's also called slag code, and it's not meant as a way to enter systems. It's usually a code payload meant to 'go off' after the bad guy has penetrated a system. They get in, then they upload a logic bomb. The bomb then sits there until its detonator goes off, which could be a certain time limit, a date, or even an action by the computer's legit user. Then it can do all kinds of things depending on how slimy the perpetrator was. It might just display a nasty message on your screen, or it might wipe your entire hard disk.

Just takes one bad apple. And now NASA is reviewing its astronaut screening process. This comes after Lisa Nowak has been charged with attempted murder of her love rival. Frankly, it seems unwarranted. Firstly, I don't see how they're getting attempted murder out of a BB gun and some pepper spray through a window. Secondly, there must have been at least four figures worth of astronauts that have gone through the program by now. Statistically, it's impossible not to get at least a few fruit loops in a group that large. (Source: MSNBC)
Google gets free with Gmail. It's been three years since Gmail showed up, but it's always been an invitation-only deal, meaning an existing user needs to invite you in order for you to get access. Google removed these restrictions in Australia, Egypt, Japan, New Zealand and Russia last year. Now they've done the same in Africa, Brazil, Europe and the Middle East. Not here though. Hope that doesn't mean that Osama gets to use Gmail with an invite while we can't. HA! (Source: MSNBC)
IPod users can't cross the street? This is where all that anti-cell-phone-in-the-car legislation gets you. Some nudge New YOrk senator, Carl Krueger, has decided that people crossing the street while wearing their iPods are dangerous. So he wants to introduce a law that will ban users of any handheld device from crossing the street while using it. In New York City. I think this guy and Lisa Nowak should be in the same mental hospital. Even if you could get a law like that passed, how would police enforce it? (Source: Playfuls)
Another new Windows. This was under NDA until yesterday when Microsoft came out and announced a new version of Windows Mobile. But it's not going to be Windows Vista Mobile, it's going to be Windows Mobile 6. Better Exchange connectivity, new Windows Live integration, better support for phone applications--I'll be getting the full low-down at a demo meeting in NYC tomorrow. (Source: ZDNet)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/7

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 05:09:15 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: IBM's been touting it since last year, namely holographic storage. This is supposed to be the eventual future of all things storage. Just think of today's hard disks as two dimensional--flat platters with little magnetic divots that correspond to binary data. Holographic storage turns the whole thing into a three-dimensional array. It also uses lasers, aligning them horizontally and vertically so you can store data in three dimensions instead of just two. means not only more storage space, but also more space in a much, much smaller form factor. Like think of a USB thumbdrive with more space than aone of today's desktop hard disks.

Hack attackers driven off. Yesterday, some slimy hacker types temporarily seized control of three core Internet routing machines. According to officials, it's the most significant attack against the Internet since 2002. And wouldn't you know it, the attacks were traced back to South Korea. Probably a pre-schooler with a Gameboy. (Source: MSNBC)
Microsoft sidesteps Gorbachev plea. So a school teacher in a Russian village unknowingly buys a dozen computers for the school that are running pirated copies of Windows. He gets arrested by Russian authorities and might go away for a dozen years--even though it was an accident. Gorbachev issues a press release detailing a letter to Bill Gates, asking that he show the man mercy. Today Gates responded that Microsoft can't show mercy because the company isn't involved in the case. Up to Russia to straighten out its own kooky laws. (Source: MSNBC)
Google CEO warns of need to keep Web free. Google's CEO Eric Schmidt issued an open statement warning the public against allowing lawmakers to censor Internet content. He says another billion users will move to the Web in the next few years, so we need to keep it free. Gotta say I agree, so watch out for censorship and net neutrality. (Source: InfoWorld)
Fry's and Seagate team up for online data recovery. Seagate announced it was going to start providing its own data recovery services to customers inside Fry's Electronics stores. That's actually a truly cool development, especially if you're in a sudden data pickle. Just wish they'd finally get on the stick and open a Fry's in New York, already. What are we, chopped liver? (Source: PC Mag)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/6

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 16:36:18 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: Thinking about going Vonage or some other Internet phone medium? Think SIP. That's the Session Initiated Protocol. This is an open voice over IP (voice of the Internet) standard developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force. It's mainly a voice protocol, but can handle video conferencing, too. What makes it important is that it's by far the most popular voice protocol out there. If your VoIP phone or Internet router doesn't support SIP and you're into voice calls, there'll be trouble.

Astronaut goes crooked. And, in a typically lurid twist, it's got something to do with romance. Seems NASA astronaut, Lisa Nowak thought another woman was getting busy with her astro-sweetie, Cmdr. William Oefelein. So she put on a disguise, grabbed a BB gun and pepper spray and drove 900 miles to the rival's house--wearing diapers so she wouldn't have to stop. Now that's someone under serious stress. She then tried to kidnap the rival. She's out on $15K bail. Let's hope she gets some help and that NASA's screening process gets some help, too. (Source: MSNBC)
Signs of life at Kodak. Some have called Kodak a firm looking for a direction now that it got out of the digi-cam business. Seems its new direction is printers. They just came out with a line of EasyShare All-in-One inkjet printers costing between $150-$300 each. What will separate them from rival HP, according to Kodak, is low-cost replacement inks. Black cartridges should go for $10 while color will run $15. Cool beens. (Source: MSNBC)
Sony still trying. The company is still trying to revive itself after a truly crappy 2006. It's starting with a new ultra-slim Sony Ericsson W880 Walkman cell phone that's only 0.38 inches thick. There's also a lower-cost Walkman phone and a new Cybershot camera phone on the way. Be better for them if they had all of that in one package. With no root kits and batteries built by someone else. HA! (Source: PC Magazine)
AOL revamping Netscape browser. We've all been focused on IE7 and Firefox, but that doesn't mean the other Web browsers have disappeared. AOL says it's going to revamp the Netscape browser to version 9 somewhere in the next few months. It's supposed to have deep integration with a new user-drive news site that AOL runs--hope there's more than just that. (Source: BetaNews)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/5

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 15:25:41 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: Something Spaces still doesn't do well: moblogging. That would be Motion Weblogging. The idea of blogging using your cell phone, thus creating something not just ad libbed, but also constantly moving.

The power of hype: Apple's iPhone. Just a canned demo on a stage and Steve Jobs sets of mountains of meetings at rival cell phone maker offices. Samsung starts selling their BlackJack like there's no tomorrow, prices drop on one side of the phone market, prices start to rise on the luxury/advanced side. All to differentiate themselves from the iPhone when it gets here. Hey, I like competition, but lets show a little confidence about our products, shall we? (Source: MSNBC)
College auctions tuition on eBay. That's a new one. A full year at Okalahoma Wesleyan costs about $23,000. So apparently in an attempt to give some lucky eBayer a break, the school is auctioning off a full year of tuition, room and board. Presumably, you've got to qualify to attend, but that's the only restriction. Only problem is that if it follows many eBay auctions, some poor sap might wind up bidding more than $23K. (Source: MSNBC)
Telecoms start the content race. This is the danger of net neutrality. These laws allow the telecoms to control the traffic on their networks. Then it allows them to create their own content, so it's a pretty short leap to them blocking content from competitors. The early example seems to be coming from the search engine side. Google and Yahoo have made search engine deals with telecoms, but a consortium of US and European telecom makers now want to fund their own search engine, optimized for smart phones. 'Course Google and Yahoo are free, wehre costs for this new venture are still unannounced...(Source: Ars Technica)
Search continues for Jim Gray--online. In a poignant gesture, friends of Jim Gray, the Microsoft database researcher who went missing at sea a week ago, decided to keep searching for him. To do this, they reconfigured satellite imagery, then wrote ad hoc software allowing Web volunteers to pore of slices of the 123,000 sq. mile search area. Then competition actually started with Google Earth's division using its expertise, followed shortly by Microsoft's Virtual Earch doing the same thing. While it's a long shot that Jim Gray will be found at this point, it's comforting to know there are folks still looking. (Source: CNET)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/2

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 15:49:55 GMT

Tech Term of the Day: FireWire. Made famous by Apple, but for a while destroyed by USB; FireWire is now making a comeback coming as a standard port on both Windows and OS X computers. Like USB, FireWire was intended as high-speed alternative to the standard PC input/output ports, serial and parallel. But even though its version 1 was faster than USB's version 1, the latter did a better marketing job and wound up on more PCs and thus on more hardware driver programming lists. But its later iterations pushed FireWire's speed from 400Mbits/sec to 800, then 1600 and lately 3,200Mbps and also increased its cable distance to 100 meters. Good enough that FireWire is becoming a standard for talking to digital camcorders. But unlike USB, no one seems to be developing a wireless FireWire.

If you're into home construction, check out the moon. NASA announced that its serious enough about establishing a permanent moonbase to start developing building construction technologies. So naturally, they're looking for informed input. If that's you, think lots of prefab and ease of transportation. Big time. (Source: MSNBC)
Smart vid game move by France. We've all heard the complaints about many US-made video games: 'Too much violence' soon followed by 'Too much sex'. France has similar worries, so it decided to do something about it. The French government is offering tax credits to French vid game makers with two goals: (1) create more games with 'cultural value' and (2) keep those video makers in France rather than some other more tech-friendly place. Hey, cash always worked best for me. (Source: CNET)
Thought they'd learn from Microsoft's example, but I guess not. How much flack did Microsoft take about its rules regarding Passport IDs in order to login to any of its Web services? Loads. Well, other companies apparently don't mind that kind of flack--notably Flickr and Yahoo. Since the one gobbled the other, it decided to require Yahoo IDs in order to access Flickr, even for existing users who have until March 15 to get a Yahoo ID...or else. Not sure what the big deal is for Yahoo or Microsoft--both ID systems are free, so what's the big deal? (Source: BetaNews)
MS Word gets an Open XML translator. Office 2007 uses a proprietary new format based on XML that works great as long as you're only using Office 2007. But to communicate with other office-type productivity suites, Microsoft decided to add some open standards support, so they sponsored a project to create software that will convert Word documents into Open XML and Open Document formats. The Open XML portion just entered version 1. (Source: InfoWorld)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 2/1

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 15:55:53 GMT

Tech Fact of the Day: Someone asked me to define fuzzy logic. Seems people hear it a lot, but aren't sure what it means. Fairly complex if we get detailed, but the basics are simple. Straight logic questions tend to be either right or wrong, true or false. Pretty good match for computers that talk in 1s and 0s. Fuzzy logic questions, on the other hand, don't have a single true/false answer. Instead they have shades of true or false, various grades of each. So 'Is the weather nice?' is a straight yes/no question. But 'Will the weather be nice tomorrow?' can be answered all kinds of ways and each could be influenced by a wide variety of meteorological factors. Fuzzy.

Tagged content becoming popular online. Seems tagging is taking off. This is the practice of attaching descriptive text tags to things like photos or home movies or blog posts. These files can then be organized and reoriganized according to different tag configurations. Popular on sites like Yahoo's Flickr & del.icio.us or Google's YouTube. (Source: MSNBC)
Finally, some good use for book scanning. Instead of starting with all the popular books, a new $2 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to the Library of Congress will allow the library to scan its oldest and most brittle books. That way, we protect the books that will likely soon be too old to handle. Smart move with no need for copyright lawyers. (Source: MSNBC)
Microsoft to blast geek into space. Vanishing Point is a Microsoft-sponsored puzzle challenge for programmers that offers to send the winner into space. The latest puzzle is now over with a winner to be selected. The last Microsoft Codemasters Challenge was won by a certain Nick P., but Microsoft won't tell us any more. Wonder if they'll blast any beauties into space, too. (Source: The Register)
TomTom GPS systems carry virus. Man, these viruses are just cropping up everywhere. Now the TomTom GPSes have a problem. The bad one is the Go 910 series, which apparently contains a virus that infects PCs when they connect to the TomTom. So after you ask TomTom, make sure to also ask ViruscheckerViruschecker. (Source: PC World)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 1/31

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:41:09 GMT

Tech Fact of the Day: Another 'tech term' definition because I mentioned 'motherboard' a few posts ago, someone asked me 'So what's a motherboard?' Also called the 'system board', this is basically the computer. It's the main circuit board inside any PC, desktop or notebook; carries the sockets for all the major components: the CPU, the RAM memory, the disk controller that talks to your hard disk, CD-ROM/DVD, and has all the expansion slots for you to add video cards, audio cards, network cards and the like. There are any number of different motherboard configurations, but they're usually centered around which CPU(s) they support. Major motherboard makers include Asus, Intel, MSI and more.

Sweden opens first virtual embassy. Second Life is taking off, flying penis avatars or not. IBM has a branch office there, it's got its own news service and now it's got the first virtual embassy, too. Sweden decided to build a virtual embassy in Second Life to answer any and all questions users might have about the country. The embassy will be called House of Sweden and will be modeled on the country's actual embassy building in Washington. (Source: MSNBC)
Another electric sports car. Also a concept as most of them are, this one will come via an alliance between electric scooter maker Zap and Brit auto firm, Lotus. Lotus designed most of the concept car, called the APX, but originally built it to accommodate a gas-powered V6. Zap's gonna handle turning that into an electric power plant. Supposedly out by the end of 2008. (Source: MSN Tech & Gadgets)
Jim Gray still missing. Mr. Gray is a noted database researcher, late employed by Microsoft but with a long career spanning IBM, Tandem and more. He left San Francisco on Sunday to sail his boat 27 miles to the Farallon Islands and he hasn't returned. Search is still ongoing. (Source: InformationWeek)
Seagate debuts wireless pocket storage. They were talking about this at CES, but didn't show it. The idea is to give users a way to carry data and share it between cell phones, PCs and other devices. Seagates's device is called the Digital Audio Video Experience (DAVE) and is based on a one-inch hard drive that'll fit 10GB-20GB of data in your pocket and communicate it to other devices using either Bluetooth or straight WiFi networking. Seagate intends to show the device at the Demo 2007 trade show and begin supplying it to cell phone makers this year. Won't be alone, however, as other companies are into this, including Motorola. Hopefully, they won't do anything stupid and try and make devices like this that only work with certain phones. (Source: InfoWorld)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 1/30

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:08:08 GMT

Tech Fact of the Day: It's Vista day (see below), so here's a tech fact concerning the glitzy new Windows. Vista contains a new and very smart desktop search engine as part of the operating system. This search engine indexes everything in the local folders on your hard disk. Not just file names, but also all the content in a file, the file types and even tags like those you associate with pictures. That means you'll need to do less (if any) 'globbing'. That's the term that used to be applied when you used a wildcard character in a search. A wildcard search for a file for William...somebody, used to be done as "William *" with the '*" picking up everything the system had associated with William. Not very efficient. With Vista's new search engine, you won't need those pesky asterisks anymore. Just type in William and you'll be happy.

Happy Vista Day! It's finally here, the newest, smartest and certainly the best looking Windows ever. If you live near a large city, chances are there are some Vista events happening near you. Where we live near NYC, Steve Ballmer will be at the NYC Best Buy today celebrating Vista's official release. After today, you'll be able to buy Vista PCs from manufacturers like Dell and Gateway, or just buy the operating system in a box from Best Buy, CompUSA or other stores and upgrade your PC yourself. (Source: MSNBC)
Want a robot parking your car? Guess that's a thorny question for those with expensive wheels, which includes any New Yorkers who have cars since parking spaces in the city cost as much as apartments elsewhere. But those same New Yorkers will have to ask themselves that question because Chinatown is getting the city's first robot-operated parking garage. The question is serious because other US cities have tried it and there have been problems...like robots dropping cars or even losing them. You think New Yorkers are rude now...wait until your drop one of their Porsches. The Chinatown garage says its systems are the latest and won't have those problems, but...(Source: MSNBC)
More Hubble trouble. That poor telescope just won't stop suffering. Seems the scope had an electrical short earlier this month and switched itself into a safe mode. It's still operational, basically, but two out of three camera systems have taken bad hits. Means that deep space peeking is going to be down for a time until NASA can make repairs. (Source: USA Today)
eBay gives Second Lifers exemption. For the last few years, virtual items have been banned from eBay. Used to be, folks would create a virtual character in World of Warcraft, for instance, run him up in levels and treasure and then sell the puppy to folks who...didn't have time to have their own fun, I suppose. You can still do that, just not on eBay. It banned selling anything that wasn't real in this world. But the company backtracked a bit yesterday and offered an exemption to the Second Life crowd, allowing those folks to sell their virtual wares here in meatspace. For whatever that's worth, though you'll need to sell it in this world's currency, not Second Life dollars. (Source: BetaNews)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 1/29

Mon, 29 Jan 2007 07:00:26 GMT

Tech Fact of the Day: Ever wonder what they're talking about when they tell you to flash your 'firmware'? This refers to a type of memory--the kind that can hold data without constant electricity. Includes stuff like flash (what's in your lil USB drives) but also PROMs, EPROMs and EEPROMs. These are more mature firmware memory technologies that are used to store things like system BIOS and other hardware-critical bits of software--stuff on your motherboard rather than your hard disk. Updating this stuff means doing a quick reprogramming job on the chip--usually all automated when you download the new firmware from whomever sold you the PC.

Need scalped Superbowl tix? Go online. Seems that while scalping tickets to major entertainment and sporting events from under a trenchcoat in front of the stadium can still get you pinched, scalping those same tickets via the Web is a booming business. Folks are dropping thousands of bucks this way using dedicated scalping sites or classified services like eBay or Craigslist. Just make sure your tickets are genuine. (Source: MSNBC)
YouTube ups ante with revenue sharing. It's the next logical step. Instead of just offering you the ability to upload your stuff and let people see it while hoarding all the ad revenue for itself, YouTube wants to hold on to its leadership position by giving folks who submit videos a piece of the pie. So the more hits your video gets, the more ad revenues you get. Wonder if anyone will ever really get rich this way--maybe become an online Hollywood..without the Hollywood. (Source: MSNBC)
Block the sun?! Okay, it's a UK rag writing this so take it with a grain of salt, but it's at least surface-true. Seems the US Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has asked US scientists to come up with ways to block the sun. Yeah, your read right. From giant space-mounted mirrors to huge clouds of reflective particles dropped into the atmosphere, the goal is to reflect back about 1% of the sun's light. Which they estimate will make up for man-made greenhouse effects in about 400 years. Can anyone say 'pointless'? And at least a little crazy? (Source: Sunday Mirror UK)
Security filtering gets personal. Businesses have been relying on outsourced security services for several years. For email, for example, they don't install virus and spam checkers on their servers. Many companies simply have all their email routed through an outside expert service like Postini, and those guys do state of the art security checking before passing the email to the proper recipients. Cheap and way better than regular software because it's constantly updated by Postini guys who do nothing but deal with email security. Well, these types of services will become available for individual users this year, starting with Earthlink's Attack Shield. This is a pretty advanced offering that will actually look for unauthorized intrusions on your computer and home network--accounts that are strange or software that's misbehaving. Hey, online security is getting worse buy the minute, so $24/year for this kind of stuff could be a real bargain. Expect Microsoft to have a Live service along these lines real soon, too, since they already have all the services in place. (Source: NY Times Online)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 1/26

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 06:03:03 GMT

Tech Fact(s) of the Day: Semi-little-known Internet facts. The Web is the fastest-growing communications technology in history. Radio took 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million. TV needed 13 years. The Internet took only 4 years. Smoke signals and carrier pigeons never even got to 50 million.

Next week is Vista week. It's finally here. Next Tuesday, Microsoft officially releases their Vista operating system to all of us unwashed masses. If that worries people who want to stick with XP for a while, don't sweat pet. Microsoft just extended support for XP even beyond the supposed end date of April 2009. Five years beyond, apparently, and if you haven't upgraded by then, you're dead anyway. (Source: MSNBC)
Wii love the news. Yes we do, and so does Nintendo's Wii, which is touting its Internet connectivity in an effort to compete with the xBox and PS3 in that department. Everyone knows they're cheaper, many think it's because the Wii doesn't talk Web. But it does, and to prove it, Nintendo is doing a deal with Associated Press to serve up news feeds on the Wii. Of course, if you're using a Wii, then your television is already on, so couldn't you just turn on the...news? (Source: MSNBC)
Fox goes after YouTube. Those Fox broadcasting folks served the YouTube dudes with a subpoena which demanded that the company reveal the identity of a user who uploaded entire episodes of "24" and "The Simpsons". See, dude, that's what BitTorrent is for. Or Usenet if you really want to keep the riff raff away. (Source: The Register)
No WiFi on planes in the near future. Be nice if you could just hook into a wireless network when you were on an airplane wouldn't it? Just like you do when you're sucking down unhealthy amounts of caffeine at Starbucks. Good idea, and Boeing was all set to deliver it, pumped out loads of press releases about the concept, got us all excited; but now that dream is dead. The 787 Dreamliner plane was supposed to deliver that service, but it apparently stumped Boeing's engineers for so long that they just threw their hands up and dropped the idea. Maybe next time. (Source: BetaNews)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 1/25

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 06:04:13 GMT

Tech Fact of the Day: Gonna have to change this to "Tech Definition of the Day". Today it's DirectX. What is it and why do you care? DirectX is a graphics technology from Microsoft that first started under Windows 95, back when the world was flat. DirectX amounts to a set of fetures and technologies for developers to take advantage of those features. Big-time important for games, and you can see the latest DirectX hard at work in next week's Vista release.

Wikipedia in the middle of paid content uproar. This broke a few days ago. Seems Microsoft wanted to pay a semi-well-known blogger to modify some articles on Wikipedia that it felt were inaccurate about some technologies with which it was involved. Story got out, uproar...roared, and Microsoft backed off. But once folks calmed down, the question was suddenly raised: why is it so bad to hire a professional writer to do your Wikipedia content? If it's open to anyone, why only to amateurs and even if that was a good idea (which I personally don't think it is), how could that possibly be controlled? (Source: MSNBC)
HP wants to get into gaming. We'll see. But in a typical tit-for-tat move, Dell purchased Alienware, so a few months later, HP bought Voodoo PC and made its CEO their CTO of HP's new and previosuly non-existant gaming division. That worthy's name is Rahul Sood and he wants HP to intro a whole slew of new gaming machines. No word on an HP console, tho. (Source: The Inquirer)
Free T-Mobile access for Vista users. Hey, Vista is finally here (next week) and Microsoft is going to milk it for as long as it can. One promo being offered: If you're running a legal copy of Vista, you get free T-Mobile Hotspot wireless Internet access for free--for 90 days. Makes Vista users happy as well as the folks who work for T-Mobile, Starbucks, Borders Books, Hyatt Hotels and other businesses that rely on T-Mobile. And considering that Vista's wireless networking is now pretty solid, this promo will actually be worth something. (Source: BetaNews)
Olympus intros Superzoom. Well, first they introed six new digicams. But since that doesn't really blow up most customers' skirts anymore, they also introduced a new superzoom feature. This is only available on select models, but it's the first 18X optical zoom lens. Really see your girlfriend's nose pores with that sucker. (Source: PC Mag)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 1/24

Wed, 24 Jan 2007 05:15:41 GMT

20% less consumption of fossil fuels over the next ten years. Is that really going to be enough to do something about the fact that it was 65 degrees in NJ just two weeks ago? Just askin.

Tech Fact of the Day: Verizon is advertising it like crazy here and people keep asking me: Fiber Optics. The basis of Verizon's FiOS service--combining phone, Internet and TV over one cable. The reason this needs to be based on optical fiber is because that's the only cable with enough bandwidth to handle such a large amount of stuff. And the reason it's got so much more bandwidth than other cables is because it's based on light--light modulated in a digital fashion allows optical fiber to carry untold gigabits of data and to carry them over long distances. Downside? It's expensive, which is why it's going to take a while to get into everyone's home. So now you know.

And ABC News gets report that partially answers my question above. They got their grubbers on a report with the opinions of 2000 worldwide scientists on the effects and causes of global warming. Causes? Us, meaning humans. Effects? No glaciers, bad storms, hotter days. Cures? None known, but 20% less gas use over 10 years isn't one of them. (Source: ABC News)
New player in the Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD war: Porn. Turns out all the posturing by Sony, HP, Toshiba, Microsoft and other corporate giants on who gets to win the hi-def DVD format war may have all been hot air. The real determiner will be what consumers will buy. And it turns out they buy a lot--a WHOLE lot--of porn on DVDs. And, apparently, hi-def porn is...well, hi-def, I guess. So if the porn industry decides to stick with HD DVD, as is rumored, it may kill Blu-Ray no matter what Sony does. Unless Sony opens its own porn division. Now THAT would be an interesting move. (Source: Fox News)
Scrybe pushes Web 2.0 boundaries. It's a new online calendar, scheduler and and organizer. Scrybe is based on Adobe Flash 9, and it's reportedly the sexiest Web 2.0 application thus far available. Eye candy, eye candy, eye candy. Beta membership is free, but you'll be paying later. (Source: InfoWorld)
OneCare gets updated for Vista. Gee, you'd figure they'd have done this by now. But the new "Vista-ready' version of OneCare has reportedly been finished and will be released on January 30, just in time for the official Vista launch. Man, what are they going to write about after this thing finally gets released?! (Source: PC World)

Posted by Oliver

Today in Tech; 1/23

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 07:47:45 GMT

Tech Fact of the Day: You've heard the term in sci fi movies. But what exactly is a neural network? Advanced computing, that's what. It's a computer system that's based on a modeling technique that is in turn based on how biological organisms work. So the system starts out as a series of compute elements connected randomly. These elements then learn how to most efficiently accomplish the task in front of them and change their behavior to suit. Not quite artificial intelligence, but getting there.

MySpace to issue amber alerts. Man, these guys are working overtime to head off those lawsuits. First they announce a sex offender-aware member search, and now they're saying they're going to issue amber alerts to local members. Amber alerts are law enforcement warnings in local areas when a child is discovered missing. (Source: MSNBC)
New music store ignores DRM. There's a new music store in town. It's called Other Music and it's differentiating itself from the other digi-tune-hawking hordes by only selling high-quality MP3s that are from Pitchfork-friendly (an online collaborative music network) bands and don't use DRM of any kind. Hey, let's hope it's a trend. (Source: MSN Tech & Gadgets)
Vonage gets local on pricing. Beset by free voice-over-IP competition, the biggest for-profit VoIP provider, Vonage, has announced it's trading local charges for long distance. Means anyone in any of the seven largest countries that Vonage serves, would be able to call anyone else on the network for the price of a local call. Love anything to do with lower costs. (Source: BetaNews)
Europeans take aim at iTunes. Even amidst the hullabaloo about the iPhone, consumers in Germany, France, Norway and Finland are joining forces against the tight ties twixt iTunes and iPods. They're pushing for Apple to make iTunes an independent music service that doesn't require its customers to use an iPod. And they're convincing similar groups in Denmark, Sweden and the UK. Could be trouble in the Orchard in '07. (Source: InfoWorld)

Posted by Oliver