An anonymous reader writes "2009 is the 400th anniversary of Galileo's observations of Venus, Saturn and Jupiter published in Sidereus Nuncius ('Starry Messenger'). To improve scientific literacy, the NOAO and NASA are promoting dark-sky initiatives in 2009 to draw attention to the problem of light pollution which obscures nearly all night sky colors and objects except for the moon and a few bright stars and planets. Project Illuminati is a Flickr project by James Cann to showcase the beauty of light pollution to raise awareness and educate fellow Earthmates to lower energy consumption and become more curious about our place in the universe."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Warren Buffet's famous quote is that "It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who's been swimming naked." Over the past few months, the tide has been going out with a vengeance, and we're certainly discovering plenty of folks swimming naked. The latest, of course, is Satyam, the Indian tech company whose CEO admitted that he basically has been making up the company's financial reports for years. It turns out that about $1 billion in cash the company claimed it had... don't actually exist. That's a pretty big problem, because that $1 billion represented about 94% of all the cash the company claimed to have. Oops. It makes you wonder what, exactly, Satyam's auditors have been up to the past few years.

This might explain why the company attempted to do a highly controversial merger deal last month, where Satyam tried to buy construction firms Maytas (Satyam backwards), owned by the sons of Satyam's founders. The deal between companies in two obviously unrelated industries seemed like a pretty clear cash grab for the family -- except most people didn't realize that the cash grab was actually to cover up all the lies on the financial statements.

Of course, there are some amusing side notes to this whole thing. Just a few months ago, for example, Satyam was awarded the "prestigious" Golden Peacock award for (of all things) corporate governance. That award is now being stripped away, but it seems a little late for that. Then, of course, there was the stock analyst who claimed that Satyam was an obvious buy just after the original merger deal fell apart. Considering that the stock dropped 90% today, that seems like an awfully bad call.

Anyway, as with any downturn, it's no surprise that some of the scammers are being outed. It certainly doesn't mean that all companies are scamming, but it is a reminder that unless you're personally involved, it's pretty tough to take a company's word on what it's actually been doing with its money.

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Grant writes -

I created a replica of the C-thru AXiS harmonic table keyboard using Processing, rwmidi, and ControlP5. You can click to send note ons, or drag around with the mouse to send lots of them. Still working on getting it installed on tablet or touchscreen so I can use my fingers. If I like how it feels to play, I'll buy a C-thru. Its a good way to test a new interface without sinking 1000's of bucks into it.

Great idea for those interested in this alternative controller format. Visit Grant's blog for software download and more development info - Processing Harmonic Table 01

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WowWee usually rolls out a number of new bots each CES and this year is no exception. I've been a little disappointed in the new bots coming out recently. I'm not seeing much beyond cosmetic changes -- different characters or bot skins. New tech, that works, seems less forthcoming. I didn't have high hopes for the TrueTrack waypoint navigation they brought to the Rovio and my messing around with it has only confirmed my suspicions.

Amongst this year's toybots (e.g. Joebot -- think: male analog to the Femisapien and Roborover -- successor to the Tri-Bot), the Spybot looks interesting, a leaner, meaning (next gen?) version of the Rovio. And it's only $170. It doesn't appear to use TrueTrack nav. Let's hope the light is brighter and the camera is better than the Rovio.

Strange among this year's offerings is the Cinemin, a family of palm-top video projectors using TI's DLP technology. They're designed to plug into iPods, phones, and other media devices, to project their content. Will the next Robosapien be able to project Princess Leia's cries for help? The Cinemins will retail for between $300 and $400.

More info on all these bots and the Cinemin projectors can be found at Robot's Rule.

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One Laptop Per Chewbacca writes "Nicholas Negroponte, the leader of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, has announced that the organization will be laying off half of its staff, cutting salaries of the remaining employees, and ending its involvement in Sugar development. The organization has had serious problems with production and deployment and has been fragmented by ideological debates as Negroponte shifts the agenda away from software freedom and towards Windows. Ars Technica concludes: 'The OLPC project's extreme dependence on economy of scale has proven to be a fatal error. The organization was not able to secure the large bulk orders that it had originally anticipated and fell short of meeting its target $100 per unit price. The worldwide economic slowdown has made it even more difficult for OLPC to find developing countries that have cash to spare on education technology.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Extraordinary sculptor Jessica Joslin will premiere her new work at Billy Shire Fine Arts in Los Angeles this Saturday.

Show here: Gustav. 19"x9"x16". Antique brass findings and hardware, bone, velvet, satin, embroidered glove leather, antique steel tricycle, glass eyes. $7500.

Jessica Joslin exhibition in LA on Saturday, January 10th, 7-10 pm

The GCe2 (Gestural Controller - Exploration 2) provide a simple and elegant method for sonic control - tilt left/right for pitch, back for chorus effect and squeezing the device adds a flange. All that in a cuddly little UFO-like package. [via Synthtopia]

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Jimmie writes in about a new recurring event, Noise Night. Planned for every second and fourth Thursday of each month, all levels of expertise are welcome -

Noise Night is going to be a general electronic instrument music and noise night, not just circuit bending (you can bet that circuit bending will be a solid part of the event though). It is for anyone who enjoys making strange sounds and music, strange electronic instruments, and for anyone who wants to be around others that make strange sounds, music, and instruments.

We are going to start things off with a quick talk, and then a show and tell. So bring anything interesting you've made and want to show off. Then we will turn the irons on and start working on things. Hopefully jam sessions will pop up as well, and people will let others play with their toys.

[...]

When:
1/8 & 1/22 from 7PM till 9 (maybe later if people are interested), and then every 2nd and 4th Thursday afterwards.
Check the calendar.

Where:
Willougbhy and Baltic Hackerspace
197A Elm St.
Somerville, MA 02144
It is the door to the left of Subway. Look for the W&B sign.

Cost:
Free! This is a public event, so anyone is free to come. Donations are appreciated, and go directly back into buying equipment and parts.

- Noise Night at Willoughbhy and Baltic

There will also be a screening of the first 2 episodes of Make: television at Willougbhy and Baltic this Sunday, time is currently TBD - but we'll keep you posted.

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BDew writes "The Presidents of the National Academy of Science and the National Academy of Engineering have commissioned a study on the Rationale and Goals of the U.S. Civil Space Program. In short, the Academies are asking why the nation has a civil space program (including human, robotic, commercial, and personal spaceflight). The study is intended to provide a strategic framework for the nation's activities in space that can provide consistent guidance in an increasingly interconnected world. The members of the study committee are interested in the views (positive or negative) of the general public, particularly those people with a scientific and/or technological interest."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just one more service, I promise. A test to see if it works...

We're so used to hearing the government fall for the industry propaganda about the need for DRM that it's almost... shocking, to hear that the FTC is even willing to consider the question of whether or not it should be involved in protecting consumers from DRM. However, as Game Politics is noting, that question appears to be on the agenda of an FTC town hall meeting about DRM in Seattle in March. Of course, it sounds as though that question is just a preliminary one, as the full agenda has yet to be set. That means, it could have just been put there by a random staffer charged with filling out a few bullet points about what to talk about concerning DRM. Still, it's at least interesting to see a hint of recognition from the government that DRM has its downsides.

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Youth Radio is a terrific youth media organization that teaches journalism, production, and tech to underserved young people aged 14-24. I hang out at their Oakland studio some and always have a great time. The kids are very bright, curious, passionate, and really funny. And they crank out great content for National Public Radio, local stations, and of course streaming online. Recently, we were talking about how the media can help bring science to life by conveying how wonderful and weird the natural and engineered world can be. So we came up with Brains & Beakers, a series where I bring in a scientist or engineer to hang out at Youth Radio for a couple hours doing demos, presenting, and answering questions. The students document the whole thing and produce media from it.

For the first Brains & Beakers, my friend Tom Zimmerman was kind enough to join us. Tom is a research scientist at IBM Almaden who is probably best known as the inventor of the Nintendo Powerglove. (I profiled Tom in MAKE Vol. 4) These days, Tom's still an avid maker who builds things like electronic drum kits from plumbing parts, cheap microscopes for backyard biology, and a slew of other fun projects. Tom had a blast at Youth Radio, jamming on his PVC drum kit with the students and exploding a plastic bottle filled with hydrogen. Check out Youth Radio for video and audio from the evening. As their t-shirt says, "I hecka love Youth Radio." "Brains and Beakers: Inventors and Explosions!" (Thanks, Lissa Soep and Erik Sakamato!)

Just added a way for identi.ca users to follow the Friends-Of-Dave feed.

There's no other way to test it -- I have to push an item through and see if it makes it over to identi.ca in addition to the Twitter place. Let's see if it works...

http://identi.ca/friendsofdave

It does! Cooool.

A.B. VerHausen writes "Even though there's a whole new Web site devoted to understanding and using OpenID, some companies are dropping the login method altogether. OStatic is reporting that the 'free Web site network Wetpaint announced recently that it will no longer support OpenID as a login option for its wiki, citing low usage and high support costs as reasons.' Apparently, fewer than 200 registered users bothered with OpenID, and the extra QA and development time doesn't make it worthwhile to support. This can't come as welcome news on top of the internal issues the article mentions the OpenID Foundation is having now, too." I've actually been quite happy with OpenID, since I have spawned far too many username/password pairs over the last 20-plus years, but it's a major chicken-and-egg problem. Hopefully someone out there will build a better mousetrap ...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Erin Wilk says:

I love this video of Zoe (ukulelezo) singing a song about moustaches that she wrote for the Bushman Ukelele Contest. It perfectly sums up my feelings about moustaches - If you've got a moustache - I like you. Her latest video, Celebrity Identity Crisis is pretty sweet too - and her ukulele rendition of Nelly's Hot in Herre and the Spice Girl's Wannabe made me laugh out loud.

Each year over 100,000 people visit the Las Vegas area to celebrate consumer electronics at an event called "CES" - in addition to all of the announcements, press releases and the constant coverage on our favorite gadget sites there's been a dark cloud creeping in, there seems to be a growing resentment among the folks who cover the show - it's just not that fun any more, last year's show was all about giant TVs, and later a controversy about turning those very same TVs off.

I went to CES for years and year and always had a great time, I was attracted to the "weird" section that had Chinese clones and odd undiscovered jewels, it was almost 10 years ago that Danger had a little booth on their own showing the Sidekick, years later the Sidekick became an nationwide best selling phone, it's still one of my favorites. I remember showing friends pictures of the Sidekick, they all thought it was a bizarre little device, and perhaps it was at the time.

So, it's 2009 and on MAKE we cover very high-tech products, mostly in our reviews, green, gadgets and "news from the future" sections - this year we're going to try something new - we'll pick and choose some cool things we see around the web from CES specifically with a MAKE lens, but we'll also post some things we'd like to see or things from the past that would be great to see "CES" style. We're calling this "alt.CES" it's a little parody, a little bizarro world, a little fun and little bit about what's going on in the CES world - we'll have a few posts a day about this, if there's something you see around the web from CES that you think makers would like to check out, let us know.

---

First up, BUGLabs - last year I think they were the most interesting things at CES and this year they are announcing a ton of new BUG modules... BUGlabs are one of the pioneers in open source hardware - the source, schematics and PCB files are available for their products.

Bug Labs announced five new BUGmodules... Each BUGmodule represents a specific gadget function (e.g. a camera, a keyboard, a video output, etc.) that can be snapped to the BUGbase, a programmable Linux-based mini-computer with four available BUGmodule slots.

---

The five new BUGmodules are:

• BUGprojector, a mini pico-projector module, incorporating DLP® Pico™ technology from Texas Instruments. With a native resolution of 480x320 pixels, stereo playback and a brightness of 9 lumens, users can project videos, photos and presentations on the go.
• BUGsound, an audio module, providing a flush-mount 20-mm speaker and omnidirectional microphone with hardware stereo codecs and four 3.5-mm stereo jacks for third-party inputs, outputs, headphones and microphones. Use BUG as a portable music player, speakerphone, audio processor or more.
• BUG3g GSM, a 3G mobile radio with SIM card input, enabling BUGs to connect to any high-speed GSM network. Users can place calls, send and receive SMSes or transmit data, opening a world of possibilities for mobile and telephony applications.
• BUGwifi, a dual-function 802.11b/g wi-fi and Bluetooth™ 2.0 + EDR radio, offering yet another wireless data connectivity option for the BUGbase, while providing a gateway to a variety of peripherals such as keyboards, mice, headsets and more.
• BUGbee, a low-powered 802.15.4 radio, enabling BUG developers to create short-range personal area network (PAN) applications for home automation, sensor networks, automotive and more.

These five modules complement the initial batch of BUGmodules, including BUGlocate (GPS), BUGcam2MP (digital camera), BUGmotion (motion sensor and accelerometer) and BUGview (touchscreen LCD). And with the recent addition of BUGvonHippel, a breadboard module enabling users to add virtually any interface to their BUGbase.

This is really cool news, I can finally re-make my location based MP3 player again, the first one was made in 2002 using Macromedia Flash, GPS and Pocket PC, yikes. The way is works... you put in a playlist based on location, so maybe you'll hear "Eye of the tiger" when it known you're jogging up that HUGE hill, or maybe your MP3 player only plays bands in the town you happen to be in...

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(Be sure to keep your volume at a low level as there's a fairly piercing tone around 2m10s!)

Mike Walters modified a Yamaha PSS 140 and rehoused al the parts and functionality in a new custom speakandspell-esque case (looks like that circuit-bent aesthetic may be catching on). Thus bringing us the Mike-o-Wave. Check out more of his work @ Mystery Circuits.

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John Cartan says:

The U.S. Department of Defense has a $2.3 billion program, Small Business Innovation Research, that comes up with projects to fund. Idea OSD09-H03? Develop an AI that fools young children into thinking they are talking to Daddy or Mommy when Daddy or Mommy are off on their 3rd deployment to Iraq and can't come to the webcam.

"The child should be able to have a simulated conversation with a parent about generic, everyday topics. For instance, a child may get a response from saying "I love you", or "I miss you", or "Good night mommy/daddy." ... The application should incorporate an AI that allows for flexibility in language comprehension to give the illusion of a natural (but simple) interaction."

The solicitation includes a hefty shopping cart of "boys with toys" action: Voice-recognition and voice-interaction are required along with "Advanced” Multi-media simulation using video footage or high-resolution 3-D rendering.

Not covered: counseling fees after Timmy finds out he's been saying "I love you, Dad" to a robot.

DOD Wants parent bots to fool tots

dorkbot-nyc is tonight in NYC - The 4706th dorkbot-nyc meeting will take place at 7pm on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at Location One in SoHo. MAKE will be there at the beginning to show our preview of Make: television!

Zach Lieberman: openFrameworks Zach Lieberman will be presenting openframeworks, a cross platform c++ library for creative coding and talking about recent projects, including OF lab, a miniature research laboratory created at this years Ars Electronica, Animo, a full body stop motion animation system, Card Play, a musical instrument using playings cards and Lights On!, a performance of music and building lights premiering on New Years eve, 2009. http://www.openframeworks.cc Di Mainstone: Hands-On Get-up A quest of discovery for those who inhabit their fibers and an alluring curiosity for those who cohabit their space - I create playful interactive adornments that roam the body hiding and revealing tales that are close to my heart. A hands-on choreography of fashion, technology and performance, each piece is an exploration of human behavior. During the presentation, I will discuss a few of my recent wearable projects and share my current work in progress: Hands-On Get-UP. http://sharewear.projects.v2.nl http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7kc41dKjA1c http://www.xslabs.net/skorpions http://www.dimainstone.com Jay Van Buren & Boris Kizelshteyn: Brooklyn Is Watching "Brooklyn is Watching" is a "mixed reality" project that spans the real world and Second Life bringing real world criticism into contact with the new and blossoming world of Second Life art. In the Brooklyn gallery "Jack the Pelican Presents" a computer is running Second Life whenever the gallery is open and lets visitors to the gallery pilot the project's avatar around a special island in Second Life. Visitors can see art on that island on a 52 inch screen. In Second Life a giant sign on a tower announces "BROOKLYN IS WATCHING" and any SL resident can create anything they want on that island for the visitors to the gallery in Brooklyn to see. There is a blog at www.brooklyniswatching.com and a podcast (itunes: brooklyn is watching) where a rotating cast of artists, gallerists and art historians chronicle and critique whatever shows up on the island with a contemporary art eye and a lot of brooklyn attitude. The project started in March of 2008 and will run for one full year. http://brooklyniswatching.com

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petehead writes "The LA Times reports on regulations expected to pass in 2009 that will not allow energy-inefficient TVs to be sold in the state. 'State regulators are getting ready to curb the growing power gluttony of TV sets by drafting the nation's first rules requiring retailers to sell only the most energy-efficient models, starting in 2011... The regulations would be phased in over two years, with a first tier taking effect on Jan. 1, 2011, and a more stringent, second tier on Jan. 1, 2013.'" According to the Energy Commission's estimates, purchasers of Tier 1-compliant TVs would shave an average of $18.48 off their residential electric bill in the first year of ownership.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chris sez, "Perhaps inspired by the Spore DRM debacle of last year, the FTC is going to hold a Town Hall Meeting on the subject of Digital Rights Management (DRM) in March. They are soliciting requests and suggestions for discussion from the general public via a contact form or e-mail through January 30th. This is a great chance to make your viewpoints heard!"

Man, I wish I could be at this thing!

Digital rights management (DRM) refers to technologies typically used by hardware manufacturers, publishers, and copyright holders to attempt to control how consumers access and use media and entertainment content. Among other issues, the workshop will address the need to improve disclosures to consumers about DRM limitations. Interested parties may submit written comments or original research on this topic.

FTC Town Hall to Address Digital Rights Management Technologies - Event Takes Place Wednesday, March 25, 2009, in Seattle (Thanks, Chris!)

We've been chronicling just how badly both Hasbro and Mattel screwed up in responding to the massive success of Scrabulous on Facebook. The ridiculously popular application was attracting over 500,000 users every day and (amazingly) making Scrabble cool again, pumping up sales of the physical board game. But, of course, the intellectual property lawyers freaked out and said "this must stop." The resulting legal threats and lawsuits created quite a lot of backlash and anger (and a boycott of Hasbro games). Venturebeat is now looking at the aftermath, and shows that the fight effectively killed all momentum for Scrabble on Facebook. Part of the problem may be that the game is now fragmented, with a Hasbro version serving some countries, a Mattel version serving others and the Scrabulous makers' "modified" Wordscraper on the market as well. The end result is that each has significantly fewer users than Scrabulous had. In fact, the monthly number of users pales in comparison to the daily number of users that Scrabulous had. Great way to kill a wonderful (free) promotion that was attracting thousands of new fans to the game.

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We're going to be holding a free, two-day RepRap Build-a-thon at HacDC, on Jan. 24 & 25th.

HacDC, the Washington, DC-area technology and arts collective, is presenting a free, open to the public two-day event over the weekend of January 24th - 25th. Attendees will participate in the construction and use of a remarkable open source tool, the "Replicating Rapid Prototyper" or RepRap. Anyone can make a RepRap machine, using parts made by another person with a similar machine, and a few additional parts that can be found online or from a local hardware store. RepRap is capable of making a nearly complete copy of itself, given a small amount of (possibly recycled) plastic. Once the machine is made, the user can download designs for other objects from the Internet or create their own designs, which can then be printed with the RepRap machine.

The two-day sessions will include talks by RepRap founders and pioneers, as well as demonstrations by local experimenters who have built their own RepRaps and contributed to the development of the system. After the talks, the seminar participants will participate in the construction of a RepRap from the ground up. Attendees will complete this process during the seminar, providing a great opportunity for everyone to get some experience assembling and using a RepRap. Smaller breakout sessions on related topics, such as stepper motor function, microcontroller programming and 3D modeling will be presented, in order to provide the attendees with the skills needed to construct and use the RepRap system.

More info at HacDC.

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In order to present a high resolution map of the entire globe inside an ordinary web browser, programs like Google Maps employ the use of tiles. When the map is prepared, it's rendered out at each available zoom level, and each zoom level is divided up into a number of small 256x256 pixel squares. When the map is viewed in a browser, the map display code takes care of loading in just the tiles that are visible in the current map view, sparing the download time and processing power required to load in the entire world's map imagery.

You can think of the Google Maps display engine as a photo viewer for really, really high res photos.

In fact, you can use the mapping software to display your own high res photography. By tiling different zoom levels of any high resolution photograph, and replacing the default map set with your own custom tiles, you can use the Google Maps interface to zoom and pan any image you like. The UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis created a program called Google Maps Image Cutter that makes this process very easy:

The Google Maps Image Cutter takes a large image and cuts it into lots of 256x256 pixel images. At the top level there is only one 256 pixel square which is a smaller copy of the original image. At the next level, there are four 256 pixel squares, then sixteen, sixty four and two hundred and fifty six. This corresponds to 256, 512, 1024, 2048 and 4096 pixel square images spread over the map tiles. The application automatically chooses the depth of the maximum zoom level to correspond to the original size of the image, so zooming in any further would make the image bigger and cause it to pixelate.

The image cutter will render all of these tiles to a subfolder and generate an HTML file with all the necessary Google Maps embed code built-in. You simply insert your API key into this file, and then use an IFRAME tag in your site to embed the map HTML. The end result is an image viewer that fits your site layout, without sacrificing the detail or quality of the original photo.

The Google Maps Image Cutter
Put Your Large Pictures in Web Pages without Resizing Them - Google Maps Image Viewer

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(Flash video above, downloadable MP4 is here.)

Greetings from the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Lost Wages, Nevada! I'm here with the Boing Boing Gadgets fellas -- Beschizza, Brownlee, and Johnson, and Boing Boing's video team. We're traveling the floor with the BBG 3, surveilling all they review, and we'll be filing daily reports from the floor. Here is the first.

Highlights from this episode:

* So you've probably heard there's an "Official Blog of CES," right? So, screw those guys, we're more awesome. In this episode, Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (the group that puts on CES) dubs Joel Johnson the Official King of CES, then bows down to him and touches Joel's invizibul robe.

* Rob Beschizza shows us what he likes about the new netbooks from Asus, namely the screens you can swivel around to use as touch-sensitive tablets (disclaimer: Asus is sponsoring BB Video's presence at CES, but not BB Gadgets. Rob actually didn't know anything about it at the time, so this isn't paid placement or editorial whoring).

* Joel grills the everliving crap out of the poor guy tasked with representing Sharper Image here. Joel was a big fan of the early incarnation of the mega-gadgets chain store, but believes they went to hell before they were recently bought out and resurrected. Joel's advice to the new guy: don't speak to us in marketingese, please, and stop making crappy products.

* Joel talks with the guys at WowWee about a Spyball for children -- baby's first panopticon! $150 device, shaped like a play ball, includes cameras to spy on other playmates. WTF.

* Xeni snuggles with robotic stuffed animals from WowWee that respond to human touch with emotive facial expressions, grunts, growls, and body movements. Verdict: cute, also creepy, definitely from the Uncanny Valley.

* Beschizza and Joel perform the first of what will likely be many schwag booze taste tests. Today: whiskey from the hosted bar, plus tiny energy drinks some wireless networking company was giving out. Mix them together, and you get what Joel describes as "there's nothing not awful about this it's just plain bad."

Next episode: we are accosted in the dark of night, on the streets of Vegas, by inebriated Canadian chemical engineers dressed as Yeti Furries.

---

Join the discussion thread for this episode over at Boing Boing Gadgets.

christian.einfeldt writes "The Vietnamese Ministry of Information and Communications has issued an administrative ruling increasing the use of Free Open Source Software products at state agencies, increasing the software's use both in the back office and on the desktop. According to the new rule, 100% of government servers must run Linux by June 30, 2009, and 70% of agencies must use OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla Thunderbird by the end of 2009. The regulation also sets benchmarks for training and proficiency in the software. Vietnam has a population of 86 million, 4 million larger than that of Germany, and is one of the world's fastest-growing economies."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The people at the online streaming video content site Fancast invited me to write some movie and tv reviews for Fancast.com, and I've been submitting them in recent weeks (disclaimer: I'm being paid to do so, but I actually do dig the content there -- lots of weird stuff, and they're not editing my reviews or controlling editorial content at all). I think this will be my final post for a while, but I do hope you'll read, then watch, and enjoy. It's about one of the crappiest sci-fi/horror flicks ever made, THE FOOD OF THE GODS. Snip:

I don’t know who convinced a Hollywood executive to greenlight this turkey in the mid-seventies, but studio guy, if I ever find you I’ll kiss you. I first saw “Food” at a cult-movie screening club in Los Angeles — part of a film series they called “When Animals Attack.” Hitchcock’s “The Birds would have belonged in the series, but it’s just not crappy enough. The movies that did make the cut? “Bug,” about killer cockroaches (1975), “Day of the Animals,” about killer dogs (1978) and the ROFL-riffic “Night of the Lepus,” about killer bunnies (1972). Yeah, that’s right. I said killer bunnies.

While the other films focus on specific species of critterdom, “Food of the Gods” was a veritable smorgasbord of malicious mammals, foul fowl, and bad bugs. Cringe as the supersized chicken chomps on townspeople! Gasp when huge rats and wasps dine on helpless humans!

Ecology Strikes Back: "The Food of the Gods" (Fancast.com, comment thread is over there!)

Based on satellite observations, the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center reports that the amount of sea ice on the planet is the highest in 29 years, when satellite record-keeping began.

Earlier this year, predictions were rife that the North Pole could melt entirely in 2008. Instead, the Arctic ice saw a substantial recovery. Bill Chapman, a researcher with the UIUC's Arctic Center, tells DailyTech this was due in part to colder temperatures in the region. Chapman says wind patterns have also been weaker this year. Strong winds can slow ice formation as well as forcing ice into warmer waters where it will melt.

Sea Ice Ends Year at Same Level as 1979

Suw sez,

Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Over 300 people have already signed a pledge to publish a blog post, video blog or podcast episode about a woman they admire on 24th March 2009. We need 700 more people for the pledge to be successful.

Recent research by psychologist Penelope Lockwood discovered that women need to see female role models more than men need to see male ones. But in the tech world women's contributions often go unacknowledged and role models are hard to find. Ada Lovelace Day is a chance for us to sing the praises of the women who make tech tick: entrepreneurs, innovators, sysadmins, programmers, designers, games developers, hardware experts, tech journalists, tech consultants... The list of tech-related careers is almost endless and we want to see examples from all of them!

Ada Lovelace Day (Thanks, Suw!)

This is a post I've been meaning to write for some time, but this blog post, reviewing the interesting practices of bloggers finally got me off my butt.

If you've been reading Scripting News for a while surely you've noticed the graphics that often appear in the right margin of stories here. Sometimes they are directly related to the story, and other times only artistically. They are meant to invoke your own thoughts and feelings, to show you something about yourself. Whatever they are you can be sure that I found them interesting. Beyond that, what they mean is up to you. That's what art is about, always -- don't let anyone tell you otherwise. That's why artists cringe when people ask them what the art is about or say that a piece does nothing for them. They'll always come back and ask what it means to you, or say that nothing is something. They're not just saying it to be difficult (although people always think artists are difficult).

Anyway -- the point...

Many times the art I use is commercial, pictures of products. My suggestion is that the companies behind the products should make the clip art easy to find and re-use. Think of it as free brand advertising. Often it's amazingly difficult to find a clippable picture of a product. Examples. Every airline should have an iconic picture of an airplane with their trade dress, on a pure white background. TV sets or laptop computers should come with blank screens, making it easy to superimpose a picture of a dead relative or someone you want to make more interesting by putting them on TV.

The SEO and PR people are all over the place, so guys and gals -- get to work. Every brand should have great clip art for bloggers to use and re-use. It's free advertising. And you guys like free, don't you!

An anonymous reader writes "There's a new rumor that Google is developing its own router. The company won't comment on the story, but it's been in the hardware business for a while and expanded its presence with Android. If Larry Ellison can go halvsies with HP on a server, then Eric Schmidt should certainly be able to make Cisco nervous."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's something that never would have occurred to me -- using old contact lens cases to hold and organize surface-mount and other tiny electronics parts.

Small Parts Tray made from Contact Lens Cases

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We're seeing plenty of stories of old school journalists pining for the "good old days" (that never really existed), and that's exactly what the Wall Street Journal recently published with a ridiculously vapid opinion piece by a columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger, Paul Mulshine, who dismisses the entire world of bloggers and internet reporters because some people he hears on the TV and radio can't pronounce the word "pundit" properly. Beyond the sheer irony of dismissing internet reporting as being untrustworthy based on a few people on TV and radio who pronounce a word incorrectly, the guy also dismisses all new business models for compensating journalists, by saying:

The old model for compensating journalists is as obsolete as the telegraph. If anyone out there in the blogosphere can tell me what the new model is, I will pronounce him the first genius I've ever encountered on the Internet.

Perhaps Mr. Mulshine should stop listening to talk radio and actually get online -- where an increasing number of folks have actually figured out how to make journalism pay. We recently pointed out that, in the sports world, salaries for top journalists were going up, as national sites like ESPN looked to hire the best of the best.

Or perhaps he should talk to Mark Cuban -- though, I'm guessing Mulshine's old school views on journalism would have a serious problem with Cuban's recent suggestion for how to save newspaper sports coverage. Cuban points out that sports leagues need local beat writers to cover their sports, as they do a much better job than the national sites like ESPN and Yahoo Sports. Yet, he knows that newspapers are struggling -- so his suggestion is that the sports leagues should fund the journalists, while leaving the editorial control entirely up to the papers, aside from a guarantee of a certain amount of coverage in the local paper.

This is, obviously, a controversial suggestion (even with editorial control separated from the dollars), especially for those who believe in complete editorial separation of church and state. But, as Cuban notes, considering the state of the newspaper business these days, perhaps it's time to revisit that church. He also leaves out the fact that this isn't quite as far fetched as it sounds. Media companies have a pretty long history of also owning sports teams, seeing synergies between the media properties and the teams, though they've often failed to recognize those synergies (and these days, many media companies are trying to sell off the teams). The Tribune Company is trying to sell its stake in the Chicago Cubs. The NY Times has put out feelers to sell off its stake in the Red Sox (more of a fit for the NYT-owned Boston Globe). Cablevision, in NY, owns the Knicks. The concept has worked in reverse at times as well -- with much of the NY Yankees' recent fortunes coming from starting up its own media company, called YES (not to mention that before the current ownership of the Yankees, the team was owned by CBS).

Either way, the suggestion is actually worth exploring in some format. In truth, this is often what has happened anyway, with local companies buying ads in the paper and expecting coverage of the local sports teams, even when there wasn't a direct need for it. Making it more explicit, while also making the editorial controls clear, doesn't seem so unreasonable. In fact, it seems like it might make a lot more sense than the old way of doing things in that it gets everything out in the open. As for Mr. Mulshine, he also seems to be harkening back to good old days that didn't really ever exist. Nearly 100 years ago, there was apparently an eerily similar debate over newspaper business models, with people fretting and worrying about how the traditional newspaper business models of ad sales and subscriptions simply couldn't support enough journalism. While not many of the other proposed models took hold, perhaps it's time to take another shot.

And, in fact, this is part of what we believe we're able to do here at Floor64 with our Insight Community offering. Companies have been tapping into the Insight Community to generate interesting and relevant content, while ceding all editorial control to us. For example, American Express has been using Insight Community content on its own award-winning Open Forum blog discussing trends and issues related to small businesses. American Express does not have editorial control over most of the content, and the content is pretty clearly not specific to or slanted by American Express's sponsorship of the endeavor. And, as some people are noting, that blog is full of such wonderful content, that plenty of other mainstream publications, including the NY Times and the Financial Times, are noticing that such a publication really is no different than a small business trade publication now.

Except, rather than American Express having to buy ads in random small business trade publications, it gets to sponsor the whole thing -- while ceding much of the editorial control to others. Obviously, we're a bit biased here, because we believe this is a tremendously viable model, but if you read the content on that site -- or, say, the content on the Digital Nomads site, sponsored by Dell, that runs under a similar model, you can judge the quality of the content yourself -- and recognize that for all the whining and complaining about the old models going away, there are tremendous new opportunities opening themselves up, as well.

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Trailer for the 1968 movie Psych-Out, starring Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, Susan Strasberg, and Dean Stockwell.

From Wikipedia, which has a thorough plot synopsis:

Psych-Out is a 1968 feature film about hippies, psychedelic music, and recreational drugs, produced and released by American International Pictures. Originally scripted as The Love Children, the title when tested caused people to think it was about bastards, so Samuel Z. Arkoff came up with the ultimate title based on a recent successful reissue of Psycho.

(via PCL Linkdump)

The Independent Games Festival announced its finalists for the awards recognizing the best games you've never heard of (or at least I've never heard of). Brandon has the details over at Boing Boing Offworld. I can't wait to check out Q-Games's PixelJunk Eden which made the list for visual art, technical, and audio excellence. "Pixeljunk Eden, Osmos top 2009 IGF nominations"

Interesting documentary about a couple of Chicagoans who find and eat edible weeds, wild berries, nettles, purslane, apples, and other goodies free for the taking in the urban landscape.

Urban foragers are people who eat what grows naturally from a very unnatural place— a city. In this all-vegetarian Sky Full of Bacon podcast, urban foragers show us how they find food all around them. Chef-blogger Art Jackson shows us what's growing around his home in Pilsen, and then foraging expert Nance Klehm, Art and I nibble our way through a remarkable wilderness literally in the shadow of Chicago's skyscrapers.

(Via Homegrown Evolution)

A Twitter feed with the blog updates of 14 of my friends.

http://twitter.com/friendsOfDave

A dynamic list of the feeds.

.

This post is basically a test of the dynamic list. Let's see if the sucka works!

Update: It works. I have to add that having jkOnTheRun at CES makes it mostly unnecessary for me to be there. I've already learned about a new Netgear 3G router. They pretty much precisely care about the things I care about. Keep up the great work. Speaking of which, I had the opportunity to really use the new Cradlepoint router last night at a dinner party, and it works fantastically. Very fast. Super nice to just put the hotspot in the knapsack, turned on, nothing extraneous hanging off my netbook.

Instructables is holding a contest where the most amazing HOWTO, as selected by the readers, will win $20,000 worth of Craftsman tools. That's a lot of hardware. There are nearly 200 entries, from a car that runs on trash to an LED hula hoop to a six-legged robot. Honestly, all of the projects are amazing for different reasons. My vote goes to The Golden Mean, Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate's dreamy snail car that we've featured here before and I covered in MAKE (Vol. 16). Instructables $20k contest

OTL writes "You've heard the talk of 'Green' throughout the whole of 2008, but the way a product affects the environment will be a huge consideration in consumer buying habits, at least when it comes to gadgets. But, the CEA report also said that consumers are very skeptical about the green claims made by high-tech firms for their products. More than 38 percent of those interviewed by the CEA said they were confused by green product claims and 58 percent wanted to know the specific attributes that prompted hi-tech firms to label their products green."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hypostylin uploaded a few photos of a fabulous sign in a Burkina Faso pharmacy. Most of the people in the poster are suffering from horrible conditions, but the illustration for kankankan (NSFW) depicts a happy gentleman proudly displaying his newfound virility to all the world. (If you want to be as happy as he is, visit the Earth Center Store.)

In the LA Times' technology blog, Alex Pham writes about the Cobra XRS 9960G radar and laser detector, which can detect red light cameras and speed cameras.

The Chicago company does this by maintaining a database of intersections known to have red-light cameras and stretches of road with speeding cameras. The database currently has more than 5,000 intersections, speed camera locations and popular speed traps. But it's being updated twice a day by Cobra employees who are tasked with finding and verifying new locations by calling various cities, police departments and local businesses near major intersections. Due out in the spring, the detectors are priced from $389 to $439, depending on the model.

A radar detector that also alerts drivers to red-light and speed cameras

With Bill Nye's Paper Recycling Factory, recycling is literally (supposed to be) fun. Of course, DIY options abound. Either way, old newspapers are a much more environmentally-sound (and often safer) toy input than some things you'd find on store shelves.

(via Treehugger)

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Way back in 2002, Wal-Mart decided to enter the online DVD rental business, launching an almost exact replica of Netflix. Of course, Wal-Mart quickly discovered what almost every other player in that marker discovered: just offering a competing service to Netflix isn't enough to get anyone to use it. Wal-Mart had a lot of difficulty signing up customers (and keeping them once they signed up). The whole project was going nowhere fast, and eventually, Wal-Mart decided that it was a waste of time to throw more money into a project that was pretty far removed from its main business, and decided to simply let Netflix take over its online DVD rental service. This was a reasonable business move.

However, nearly four years later, a lawsuit has been filed claiming that Netflix and Wal-Mart "conspired to create a monopoly" in the online video rental market, and as a result of that monopoly, Blockbuster raised its prices. Read that sentence again. Netflix and Wal-Mart are being accused of creating a monopoly -- and because of that monopoly another major player in the space raised its prices.

If there's another major player in the space, there is no monopoly.

Besides, the folks bringing the lawsuit are going to have to convince a judge that the relevant market is online DVD subscription services, rather than any kind of home movie viewing service (which includes store rentals, purchases, internet downloads, subscription services and more). This seems like a random bogus lawsuit targeted at a company with deep, deep pockets (Wal-Mart), rather than anything serious.

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Lollyphile, makers of unusual suckers, offers absinthe lollipops. They're around $2 each. No information on the thujone content, if any.
Absinthe Lollipops (thanks, Eric Paulos!)

itif writes "This report takes a look at how many jobs you get if you invest $10 billion each in three different IT infrastructure projects — broadband, health IT and the smart grid. It argues that if you are going to be spending billions on a stimulus package, investing in 'digital infrastructure' creates more jobs than physical infrastructure (e.g. roads and bridges) in the short-term, and you get a whole host of other benefits in the long-term."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Some Nigerian motorcyclists are attempting to get around a new helmet law by wearing dried pumpkins shells on their heads. The shells, called calabashes, are commonly used as vessels for liquid. So far, 50 motorcycles have been impounded in the city of Kano after their riders were caught wearing pumpkin helmets. From the BBC News:

Kano Federal Road Safety Commission commander Yusuf Garba told the BBC they were taking a hard line with people found using the improvised helmets.

"We are impounding their bikes and want to take them to court so they can explain why they think wearing a calabash is good enough for their safety," he said.

Nigeria bikers' vegetable helmets (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)

The American Gallery of Juror Art features doodles done by bored jurors. Above is a sketch by my friend Jonathan Koshi, an avid bicyclist who was clearly dreaming of doing something other than his civic duty. American Gallery of Juror Art

I enjoyed this short video profile of Ted Johnson, an artist who makes delightful kinetic sculptures from simple materials. (The acorn vibrobots at 2:25 are terrific!) (via Jake von Slatt)

Crossword puzzle apartment building via BuzzFeed.

People of Lvov city in Ukraine decided to add another attraction for the visitors of their city. According to the artistic project it was decided to place a giant 100 feet (30 meters) tall at the wall of the one of the multi-stored residential houses. There is one interesting detail about the design of the puzzle. It looks like an empty puzzle during the day-light, but at night when special lights are on the words in the puzzle become visible with a lightly-glowing fluorescent color. The questions for this crossword puzzle are located in different point of interests of the city, like monuments, theaters, fountains etc. So people while walking around the city can try to answer the questions and writing down the answers. When the night comes to the city they can meet at this house and check their degree of intelligence.

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Spiffy face lift for an old toy...

Luis Fernando Espinal Ceballos of Colombia wanted to give his cousin's son the slot track racing set he loved as a child. But the toy seemed unbearably old-fashioned. So Luis jazzed it up with a new electronic control system. He dumped the old battery box and replaced it with a used PC power supply and rewired the entire system for tighter control. He also added a lap counter to the circuit and upgraded the cars from old Lotus models to new Porsche and BMW models.

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The DHS wants to cover America's cities with UK-style ubiquitous surveillance daleks. These are ominous curbside refrigerators bristling with surveillance gear, to be installed at every major intersection. And the only thing the Philadelphia Inquirer's architecture critic has to say about them is that they won't fit in with the quaint old buildings in central Philly.

Some signal boxes slam hard up against the walls of 18th-century houses. Others block the gracious windows of antiques stores and restaurants. A box shadows the side of St. Peter's Church, one of the city's most significant colonial buildings. And even when the big boxes find spots at curbside, their presence is impossible to ignore.

In our zeal to protect America from attack, it seems we've implemented a policy that scars one of America's most intact colonial neighborhoods.

Changing Skyline: Big boxes making us safer, and uglier (Thanks, Michael!)

I met Nicco (center) on my first day at Dean For America in Burlington, VT at the end of the campaign for Iowa. Since then we've been friends, across generations -- and I've become friends with his lovely Morra, and his puppy Rascal (pictured at the left). I've always expected great things from Nicco, but that's nothing compared to the feeling I get about his newborn son, Asa Archibald Mele (who will be known as Archie, I hear). I've only seen him in pictures, and it's probably only through knowing his family that I sense the greatness in this young man.

Born on January 3 of the New Year, in Boston, a warm welcome to Master Archie!

snydeq writes "According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, more than 35 million data records were breached in the US in 2008. Tracking media reports and disclosures companies are required to make by law, the ITRC noted a 47 percent increase in breaches last year at a range of well-known US companies and government entities. The majority of the lost data was neither encrypted nor protected by a password. A third of the breaches occurred at business entities. One in six breaches were attributed to insider theft, a figure that more than doubled between 2007 and 2008, ITRC said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scuba_SM sez, "I found this site about early firefighter's respirators. The embellishments like the decorative plaque and beveled glass on the air gauge show the craftsmanship that went into it. I think it's pieces like this that really capture the steampunk fan's imagination."

Vajen Mask (Thanks, Scuba_SM!)

Bruce Sterling's The Caryatids comes out today and it's a book I've been waiting six months to tell you about, ever since I finished the galleys in August. This is it, my book of the year for 2009, and I know that it's only February (and I'm actually writing this last August, but holy cow, it's pretty much inconceivable that anything in 2009 will top it.

In The Caryatids, global warming has melted practically every government in the world (except China) -- leaving behind a slurry of refugees, rising seas, and inconceivable misery. But there are two stable monoliths sticking out of the chaos, a pair of "civil society groups" that embody the two major schools of smart green thought today: the Dispensation are Al Gore green capitalists based out of California who understand that glamor and profits, properly aimed, achieve more than any amount of stern determination and chaste conservation; their rivals are the Aquis, mostly European anarcho-techno-geeks who have abandoned money in favor of technologically mediated communal life where giant, powerful, barely controlled machines are deployed to save the refugees and heal the Earth.

The titular Caryatids are the seven clone-sisters of a Balkan war criminal (who is hiding out in orbit in a junk satellite), raised as part of a terrible fin-de-siecle plan to create a cadre of superwoman generals who would lead a militarized guerrilla force after the environmental catastrophe reached scale. Now they are scattered to the winds and divided among the world's superpowers, and the only thing they hate more than their "mother" is each other.

And the story unfolds, taking us on a tour of a 2060 Earth where the worst imaginable things have happened and yet humanity has survived. Is thriving. Not a perfect utopia, but not a tormented post-apocalyptic chaos either. Sterling's future is one in which the human race's best and most important and most deadly machine -- civilization -- survives its own meltdown.

More importantly, the future of The Caryatids is one in which human beings confront the terrible reality that technology favors attackers -- favors those who would disrupt the status quo because it gives them force-multiplier power, and undermines defenders because the complexity of a technological society always creates potential fault-lines that attackers can exploit. And in that society, Sterling's civil society types -- who care about saving the planet, even though they disagree about the best way to do this -- do their damnedest to build stable technological societies. Because in Earth's future -- and in Sterling's -- there's no going back to the land for us. Not because the land is too poisoned, but because billions of charcoal-burning hunter-gatherers are far more hazardous to the planet than a neatly ordered world of cities in which technology is used to minimize our footprints by giving us smarter handprints.

Most importantly, the future of The Caryatids is one in which there is hope. Not naive, wishful thinking hope. Hard-nosed, utterly plausible hope, for a future in which the human race outthinks its worse impulses and survives despite all the odds.

Bruce Sterling has been one of the most important and challenging writers in science fiction since 1977 -- and 32 years later, his books are progressively better, smarter and more important. Run, don't walk.

The Caryatids

Damon calls our attention to a rather novel (and potentially far reaching) claim of copyright infringement by a real estate information company called CoStar. CoStar provides subscription-based real estate information, which companies pay hundreds of dollars a month for in subscription fees. Not surprisingly, some customers have passed around their login information to others, leading to the lawsuit. However, rather than going after them for breach of contract or theft of services, CoStar is claiming that both handing over your login and accessing the content with someone else's login is copyright infringement. Thus, CoStar is asking for the statutory maximum of $150,000 for every access. Of course, there are already questions about whether that $150k number is constitutionally acceptable, but this lawsuit seems like a stretch no matter what.

I could understand a breach of contract claim, but CoStar is saying that anyone who passed on their logins or accessed the content using someone else's login effectively made an "unauthorized copy" of the content, which definitely seems like quite a stretch in interpreting copyright law. You have to wonder if the firm in question will fight back or settle, but if this case moves forward and accessing content under someone else's login is considered copyright infringement, potentially subject to fines of up to $150,000 per instance, it could lead to some fairly nasty unintended consequences. What if you use someone else's computer and they've logged themselves into a site with a cookie? If you visit that site, are you guilty of copyright infringement? This seems to clearly go beyond copyright's intended purpose.

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This awesome mod was built by Peter Dickison and is of course meant to look like a nuclear bomb from your average action movie.

The metal working is great, let's take a look at it in more detail, shall we?

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animusCollards writes "Slate ponders a post-Steve Jobs Apple, including possible successors, and the future is... boring. '..it's certainly true that Jobs' style is central to the company's brand and the fierce connection it forges with its customers. His product announcements prompt hundreds of millions of dollars worth of free press coverage and whip up greater and more loyal fans, generating ever-greater interest in the company. ... At some point, all that will end. Jobs will eventually leave the company. There are no obvious plans for succession; in addition to Schiller, observers finger Tim Cook, Apple's COO, and Scott Forstall, who helped develop Mac OS X and the iPhone's software, as contenders for the job. But Tuesday's keynote illustrated how difficult it will be for any of those guys to replace Jobs.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scott Beale over at Laughing Squid recently posted this amazing commercial from Germany. Scott writes:

Evolution of Technology is a fantastic ad created by Scholz&Friends Group for the German electronics store Saturn that shows an evolutionary process from dinosaur robots to modern androids.

Evolution of Technology

(Shawn Connally and Bruce Stewart are guest bloggers)

eldavojohn writes "Space.com has a blog on Russia's Phobos-Grunt project designed to explore the planet further. He voices concerns about part of this exploration that is dubbed LIFE (Living Interplanetary Flight Experiment) and backed by The Planetary Society that involves sending several samples of Earth's hardiest microbes to see if they can survive the round trip voyage. Space.com's correspondent Leonard David did some legwork to ensure that The Outer Space Treaty of 1967 was being upheld as it prevents cross-contamination between planets and receives some interesting responses from experts on this mission. The Phobos-Grunt mission will also deploy a Chinese sub-satellite 'Firefly-1,' which will attempt to figure out how water on Mars disappeared. Unfortunately, The United States is not taking part in Phobos-Grunt."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I love the Naked Scientists site - they explain things so well. And snot is always interesting.

The average sneeze can propel a mucus missile and its microbial passengers at up to 100 miles per hour, hence the saying "coughs and sneezes spread diseases", and as well as sneezing there is of course nose blowing. But much to the disgust of many a reader, the vast majority of our mucus is in fact eaten! Our airways are lined with millions of tiny hairs, called cilia. These beat in synchrony to produce waves of movement, a bit like how a Mexican wave moves around a football stadium. These waves sweep the mucus to the back of the throat where it is swallowed. Stomach acid then takes care of most of the things inside that could be infectious. But if the mucus dries out and hardens before it can be ferried to the throat it can produce an unsightly bogey!

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Jenny @ CRAFT tips us off to this cool 10,000 gallon water tower cozy video:

The project, which was conceived to bring awareness to the educational organization D&AD's pencil award, used 32 MILES of Wool-Ease Thick & Quick yarn!

For more information on the project, which took Robyn Love and 6 crocheters 3 weeks of speed-crocheting to put together, please visit Lion Brand.

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An anonymous reader writes "Some UK researchers found out that playing Tetris is actually good for people with post-traumatic stress disorder, by interfering with memory. I wonder if playing Minesweeper is effective against boss-inflicted stress."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Well, it looks like after years and years of articles highlighting what an incredible trademark bully Monster Cable has been, the company has finally realized that maybe (sorta) it needs to reconsider its strategy (maybe). At least that's what I take from the news that the company has settled its trademark dispute with Monster Mini Golf that got plenty of attention when the Monster Mini Golf folks took to eBay to get out the word about how they were being bullied.

At some point, Monster Cable realized it was losing the PR battle (really badly) in this whole thing, and tried a new tact, claiming that it was just a small family business doing what it was required to do to defend its trademarks. Then it offered up a bogus "deal" whereby it pulled the lawsuit it had filed but still demanded that Monster Mini Golf pay it to "license" the name, though it promised to donate the money to charity. That's emotional bribery.

Either way, the matter was settled as 2008 came to a close when the top two folks from each company held a conference call without their lawyers present (initially, the lawyers were there, but they kicked them out). Monster Mini Golf can now go ahead with its trademark application and Monster Cable agreed to pay their legal fees. Monster Cable's CEO even issued an apology (sorta). After talking up how nice it was to work out an amicable deal in person without lawyers, he states:

I will say that this is a landmark kind of situation, as public opinion wins over what is the right thing to do for trademark protection of a famous mark. We have made the decision that public opinion, and that of our valued customers is more important than the letter of the law that requires us to prevent the dilution of our mark risk losing it.

Of course, it's not a landmark situation at all (even for Monster Cable -- who's been known to be on the receiving end of similar public relations nightmares for similar actions in the past). And, he's wrong that this is a case where "public opinion wins over what is the right thing to do for trademark protection." Monster Cable's overly aggressive attempts to block pretty much anyone from using "Monster" are not "the right thing to do" -- they're abuse of the trademark process. Public opinion was right: Monster Cable was being a bully, and it only backed down because public opinion made that clear. It's pretty weak in an apology for Monster Cable to act magnanimous for doing what the company should have done in the first place (i.e., leave Monster Mini Golf alone).

As for "the letter of the law" that only requires Monster Cable to police the use of its trademark in cases where there's likely to be confusion or dilution in its areas of business. There is simply no way that any reasonable person (let alone the moron in a hurry who has shown up at various trademark lawsuits) would confuse Monster Cable with Monster Mini Golf -- and thus the law does not require that Monster Cable stop others from using the word in those cases. While it's nice that Monster Cable has finally come to its senses, the real question is how it acts the next time this happens -- and given Monster Cable's history, it's likely to happen again soon.

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?This installation called "BB_Write" employs a Blackberry and custom hardware to create four micro environments that correspond to the keywords: liberation, innovation, interaction, communication. The project attempts to build a spatial version of the "always on" experience as the Blackberry collects email constantly and generates ambient sounds based on incoming emails from visitors to the installation and from around the world.

BB_Write

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The "Stealth" project uses a NOVA 3D grid of LEDs to display a 3D light visualization. The "piece acts as a collaborative spatial musical instrument where each "missile" of light emits sounds based on its relative position and the conditions it encounters along its trajectory." Interesting use of lighting which reminds us of several other 3D LED cube projects.

Stealth Project

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From the MAKE: Flickr pool

Peter displays his Arduinocrat pride via this excellent T-shirt design made with handcut stencils - Arduino shirt

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SlappingOysters writes "Gameplayer has gone live with their best PC hardware configurations for Q1 2009. They've broken it into three tiers depending on the investor's budget. And while the prices are regional, it is comparative across the globe. The site has also detailed the 10 Hottest PC Games of 2009 to unveil the software on the horizon which may seduce gamers into an upgrade."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ars Technica reports that the FTC is getting ready to take a hard look at gaming DRM, setting up a town hall meeting to be held on March 25th. They're currently recruiting panelists, and they say the meeting will, in part, "address the need to improve disclosures to consumers about DRM limitations." The controversy over DRM came to a head in 2008 with the release of Spore and the multiple subsequent class-action lawsuits focusing on the SecuROM software that came with the game. Ars Technica says the town hall meeting will also look at "legal issues surrounding DRM" and "the potential need for government involvement to protect consumers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This stop-motion video advertisement was made with over 300,000 illuminated candles. Pretty amazing work, especially the falling flames that trigger the lighting of the candles on the floor.

Happy New Year by Electrabel

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CES 2009: Lastly, Olympus has announced three new budget cameras; the FE-5000, FE3010 and FE-45. They all include the 'One button, one Function' design principle and a built-in camera guide for easy operation. The 12MP FE-3010, 10MP FE-5000 and FE-45 all incorporate features such as Dual Image Stabilization, Intelligent Auto mode, Advanced Face Detection and a number of shooting modes. Available in a choice of colors, the FE-5000 and FE-45 will become available in late January, and the FE-3010 in early March 2009.

CES 2009: Olympus has announced three new 12 megapixel Stylus compact digital cameras. The Stylus 9000 (mju 9000 in Europe) is the smallest 12MP 10X zoom digital camera on the market, the company says. There's also a 7X version, the Stylus 7000 (mju 7000 in Europe) and, in Europe only, so far as we can tell, the mju 5000. All three feature 'Beauty Mode' that aims to smooth people's complexions in portraits.

In the initial news about Apple going DRM-free, I saw it reported that Apple would let you convert your existing files to DRM-free. However, what was left out of the reports I saw (though, people in our comments pointed it out) was that Apple wants to charge you $0.30 for the privilege of getting rid of the DRM. Of course, you can just get rid of the DRM yourself if you don't mind going through the conversion process (though, even that's a bit of a pain). Either way, it's pretty lame to charge people to get rid of DRM. Why even offer that as an option? Are people really going to pay more?

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Can you see the stars at night in your neighborhood? Maybe not, but the Civil Twilight Collective is working to raise awareness and encourage solutions to light pollution.

Lunar Resonant street lighting is an interesting way of providing an appropriate amount of illumination to cityscapes.

Photographer Christina Seely has been doing nightscapes of the brightest locations on the planet.

A single shot takes anywhere from one to four hours to achieve the best film exposure. "I avoid shooting anything like the Empire State building or the Eiffel Tower to keep the viewer away from the idea of the post card, or from thinking too specifically about the city," Seely explains. "The photographs are all titled by their latitude and longitude. There is a key so you can figure out where they are. The idea is that you start thinking more of the unilateral impact of light pollution in the city."

Thanks for the tip, Hotlead

What is your community doing to combat light pollution? Is light pollution another form of Wastricity? Do your neighbors leave their lights on all night? Have you got lights that point all of the light down so none is wasted lighting the sky? What are the energy implications of societies lighting the night sky?

Join the conversation in the comments, and add your photos and video to the Make Flickr pool.

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Dhananjay Gadre has created another great project!

We recently built a LED spinning top with message display. Its an improved version of a similar top published by Elektor in their December 2008 issue. The Elektor top can be spun only in one direction. The synchronization required to print message on the LEDs arranged along the radius of the top is achieved by detecting the earth's magnetic field.

Our top can spin in either direction and print a message accordingly. In our improved version of the spinning top, we used 2-channels of magnetic field detector circuit placed 90 degrees apart along the circumference of the circular PCB, to provide quadrature phase output that allows the top to detect the direction of spin and thus is able to adjust the LED pattern appropriately.

The top uses a Tiny44 microcontroller and is powered by 2x1.5V AAA size batteries with a MAX756 DC-DC converter to provide the +5V power supply to the circuit. The circular PCB was made on the Modela milling machine.

Here are some photos of the stationary top:

What are your recent projects? Have you made your own circuit board lately? How about working with the Atmel microprocessors? What do you like about making your own toys or modifying the ones created by other people? Add your comments to the conversation, and contribute your photos and video to the Make Flickr pool.

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Jnkyrdguy wrote up this instructable for crafting a basic flute instrument from PVC piping. As he points out, the limited range could be an advantage to those new to the instrument - and its simple construction can easily serve as the basis for many experimental designs -

This flute design is a common one on the net, and for good reason. Not only is it simple to build, it's also relatively simple to learn and rewarding to play. It only took a month of on and of playing to be relatively proficient (meaning I could get a clean sound from the first two octaves without difficulty.) The flutes are keyed instruments and only play in one scale (without more complex fingerings) which is actually a plus when just noodling around since you can't easily hit a note outside of the major scale of that flutes key.

- Making Simple PVC Flutes

More:

Making Simple PVC Flutes

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CES 2009: Olumpus has announced two new models in its Stylus TOUGH (µ TOUGH in Europe) series of shock-, water- and freezeproof compact cameras. The Stylus TOUGH-8000 features a 12 megapixel sensor while the sister model TOUGH-6000 captures 10 megapixel images. Both cameras come with a 3.6x (28-102mm equivalent) zoom lens and feature Olympus' TAP control technology for easy operation when wearing gloves, ideal for all sorts of outdoor activities.

CES 2009: Next in the line from Olympus is the Stylus 550WP. It incorporates a robust body and boasts of being water-resistant up to 3 meters. This 10MP digital compact with a 2.5" LCD includes features such as the Perfect Shot Preview, Perfect fix for in-camera retouching and Intelligent Auto mode. Available in a choice of Crystal Blue, Pure White or Midnight Black, the camera will start shipping in February 2009.

CES 2009: Olympus has announced the SP-590UZ ultra-zoom digital camera. Trumping Kodak's 24X zoom, the SP-590UZ features a 26X zoom lens that covers a 26-676mm equivalent focal length range. Thankfully there's image stabilization to help prevent camera shake at the long end of the zoom. Like previous recent Olympus UZ cameras, the SP-590UZ can record RAW files.

Recently I have been taking apart and rewiring some remote control cars that I picked up at the town dump or local yard sales. Some of my students have also been in on the fun, and we are aiming to make them into programmable robotic cars. Take a look at the photos and see what is inside the cars.

Currently, we are working with the yellow Lego RCX's, but it seems like this idea could be worked out with just about any processing platform. Make Controller, Basic Stamp, Arduino, ATTiny or...We can give them sensing abilities by using photocells, pressure switches and other sensors. One of the thoughts that brought this on was the desire of students to go beyond the Lego system, looking to work with other materials.

The Lego connectors are good, but not very universal. By using aluminum or copper tape, it is relatively easy to make a more compatible wire connector. Students can get some experience with soldering and working with systems without having to make the entire vehicle themselves. It seems that the yardsale or dumpscore cars are a good place to start, but often they have other issues from being played with. Often the worst of them have been driven on the beach with some pretty heavy salt water corrosion. By getting a good collection of relatively inexpensive cars, there can be a good level of consistency in materials, and a greater level of compatibility in parts.

This project seems like it has some good long term potential. The gear train for the rear drive wheels is much more sophisticated than would be realistic to make in most shops, the steering assembly is pretty solid and proven, and the chassis is a great way to hold the thing together. Some of the issues to resolve are: What else can be done with the remote control radio transmitter and receiver? How can you drive larger motors with a small microcontroller?

Have you messed about with remote control cars? What success stories do you have of controlling dc motors with microcontrollers? Do you have documentation of great projects done with your students, kids or on your own? What are the possible pitfalls in a project like this? What is the best way to program the Lego RCX, Interactive C, LeJos, Logo or something else? If you had access to a group of students and a few or dozens of small, cheap remote control cars, what would you do with them? Add your thoughts and comments below and contribute your photos and videos to the Make Flickr pool.

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This is a really cool, if not over complicated, machine to make jumper wires for your next breadboarding project. Personally, I have made a lot of little jumper wires, and I would love to have a machine like this.

More about the DIY wire cutter and stripper

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nandemoari writes " Not long after we first heard murmurs Microsoft may be ready to lay off as much as 17 per cent of its workforce, the popular Consumer Electronics Show, held every year in Las Vegas, is rumored to be shrinking alongside the global economy. The Consumer Electronics Association, host of the CES, estimates that the numbers of both exhibitors and visitors will be down in 2009. The CEA expects about 130,000 people will attend this year, down 11,000 from last year. And about 2,700 exhibitors are expected to attend, down from 3,000 in 2008."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Splatbot has 1 mission, and 1 mission only, hunt for objects and give them a good squirt! It's fully autonomous and robot based on a Picaxe 28x1. I would expect an R/C version to be in toys stores in the near future.

This is the Bot08M's big brother and he's a bully! Navigating with Bot08M's navigation code and tracking objects that come into range with 4 of my homemade IR obstacle detection sensors and modified tracking code.

More about the Splatbot

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I still haven't quite figured out why people think that it's illegal to be a jerk, but there's just some part of people's brains that makes them believe that if they don't like something, it simply must be illegal. A model named Liskula Cohen is apparently really, really peeved that there are some mean people online who have been making fun of her, and she's suing Google to get the company to reveal the identity of those mean, mean jerks. Of course, in doing so, Cohen has only called that much more attention to the fact that some random anonymous internet losers think she's "skanky."

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After a long hiatus, I'm back at my podcast, and to kick it off, I'm reading my 2005 novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, "A miraculous story of secrets, lies, magic and Internet connectivity." It's going to take a while -- this is a looong book -- and I'm really looking forward to it. I haven't re-read this book since it was published, and it's been enough time that it's like reading something someone else wrote, which is really cool and fun.

Here's the Publishers' Weekly summary:

"It's only natural that Alan, the broadminded hero of Doctorow's fresh, unconventional SF novel, is willing to help everybody he meets. After all, he's the product of a mixed marriage (his father is a mountain and his mother is a washing machine), so he knows how much being an outcast can hurt. Alan tries desperately to behave like a human being'or at least like his idealized version of one. He joins a cyber-anarchist's plot to spread a free wireless Internet through Toronto at the same time he agrees to protect his youngest brothers (members of a set of Russian nesting dolls) from their dead brother who's now resurrected and bent on revenge." MP3 Link, Podcast feed link

Thanks PC magazine! There are a ton of great sites in their list!

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"Double-Taker (Snout)" (interactive installation, 2008) deals in a whimsical manner with the themes of trans-species eye contact, gestural choreography, subjecthood, and autonomous surveillance. The project consists of an eight-foot (2.5m) long industrial robot arm, costumed to resemble an enormous inchworm or elephant's trunk, which responds in unexpected ways to the presence and movements of people in its vicinity. Sited on a low roof above a museum entrance, and governed by a real-time machine vision algorithm, Double-Taker (Snout) orients a supersized googly-eye towards passers-by, tracking their bodies and suggesting an intelligent awareness of their activities. The goal of this kinetic system is to perform convincing "double-takes" at its visitors, in which the sculpture appears to be continually surprised by the presence of its own viewers -- communicating, without words, that there is something uniquely surprising about each of us.

via MIT-ers

How can art installations affect your perception of public places? Have you seen, worked on or built object following systems? Add your thoughts to the comments, and share your photos and videos to the Make Flickr pool.

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I'm not sure if I agree that the Keytar is the world's sexiest instrument, but this still a really cool project. It's a keyboard/guitar controlled by an Arduino. The website has a little more information about the build and you can download the Arduino code.

Which is the worlds sexiest and awesomest instrument? yes, the keytar. But what if you want special features on it and are to cheap to buy one of ebay? That is what I am. Cheap and special, that is why I made my own.

More about the DIYtar [Arduino.cc]

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

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Julian Kreusser is an adorable foodie five-year-old with his own cooking show, "The Big Kitchen With Food" on Portland cable access TV. He cooks others' recipes and his own ("Yummy Yummy Citrus Boy") and he's absolutely fabulous. BrooklynTwang sez, "his story is full of win - there is the coolness of a 5 year old boy who loves cooking, the refreshingness of a cooking show with an awkward host, and what appears to be some very cool free range parenting, encouraging the kids enthusiasm for something and letting him use food processors, stoves, etc. to follow his muse. I just watched an episode and it was rad. It even included a plug from Julian to buy your food locally because its better for you!"

Five-Year-Old Chef Gets His Own Show, (Thanks, BrooklynTwang