snydeq writes "Sustainable IT's Ted Samson raises questions regarding the purchasing of carbon offsets, a practice growing in popularity among tech companies such as Dell, Yahoo, and Google in an attempt to achieve 'carbon neutrality.' Essentially financial instruments, carbon offsets enable companies to invest money in sustainable endeavors in an attempt to counteract the carbon footprint they incur conducting their business. But as a recent article in the Wall Street Journal shows, measuring the value of these carbon offsets is tricky business, as some recipients of offsets say the results of their sustainable efforts would be achieved regardless of any one company's investment. 'The question of whether carbon offsets hold value just scratches the surface of the overall carbon-neutrality question,' Samson writes. 'For the time being, there isn't even a consistent approach to measuring an organization's carbon footprint in the first place. And if you don't know how much CO2 you're responsible for, how do you know how much offsetting is necessary to become neutral?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It appears that it takes FB some amount of time to recognize a feed once its been registered, but that once it does, it's pretty close to perfect at caching a feed for 30 minutes before refreshing its copy from the original.

A table that reports on the test.

Notes on the test when it started are here.

Here's the original feed and here's the Feedburner version.

I looked for docs on how to ping Feedburner, but came up with confusing and contradictory instructions, none of which worked. They all got Java errors from the server. I tried pinging using their form and through pingomatic, neither of which had any effect on the latency.

I tried adding a <ttl> element to the feed, set it to 1 minute to see if that had any effect. I'll let you know.

Update: Apparently Feedburner ignores <ttl>.

Update: I turned the test off for now.

We've seen stories of people being fired over email and even text message before, but now there's a story of a Canadian spa worker fired via Facebook (via Michael Geist). The woman still got dressed and went to in to work that day because she thought it was a joke. Using Facebook seems rather harsh, though she admits to being hired over Facebook and the firing was done via private message (as opposed to a wall post...), but it's no real surprise that a common method of communication eventually gets used this way. That doesn't mean it's not cruel, but I wouldn't expect it to be an isolated case (we've already seen legal papers served via Facebook). It's got to make you wonder what's next though, fired via Twitter? "@unfortunatesoul btw you're #fired sry"

Blaise Alleyne is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Blaise Alleyne and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Not to be outdone by her sister Kris, Carly DeGraeve sent us this link to her latest electrified Monopoly board. It lights up the four props in the center of the board when you land on the appropriate squares. She used reed switches and magnets to complete the circuit.

Electrified Monopoly - Steampunk Inspired

More:
How To - Make a secret stash box
Kris and Carly dress like cake!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Toys and Games | Digg this!

I've often considered Electro-Harmonix the coolest mainstream manufacturer of effects pedals and this new product is further proof. The Voice Box is both a vocoder and harmonizer unit with mic and instrument inputs. Along with built in reverb, tone control, and phantom power this unit provides "gender" changing options. From the product page -

The harmony processor creates 2- to 4-part harmonies directly from your vocals, in the same key as your accompanying instrument. Studio-quality reverb lets you independently add depth to your dry and harmony vocals.

The focused 256-band articulate vocoder, designed by the same EMS genius who made vocoding famous, features adjustable harmonic enhancement and controllable formant shift.

• Harmonically matches any electric instrument you plug into it
• Professional quality pitch shifting algorithm produces realistic harmonies
• The Low & High Harmony independently produces two harmony notes: 3rd and 5th
• 9 accessible programmable presets
• Natural Glissando
• Gender Bender knob allows for male/female formant modification
• Built-In Mic Pre with Phantom Power & Gain Switch
• Balanced XLR Line Output: Interface directly with any mixing board or A/D converter
• US96DC-200BI power supply included

This device seems prime for experimentation(ie - input swapping, etc), and @ around 200USD seems quite a value. Check out the "user generated videos" tab on EH's site for my examples of what the box can do - Voice Box | Vocal Harmony Machine/Vocoder Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Music | Digg this!

An anonymous reader writes "SD cards with a theoretical maximum capacity of 2TB are in development by Panasonic and the SD Association, it has been announced. The technology is called 'Secure Digital Extended Capacity', or 'SDXC', and Panasonic has announced it will soon show off a 64GB SDXC card. Using the new technology, read/write speeds are set to hit 300MBps. SanDisk and Sony are using the same standard to develop Extended Capacity cards in Sony's Memory Stick Pro and Memory Stick Micro range. SDXC utilises Microsoft's new exFAT file system — AKA 'FAT 64' — which first appeared in Windows Vista SP1, and has a theoretical file size limit of 16 exbibytes." Reader xlotlu adds a note about the "proprietary exFAT file system, which is available for licensing under NDA. There are currently no specific patents on exFAT, but its legal status is uncertain since it's based on FAT. The FAT patents have been previously upheld in court."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that more people need to donate their brains to medical research if cures for diseases like dementia are to be found and are urging healthy people as well as those with brain disorders to become donors. 'For autism, we only have maybe 15 or 20 brains that have been donated that we can do our research on. That is drastically awful,' said Dr Payam Rezaie of the Neuropathology Research Laboratory at the Open University. 'We would need at least 100 cases to get meaningful data. A lot of research is being hindered by this restriction.' Part of the problem, according to Professor Margaret Esiri at the University of Oxford, may be that people are reluctant to donate their brains because they see the organ as the basis of their identity. 'It used to be other parts of the body that we thought were important,' says Esin. 'But now people realize that their brain is the crucial thing that gives them their mind and their self.' Dr Kieran Breen, of the Parkinson's Disease Society, said over 90% of the brains in their bank at Imperial College London were from patients, with the remaining 10% of 'healthy' brains donated by friends or relatives of patients. 'Some people are under the impression that if they sign up for a donor card that will include donating their brain for research. But it won't,' says Breen. 'Donor cards are about donating organs for transplant, not for medical science.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

gregg writes "Six weeks before the nation's television stations are scheduled to convert to digital transmission, the Obama administration is asking Congress to consider a delay. In the most significant sign to date of concern about the impending digital TV transition, the Obama transition team co-chair John Podesta said the government funds to support the change are 'woefully inadequate' and said that the digital switch date, Feb. 17, should be 'reconsidered and extended.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've just posted a PDF excerpt from our first Craft book, Syuzi Pakhchyan's Fashioning Technology. The book covers everything you need to know to get started making wearable electronics, smart toys, furniture, and home decor. It's a very cool book that gives you the skills and inspiration to make some amazing things. Here's a taste of the Sewing Soft Circuits section (there's much more in the PDF):

Electronic textiles are dramatically redefining the way circuits look and feel. The increasing availability of raw conductive materials such as inks, threads, and textiles opens a new world of possibilities to experiment with, to better help you craft electronics into fabric. Circuits can now be hand- or machine-sewn, woven, embroidered, inked, or knit; they can be lightweight, flexible, and even three-dimensional. But don't throw your etchant solution and copper boards away quite yet, as it is difficult and time-consuming to sew complex circuitry by hand. For most projects, you will want to combine traditional printed circuit boards (PCBs) with soft circuits, controls, and switches. The following section introduces basic techniques on how to integrate electronics into textiles to get you started experimenting with soft circuits.

Conductive threads and textiles come with varying surface resistivity. Surface resistivity, typically measured in ohms per square, is the resistance of a material to the flow of electric current between opposite sides of its surface. In materials with low electrical resistance, electrons easily flow through or across the surface of the material. Generally, you will want to work with threads and textiles with low surface resistivity.

NOTE: There is a variety of conductive threads and textiles on the market that isn't very conductive, meaning that they have high surface resistivity. Before purchasing any conductive thread or textile, it is important to check the product's specifications to determine its surface resistivity.

Follow this link to download a PDF with a longer excerpt from Fashioning Technology's Sewing Soft Circuits technical primer, including these sections:

• Bookbinder's Knot
• Sewing by Machine
• Sewing Components with Long Leads (LEDs, Resistors, and Capacitors)
• Sewing Integrated Circuit (IC) Chips
• Sewing Components with Wires

Buy Fashioning Technology by Syuzi Pakhchyan in the Maker Shed today!

This book demonstrates how to blend sewing and assembly techniques with traditional electronics to assemble simple circuits using conductive thread, solder joints for snaps, and switches for buttons. With the sewing machine as a viable substitute for the soldering iron, you can craft a new generation of objects that are interactive, quirky, and fashion-conscious.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Crafts | Digg this!

Nyle posted this multitrack recording featuring sounds from a homemade Zinc oscillator circuit -

An electronic sound composition is made entirely of sounds produced using zinc negetive resistance audio oscillator circuits. No vacuum tubes or transistors were used to generate the sounds.

Several tracks of the zinc oscillator sounds were recorded one at a time. Some of the sounds were enhanced with the addition of reverb.

The morse code parts were sent in real time by manually keying a J-38 straight key. Yes, I can send that fast with a straight key by using a somewhat unusual technique that I developed.

Interesting research - check out further documentation of his experiments here - SparkBangBuzz [via Matrixsynth]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

Right after the election, there was plenty of talk about how President-elect Obama would need to give up email just as President Bush did when he took office eight years ago. As plenty of people pointed out at the time, this seems like a pretty silly concept. There should be at least some way to allow Obama to continue to use this important and useful form of communication -- if only to allow him some access "outside the bubble" of DC. And, indeed, Obama made it clear that he would fight to figure out some way to keep emailing -- especially via his precious Blackberry. However, the latest news isn't looking good -- as Obama is noting that he still has been unable to convince both the security folks and the lawyers that he should be allowed to keep the Blackberry. Apparently, there are times when it's not so good to be the king.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

TiltShiftMaker.com gives your photos that delightful tilt-shift look. (Above: From an original photo by Daveness_98)

Tilt-shift miniature style photos are pictures of real-life scenes that are manipulated to look like model photographs.

Now you can easily transform your existing digital camera photos into tilt-shift miniatures using tiltshiftmaker.com.

(Thanks, Bevin!)

Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets, we hit CES 2009! We commenced "reporting" (re: boozing) at CES Unleashed, where it became clear — even early into the conference — that the recession had hit CES hard. Never the less, Beschizza found a touching reason to be optimistic, and so, galvanized, we went into CES Day Two with high spirits. Live blogging was the order of the day on Day Two. Joel covered Ludacris and Monster Cable while Brownlee watched LG announce a Dick Tracy camera watch and declare life to be grim. Beschizza was there to write up Netgear's announcement of a deck-of-card-sized video streaming device. Then came Casio, Sharp and Toshiba, and Samsung... although all of the day's announcements had their thunder stolen by Sony's announcement of the sexy not-netbook, the Vaio P. Rob even got a chance to get a hands on. To finish off the day, Joel harassed some people in line at the Ballmer keynote. Today is Day 3, and the first day the CES showfloor is actually open. Beschizza rushed off early to cover Sir Howard Stringer's Sony keynote, and applauded the CEO for noting that the future is in open source. Meanwhile, Brownlee feasted upon omelettes courtesy of Dell. Joel puttered around the Las Vegas Convention Center, snapping shots of blinged out iPod boomboxes and television mounting kits for idiots. And Rob really wants this car. We're at CES for another couple of days, so make sure to keep up with our coverage over at Boing Boing Gadgets. It can only get even more random and profane as exhaustion sets in! Link

I dig Psycho Bunny's Safety Pin Tie. It's silk, handmade, and $110.

techmuse writes "Lexus has announced plans to send targeted messages to buyers of its cars based on the buyer's zip code and vehicle type. Unlike regular spam, these messages will be delivered directly to the buyer's vehicle, and will play to the vehicle's occupants as audio. Lexus has promised to make the messages relevant to the car buyers." Imagine the fun that some targeted malware could do — not that such a thing could happen to a Lexus.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ArtFall, a collaboration between Brent Bushnell and Eric Gradman @ Mindshare Labs, creates a 2D physics simulation from hand drawn art. Eric explains -

Basically, you draw on a whiteboard; a camera captures what you've drawn and inserts your art into a physics simulator. Objects are then "dropped" from the top of the whiteboard and bounce off your artwork. The simulation is projected as an overlay back onto the whiteboard.

Some interesting variations are demonstrated in the above video - of course many more possibilities remain. Hmmm ... different colored markers for multiplayer whiteboard gaming? Read on for more info - ArtFall

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

Hudson sez, "Fictionwise used Overdrive to provide DRM encrypted ebooks to their customers and Overdrive has informed them that they will be shutdown on 30 January with no reason given. Since Fictionwise doesn't have the decryption keys, they are not able to provide new versions of the books to all customers."

Fictionwise strives to maintain your purchases indefinitely, but our terms of service do not guarantee they will be available forever. Forever is a long time. We have control of our MultiFormat files and we have control of the Secure eReader format, so that gives us the ability to ensure we will continue to be able to deliver those formats to you. However, as noted above, other formats are delivered through third party aggregators. We do not have legal control of those third party servers. If those third party servers "go dark" for one reason or another, we have no way to continue delivering those files.

And publishers wonder why their customers rip books off on #bookwarez sites rather than paying for them...

OverDrive and the eReader Replacement File Program FAQ (Thanks, Hudson!)

The Consumer Electronics Show carnage continues over at Boing Boing Gadgets. Above, Lasonic's Rap-Up boombox and Palm's "Hail Mary" smartphone. Boing Boing Gadgets @ CES

Alan Kogut of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center says he and his colleagues have discovered a mysterious "booming noise" coming from space that's six times more powerful than all other space radio sources combined.

For now, the origin of the signal remains a mystery.

"We really don't know what it is,"said team member Michael Seiffert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

And not only has it presented astronomers with a new puzzle, it is obscuring the sought-for signal from the earliest stars.

Mystery Roar from Faraway Space Detected

In trying to explain why a music tax is a bad idea, I pointed out that if you start with music, you quickly have to start adding pretty much every industry disrupted by the internet. The obvious one is movies, but what about newspapers? They're struggling due to the internet, so why can't they demand an ISP tax to support newspapers? The idea, of course, is that this was a ludicrous suggestion... but apparently some people have thought seriously about it. Reader Emmet Gibney points us to a blog post on the Macleans site (the same magazine that once told us that the internet and blogging sucked) where the concept of taxing ISPs to pay for online media publications is apparently seriously suggested. It appears to be an adjustment on the already ridiculous suggestion that some folks have made that newspapers should collude to charge for access to newspaper websites. At least the Macleans author recognizes this is unworkable... so, rather than looking at alternative models, he suggests that "the only solution" he sees is to create a "royalties" system that ISPs would be in charge of collecting for media publications. Who's next? Did the buggy whip makers ever suggest a "buggy whip tax" on automobiles?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

I’m not really sure what it means that the two people I showed this Electric Bath Duckie to both said it was a good gift idea, but I really like that on the back of the package it suggests: "Please make sure you have made the right decision."

--Shawn (via Book of Joe)

Electric Bath Duck — 'One use only'

(Shawn Connally and Bruce Stewart are guest bloggers)

If this is real, it's my favorite photo so far this year. (Via Neatorama)

CNN has a series of photos showing how the stress of being president takes a physical toll in the form of accelerated aging. Above, a guess at what Obama will look like after 4 years.

The president ages twice as fast while in office, according to a theory advanced by Dr. Michael Roizen, a chief wellness officer at the Cleveland Clinic.

"The typical person who lives one year ages one year," he said. "The typical president ages two years for every year they are in office."

(Via IssTumBul)

This isn't the sharpest Instructable on the site, but I like the idea that people are starting to see what sorts of useful projects they can do with the innards from dead CF light bulbs (such as, in this case, a step-down DC-DC converter and a Joule thief).

Make cool gadgets from a deceased fluorescent lamp

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

CWmike writes "The rumors turned out to be true. Microsoft will release a public beta this week of its next desktop operating system, Windows 7, hoping it will address the problems that have made Windows Vista perhaps the least popular OS in its history. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer will launch the beta during his speech at the start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Preston Gralla reviewed Windows 7 beta 1, noting 'Fast and stable, Beta 1 of Windows 7 unveils some intriguing user-interface improvements, including the much-anticipated new task bar.' MSDN and Technet subscribers should be able to get the public data tonight. The general public will have to wait until Friday."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this week, there were a number of high profile Twitter account compromises that were made possible using a common dictionary attack technique. Basically, nothing was in place to keep an attacker from quickly submitting thousands of login attempts against an account, cracking the password in an evening of work.

One tool that can be used to prevent this sort of attack is to rate-limit login attempts, allowing only a few failed attempts per minute, for instance. One problem with this, however, is that it requires tracking login attempts. This is essentially a write operation, and doing this to a database on a high volume site is a major performance bottleneck.

Simon Willison came up with a nice solution to the problem that uses memcached. You can track a counter for requests from an IP and for login attempts against a particular account. Just create the key using a combination of the item you are tracking and the date it is being tracked against:

Let's say we want to limit a user to 10 hits every minute. A naive implementation would be to create a memcached counter for hits from that user's IP address in a specific minute. The counter key might look like this:

ratelimit_72.26.203.98_2009-01-07-21:45

Increment that counter for every hit, and if it exceeds 10 block the request.

According to a comment on Simon's blog, this is essentially the strategy that's been employed by the Twitter team to rate limit API requests.

Rate Limiting With Memcached

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in hacks | Digg this!

Gordon Stewart, 74, was found dead in his Buckinghamshire, England home inside a maze of tunnels he had burrowed through the garbage that packed his property. The hoarder apparently died of dehydration. (For a fascinating book about the world's most famous hoarders, the Collyer brothers, I highly recommend Franz Lidz's Ghosty Men.) From The Telegraph:

The Thames Valley Police Specialist Search and Recovery team, who usually deals with underwater rescues or explorations of contaminated sites, used their cutting-edge equipment to navigate their way through the rubbish, locating his body in one the tunnels. The highly-trained team carry breathing apparatus, gas detectors, analysers and remote cameras, and wear protective clothing....

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: "He was slightly eccentric, but very clever. He was just a collector. He came home with a load of cardboard boxes and lived in his own world."

"Pensioner 'entomed in labyrinth of tunnels carved into rubbish'" (Thanks, Robert Pescovitz!)

Palm introduced a new phone today called the Palm pre, it catches them up to what's out there and looks like a solid phone - there is also a new WebOS for it, I'm going to take a close look at it - but what I think is more interesting is the colorful menagerie of Palm devices starting from 1996. Enjoy the trip down memory lane... What was your favorite? Mine is still the Palm V, a magical device at the time - I still use it for hacked up projects. I also liked the III series that took AA batteries.


VeloAce - Open source Palm based bike computer.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Gadgets | Digg this!

Scientists report that people who are high on nitrous oxide (laughing gas) have more vivid imaginations and are also more open to hypnotic-like suggestions. The researchers from the University College London were spurred to conduct their study based on reports from dentists that "patients under nitrous oxide sedation are particular suggestible. A number of investigators, they write in the journal Psychopharmacology, also "have noted the clinical advantages of using a hypnotic voice when administering nitrous oxide." One of the authors of the current study is psychologist Matt Whalley, who maintains the fascinating Hypnosis and Suggestion site. From Mind Hacks (image of 1839 laughing gas party from general-anesthesia.com):

The researchers randomised patients at a dental surgery to either receive a nitrous oxide and oxygen mix, or just oxygen, with the patients not knowing which they were receiving. Two weeks later they were invited back and given which ever type of gas mix they hadn't already had.

While inhaling each gas mix, the participants were asked to complete a measure of imaginative ability, rating the clarity and vividness of their visual imagery, as well as being given various suggestions - without the hypnotic induction - from the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale.

This includes suggestions that your hands might move of their own accord, to suggested temporary paralysis, to a suggestion to experience hallucinated sounds - to name but a few.

"Laughing gas increases imagination, suggestibility" (Mind Hacks), "Enhancement of suggestibility and imaginative ability with nitrous oxide" (Psychopharmacology)

El Lobo writes "Asus' success with its Eee line of netbooks might have come as a surprise, but the company is now determined to expand the Eee brand into every possible niche and form factor. Case in point: the insanely cool Eee Keyboard, which will surely bring a smile on the faces of those who remember the glory days of the home computer. Described as a fully functional PC with inset Qwerty key arrangement, the keyboard has a 5in touch screen that displays a suite of bespoke media controls or a Windows desktop."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I've said in the past that economic bubbles aren't necessarily a bad thing for the overall economy. Afterall, a bubble (at least one in a productive area, such as technology) tends to get a lot of money thrown at some problems, allowing a variety of innovation to take place very rapidly -- effectively throwing a lot of ideas at a wall to see what sticks. The fallout from a bubble popping often harms investors who bet on the wrong players in the bubble, but the fundamental benefit to society is often positive: a lot of infrastructure gets built very, very fast, and the strongest survives (and often buys up leftovers for pennies on the dollar).

However, there are others sides to the story as well. Joel West points to a recent interview of economists Martin Feldstein and Joe Stiglitz, where Stiglitz worries that we've built an economy based on bubbles:

Joseph Stiglitz: We had the tech bubble, followed by the housing bubble. But once we fix the recent mess, what will replace these bubbles as the engine for the economy?

Feldstein: What will replace the consumer spending bubble?

(Both men): We run the risk of the economy becoming depend on constant stimulus to replace these bubbles.

Stiglitz: I worry that after two years of stimulus, that the economy won't be going on its own, and then what will we do?

Along those same lines, economist Hal Varian has written, in the Wall Street Journal, a very straightforward and clear explanation of why the economy is stuck in neutral right now. Basically, (and, yes, I'm significantly paraphrasing), there's no new bubble to invest in, so (as Stiglitz implies above), everyone's looking for the government stimulus package to basically act as an artificial bubble until such time as a new bubble rises out of the mess. And, for that to happen in a productive way, any sort of "stimulus" needs to create incentives for others to invest in productive, growth-producing parts of the economy, rather than just throwing cash at pork barrel spending projects. This is a pretty fine line to walk (especially since it's politicians who are working out the details, and they love pork barrel spending).

And, to make matters even scarier, economist David Henderson points out that recent research from economists Christina and David Romer (it's worth noting that Christina Romer is Obama's choice to chair the Council of Economic Advisers) suggests that gov't fiscal policy in an attempt to modify business cycles doesn't work. In other words, things are going to be pretty messy in the economy for a while, unless we can come up with a productive and useful bubble quickly. Anyone have any suggestions?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

I really like the new 3D desktop scanner by RealView. They have 3 models available. Unfortunately there isn't any word on price, but I am guessing they aren't cheap.

We don't see too many 3D scanners 'round these parts, so we'll be excited to hit RealView 3D's booth at CES and see what all the fuss is about. The RealView 360? 3D Desktop Scanner is being billed as the world's first desktop scanner capable of capturing objects in their full 360? topographic glory, suitable for scanning mugs, model space ships, D&D figurines, and whatever else fits on its base.

More about the RealView unveils three 3D desktop scanners

Then again, you could always try and make your own. Check out these DIY 3D scanners from the MAKE blog. Click the link for a complete roundup.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!

Here's a really nicely done drawbot, built around a BEAM Trimet spinner bot. Check out the couple of other bots they have on their YouTube channel.

bicorewalker Channel

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Robotics | Digg this!

CES 2009: Casio has announced six new Exilim compacts with some interesting new features. The EX-FS10 and EX-FC100 offer burst shooting at 30fps and movies at 1000fps. They also feature a Slow Motion View option that lets the user watch the movement of the subject in slow motion before capture. Next up are the EX-Z400, EX-Z270 and EX-S12, which feature the Dynamic Photo function to cut-and-paste moving subjects on to new backgrounds. Last comes the EXILIM EX-S5 offering a new body design, customizable focusing frames and wide-screen video recording.

Barence writes "For anyone who assumes weekday evenings are the worst time to enter the online scrum, it may be a surprise to learn that the peak internet rush hour, when average web speeds slow to a crawl, is in fact Sunday between 5pm and 6pm. This surprise fact came out of Ofcom's recent research that also told us the blindingly obvious news that actual broadband speeds are less than half of those advertised by the ISPs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Screenwriter/show-runner John Rogers has had it with the right-wing myth that Hollywood keeps making anti-war movies that flop, proving how out of touch the Liberal Elite are with the will of the peeepul. So he's written a masterful takedown of this notion, looking at every war-related film in 2007/8 and calculating how profitable they were. Conclusion: Hollywood makes a modest number of films with anti-war messages, and most of them make a decent amount of money. Then he goes on to offer a compelling account of the process by which potentially risky "message" films get made by big, bottom-line oriented studios.

The whole thing was prompted by a comment by John "Dirty Harry" Nolte, whose site offers this epithet to describe himself: "[a] right-wing, Tim Robbins-loathing blogger."Nolte posted, "Between narratives and documentaries I’ve counted 16 anti-Iraq war films over the last two years. All have flopped, miserably. More are on the way." As Rogers demonstrates, this is just not true, as a purely factual matter.

Well, first off, for a trillion dollar industry dedicated to pushing anti-War movies on America, dedicating to this cause less than 5% of the last 300 movies kind of indicates our hearts aren't really into it. Not to mention the limited number of release theaters for most of the movies we discussed. FIFTEEN THEATERS for Redacted, for chrissake. Here's a quick clue -- when Hollywood wants to sell something, we make it as widely available as possible for purchase. Crazy, I know. What sort of marketing mumbo-jumbo is this?

You'll note thay evil "Hollywood" kind of lay down on the oppression job, allowing An American Carol to be released in 1600+ theaters, and Proud American to be released in 750 theaters, and Expelled to be released in over 1000 theaters, the widest release of a documentary in history. As far as soul-crushing propaganda machines go, we are not getting the memos out, apparently.

Big Hollywood and Why I Admire David Zucker

Over at Boing Boing Offworld, Brandon points us to a fantastic forum thread challenging you to MS Paint your favorite videogame moments. "MS Paint the Games of 2008"

Amsterdam-based artist Femke Hiemstra is one of my favorite pop surrealist artists. Her phantasmagorical fairy tales entrance me with their darkness, beauty, and curious flora and fauna. I have one small original drawing and hope to someday have another piece, particularly one of her mixed media works. Hiemstra has just launched a luscious new Web site, Femtasia.

There have been several signs over the past year that movie theaters are beginning to understand that they need to change their businesses if they are to stay in business -- for example: bigger and better screens, more luxurious environments, richer technology like 3D, even making the pre-show ads more entertaining. While we're skeptical about some of these enhancements -- particularly when they're really only used as justifications for higher ticket prices, it does reflect that theater owners have recognized they have to change. One idea that's getting more and more attention is that theaters don't have to limit themselves to just movies. It's become common for theaters to show special events like concerts, or the Metropolitan Opera, that are well outside the typical fare of Hollywood films. This week, a number of theaters nationwide will show the BCS college football title game, hoping to draw some viewers away from their couches or sports bars. That might seem like an exercise in futility, but the theaters can offer something more: the game will be in 3D. Movie theaters used to be relevant because, apart from waiting for movies to show up (if ever) on TV, they were about the only place to catch films. When home video came on the scene, their position began to erode, and it continues to do so as home theaters get better and better. As a result, many theaters offer a comparatively poor movie-going experience. In addition to improving that experience, theaters will do well to un-pigeon hole themselves as movie houses, take advantage of their unique offerings, and diversify their content.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Here's a list of all of the markets that are premiering Make: television this weekend. For a complete list of stations, visit www.makezine.tv/broadcast.

Remember you can watch all of our episodes online at makezine.tv. Episode 2 will be live on January 10th at 7am CST.

Florida
Tampa-St. Pete, WEDU, 1/9/2009 Fri at 3:00 PM
http://www.wedu.org/

Oklahoma
Tulsa, RSU Public Television, 1/9/2009 Fri at 1:00 PM
http://www.rsupublictv.org/

California
Los Angeles, KLCS, 1/10/2009, Sat at12:00 PM
http://www.klcs.org/

San Francisco, KQED, 1/10/2009, Sat at 8:00 AM
and KQED WORLD (Digital 9.3 & Comcast Cable 190) Sat 2pm & 7:30pm
http://kqed.org/

DC
Washington, DC, WETA,
1/10/2009, Sat 5:30 PM
www.weta.com

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Make: television | Digg this!

Here's a list of all of the markets that are premiering Make: television this weekend. For a complete list of stations, visit www.makezine.tv/broadcast.

Remember you can watch all of our episodes online at makezine.tv. Episode 2 will be live on January 10th at 7am CST.

Florida
Tampa-St. Pete, WEDU, 1/9/2009 Fri at 3:00 PM
http://www.wedu.org/

Oklahoma
Tulsa, RSU Public Television, 1/9/2009 Fri at 1:00 PM
http://www.rsupublictv.org/

California
Los Angeles, KLCS, 1/10/2009, Sat at12:00 PM
http://www.klcs.org/

San Francisco, KQED, 1/10/2009, Sat at 8:00 AM
and KQED WORLD (Digital 9.3 & Comcast Cable 190) Sat 2pm & 7:30pm
http://kqed.org/

DC
Washington, DC, WETA,
1/10/2009, Sat 5:30 PM
www.weta.com

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Make: television | Digg this!

This two-headed calf was euthanized in King William's Town, South Africa last week. Born on a stock farm, the calf was only a day old and very weak. RIP, little mutant calf. From Daily Dispatch Online:

“When it got here it was still conscious and breathing from both noses, but it was very weak and might not have survived another day,” Rademeyer said.

Although both heads were conscious, the reaction from one of them was visibly slower than the other, she said. Both sets of eyes and tongues were moving...

“These animals seldom survive.”

Two-headed calf born in EC

Image, article via Inhabitat

A cooler Adirondack I have not seen:

Design students Jeffrey Gerlach and Andrew Stanley have instituted an informal furniture catch-and-release program. With just a few steps, they have discovered a way to construct a clever and stylish Adirondack chair using Department of Public Works roadblocks that are simple, easy-to-assemble, and instantly returnable to the urban wild.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Furniture | Digg this!

A Cairns, Australia gentleman burglarized three adult shops, stealing blow-up sex dolls called "Jungle Jane" and having sex with them in an alley. Police have collected evidence, including DNA. From Reuters:

"It's totally bizarre. It's a real concern that someone like that is out on the street," said one of the owners of the adult sex shops in Cairns in northern Queensland state.

"He has been taking the dolls out the back and blowing them up and using the dolls and leaving them in the alley," the owner, who gave the name of Vogue, told the Cairns Post newspaper.

"Police seek blow-up doll sex bandit"

TI's BeagleBoard is a great little Linux system. It consumes less than 2 watts and can connect to all sorts of things; it has an HDMI port that carries DVI-D video, a USB port that lets you connect USB peripherals such as keyboards, mice, and network adapters, an RS-232 serial port, and an expansion connector that includes I2C, GPIO, and more. (The autoconfiguring USB port can also act as a USB gadget, allowing the BeagleBoard to appear as a peripheral when you plug it into a computer).

What's more, the software (operating system and build tools) is open source, and TI makes the schematics and board layouts available as well. See the Embedded Linux Wiki BeagleBoard page for links to the schematics, board layouts, and information on using the design in your own creations.

TI sent MAKE a BeagleBoard and their latest BeagleBoard accessory, the DLP Pico Projector Development Kit. This is a version of their DLP Pico Projector that's designed for use with the BeagleBoard. Combine the two, and you've got a really small Linux-powered system that can go anywhere you can provide power.

The $149 BeagleBoard has been available for some time from Digi-Key. You can order a Pico Projector Development Kit from Digi-Key for $349. (The Pico Projector should begin shipping in mid to late January 2009).

I spent a few days poking around with the BeagleBoard and the Pico Projector, and it's a very cool system with immense hackability. If you get your hands on a BeagleBoard, the place to start is the BeagleBoard beginner's page at the Embedded Linux Wiki. There, you can figure out which cables and accessories you need, how to boot a Linux image on the BeagleBoard, and where to go next.

To use the DLP Pico Projector Development Kit with the BeagleBoard, check out this tip from Koen, which explains which kernel to use and how to configure the BeagleBoard's bootloader to start up with the correct resolution required by the Pico projector.

Here's a picture of the BeagleBoard's first boot screen projected in a semi-dark room on the DLP Pico Projector (note that upon your first boot after following the Embedded Linux Wiki instructions, it may take a while for this screen to appear, as the Linux distribution needs to configure many of the packages):

At the time I tested out the BeagleBoard, I couldn't find a kernel image that would support both DVI video output and the USB Ethernet adapter I was using (the 3-port USB Hub with 10/100 Ethernet from the BeagleBoard shopping list). But then again, I have always had bad luck with USB Ethernet adapters. So, I just used a USB EV-DO card to get online (I'll save that for a future HOWTO on the Make blog).

Here's a photo of the Make blog displayed using the Pico Projector:

And to compare, here's what it looked like when I opened the shades:

So for $500, you get a powerful Linux-based computer and a tiny projector. I'm looking forward to seeing what people make with these two gadgets.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

Jack Spine writes "Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has confirmed both to ZDNet UK and Wired's Threat Level blog that a dictionary attack was used to hack Twitter. After the hacker distributed details on the Digital Gangster forum, celebrities such as Britney Spears and Barack Obama had their accounts defaced. Wired spoke to the alleged hacker, while ZDNet UK got in contact with someone who had been on the Digital Gangster forum at the time."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jack Spine writes "Twitter co-founder Biz Stone has confirmed both to ZDNet UK and Wired Threat Level blog that a dictionary attack was used to hack Twitter. After the hacker distributed details on the Digital Gangster forum, celebrities such as Britney Spears and Barack Obama had their accounts defaced. Wired spoke to the alleged hacker, while ZDNet UK got in contact with someone who had been on the Digital Gangster forum at the time."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader called our attention to a comment reposting some fantastic thinking on the dangerous trend of believing we can own, sell or steal ideas. The comment was in response to a post on Slashdot from a college student worried that his professors were "stealing" his ideas. The commenter posted a bit from The Zen of Graphics Programming, by Michael Abrash, who among other things co-wrote the game Quake. The whole blurb is worth reading, but there are two things worth calling out. First, he points out that the idea is rarely the important part:

This trend toward selling ideas is one symptom of an attitude that I've noticed more and more among programmers over the past few years-an attitude of which software patents are the most obvious manifestation-a desire to think something up without breaking a sweat, then let someone else's hard work make you money. Its an attitude that says, "I'm so smart that my ideas alone set me apart." Sorry, it doesn't work that way in the real world. Ideas are a dime a dozen in programming, too; I have a lifetime's worth of article and software ideas written neatly in a notebook, and I know several truly original thinkers who have far more yet. Folks, it's not the ideas; it's design, implementation, and especially hard work that make the difference.

Second, he points out how ridiculous a scenario it is when everyone "owns" the ideas they came up with, and what it would lead to:

A closely related point is the astonishing lack of gratitude some programmers show for the hard work and sense of community that went into building the knowledge base with which they work. How about this? Anyone who thinks they have a unique idea that they want to "own" and milk for money can do so-but first they have to track down and appropriately compensate all the people who made possible the compilers, algorithms, programming courses, books, hardware, and so forth that put them in a position to have their brainstorm.

Put that way, it sounds like a silly idea, but the idea behind software patents is precisely that eventually everyone will own parts of our communal knowledge base, and that programming will become in large part a process of properly identifylng and compensating each and every owner of the techniques you use. All I can say is that if we do go down that path, I guarantee that it will be a poorer profession for all of us - except the patent attorneys, I guess.

Exactly. The only unfortunate bit in the piece is that he then talks about an encounter with the author Neal Stephenson, where the two talked about the importance of sharing ideas and using networks to spread cheap or free tools to unleash the next creative genius. I'm a fan of Stephenson's work, and I'm sure that he at times talks up such things, but recently Stephenson has gone over to the other side, working part-time at Intellectual Ventures, one of the worst of the worst in terms of companies that are really trying to build a world where ideas are owned and limited. It's a shame that someone like Stephenson would get involved in such a project.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

I couldn't find a lot of information about this mod but it's pretty cool looking so I'm covering it anyway.

From what I could gather this was a joint effort by some people around Europe, and sold by eBay member "puike" of the UK. It's an AMD based PC built inside of an old Russian TV, which itself is in very good condition for its age.

For mores pics and why I think it's swell, check after the bump!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Computers | Digg this!

CES 2009: Sony has introduced the Cyber-shot DSC-G3, the first Wi-Fi enabled digital camera with a built-in web browser. By clicking on the WLAN button, the user can open the web browser and directly upload images and videos online. Along with a 10MP sensor, 3.5" touch-screen LCD and 4GB built-in memory, the G3 includes features such as Intelligent Scene Recognition and Face Detection with Anti-Blink function.

Yesterday I listened to a Gillmor Gang podcast that focused on one issue -- how much time does it take Feedburner to reflect the changes in a feed they're hosting. Steve had some evidence that it was taking as much as three hours for it to reflect changes in his feed at techcrunchit.com.

Being an engineer, I wondered what was actually going on, so I constructed a test.

Here's the original feed and here's the Feedburner version.

Here's what my test does. Every minute it reads the Feedburner version and compares it against the original. If they don't match, it does nothing. When they do match, it notes the time in a log, generates a new version of the test feed and repeats the process.

I'm going to let the test run for a few hours and then make one change -- I'll ping their server when I create the new version.

And of course I'll report the results here when they are available.

A note: I ran the test overnight and got what to me are astonishing results. Feedburner never noticed the change in the original feed. Anyone who was subscribed to it would not have known there had been news. I couldn't believe this, I felt there had to be a bug somewhere in my test, and it could be that there is. That's why I'm re-running it this morning while I'm working.

One good thing about the gloomy economy -- more people can afford to buy a house. For example, for $500 you can buy this three bedroom bungalow (below) in Detroit. From Les Christie's story in CNN:

The real estate market is so awful that buyers are now scooping up homes for as little as $1,000. There are 18 listings in Flint, Mich., for under $3,000, according to Realtor.com. There are 22 in Indianapolis, 46 in Cleveland and a whopping 709 in Detroit. All of these communities have been hit hard by foreclosures, and most of these homes are being sold by the lenders that repossessed them ... In Detroit for instance, Century 21 Villa owner Randy Eissa has a three-bedroom, one-bath bungalow of about 1,000 square feet listed at just $500.

Radical cheap: $1,000 homes

While installing World of Warcraft on my Ubuntu Linux laptop (using the WINE compatibility software), I found myself confronted by this license agreement. Ain't that a pickle? I wonder if I'm bound by the license terms now that I clicked "Agree"?

Warcraft EULA under Ubuntu/WINE

GetLoFi introduces their own kit version of the popular stepped tone generator circuit originally published by the venerable Forrest M Mims III. The PCB uses a 'no-hole' design where all parts of the simple noisemaker are mounted and soldered on a single side. The kit also adds a capacitor bank and momentary switch for triggering custom bursts of sound. Check the site for more info and assembly process - Atari Punk Console 2.0 Kit from GetLoFi

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

diegocgteleline.es writes "Here is LWN's eleventh annual timeline of significant events in the Linux and free software world for the year. As always, 2008 proved to be an interesting year, with great progress in useful software that made our systems better. Of course, there were some of the usual conflicts — patent woes, project politics, and arguments over freedom — but overall, the pace of free software progress stayed on its upwardly increasing trend. 2008 was a year that saw the end of SCO — or not — the rise of Linux-based 'netbooks,' multiple excellent distribution releases, more phones and embedded devices based on Linux, as well as major releases of software we will be using for years (X.org, Python, KDE, ...)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Look! Up in the sky! ls it a bird? A plane? No, it's Visa Parviainen. Last October, Parviainen, sporting a birdman suit and custom jet boots, dove face first out of a hot air balloon high above Lahti, Finland, and took off into the wild blue yonder. Parviainen is one of a growing number of sky divers who wear wingsuits during their dives. The fabric spanning the legs and arms enables the free-fallers to glide a bit before popping their parachutes Boosted by his rocket boots, though Parviainen was able to zip along at 2,000 meters for several minutes. To build his jet-powered flight suit. Parviainen and his cohorts at BirdMan. Inc. attached a pair of off-the-shelf microturbines to a pair of old hockey skates. Fueled by kerosene, each engine spits out about 16kg of thrust Tests at a nearby university's wind tunnel convinced them that the aerodynamics should work out. The trick was figuring out a fuel tank system that was lightweight and durable enough for a twisting, turning, windswept human body. "The solution was to use hot water bottles as fuel tanks: Parviainen says. "Since they're flexible, it's also easier to squeeze every last drop of fuel out of them when you're flying."

Next, the team built a special launch platform to suspend from the side of the balloon canopy. The platform had two purposes one, it kept exhaust from the boots away from the balloon and passengers as Parviainen revved the engines before takeoff. Two, it was a "nice lounge" for the ride up Parviainen knows his way around a machine shop, souping up cars and motorcycles for racing and hacking mounts for helmet cams and other skydiving gear. He's spent the winter working on a new rev of the flight apparatus, substituting a different set of microturbines and tweaking the engines for more reliable operation at chilly temperatures. On his next flight, he also plans to wear a black box recorder of sorts "Someday, I want to take off from the ground and land too" Parviainen says, "It's far in the future, but I do think it's possible. Right now though, this is all just good fun."

BirdMan: bird-man.com

From the column Made on Earth - MAKE 6, page 22 - David Pescovitz.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Made On Earth | Digg this!

Vigile writes "A new stereoscopic 3D gaming technology has hit the street today from NVIDIA, though demoed earlier in the year, that promises to bring high quality 3D gaming to the PC. The GeForce 3D Vision technology utilizes active shutter glasses and a 120 Hz display (either 120 Hz LCD or 3D-Ready DLP TVs) to bring an immersive 3D effect to PC games. Using the depth buffer information stored in DirectX, the NVIDIA software is able to construct a stereo 3D image out of existing game content while the 120 Hz requirement gives each eye 60 frames of motion per second negating the physical detriments that were known to occur with previous 3D offerings. The review at PC Perspective details how the technology works, the performance hit your games take while using it and the advantages and disadvantages to the user's gaming experience with 3D Vision."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Shawn sez, "Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia (CDH)is a rare but serious medical condition that dramatically impacts the families of children born with it. Breath of Hope, Inc, a CDH association, recently filed a trademark request with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to own the rights to the phrase 'Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Awareness.' If successful, their trademark would prevent other CDH support and research organizations from using the term Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Awareness in their literature and in their fundraising efforts. Not only is it absurd to trademark awareness of a medical condition, but it's also disturbing that one organization would attempt to compete rather than cooperate with other organizations that serve the same families. A group of CDH organizations has started a petition as part of their efforts to prevent Breath of Hope from receiving their trademark."

Petition Against Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia Awareness Trademark Ownership (Thanks, Shawn!)

Kyle points out this one that's been making the rounds - prolific videoblogger jetdaisuke demonstrates what happens when mobile music devices join forces. In attendance at this event, we find the following devices(and their relevant applications) - Nintendo DS Lite(Electroplankton), Nintendo DSi(KORG DS-10), iPod touch(Mokugyo ??), iPhone(Bloom) and a Korg Kaossilator.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Music | Digg this!

Trent Reznor is making it awfully difficult for me to finish the presentation I'm giving about him next week at MidemNet, because he keeps on doing stuff that should be mentioned in that presentation (I may have to ask the MidemNet folks for more time!). The latest is a post on the NIN.com site (which, annoyingly, doesn't have permalinks for his posts -- though others repost it in the forums on the site) saying:

The internet is full of surprises these days.
I was contacted by a mysterious, shadowy group of subversives who SOMEHOW managed to film a substantial amount (over 400 GB!) of raw, unedited HD footage from three separate complete shows of our Lights in the Sky tour. Security must have been lacking at these shows because the quality of the footage is excellent.

If any of you could find a LINK to that footage I'll bet some enterprising fans could assemble something pretty cool.

Oh yeah, you didn't hear this from me.

posted by trent reznor at 12:56pm

It's stuff like this that makes fans love Reznor that much more. While bands like Radiohead tried to get people to pay just to remix their songs, Reznor makes it fun to be a fan. As the link above to the forum notes, the content is now available via BitTorrent, and everyone at NIN headquarters is looking forward to what comes out of it -- though, they point out that with so much high def video, it's really mainly targeted at expert users first, and amateurs are probably better off waiting a bit until other copies are made available in easier to handle formats.

Funny to see this in contrast to how Warner Music and the other record labels are dealing with online videos, where they demand money for every usage, pissing off the very musicians they're supposed to represent. Once again, Reznor is leading the way. I'm just hoping he takes a little time off so that I can get this presentation done and not have it be out of date on the day of the presentation.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

wmoyes writes "Back in September I ran into a Best Buy store to buy a Samsung BD-P2550 Blu-ray player. I didn't give the clerk my name, telephone number, or address, just my debit card. The player has sat happily in my living room without ever being networked or registered. Today I was shocked to find a package waiting for me at home from Best Buy — inside was a firmware update CD for the player. I used to think Windows Update was scary, but Samsung's update service tracked me to my house using the mag stripe from my bank card. Has this happened to any other Blu-ray owners?" Or is there a simpler explanation?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Vacamaca put together this goofy plushie mashup on Instructables.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Crafts | Digg this!

fuzzel writes "Today Google announced Google over IPv6 where ISPs can sign up their DNS nameservers so that their users will get access to an almost fully IPv6-enabled Google, including http://www.google.com, images and maps, etc., just like in IPv4. Without this only http://ipv6.google.com is available, but then you go to IPv4 for most services. So, start kicking your ISPs to support IPv6 too, and let them sign up. Check this list of ISPs that already do native IPv6 to your doorstep. The question that now remains is: when will Slashdot follow?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

?"Ping Genius Loci" by Aether Architecture is an architectural installation built from 300 radio networked, solar powered, and self-sustainable intelligent, analog pixels. The pixels are placed on a 20 by 20 meter grid and interface with people walking through the grid. Interesting way to create physical pixels, although there might be a problem if it rains.

Ping Genius Loci via VVORK

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

From the MAKE: Flickr pool

Honorary professor of electronic awesomeness Mr. Eric "ALH84001" Archer demonstrates the results of his experimentation within the world of analog physics modelling -

I designed the circuit as an excercise in understanding analog computer techniques. I found that almost all textbook descriptions of analog integrators are incomplete, lacking adequate description of how to set the initial conditions of the integrator and reset it at the end of each computation.

An obvious application of this particular circuit is to generate nonlinear rhythms for electronic music... check out Aphex Twin's track "Bucephalus Bouncing Ball" for a good example of this effect.

Alas, no schematic as of yet - but more insight into the theory and development process at work is provided Analog computer bouncing ball.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

We've certainly been somewhat harsh on Nicholas Negroponte's OLPC program in the past -- not because we don't like the idea of helping underprivileged kids building technology skills, but because of the way Negroponte has run the project from the beginning. He's acted as if he were the only one who should be working towards that goal and any competition was seen as a betrayal. Also, he took a very top down Negroponte-knows-best approach to building the laptop, which has led to significant problems within the team and with the product not living up to expectations -- showing once again that ideas are easy, it's the execution that's difficult, and if you limit the execution to just one company, you're cutting off a lot of the opportunity.

So, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that OLPC is now cutting its workforce in half, and slashing salaries for remaining employees. Negroponte blames the economy, but that seems like an especially weak excuse, given just how strongly small, inexpensive mini-laptops (netbooks) are selling these days. Clearly, there's tremendous demand out there for super cheap, small laptops. The problem is that Negroponte decided from the beginning that his product was only for kids in developing countries, and left a massive market underserved (the rather weak give one, get one program was hardly serving the market).

But, again, the point is clear: the overall market is doing a rather amazing job serving the market. They're providing all sorts of very cheap mini laptops at price points even below what the OLPC is going for. No, most netbooks don't have some of the bells and whistles of the OLPC that help it survive a rough environment, but it seems rather likely that used netbooks and newer cheaper netbooks will find their way into developing countries soon enough as well -- just as second hand mobile phones have made it. So, in the end, Negroponte's original vision may get served, but it will get served by the market and competition, rather than his own grand master plan.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Will Do This For Free writes "BBC News has a story about the only fireproof way of safeguarding your personal information when dumping your old computer: 'It sounds extreme, but the only way to be 100% safe is to smash your hard drive into smithereens. [...] The more thoroughly the better.' This sounds like so much fun that I almost feel like doing it right now. Let me press SubmitStory first."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This project, called "Reddot", reacts to human interaction in the lobby of an office building by displaying color flows in a three-dimensional plexiglass grid that tracks pedestrians as they walk by. The project uses a unique form of presence detection by projecting lasers onto people's bodies and tracking how far they are from its face, also it writes incoming SMS messages sent by visitors on its 3D display. Check out more technical details and a nice "exploded" view of the structure at the link below.

Reddot

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

An anonymous reader writes "At the International Conference on Cyber Security 2009 in New York, Evan Kohlmann, a senior investigator and private consultant for Global Terror Alert, claimed that a new breed of terrorists are using online forums to recruit people who align themselves with the mission of Al Qaeda, creating global networks of would-be terrorists."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The latest Stephen Fry podcast, "Language," is an outstanding rant on the absurdity of being a pedant about the English language, that most glorious, reeling drunken bastard of a tongue that has neither academy nor dictator to rule on "correctness" and so has blossomed into a million variegated subforms in every corner of the globe. Fry excoriates people who insist on "correctness" in language, and urges us all to speak in ways that entertain and please us, rather than adhering to some rigid, notional code (among other things, he has withering contempt for people who complain about the verbing of nouns, pointing out Shakespeare's proclivity for same, and the prevalence of verbed nouns such as "propositioning" in our everyday speech).

On the way, Fry damns the idea of traditionalism itself -- and celebrates change, evolution, playfulness and the democratizing of the tongue. Every word of this is well-spoken, well-thought-out and absolutely liberating. What a treat.

Series 2 Episode 3, Language

FOUNTAIN, an art installation by Brad Toemel, is an 8 foot tall pyramid structure consisting of assorted beer cans covered by a river of gold paint poured from the top, flowing down and outwards. Also included in the structure are tea light candles that illuminate the paint and give the piece a glowing aura.

FOUNTAIN via VVORK

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

Now, we all agree that the FCC has screwed up the conversion to digital TV for over-the-air TV watchers, especially with the "coupon" program running out of money. But, it's still pretty ridiculous for Consumers Union to ask Congress to delay the transition (found via Consumers Unions' newly owned Consumerist).

The transition to digital TV has been delayed for years. It was amazing that we finally got a hard deadline of February 2009 given how many forces were fighting against it. Part of the problem was always some ridiculous sliding scale of when we'd be "ready." But, a hard deadline was set, and now it's important to just get it over with. The end result will be much better for consumers, because the old spectrum will finally be put to good use where it can provide an awful lot of value. Yes, the transition coupon program has been poorly run. Yes, it would be better if we figured out a better way (even now) to get converter boxes to people. Yes, there are still a number of people who haven't gone out and picked up a convertor box. Yes, there will be some confused people who turn on their TV and discover it won't work, but it's a very small number of people at this point, and given how much time they've had to deal with it, having their TVs not work should be the final kick in the pants to move forward. There's simply no good reason to delay the transition yet again.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

The second phase of the Challenges beta has begun, so it's time for you to help find our first winners. The beta is going well, with a large number of excellent photos being submitted and a small number of bugs, quirks and missing features being identified. But to really understand how votes are going to work, we need a lot more of them. So we invite you to take a moment to look at the challenges, vote for the images you like and help both to improve the system and select some worthy winners.

Dane sent in this hack of 120 size film as a substitute for older cameras that use the more expensive 620 film. It's an interesting modification of the film canister that allows it to fit in the camera. I have a few cameras that use 620 film that I picked up on ebay for $1 each. [Thanks Dane!]

Literally all this involves is grabbing a knife and cutting off the extra plastic on the top of the spool, and then sanding down the lid so its about 1/16 of an inch in thickness. if it fits snuggly inside the camera and can spin, then chances are it works.

More about Using 120 Film in a 620 Camera

More:

How-to Tuesday: 1934 USB web cam

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!

CES 2009: The SD Association has announced the new SDXC format offering greater capacities and speeds. The 'Extended Capacity' format increases maximum capacity to 2TB (2000GB), from the current 32GB of SDHC. Speeds will reach 104 MB/s by the end of 2009 with a target of 300 MB/s in the future. Although it is primarily primarily aimed at the camcorder market, we wouldn't be surprised to see it become popular for holiday and travel photography.

Joe Hyneck wants to move your charger from the wall to your handbag.

On cloudless days, he wanders his neighborhood to test whether the purse, which is plated in thin solar panels and contains a lightweight battery, is absorbing energy from the sun. After three hours of direct exposure, the purse generates enough electricity to charge an iPod, camera or cellphone. (The bag will also charge -- more slowly -- if placed next to a window.) Mr. Hynek is currently working on the final touch: a small display screen that will indicate when the purse is best angled for absorbing the day's light.

From Mel

How would you improve on this design? Have you built something similar to charge your devices? Add your ideas to the comments and contribute your photos and videos to the Make Flickr pool.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Green | Digg this!

This is a really cool little robotic quadruped based on a Picaxe 28X. Make sure to check out the last video where he demonstrates how it turns. I really like the sound it makes walking along the table.

The plans started out as a hexapod with the same basic idea, but the servos I ordered for it are a bit weak so I had to do something with the three larger servos I had. The result is this little guy.

More about the SQ01: A simple quadruped

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Robotics | Digg this!

Instructables member Antibromide modded a "Vintage Edition" Monopoly set into an electrified steampunk version, wherein your pieces' movement around the board trigger electrical effects in four props in the center. Brava!

I started with a special edition Monopoly board and added a Community Chest, a water tower (for the water company), a Ray Gun (for the Chance cards), a train (for the railroads), and street lights (for the electric company). I used reed switches and magnets for the triggers when you land on designated spots on the board.

Electrified Monopoly - Steampunk Inspired (Thanks, Yehuda!)

You may remember that a couple months ago an advocacy group was trying to whip up a storm about Google's Street View service. The claim alleged that child predators would use Street View to find where children live and then kidnap them. Well, it turns out that Street View did assist with a kidnapping.

Only, not as the worriers predicted.

Instead, a smart cop was able to use Street View to help relocate a kidnapped child. In fact, in conjunction with the GPS data for the child's phone, provided by the cellular provider, the officer was able to use Street View to remotely find what he thought may be a motel in Virginia. Furthering Googling confirmed Street View and local police were able to find the child. Obviously, stories like this will be far and few between -- but so will ones where bad guys use technology in an evil way. That's the reality: technology can be good or bad, it depends on the user. Luckily, in this case, we had a clever cop using technology for the best.

Kevin Donovan is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Kevin Donovan and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Alan sent in a link to his Art deco LED desk lamp that he made. I really like how he made the base for the lamp from scratch. Check out the link for more about the build. [Thanks Alan]

I built a stylish energy-efficient desk lamp, entirely from scratch. I have always enjoyed Art Deco and Machine Age industrial styling, and was inspired to use it for the lamp when my son and I were watching Batman, the Animated Series. A desk lamp worthy of Wayne Manor was in order.

More about making an Art deco LED desk lamp Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!

theodp writes "If you say goodbye to paper and hello to green, you may learn first-hand that no good deed goes unpunished. Try to pay your final Verizon Wireless bill online after switching carriers, for example, and don't be surprised if you get a sorry-Dave-I'm-afraid-I-can't-do-that reply. Other vendors may curtail e-Bill services 30 days after you end service. And a promise of access to up to seven years of paperless statements is somewhat empty if you'll be cutoff as soon as you no longer have an account. With more-and-more companies enticing consumers to go paperless, how long a period of time should the records be made available online? Should it extend beyond the life of an account?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ryan writes in-

This could make an interesting MAKE hack. I'm sure the brainwave scanner isn't high quality but it still could be neat to take apart and come up with some projects.

Toy trains 'Star Wars' fans to use The Force...

Could The Force be with you? A toy due in stores this fall will let you test and hone your Jedi-like abilities. The Force Trainer (expected to be priced at $90 to $100) comes with a headset that uses brain waves to allow players to manipulate a sphere within a clear 10-inch-tall training tower, analogous to Yoda and Luke Skywalker's abilities in the Star Wars films.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

I've just finished watching the video of Bre Pettis's riveting presentation on Rapid Prototyping at 25C3, the annual Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin. Pettis is one of my favorite makers in the world, and this presentation covers every aspect of rapid prototyping, desktop fabbing, 3D printing (and whatever else you want to call it). From the technology underpinning it to the history of the form to the practicalities of clubbing together to buy expensive machinery to the philosophy, economics and emotional satisfaction of decentralized making, Pettis runs the whole gamut, with humor, humility, and a thoroughgoing knowledge of the subject. From automated knitting machines that go from "I'm cold" to "I have a scarf" in fifteen minutes to sugar-based 3D printers to papercraft CAD to laser cutters and robotic Dremel tools, Pettis paints a picture of a future where something can go from your head to the real world with the fluidity of a blog post.

Prototype Your Life MP4, 437MB, Prototype Your Life MP4, 437MB (Coral Cache mirror) (via Bre Pettis)

We've been noting how both the movie industry and the music industry had terrific years in 2008, despite the public perception being passed around by certain legacy companies in both industries that they were being decimated by "pirates." Apparently the same is true in the video game industry as well. Dan writes in to let us know that, at least in the UK, video games sales were at a record high, despite all hand wringing about the need for DRM and how piracy and secondhand sales have been destroying the industry. Once again, it seems like if you just put out a good product and give people a reason to buy, they're more than willing to do so. Still, how long will it be until we hear UK cultural secretary Andy Burnham declaring that the video game industry needs special protection against the scourge of piracy?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Salon's got a good, meaty, heavily linked and referenced roundup of the damage done to the US economy and body politic during the Bush administrations:

How much poorer are we going to get before we start getting richer again? Here are some (scary, morbid, gruesome) clues.

Expected shortfall of gross domestic product below normal growth path in 2009: $900 billion

Decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average from its decade high to its value at the close of business, Jan. 7, 2009: 5,394.83, or 38.1 percent

Number of manufacturing jobs lost since 2000: 3.78 million

Increase in number of unemployed workers from 2001 to 2008: 4 million, a jump of 2.7 percent in the unemployment rate

Real median household income according to the 2000 census, adjusted for inflation: $51,804

Real median household income as of August 2007: $50,233

Of course, the government didn't sit idly by while our financial future was disappearing down the drain. Instead, the feds have pumped in hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, hoping to juice lending and public spending.

Cost of finance industry bailout: $350 billion, with another $350 pending congressional approval

Cost of auto industry bailout: $17.4 billion, so far

And even though there's widespread agreement among economists that the government needs to be spending a large sum of money on an economic stimulus package, it still won't look pretty on the public balance sheet.

National debt: $10.6 trillion

Amount of that debt owned by China: At least $800 billion

W. and the damage done

Lisa Jones's Symbiosis chairs start to get at the potential of cheap and ubiquitous laser-cutters -- the backs are and seats cut with highly intricate designs inspired by human anatomy. Shown here, the Venus Chair from 2006.

Lisa Jones: Symbiosis Chair Series, 2006 Lisa Jones: Symbiosis Chair Series, 2007 (via Cribcandy)

Marvel at the spread of a botnet around the world in this 44-second time-lapse covering five days' infection activity, as measured by observing new joins to a botmaster's IRC channel. It's really fascinating how geographical our Internet activity really is -- how a bot's jump to another region (seemingly) precipitates more local infections as (presumably) local users communicate with nearby systems.

Flashy Botnet is Flashy (via O'Reilly Radar)

Here's a mashup that'll put a smile on your dial: Party Ben's Single Ladies (In Mayberry) (Beyoncé vs. "The Andy Griffith Show" Theme) is just the thing to start the day right with a vision of little Ronnie Howard and Beyonce leading a parade down Mayberry's main street to Aunt Bea's house for tea and cakes. It's part of the latest installment in the annual Best of Bootie series, which includes 33 tracks in total this year.

Party Ben - Single Ladies (In Mayberry) (Beyoncé vs. "The Andy Griffith Show" Theme), Party Ben - Single Ladies (In Mayberry) (Beyoncé vs. "The Andy Griffith Show" Theme) (Coral cache mirror), (Thanks, Adrian & Mysterious D of Bootie!)

Anti-Globalism writes "A group of hippies is complaining that a recently installed WiFi mesh network in the UK village of Glastonbury is causing health problems. To combat the signals from the Wi-Fi hotspots, the hippies have placed orgone generators around the antennae." Although there have been many studies that show no correlation between WiFi and health issues the hippies say, "Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The trade group behind the SD memory card format today announced a new standard, called SDXC, that will support memory cards of up to 2 terabytes for devices like digital cameras and cell phones. While the amount of storage that can be crammed into smaller and smaller physical formats continues to grow, the idea of being able to carry around 2 terabytes of data in a device like a smartphone still seems pretty amazing. Combined with the growth of broadband networks, particularly wireless ones, are we nearing a point where the accessibility of data will no longer be a concern? Between being able to easily carry around most, if not all, of your data and always-on broadband networks making the rest of it constantly accessible, the point at which we can easily access any of our information from any location looks to be just over the horizon. That's not to say that plenty of obstacles remain, including our ever-growing demand for more and more storage space, and the need for more pervasive (and less restrictive) wireless broadband networks, but those obstacles are becoming less and less formidable all the time.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Jenny @ CRAFT points us to a tutorial on Zakka Life for using a pill bottle, a rock, and some glue to make a stealth key hider for outside your home.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!

Collin Cunningham of the MAKE blog put together a wonderful video about the history of LEDs, along with a demonstration on making a primitive LED out of silicone carbide.

1sockchuck writes "A sign of the times: A surge in filings for unemployment benefits has crashed online application systems in four states this week. Web sites in Ohio, New York, Kentucky and North Carolina have been knocked offline by unusually high volumes of jobless claims. Phone applications systems appearing to be faring even worse in many states. The thin silver lining: States are hiring workers for phone banks and buying new servers to prop up their web sites."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As pretty much anyone in computer security recognizes, any bit of "secure" computing is only secure for a limited period of time. Eventually, the security will be cracked. Yet, we still keep hearing about expectations for some new technologies to solve all our security problems. For example, we've been hearing for years about the wonders of "trusted computing," which basically gets mocked every time some company tries to roll it out (which is why it's gone through five or six name changes over the years). The latest news is that Intel's implementation of a trusted computing offering, called Trusted Execution Technology, has security vulnerabilities that allow it to be circumvented. In other words, it's not trustworthy, nor secure. Of course, it's not widely used, either, so it's not a big deal. But, once again, there is no magic bullet for security that solves all security problems.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Ian Lamont writes "The Industry Standard has reported on a couple of projects that aim to turn the humble mobile phone into a tool that can improve healthcare systems in the developing world. While poor countries lack adequate healthcare facilities, many have booming mobile phone use, even in rural areas. One company spawned by the MIT Media Lab seeks to leverage widespread mobile phone use with a Java app that lets community workers refer patients for treatment, fill out questionnaires about patient health and send real-time information back to doctors at health clinics. Another hardware-focused project started by a group of researchers at UCLA aims to create a device that can be attached to mobile phones and test blood samples for HIV, malaria, and other diseases, and send the test results to a hospital. However, it's not clear whether most mobile phones in developing countries can support these technologies, or if local healthcare infrastructures can effectively use the data generated by mobile phones."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chris Williams wanted a small 2-stroke scooter, so he decided to make his own out of a bike and a leaf blower engine.

This was one of those projects I couldn't get out of my head. I had seen, on the internet and in person, the small 2-stroke engine powered scooters which were becoming increasingly popular. Naturally I wanted one, but I'm not the type that would just buy a commercially available scooter that will work well and last for years and be happy about it: I would have to build my own.

One of the things I like about this project is that it's a bit of a first draft. Chris documented the details of his design but notes that he ran into issues with the stability of the mount and tensioning device that hold the motor in place against the wheel. Even with these issues, however, the scooter can pull a steady 20-25mph.

It looks like a lot of fun. If you decide to make your own, this prototype should help to inform your own safer and more reliable design.

How to Strap a Leaf Blower Engine to a Bike and Go Fast

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in hacks | Digg this!

This week, the Boing Boing Gadgets crew are embedded at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Alas, I am not. So I experience their joy, sadness, wonder, and cynicism via insightful, entertaining, dramatic, and action-packed blog posts about new laptops, gaming gear, TVs, digicams, wristradios, and, er, washing machines. Boing Boing Gadgets at CES

While it's taken quite some time, the EFF has had considerable success with its project to bust ten awful patents. The latest is that the USPTO has agreed to re-examine a patent from Seer Systems involving online music. Again, the really tragic thing about all of this is that the EFF started this patent busting project almost five years ago, and the process is still in its early stages. And that's for ten of the most ridiculous patents you'll find today. Think of what a mess it is to challenge so many other bad patents.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Canon has released updated firmware for the EOS 5D Mark II. Firmware v1.0.7 addresses the 'black dot' and vertical banding issues experienced by users of firmware 1.0.6. The latest version can be downloaded from Canon's website. The company also asks users to update their DPP and Picture Style Editor software.

BartlebyScrivener writes "The New York Times has an article on the R programming language. The Times describes it as: "a popular programming language used by a growing number of data analysts inside corporations and academia. It is becoming their lingua franca partly because data mining has entered a golden age, whether being used to set ad prices, find new drugs more quickly or fine-tune financial models. Companies as diverse as Google, Pfizer, Merck, Bank of America, the InterContinental Hotels Group and Shell use it.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.