Paul server guy writes "I work at a privately funded, open source, manned, return to the moon mission — Yes really, and Yes, we really are going to put man (and woman) back on the moon. Since we are open source, we want all of our tools to be, too. What we are looking for is CAD software that we can feed into Blender (or the like) to do 3D modeling with. Many of the engineers have tried working with Blender and Art of Illusion, but have not been pleased. They want to just draw the parts, then feed them to the art people who will run them through the 3D modelers for videos, illustrations and such. What is your preference?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amazon says that it will accept publisher Macmillan's preferred publishing and distribution model.

We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan's terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books.

The battle over pricing conceals a more intricate and important one over Amazon's place in the book-buying ecosystem [Charles Stross]. Announcement: Macmillan E-books [Amazon] Previously: Amazon and Macmillan go to war: readers and writers are the civilian casualties; Macmillan CEO on Amazon deletepocalypse; Scalzi and MacMillan v. Amazon

When I woke this morning at 5AM UK time, I discovered an in-box full of emails from people asking if I knew what was going on with Amazon. My books -- and all books from Macmillan and its many divisions, including Tor, my publisher -- had disappeared from the Amazon webstore in both physical and electronic editions.

The New York Times quotes an industry insider as saying that Amazon pulled these books in retaliation for a demand from Macmillan to raise the price of Kindle books from $10 to $15. Presumably, Amazon perceives the $10 price-tag as a way of encouraging people to buy its Kindle platform, which itself is a kind of roach-motel for books: the license terms and DRM on the books in the Kindle store prohibit you from reading your Kindle books on competing devices. So books check in, but they don't check out.

(I believe that Amazon's terms, patents and trade-secrets also prohibit its rivals from making software that converts or renders Kindle books for that purpose. I have asked Amazon whether this was true on more than ten occasions over the past several years, in my capacity as a writer, publisher, and columnist for the Guardian and Publishers Weekly, but they refuse to answer.)

If the NYT's report is true, then this is a case of two corporate giants illustrating neatly exactly why market concentration is bad for the arts:

* If true, Macmillan demanding a $15 pricetag for its ebooks is just plain farcical. Although there are sunk costs in book production, including the considerable cost of talented editors, copy-editors, typesetters, PR people, marketers, and designers, the incremental cost of selling an ebook is zero. And audiences have noticed this. $15 is comparable to the discounted price for a new hardcover in a chain bookstore, and it costs more than zero to sell that book. Demanding parity pricing suggests that paper, logistics, warehousing, printing, returns and inventory control cost nothing. This is untrue on its face, and readers are aware of this fact.

Update: not to say that all ebooks should cost the same. But they should be cheaper than print editions.

* If true, Amazon draping itself in the consumer-rights flag in demanding a fair price is even more farcical. Though Amazon's physical-goods sales business is the best in the world when it comes to giving buyers a fair shake, this is materially untrue when it comes to electronic book sales, a sector that it dominates. As mentioned above, Amazon's DRM and license terms on its Kindle (as well as on its Audible audiobooks division, which controls the major share of the world's audiobook sales) are markedly unfair to readers. Amazon's ebooks are locked (by contract and by DRM) to the Kindle (this is even true of the "DRM-free" Kindle books, which still have license terms that prohibit moving the books). This is not due to rightsholder-demands, either: as I discovered when I approached Amazon about selling my books without DRM and without a bad license agreement for Kindle and Audible, they will not allow copyright owners to modify their terms, nor to include text in the body of the work releasing readers from those terms.

Concentration in media is nothing new -- as far back as the eighties, activists have been sounding the alarm about mergers and acquisitions in publishing and bookselling (and, of course, in film we have the antitrust decisions of the 1940s). In the eighties, we worried that mergers would create corporate giants that would dictate unfair terms in distribution, sales, contracts with writers, pricing, and so on.

But today, we have a deeper worry. For no matter that a giant distributor or a massively agglomerated publisher could distort the market to the detriment of readers and writers -- we could bounce back, through competition and new technology and innovative marketing and sales (and we did, by and large).

But today, we have a much more permanent, and graver risk: contracts and DRM have the power to lock readers and writers into legally unbreakable shackles. There's no such thing as a proprietary book. There's no such thing as a license agreement necessary to read a book. Books are governed by a social contract that is older than publishing, older even than printing. The recent innovation of copyright in books recognizes the ancient compact between readers and writers, and protects your rights to own your books, to loan them, to give them away, to resell them, to read them in any nation, in any circumstance. A publisher or bookseller can't force you to buy Ikea sofas to sit upon while you read your books.

But Amazon can force you to buy Kindles (and Amazon-approved devices) to read your Kindle books on and listen to your Audible audiobooks on.

Forever.

And if one of the five titans that control almost all of publishing gets into a scrap with one of the four or five titans that control almost all ebook publishing, or the one company that rules the audiobook market, the collateral damage is that you will have to choose to eschew a gigantic slice of all the literature ever made in order to hang on to your library, or abandon your library in order to get access to that publisher's work. Or fill your shoulderbag with a half-dozen tablets and readers, one for each permutation of which corporate elephant is trying to crush another.

There's an easy fix for this. Amazon (and its competitors) could allow copyright owners to choose whether they want DRM-by-contract on their books. In a world where readers are allowed to take their books to the platform that offers them the best terms, everybody wins: Macmillan can license to a competitor of Amazon's at a higher price and pull their books from Amazon, and if readers boycott those ebooks, Macmillan will see the light and come down in price -- all without either party having to dictate terms to the other. In a world where there is a competitive market for books and reading devices, Amazon can draw readers who start off as Apple iPad customers into the Kindle store, without having to convince them to switch devices or abandon their collections.

If Macmillan wants to flex its muscle on an issue of substance and moment, an issue that will make it the hero of readers and writers and booksellers everywhere, it can demand that Amazon, Apple, B&N, and all the other ebook readers allow for interoperability and remove contracts that undo centuries' worth of book-ownership norms.

And if Amazon wants to throw its toys out of the pram over a consumer rights issue, let it announce that it will offer a fair deal for any book that publishers and writers will allow a fair deal -- no DRM, no abusive EULA, just "This book is governed by 17USC, the United States Copyright Law. Do not violate that law." Let Amazon label the books that are a bad deal for readers with warnings: "At the publisher's request, this book is licensed under terms that prohibit reading it on other devices, selling it used, or giving it to your children." And let them put a gleaming seal of approval on the books that offer fair terms and a fair shake.

And trust readers to make up their minds.

(Thanks to Jim and everyone who suggested the NYT story)

Update: Amazon "capitulates."

theodp writes "BusinessWeek reports that the cyber attack on Google was the elephant-in-the-room at the annual meeting of world leaders in Davos. 'China didn't want to discuss Google,' Josef Ackermann, CEO of Deutsche Bank AG and a co-chair of this year's World Economic Forum, said in an interview. China's Vice Premier Li Keqiang made that clear, he added. Even Google CEO Eric Schmidt didn't bring up China, and Bill Gates was mum on the topic in an interview. The reluctance of companies to talk about China illustrates the pressure on them to protect their business in the country, while the U.S. government doesn't want to upset Chinese investors, said Andy Mok of Red Pagoda Concepts LLC. 'People have their commercial interests,' explained Deutsche Bank's Ackermann."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Behold the January 1990 issue of Vogue. The devil may wear Prada, but she evidently wanted you to wear pastel acrylics and then set fire to your hair. [Double D Blog]

Gulthek writes "Sixteen-year-old Alexander Kendrick has created a device that allows texting and other data transfer from almost 1000 feet underground. The tech could allow rapid emergency communication with the surface and opens the potential for scientific measurements without the need to continually visit (and disturb) the cave environment." There's some kvetching in the NPR story's comments that it's not the first use of cave radios, but that seems to miss the point.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

cyclocommuter writes with an excerpt from a brief WSJ story on increasing electronic control of car components: "The gas pedal system used Toyota Motor Co.'s recall crisis was born from a movement in the auto industry to rely more on electronics to carry out a vehicle's most critical functions. The intricacy of such systems, which replace hoses and hydraulic fluid with computer chips and electrical sensors, has been a focus as Toyota struggled to find the cause for sudden acceleration of vehicles that led the company to halt sales of eight models this week."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Need a way to help the youth around you learn about flight? Try out paper airplanes! Most people know how to make a basic paper airplane, but there are other designs out there, some even claiming to be the ultimate paper airplane design. Inside the Dangerous Book for Boys is a two page section on paper airplanes with a few alternate designs you may have not tried.

Some of the concepts you'll want to feature are Lift, Drag, Thrust and Gravity. A project with such inexpensive materials as this is also a great way to help make students aware of the Design Process. By using working paper models, you can also help students grasp airfoil design and theory. By adjusting their designs and making additional iterations, students can see real examples of how and why planes fly.There are some great resources for understanding flight and designs for paper airplanes. Share with us the comments how you have used airplanes in the classroom as a student and teacher.

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Hodejo1 writes "This past week Guadalajara, Mexico hosted the 7th secret meeting of ACTA proponents who continue to ignore demands worldwide to open the debate to the public. Piecing together official and leaked documents from various global sources, Michael Geist has coalesced it all into a five part ACTA Guide that offers structured insight into what these talks might foist upon the populace at large. 'Questions about ACTA typically follow a familiar pattern — what is it (Part One of the ACTA Guide listing the timeline of talks), do you have evidence (Part Two), why is this secret (Part Three), followed by what would ACTA do to my country's laws (Part Four)? Countering the momentum behind ACTA will require many to speak out" (Part Five).'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I don't have my own workshop, just a desk in my bedroom that is more likely to have a pile of kid socks on it than an actual project. (Or, even more likely, it would have both projects and socks on it, making for a huge mess...) Consequently, I'm envious of and fascinated by other people's setups. So, please share your workspace, workshop, desk, bench, what-have-you! Leave a URL in the comments, add a photo to the MAKE Flickr pool, or send me an email (johnb at makezine dot com) and I'll post the most interesting ones.

(Thanks to Pat for the photo of his excellently messy workbench.)

More:

• Closet workbench
• Old-school maker workshop
• Make Podcast: Weekend Projects - Make a Workbench
• Cement Topped Workbench

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Ed Felten from the Freedom to Tinker blog has written a post with Princeton senior Sauhard Sahi called Census of Files Available via BitTorrent. The survey takes a random sample of files available on a trackerless BitTorrent system. The article is full of caveats--discussion happening in the comments--but does dig into the likely copyright status of the works they found.

"[A]ll files that were available were equally likely to appear in the sample -- the sample was not weighted by number of downloads, and it probably contains files that were never downloaded at all. So we can't say anything about the characteristics of BitTorrent downloads, or even of files that are downloaded via BitTorrent, only about files that are available on BitTorrent."

The final breakdown?

File types

46% movies and shows (non-pornographic)
14% games and software
14% pornography
10% music
1% books and guides
1% images
14% could not classify

John Gruber (and Rob Scoble) explain why the iPad's lack of Flash is a bigger problem for Adobe than it is for Apple. Just one example: some of the sites featured in the already-infamous 'blue legos' image already had Flash-free editions.

It's freezing outside! At least it is in our neck of the woods. Trust us, we know how much you want to go outside and terrorize play with neighbors and your robotic giraffe, but it's just too cold outside! Did we mention it's cold?

Well, it seems like a lot of us are coming down with the dreaded "Cabin Fever", so we figured it's no time like the present to have a Cabin Fever sale in the Maker Shed. We have a fresh re-supply of our most popular kits, and a juicy sale on everything from necklaces to chemistry sets; finger puppets to Erector sets. Yes, even Arduinos are over 20% off!

Warning: Deals may be tempting enough to keep you indoors even if you live in the Southern Hemisphere.

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theodp writes "Having cut his programming teeth on an Apple ][e as a ten-year-old, Mark Pilgrim laments that Apple now seems to be doing everything in their power to stop his kids from finding the sense of wonder he did: 'Apple has declared war on the tinkerers of the world. With every software update, the previous generation of "jailbreaks" stop working, and people have to find new ways to break into their own computers. There won't ever be a MacsBug for the iPad. There won't be a ResEdit, or a Copy ][+ sector editor, or an iPad Peeks & Pokes Chart. And that's a real loss. Maybe not to you, but to somebody who doesn't even know it yet.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Interesting collaborative post betw Gruber and Scoble. I'd like to get into the mix with a 90-degree turn -- in the form of a question.

1. Okay, Apple seems to be forcing a question. Can they force web site producers to kill Flash?

2. It's kind of hard to defend Flash because it's a company-owned thing, not an open standard.

3. Now the question. What if Apple were trying to erase something that's not company-owned? Either a formal or defacto standard?

4. Further, what if their alternative were something that was locked-down and owned by a company? Further, what if the company was Apple?

This may be kind of a toe-dip. Apple tries this. If it works, they try sticking their whole foot in. The end result may well be a networking environment owned by one company. Or two or more incompatible networking environments.

Users and website developers are practical people. We don't care about Adobe, says Gruber, and that's probably right (I don't have a single Flash document on scripting.com). But I very much care about an open Internet.

Yes, that opens me to ridicule from users with little experience with the other kind of networking, one that has huge Do Not Enter signs everywhere. Their naivete is no excuse for throwing out the engine that's been driving innovation. The question of where and how we draw the line should be part of the public discussion.

BTW, how lovely are open standards? I'm writing this post from an American Airlines flight from NY to SF. Do you have any idea how many open standards were necessary to make this work? Makes the mind spin. And it all works exactly the same if I fly Virgin America or Air Egypt. In an Apple-designed world how much of this would work? Imho, not very much.

PS: Adobe might want to consider, right now, very quickly, giving Flash to the public domain. Disclaim all patents, open source all code, etc etc. That would throw the ball squarely back into Apple's court and would frame the question right now in its most stark terms.

JoshuaInNippon writes "Might we one day be able to use our cell phone cameras to pick out the best piece of meat on display at the market? Some Japanese researchers seem to hope so. A team of scientists is using infrared camera technology to try and determine the tastiest slices of high-grade Japanese beef. The researchers believe that the levels of Oleic acid found within the beef strongly affect the beef's tenderness, smell, and overall taste. The infrared camera can be tuned to pick out the Oleic acid levels through a whole slab, a process that would be impossible to do with the human eye. While the accuracy is still relatively low — a taste test this month resulted in only 60% of participants preferring beef that was believed to have had a higher level of Oleic acid — the researchers hope to fine tune the process for market testing by next year."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Only a few weeks after a jury acquitted Alan Ellis, the owner of the BitTorrent site 'OinK's Pink Palace,' of copyright infringement, another high profile case is about to start next week, this time for the newsgroup side of things. The MPA (Motion Picture Association) trial against Newzbin.com, a website that indexes NZB files and content on the newsgroups, will begin in London on Monday. Will lightning strike twice in favor of website indexing?" Torrentfreak points out one major difference between the cases: "Ellis’s charge was one of fraud, allegedly conducted by an individual and dealt with under criminal law, while that leveled against Newzbin is one of allowing and inducing illegal copying, i.e copyright infringement, but carried out by a bona fide company under civil law."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've posted about Jim Kelly's online weblog, chronically his way through our beginning book, Make: Electronics. But Jim's not the only person taking this trip online. Ian Fitzpatrick is doing the same thing. And he's doing video for most of the entries, giving you another way into the experiments. Nice. Many thanks, Ian.

Domo Domo, Ian Fitzpatrick's Project's Log: Learning Electronics

More:
Tom Igoe raves about Make: Electronics
They call it "trouble" shooting for a reason
Jim Kelly's Make: Electronics lab update
Make: Electronics: "Teaching at its best!"
A Make: Electronics lab journal
Make: Electronics - Interview with Charles Platt & Gareth Branwyn
Make: Electronics and the 555 man

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Electronics
Our Price: $34.99
Want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun and experiential way? Start working on some excellent projects as soon as you crack open this unique, hands-on book. Build the circuits first, then learn the theory behind them! With Make: Electronics, you'll learn all of the basic components and important principles through a series of "learn by discovery" experiments. And you don't need to know a thing about electricity to get started.

Deluxe Make: Electronics Toolkit
Our Price: $124.99
Do you want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun and experiential way? Not sure where to start, or what tools you might need? We've taken care of all the questions with our deluxe tool kit from the Maker Shed, featuring our best-selling book, Make: Electronics.

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As soon as the iPad was announced, Lego fans wondered what it would look like in brick form. Check out the homage by Joe Meno, editor of AFOL bible BrickJournal.

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Wyatt Earp writes with news that a recent SEC filing from Tesla Motors revealed the company plans to stop production on its electric Roadster (and the Roadster Sport as well) in 2011. This will leave the automaker without any cars to sell until the launch of its Model S sedan (financed in part by $465 million in DoE loans) in 2012. Tesla plans to resume production of Roadster models "at least a year" after the Model S arrives. From Wired's Autopia blog: "'As a result, we anticipate that we may generate limited, if any, revenue from selling electric vehicles after 2011 until the launch of the planned model S,' the company says in the SEC filing. That may not be a problem if S production starts on plan and goes off without a hitch, but if Tesla hits any snags, things could get ugly fast — a point it concedes in the filing. 'The launch of the Model S could be delayed for a number of reasons and any such delays may be significant and would extend the period in which we would generate limited, if any, revenues from sales of our electric vehicles.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "When President Obama said in his State of the Union address on Wednesday that the country should build 'a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants,' it was one of the few times he got bipartisan applause. Now the NY Times reports that administration officials have confirmed their 2011 federal budget request next week will raise potential loan guarantees for nuclear projects to more than $54 billion, from $18.5 billion, and a new Energy Department panel will examine a vastly expanded list of options for nuclear waste, including a new kind of nuclear reactor that would use some of it. The Energy Department appears to be getting close to offering its first nuclear loan guarantee. Earlier this week, Southern Co. Chief Executive David Ratcliffe said the company expects to finalize an application for a loan guarantee 'within the next couple months,' while Scana Corp., which has also applied, is 'a couple months behind Southern' and is hopeful of receiving a conditional award 'sometime in the next months.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

John Sargent, Macmillan USA's CEO, has issued a statement on the Amazon deletion of an appreciable fraction of all of English literature from its store. He confirms that this is a strong-arm tactic in a pricing war. (via Making Light)

soupman55 writes "I teach Chemistry to students completing their last two years of high school. Basically it's a 'teach and test' course with a few experiments thrown in. I want to jazz up the course using computer and internet resources. For instance, I could set some tasks that require Excel spreadsheet calculations. Or I could set some web quests where students search for information online. One of the decisions to be made is: Do I use computer/internet tasks to help the students grasp the material that is already in the course, or do I help them become aware of ideas that are extensions to their course? Also, when I compare Chemistry classes with Accounting classes, it strikes me that unlike Accounting where learning to use software like Quick Books is an integral part of the course, that there is no particular software that a chemistry student must learn to use. Or is there? What in terms of chemistry and computers worked for you? Or what is there computer-wise that wasn't in your high school chemistry course but should have been?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

VonGuard writes "Facebook has gotten fed up with the speed of PHP. The company has been working on a skunkworks project to rewrite the PHP runtime, and on Tuesday of this week, they will be announcing the availability of their new PHP runtime as an open source project. The rumor around this began last week when the Facebook team invited some of the core PHP contributors to their campus to discuss some new open source project. I've written up everything I know about this story on the SD Times Blog."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Maymand Village in the Kerman province of Iran has been carved out of the rock over the ages. The village has a population of 140, and was recognized by UNESCO in 2005.

The kinds of dwelling-place dug out of the mountains are not of a temporary nature but rather are permanent homes (having been lived in for the last 2000 or 3000 years). The pastoral type architecture (shepherd huts known as kapar or gambeh, and barns or sheepfolds) can be seen here and there about the landscape and is part of the built heritage.

Maymand bears some similarities to Derinkuyu in Turkey.

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jmsaavedra writes -

I am going to walk you through the process of prototyping a Printed Circuit Board using a laser cutter and supplies from your local Radioshack and hardware store. This is a process I have perfected after several prototypes...

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aliebrah writes "Lord Avebury tabled a parliamentary question in the UK regarding the security of Internet Explorer and whether the UK government would reconsider its use. He got an answer from the UK Home Office that's unlikely to please most Slashdot readers. The UK government contends that 'there is no evidence that moving from the latest fully patched versions of Internet Explorer to other browsers will make users more secure.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Japan HD TV operator Sky Perfect will start 3D programming this summer, with focuses on live events and sports events. As more Hollywood movies are shot in 3D, and 3D TVs are expected to come onto the market in the very near future, Sky Perfect is hoping that people will switch to 3D TV just like people switched from black and white to color. How about 3D TV in other countries?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Siegel, the editorial director of the remarkable graphic novel publisher FirstSecond, has begun serializing his comic "Sailor Twain, or the Mermaid in the Hudson" on the web. This is Siegel's labor of love, a wonderful and weird comic that he's been working on for five years now. It's damned exciting to find it online!

Sailor Twain (Thanks, Mark!)

(Disclosure: I am currently in contract negotiations with FirstSecond for a graphic adaptation of one of my stories)

The Bad Astronomer writes "A lot of pundits, scientists, and people who should know better are decrying the demise of NASA, saying that the President's budget cutting the Constellation program and the Ares rockets will sound the death knell of manned space exploration. This simply is not true.The budget will call for a new rocket design, and a lot of money will go toward private space companies, who may be able to launch people into orbit years ahead of Ares being ready anyway."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tom Wilksch's Portable Gliding Simulator offers two improvements over a traditional simulator installed in a fixed location. Built on a trailer base, this can be towed to public events to serve as a recruiting tool - offering a taste of soaring to many more people. And since it folds up tidily, it doesn't require dedicated storage space when not in use.

I love how the aerodynamic cover doubles as a large curved projection screen.

More pictures & info at The Design Blog and at Tom's entry page for the Australian Design Award.

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From Popular Mechanics from 1910 comes this advertisement for Nelson's Perpetual Loose-Leaf Encyclopaedia.

Reviewed by the New York Times in 1908, the set was supposed to be

"A book that never grows old, that is, never antiquated, that will give answer years after its publication to the most modern of queries -- such a book, one imagines, may be found in the great classic of poetry whose verse, metaphorically speaking, breathes the spirit of perpetual youth." Nelson's claimed it had a permanent editorial staff who were "constantly on watch for all important new facts for the benefit of Nelson's subscribers"

It was advertised heavily in many types of publications (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). Loose leaf was big business in the early part of the 20th Century. Companies were offering "a loose-leaf system for every purpose." One loose-leaf company began in New York City in 1908 and still makes at-a-glance calendars to this day. Other loose-leaf titles flourished such as Nelson new loose-leaf medicine, Winston's cumulative loose-leaf encyclopedia (read online) and Oxford loose-leaf surgery (read online) Nelson's was still going strong in 1930 where a set cost $99.50 plus $6/year for updates -- buy a set, get a free bookcase -- Nelson's stopped publishing updates sometime in the 1930s. Thomas Nelson & Sons is still around today, the world's largest Christian publisher, but their company history curiously makes no mention of their innovative encyclopaedia. See also: "A Solution to the Problem of Updating Encyclopedias" by Eric M. Hammer and Edward N. Zalta, 1997.

This classic chemistry demo involves the use of toxic metallic mercury, so it's one of those that is best to just watch on YouTube instead of trying yourself. The pulsing action is caused by surface tension effects--metallic mercury is oxidized at the surface of the drop to form a film of mercury (I) sulfate, which lowers the drop's surface tension and causes it to flatten under its own weight. The flattening brings the drop into contact with the tip of a carefully-positioned iron nail, which reduces the mercury (I) sulfate back to metallic mercury, which in turn increases the drop's surface tension and causes it to contract away from the nail. The solution contains an electrolyte and an oxidizing agent, in this case weak sulfuric acid and potassium dichromate, respectively. Thanks to YouTuber sciencevidds for sharing it with us. [via Boing and then some more Boing]

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theodp writes "Ex-Googler and now White House Director of Citizen Participation Katie Stanton is charged with promoting open public dialogues. Last Thursday, Stanton and Google snagged a patent on displaying financial news. Google explains that Stanton's invention — Interactive Financial Charting and Related News Correlation — will 'facilitate and encourage the user's use and understanding of financial information,' which does jibe nicely with Stanton's appointment to Obama's New Media Team. Too bad it'll be encumbered by a Google patent until 2027."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xavier Calluaud's "Urb Garden -- A vertical food garden for the urban gardener" complete with a composting 'worm farm' and internal watering system. [via Inhabitat]

More:

• Flashback: Solar Herb Dryer
• Set up a hydroponic herb garden
• How-To: Make an Herb Garden from Recycled Plastic Bottles

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An anonymous reader writes "One of the basic utilities supplied with any operating system is a desktop calculator. These are often simple utilities that are perfectly adequate for basic use. They typically include trigonometric functions, logarithms, factorials, parentheses and a memory function. However, the calculators featured in this article are significantly more sophisticated with the ability to process difficult mathematical functions, to plot graphs in 2D and 3D, and much more. Occasionally, the calculator tool provided with an operating system did not engender any confidence. The classic example being the calculator shipped with Windows 3.1 which could not even reliably subtract two numbers. Rest assured, the calculators listed below are of precision quality."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Actor Rip Torn charged with breaking into bank with loaded gun while ripped, torn.

Got a great idea for an awesome project, and just need access to the tools to make it happen? Do you live in or near southeast Michigan? Then this might be just the opportunity you were waiting for. A2 MechShop is opening up their doors to one lucky artist for an artist in residency program. This could be the perfect opportunity to create some awesome to bring to Maker Faire Detroit!

A2 MechShop, a coworking facility for electrical and mechanical engineering in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is offering a three-week Artist in Residence this spring. The selected artist will have the opportunity to consult with the engineers and use machinery at the A2 MechShop to create artwork that is inspired by, incorporates, or is produced by technology. The residency does not include a stipend, and the artist should expect to supply their own materials.

Applicants can visit the A2 MechShop website for more details. Applications are due February 19th, 2010, and the artist will be notified the week of March 1.

About A2 MechShop:

A2 MechShop is a coworking facility for entrepreneurial engineers located on the west side of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Seven different businesses, mostly one or two person, have private offices surrounding a shared machine shop floor. They share knowledge and tools in a friendly and technically-oriented environment. The A2 MechShop was started in November 2008, and hosts GO-Tech, a monthly geek show-and-tell.

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CrunkCreeper writes "I work at a tier-2 hosting company (SAP, web servers, Citrix, databases, etc.). I started working at this location two years ago in January. The company had anywhere from 20-30 other employees, and now we are just over 100. People with all different IT experience are employed. At one end of the spectrum, you have accounting, billing, and sales. At the other end you have the help desk, analysts, and engineers. In the past we were hiring mainly people in their 20s, and now we're hiring more senior people in their 30s and 40s. Incidentally with our expanded demographic and recently aggressive hiring, people are not as familiar with each other as they used to be. This happens to some extent and will continue to happen more the larger our company grows, but I would like to curb the corporate feel a bit. I'm trying to bring family or community feel back to the company. The reason for this need is that great ideas are normally discussed in non-formal environments. Beside this fact, I want people to genuinely have more fun and decrease the sometimes uncomfortable discussions with 'that guy' from 'that department.' Being an IT company, I find it more natural for collaboration via computer, but welcome more traditional methods too. How does your company keep or build a community environment using technology?" Read on for some more on how it works at CrunkCreeper's workplace, and give suggestions for how to make things better.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The FAA has a lot of public data on air traffic safety if you know where to look for it. Last year, in response to a highly publicized bird strike, the FAA went live with their Wildlife Strike Database. The US Bird Strike Committee has had their presentations published in the science journal Human Wildlife Conflicts. Read about A decade of U.S. Air Force bat strikes, Forensic bird strike ID techniques and Suspending vulture effigies from roosts to reduce bird strikes. Not for the squeamish: the wildlife strike photo gallery.

Releasing the data was an about-face for the FAA, which refused to release the records because it felt doing so would jeopardize safety. If the information were made public, the argument went, it would discourage airlines and airports from reporting bird strikes. The agency changed its position under pressure from Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who says the move is part of a larger shift toward full disclosure. "The Department of Transportation is, among other things, a safety agency," he wrote on his blog. "Public disclosure is our job. The sea change in government transparency is beginning, and we are happy to be a part of it."

See also: trends in unruly passengers. [Photo from Australian War Memorial]

Dave Knott writes "After some delay Apple have updated Boot Camp to support Windows 7 on Macintosh computers. They have also provided an upgrade utility that facilitates transition to Windows 7 for Mac owners who have existing Vista installations. The new version of Boot Camp requires OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Majix writes "Firefox Mobile, the mobile browser developed by Mozilla based on the same engine as in the recently released Firefox 3.6, has finally hit version 1.0. The first device to be officially supported is the Nokia N900. With a long list of features, Firefox Mobile looks to be the most complete mobile browser to date. Highlights include the familiar Awesome Bar, Weave Sync for sharing your browser state between your PC and mobile, and of course tabbed browsing and Firefox add-ons. With the Nokia 900 and Firefox Mobile 1.0, even Flash content including the normal YouTube site is working, showing that a mobile browser does not have to equal a compromised Internet experience."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We're already just past 24 hours into the 2010 Global Game Jam -- a worldwide weekend where students and developers both indie and professional meet for a high intensity and high concept sprint to develop something new in a desperately short amount of time. Following last year's top 7 Tyra-Banks-channeling (?!) tips for the jammers given by World of Goo creator and Experimental Gameplay Project co-founder Kyle Gabler, this year's keynote has just been uploaded for public consumption by former Edge magazine editor-at-large and current Zoë Mode creative director Ste Curran. Curran -- whose debut music-puzzle game Chime is due for release as part of the charity-partnered One Big Game later this week (and more on that then) -- is also co-host of essential games radio show One Life Left, and here takes Jammers on a personal, Vonnegut-referencing journey regarding wastes of time: as in, are games, and how can developers ensure, above all, that they aren't. Once you're finished with (and are properly inspired by) the video, follow the ongoing efforts of all the individual Jams across the world by visiting the Global Game Jam site and clicking on each team's live stream (if you can tear yourself away from the default puppy cam) and project updates. Continued best of luck to all the Jammers this weekend! Global Game Jam 2010, One Life Left

An anonymous reader writes "I've just posted packages for installing a Qt-based platform on the Kindle 2 and DX devices, and a Sudoku game to go along with it. The Qt-based platform includes plugins I wrote for the e-ink display, the keyboard, and the five-way joystick thing — so it's a fully interactive and usable environment now. Soon I'll be adding a sample app with source code to go along with it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "I've just posted packages for installing a Qt-based platform on the Kindle 2 and DX devices, and a Sudoku game to go along with it. The Qt-based platform includes plugins I wrote for the e-ink display, the keyboard, and the five-way joystick thing — so it's a fully interactive and usable environment now. Soon I'll be adding a sample app with source code to go along with it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark.JUK writes "Pennsylvania State University has developed a new method of indoor Optical Wireless network that does not require a line-of-sight and runs at speeds of 1Gbps+. The system uses a high-powered laser diode — a device that converts electricity into light — as the optical transmitter and an avalanche photo diode — a device that converts light to electricity — as the receiver. The light bounces off the walls and is picked up by the receiver. Traditional radio frequency systems (Wi-Fi , WiMAX etc.) do not require line of sight transmission, but can pass through some substances and so present a security problem. Light, in a room without windows, will not escape the room, improving security."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One recurring theme in defense of the closedness of the iPad is that it gives you access to the web and that's the most open thing around. Maybe, but if I want the web there are much better and less expensive ways to get it that don't compromise on flexibility and the ability to run other software. In other words, if you want the web and only the web, iPad would be a poor choice.

Yet I am concerned that it will get a flow of great apps from people who are willing to compromise on their freedom and users' freedom. They may say they're not doing it, but I don't see it that way. I wouldn't want to do anything to discourage them from developing cool apps for iPad, as long as they're not pumping their creativity into a platform that can't be competed with because of patents. If that's the case, it's a very unhealthy situation. Not one a developer should support unless they know for sure that other platforms can challenge Apple. I suspect there's a problem because Google is not releasing their multi-touch technology very widely.It could be that it's not ready, I hope that's the reason. But it may also be that Apple has a patent.

Another question that comes up frequently is why worry about limitations in a platform from Apple when we haven't expressed similar concerns re those from Nintendo, Sony, etc. The answer is obvious -- we depend on the Macintosh being one of two or three serious and open development platforms. At some point Steve is going to get up on stage and tell us it's the end of the road for the Mac, because the iPad/iPhone OS has sucked all the energy from the Mac. That's something he and Apple could seriously influence. Sony and Nintendo don't make the Mac, therefore there's nothing to worry about. One way Apple could alleviate these concerns and, at the same time, blast a big hole in the side of Microsoft would be to fully open source Mac OS. At that point, I'd be very happy to keep working on it, and wouldn't give a whit about the iPad, knowing as long as there's demand we'd be supplied with new versions running on the latest hardware, by someone, if not Apple.

Re the need for simplification, I've watched a close relative struggle with the multiple layers of user interface on today's computers, I recognize the need for a fresh start. Current GUI technology is 40-plus years old. Mac and Windows are equally confusing messes. User interfaces can be vastly simplified. I thought Apple would have done much more in this area by now. It's already been three years since the iPhone's introduction. And I don't think Android has the same commitment to a fresh start, it's more of a hodgepodge. And while Google is a patent offender just like Apple, so has no moral advantage, at least there's no barrier to what developers can put on the Android platform, so Google doesn't have the ability to control what goes on Android as Apple does with the iPad. In the worst case, you can route around Google totally because Android is open source.

Another thought occurred to me -- iPad looks rushed. It seems possible that Apple pushed it out sooner because it got wind of a competitive product. Could it be that Google has a DroidPad in the pipe? One thing's for sure, Apple's competitors are not scared of iPad. Let's hope they make some decent offers to developers. If any of them want my help, I'm here and ready to roll up my sleeves. I want to be sure there are lots of choices, the sooner the better. I can help get developers to pay attention to what you're doing.

The stakes are much higher than with the iPhone. No one should underestimate the potential of iPad. That's why I said, ironically, there's no doubt I will buy one as soon as I can. For the same reason I bought an iPhone. You have to understand this product if you want to stay current. But we, as an industry, must have choice. Now is a crucial moment for that.

While the functionality may be suspect, these flat-pack wheels have awesome maker flair. Designer Nicolas Belly of Bordeaux, France won 2nd place in the L'Argus Design Contest which had the theme of "Less is More: Traveling in the Era of Simplicity." [via the Ponoko Blog]

More:

• Wooden bike
• Wood Motorcycle
• Strange 4-legged Scooter
• Scooter hack
• Mono-Scooter is speedy

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An anonymous reader writes "Back in 2002, we discussed a story about the so-called 'Perpetual Motion DeLorean,' which could 'supposedly go "hundreds of miles" at speeds over 100MPH without stopping to recharge.' More than seven years later, the final shoe has dropped on this saga, with a $26 million judgment against Carl Tilley and his wife, who propagated this scam that ran for several years. Probably the height of its audacity was when Tilley told his shareholders in May of 2002 that GE had offered $2 billion 'sight unseen' to buy out the technology."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "Science Daily reports that using the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii, astronomers have discovered what may be the coolest sub-stellar body ever found outside our own solar system. Too small to be stars and with insufficient mass to maintain hydrogen-burning nuclear fusion reactions in their cores, 'brown dwarfs' have masses smaller than stars but larger than gas giant planets like Jupiter, with an upper limit in between 75 and 80 Jupiter masses. 'This looks like the fourth time in three years that the UKIRT has made a record breaking discovery of the coolest known brown dwarf, with an estimated temperature not far above 200 degrees Celsius,' says Dr. Philip Lucas at the University of Hertfordshire. Due to their low temperature these objects are very faint in visible light, and are detected by their glow at infrared wavelengths. The object known as SDSS1416+13B is in a wide orbit around a somewhat brighter and warmer brown dwarf, SDSS1416+13A, and the pair is located between 15 and 50 light years from the solar system, which is quite close in astronomical terms."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

quaith writes "Dario Floreano and Laurent Keller report in PLoS ONE how their robots were able to rapidly evolve complex behaviors such as collision-free movement, homing, predator versus prey strategies, cooperation, and even altruism. A hundred generations of selection controlled by a simple neural network were sufficient to allow robots to evolve these behaviors. Their robots initially exhibited completely uncoordinated behavior, but as they evolved, the robots were able to orientate, escape predators, and even cooperate. The authors point out that this confirms a proposal by Alan Turing who suggested in the 1950s that building machines capable of adaptation and learning would be too difficult for a human designer and could instead be done using an evolutionary process. The robots aren't yet ready to compete in Robot Wars, but they're still pretty impressive."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Need a unique spot for your studio/workshop/cave? Perhaps you could get inspired to incubate your latest crazy ideas inside one of these. They're being pitched as an environmentally benign alternative to commuting and less expensive to heating a whole house for a home office. These appear to be production models with standardization of design and materials. Anybody have other versions we can see? Do you or your neighbor have one we can view? [Via StumbleUpon]

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jgreco writes "The music industry once feared that going DRM-free would drive a massive explosion of copyright-infringing music availability on P2P networks. Now, a new study seems to suggest otherwise. The answer is obvious: if you can easily get inexpensive DRM-free content that works on your devices through legitimate channels, most people won't bother with the headache of P2P networks. It appears that users largely turn to P2P to acquire DRM-free versions of content that is distributed with DRM. The MPAA, of course, will not come away from this with the obvious conclusion."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wow, the holidays (and their aftermath) can really put the brakes on project building! But they're over, and it's time to get back to building my CupCake CNC. Next up, building the X stage. It's another really easy part to the build, and it should only take about an hour or two to complete. My assembly is undergoing a little final QC in the picture above. Fortunately, it passed with flying colors.

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John Scalzi says smart things about the Macmillan/Amazon spat: "If Amazon is willing to play chicken with my economic well-being -- and the economic well-being of many of my friends -- to lock up its little corner of the ebook field, well, that's its call to make. But, you know what, I remember people who are happy to trample my ass into the dirt as they're rushing to grab at cash."

A simple experiment makes a drop of mercury beat like a nervous, little mouse heart.

Thumbnail image courtesy Flickr user SharkeyinColo via CC

As of last night, Amazon stopped listing all books from Macmillan Publishers, referring searches to other sellers instead. According to the New York Times, this is because Macmillan is one of the companies that now has an agreement to sell ebooks through Apple's new iBooks store, and asked Amazon to raise the price of their ebooks from $9.99 to $15. An industry source told the Times that the de-listing is Amazon's way of "expressing its strong disagreement" with the idea of a price hike. Gizmodo suggests this is the first volley in an Apple-Amazon ebook war. Quoting: "It feels like a repeat of the same s*** Universal Music, and later, NBC Universal pulled with iTunes, trying to counter the leverage Apple had because of iTunes' insane marketshare. Same situation here, really: Content provider wants more money/control over their content, fights with the overwhelmingly dominant, embedded service that's selling the content. Last time, everybody compromised and walked away mostly happy: Universal and NBC got more flexible pricing, iTunes got DRM-free music and more TV shows for its catalog to sell. ... The difference in this fight is that Macmillan is one of the publishers signed to deliver books for Apple's iBooks store. They have somewhere to run. And credibly. That wasn't really the case with record labels, who tried to fuel alternatives to dilute iTunes power, and failed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This week on the excellent Tor.com short fiction podcast: Terry Bisson's absurdist social commentary "Catch 'Em in the Act." This is vintage Bisson, a simple-seeming tale told with the sneaky light touch of Kurt Vonnegut. As a bonus, Terry himself reads for the podcast, which is a goddamned treat, because I could listen to that dry, wry southern lilt all day long.

In "Catch 'Em in the Act," Lou is a loner and a loser who orders a "Crimestoppers" camcorder from eBay, and discovers that whenever he points it at someone, they commit crimes. All Lou wants is to find friendship, and maybe a girlfriend, but getting people to commit crimes is a tricky method for accomplishing this.

Lou was almost thirty. He had a job and an apartment, but he was lonely. He didn't have any friends. He didn't know why; he just didn't.

So he did what everyone who is lonely does: YouTube and eBay. One day it was eBay.

"Say, look at this!" he murmured. Lou often murmured to himself.

CRIMESTOPPERS™ VIDEO CAMERA
Catch 'em in the Act!
BUY IT NOW: $19.95
Brand New in Box.
Batteries Included.
One to a Customer.
Shipping, $4.99

That didn't seem like all that much. The shipping wasn't bad either. That's usually where they get you. So Lou did what every lonely person with PayPal does. He clicked on BUY.

Four days later, it came. It was about the size of a cell phone, with a little viewscreen that folded out to one side.

It only had two buttons: SHOOT and PLAY. Not a lot of features. But the price was right.

Catch 'Em in the Act (audio)

Catch 'Em in the Act (text)

MP3 link

Podcast feed

The Braille system, in which the characters of a language are represented via the position of dots in a six-dot cell, is called "the world's first binary encoding scheme" for the characters of a language. Though text-to-speech technology enables many blind people to read via computer, Braille is still considered an integral part of literacy for blind people. Most languages use one cell to represent one language phoneme. All Braille encodings employ the left-to-right evenly spaced cell patterns. Japanese Braille, Korean Braille, and Tibetan Braille (developed in 1992) have reassigned all the Braille blocks to sounds in their own languages. Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese Braille, based on pin-yin, use three characters per syllable: onset, rime and tone. The tone characters are frequently disregarded, creating ambiguity and problems for Chinese Braille students. See also: Chinese-designed super cool Braille embossing printer/labeler, DotlessBraille for info on open source LaTeX and XML to Braille translation software and a terrific Braille FAQ, Moon Code and an early Braille book burning. [photo of performance art exhibit via impact lab]

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has signed up with iCopyright, the American copyright bounty hunters used by the Associated Press, to offer ridiculous licenses for the quotation of CBC articles on the web (these are the same jokers who sell you a "license" to quote 5 words from the AP).

iCopyright offers "licenses" to use taxpayer-funded CBC articles on terms that read like a bizarre joke. You have to pay by the month to include the article on your website (apparently no partial quotation is offered, only the whole thing, which makes traditional Internet commentary very difficult!). And you have to agree not to criticize the CBC, the subject of the article, or its author. Thanks for fostering a dialogue, CBC!

The cherry on the cake? iCopyright offers a reward of up to $1,000,000 for snitching on bloggers who don't pay Danegeld to Canada's public broadcaster to quote the works they funded.

CBC's new licencing plan: Pay to Print, Email, and Blog, and outsource enforcement to American Copyright Digital Rights Bounty Hunters (Thanks, Cameron!)

The British government reportedly offered the job of public health minister to Fiona Phillips, a television presenter and an outspoken defender of anti-vaccine junk science. She claims to have turned the job offer down. [via Ben Goldacre]

Jayel sez, "Flickr staff Cris Stoddard has commented on the Indicommons blog that the Flickr Commons will double the number of participating institutions this year from 31 to 60 GLAMs (art galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) this year alone. I believe that the Commons is Flickr's singularly most important cultural contribution to the world. And it doubling in size means more of the world's photographic heritage and history will be shared with its citizens."

The Commons: Vital, virile, virtual and viral

Baboomska mcGeesk sez, "In 1956, Buddy Holly traveled to Nashville to record several songs. One of the songs he recorded was "That'll Be The Day", but the producer assigned to his sessions (Owen Bradley) hated rock n' roll, and did a terrible job on the song. After that, Buddy traveled to New Mexico and re-recorded "That'll Be The Day" (the version that became the monster hit) at a different studio with his own (superior) arrangement, but according to his contract with Decca, he couldn't release it, because Decca owned all rights to his music. He decided to call Decca, to try reason with them, and he secretly taped his conversation. They refused to give him the rights to his own song, but he went ahead and violated his contract. Here is the conversation he secretly taped."

Buddy Holly - The Phone Call (Thanks, Baboomska!)

itwbennett writes "Google announced Friday that it will be phasing out support for Internet Explorer 6, more than two weeks after the attacks on Google's servers that targeted a vulnerability in IE6. In a blog post, Rajen Sheth, Google Apps senior product manager, said that support for IE6 in Google Docs and Google Sites will end March 1. At that point, IE6 users who try to access Docs or Sites may find that 'key functionality' won't work properly. Sheth suggested that customers upgrade their browsers to pretty much anything else."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chances are you have Douglas C. Engelbart to thank for what you're holding in your hand right now.

I'm talking about your computer mouse, of course.

Dr. Engelbart was born on this date in 1925. In 1967, while working at the prestigious Stanford Research Institute, he applied for a patent on an "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System," which issued in 1970, although, per his Wikipedia article, he never actually received any royalties on it. He has been widely honored for his contributions to human-computer interface development.

Dr. Engelbart has four children and nine grandchildren, and today he's 85. Congratulations and happy birthday, sir!

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My Backwards Beekeeping buddy, Amy Seidenwurm says:

We are being ordered by the city of LA to paint over our mural by March 1st. You posted Russell's time-lapse video of Philip Lumbang painting it back in the spring and it has become quite beloved in our neighborhood. Sadly, one of our neighbors hates it and complained to the city that he felt it would bring crime to the neighborhood.

Apparently you need a permit to paint a mural on private property in LA, but there is currently no governing body issuing permits. Murals have gotten lumped into illegal advertising and there is a whole city brouhaha about such things that will surely go on for a long while. So, we're screwed and not a little bummed out.

Any ideas on ways to preserve the mural would be great. I've been talking to a couple of people on our neighborhood council and in LA Cultural Affairs and so far they agree that it is silly but that we are caught in a bureaucratic no-win.

I've attached a photo of the highly-offensive art in question. Since he painted the mural and the video got viewed like crazy Philip has had solo exhibitions in SF and LA and his work was on the cover of Giant Robot. He credits this for much of his recent success.

Here's a post about this on Eastsider LA.

An anonymous reader writes "Armatix has built a pistol that will disarm itself when it is taken away from a watch that sends it a wireless arming signal. The .22 caliber guns will go on sale in the US within months, and the initial price is 7,000 euro. Higher caliber models will follow. To activate the gun, users must enter a pin code on the wristwatch, and then keep it within roughly 20cm of the gun. If the person is disarmed, the gun can't be used against them. Also coming soon this year, civilians will also be able to buy three-shot Tasers, rubber bullets, as well as Heckler and Koch black rifles." This might not be good news for the citizens of New Jersey.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MAKE pal and author William Gurstelle has an Arduino article in the Atlantic! The DIY Chip @ The Atlantic (January/February 2010)...

HYSICAL COMPUTERS AS populist devices may be the most momentous tech trend of the past five years that practically no one has heard about. Typically a small circuit board housed in a customized case, a physical computer is an easily programmable device that is aware of its surroundings. It is designed to interface with sensors that measure things around it—say, how fast an object is going, how close something is to it, the temperature around it. Based on that input, the computer takes action by moving switches and levers, displaying information, or otherwise controlling the environment.

For humans, connecting to computers via a mouse and keyboard has long been cheap and easy. For sensors, not so much. Now an inexpensive physical computer called the Arduino is changing all that. When the Arduino burst onto the do-it-yourself (“DIY” to devotees) scene in 2005, all manner of tinkerers seized on it as a device that could easily and cheaply run interactive projects.

Using an Arduino is fairly straightforward: buy a board (ranging from about $19 to $65) and attach it to a personal computer via a cable. Then load instructions into the Arduino’s processor via the personal computer. Once programmed, the Arduino makes decisions based on the information transmitted by whatever sensors you’ve hooked up, and does something corporeal, such as turn on or off the motors, displays, valves, and lights attached to it. For a few dollars, creative and motivated individuals—rather than just corporations or institutions—can make highly intelligent tools, perfectly customized for a particular need.

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An anonymous reader writes "Intel had to shut down part of its Irish plant for a while because of the extreme cold and the fact the local council polluted the water supply with fertilizer. Apparently it got down to -12 degrees C at the Intel plant in Leixlip, County Kildare. But to make matters worse, the local council ran out of rock salt to grit the roads and opted for fertilizer instead. There were fears that ammonia and nitrates in the fertilizer might have contaminated the local water supply. The problem for the chipmaker is that it needs extremely pure water for its manufacturing processes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Intel had to shut part of its Irish plant for a while because of the extreme cold and the fact the local council polluted the water supply with fertiliser. Apparently it got down to -12 degrees C at the Intel plant in Leixlip, County Kildare. But to make matters worse, the local council ran out of rock salt to grit the roads and opted for fertiliser instead. There were fears that ammonia and nitrates in the fertiliser might have contaminated the local water supply.The problem for the chipmaker is that it needs extremely pure water for its manufacturing processes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

quaith writes "US astronomer Frank Drake has told scientists at a special SETI meeting in London that earthlings are making it less likely that we will be heard in space. In the past, we used huge ground stations to broadcast radio and television signals which could be picked up relatively easily — according to astronomers' calculations anyway. Now we use satellites that transmit at 75 watts and point toward Earth instead of into space. In addition, we've switched to digital which makes the transmissions even fainter. Drake has concluded that very soon, in space no one will hear us at all. I guess we'd better keep listening."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What a beautiful specimen this thing called the dragon fruit is! Its skin looks like the feathers of an exotic bird or the petals of a tropical flower. Cut it in half and you get the most simple black-and-white interior imaginable. It's so... interesting. I have to admit that I didn't know anything about it until I got a serving of crappy fruit salad on my Hong Kong-Tokyo flight earlier this week. Maybe it was just the airplane food thing, but I found it to be pretty bland-tasting.

Many of us associate dragon fruit with Southeast Asia because of its prevalence in the region and the use of dragon fruit in some Thai recipes, but it actually has its origins in South America. The fruit is mostly made of water and makes for a great low-calorie snack; it's also a great source of fiber and vitamin C.

I have yet to experiment with dragon fruit in my own kitchen, but my instincts tell me it would be great in a martini glass. Try mixing the mashed-up pulp of a dragon fruit with a spoonful of sugar and some vodka in a cocktail shaker and let me know how it tastes!

By the way, Febreze announced yesterday that they've just added the fragrance Thai Dragon Fruit to their lineup. I'm assuming that it's made based on the smell of the white dragon fruit flower, not the actual fruit part.

Image via John Loo's Flickr

bizwriter writes "When it comes to knowing where wireless users are, the carriers have had a lock on the data. But a patent application shows that Google is trying to deduce the information based on packet headers and estimated transmission rates. This would let it walk right around carriers and become another source of location data to advertisers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Cooking Sous Vide the DIY Way @ Popular Science...

Everyone's talking about sous vide, the scientific cooking method that's making its way from the lab to the home kitchen. The Sous Vide Supreme, which just hit stores, is the first turnkey sous vide setup for home cooks. But we DIY kitchen nerds haven't been idly waiting for an off-the-shelf solution: We cobbled together our own sous vide setups years ago. It can be done by piecing together a few readily available components -- or even, for more intrepid tinkerers, by soldering together some less readily available ones. Here's how.

Great timing! I was just reading the classic Instructable on this as well!

Beef Ribs Cooked En Sous Vide - 135 F for 48 Hours.

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Over the past few years, the entertainment industry has been pushing hard on the claim that copyright infringement and organized crime (or terrorism) are somehow connected. It's a regular talking point and is often brought up in discussions about ACTA. And yet, where is this supposed link? Glynn Moody discusses what a bogus concept it is, and why a new EU report is massively discredited in simply taking the claim at face value:

I've noted several times an increasingly popular trope of the intellectual monopolists: since counterfeiting is often linked with organised crime, and because counterfeiting and copyright infringement are vaguely similar, it follows as surely as night follows day that copyright infringement is linked with organised crime.

But, of course, that's not the case. In fact, those who traffic in things like counterfeit DVDs are discovering that unauthorized access to online files is actually harming the counterfeit DVD business that organized crime has used in the past. Based on the logic put forth by the entertainment industry, shouldn't we cheer on The Pirate Bay for putting DVD counterfeiters (and thus, organized criminals and terrorists) out of business?

Moody goes on to challenge the idea that copyright infringement leads to people being put in harm's way:

*Counterfeiting* can certainly be a threat to consumer health and safety, and needs to be combated vigorously, but the idea that copyright infringement might be is simply risible, and it's an insult to our intelligence even to suggest it.

Indeed. This is a problem. So, let's start calling the industry on this. Can they show any actual evidence that basic online copyright infringement is in any way linked to organized crime or terrorism?

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GMGruman writes "Paul Krill reports that Apple's new iPad could be easier to write apps for, thanks to Novell's MonoTouch development platform, which helps .Net developers create code for the iPad and fully comply with Apple's licensing requirements — without having to use Apple's preferred Objective-C. This news falls on the footsteps of news that Citrix will release an iPad app that lets users run Windows sessions on the iPad. These two developments bolster an argument that the iPad could eventually displace the netbook."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've been suspicious of whether or not "driving while yakking" laws actually do any good. There are already laws against reckless driving, and picking out specific driving distractions doesn't seem likely to change things, since people just switch to other distractions. A study back in 2006 found that driving while yakking laws don't make the roads any safer, and a brand new study has apparently surprised researchers in showing no impact whatsoever on crash data even as studies show that fewer people are holding phones to their ears while driving (thanks Chirag). Now, there could be plenty of reasons for this -- such as that people are just switching to ear pieces which can be just as dangerous. Or it could be that common claims about driving while yakking leading to more accidents are wrong. Or it could be more complex, with other variables having an impact, but which is hidden in the data. Either way, it certainly seems worth investigating more seriously. If the goal is better road safety, then we should make sure that the laws actually lead to that result. If they don't, then it's important to understand why not.

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Henry Dagg made this giant metallic instrument, called the sharpsicord. A combination of music box and harp, you can program sounds into it by sticking pins into a giant metal drum. When the crank is turned, the barrels spins, and the pins cause individual strings to play. [via neatorama]

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Charbax writes "The Android laptops are coming. Thanks to cheap ARM-powered laptops made in China, and the latest, most optimized Android software, we can soon buy usable $100 Laptops in all the supermarkets. In this video, I test the web browsing speed on the new Rockchip rk2808 ARM9 based PWS700CA laptop by Shenzhen-based Hivision Co Ltd. Web browsing on AJAX-heavy websites is surprisingly snappy, and could only be even faster if ARM11, ARM Cortex A8 or A9 processors were used and if it was configured with slightly more than 128MB RAM. How soon will Google release the $100 Google laptop?"

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Having talked with a bunch of music execs recently, as well as a few different companies that do analytics in the music space, one thing became clear: unlike most other industries, record label execs tend not to be particularly data or analytics-driven. Let's just say they didn't get into the recording industry because they were good at math. There are a few exceptions, obviously, but getting many industry execs to think logically and examine data isn't particularly easy. This isn't that surprising, given how many examples of actions by big record label execs that make little to no sense when thought about analytically.

Yet another study has come out suggesting that the industry has pricing all wrong, pointing out that the increase in sales from dropping the price of music would increase profits. And yet what has the industry been trying to do? That's right: trying to raise the price. The study suggested that the "optimal" price for music might be closer to $0.60 per track. That still seems way too high to me when you look at how people flocked to services like Allofmp3.com, but in general I think the basic concept makes sense. You can maximize revenue by dropping prices, but it doesn't seem like many record industry execs have realized that.

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The AirMouse begins with the human form and builds functionality around it. The AirMouse is composed of a lightweight durable fabric that seamlessly aligns itself with the ligaments of your hand and wrist and assists them into a neutral posture during use preventing you from developing computer-related repetitive stress injuries such as carpel tunnel syndrome normally associated with other computer mouse use.

I'm not sure I really buy that this is better than a mouse -- in my experience, the goal is to find the perfect posture and then move your hand as little as possible. Waving your hand around or hovering it seems like it would cause more stress rather than less. On the plus side, this bad boy would look great with your Thompson Eyephones. [via gizmag]

More:

• Weekend Project: Rumble Mouse

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Even as the movie business has had yet another record breaking year at the box office, we still hear claims from Hollywood that online downloading of unauthorized movies is going to kill the movie business. And yet, where there's demand, new business models will be created. ethorad points us to the news that UK retail giant Tesco is getting into the business of producing movies itself based on the books of some very famous authors. The movies will be direct-to-DVD and direct-to-the-internet, but the idea is for Tesco to use these movies to generate more traffic to their stores (both online and off). In fact, if you look at the retail business, music and movies have long been used as a loss leader of sorts, to drive traffic to get them to buy other, much higher margin, goods. This is really an extension of that, but all the way to the point of helping to fund the production of the movie itself. Also, while it will have a window of exclusivity at the beginning, it sounds like Tesco is quite open to other stores selling the movie as well. Either way, it's interesting to see other third parties recognize that they benefit from having movies made, and thus are willing to partially fund the production of those movies.

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frank_adrian314159 writes "The RIAA will appeal the ruling that reduced Jammie Thomas-Rasset's $1.92 fine for file sharing to $54,000. '"It is a shame that Ms. Thomas-Rasset continues to deny any responsibility for her actions rather than accept a reasonable settlement offer and put this case behind her," said RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth.' Joe Sibley, an attorney for Thomas-Rasset, said his client would not settle for the $25,000 that the RIAA has asked for.'"Jammie is not going to agree to pay any amount of money to them," Sibley said, adding that it doesn't matter to Thomas-Rasset whether the damages are $25,000 or $1.92 million.' In addition, Thomas-Rasset's attorneys say that, win or lose, they plan to appeal the constitutionality of the fine."

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Students at Bonham ISD High School, in Bonham, TX, are turning this old on tractor, donated to them by the Ivanhoe Christmas Tree Farm, into their Electric Vehicle Project for the 2009/2010 school year. Plans are to use the tractor in a farm tractor driving certification/safety course. Primary charging of the E-Tractor will be via a solar array, with the option of a plug-in charger for emergency and quick-charge situations.

Bonham ISD: E-Tractor 2009/10 Project

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We've seen how various book publishers have freaked out about the growing popularity of ebooks, often with a price capped at $10 -- arguing that it's cannibalizing the higher margins found on hardcover books. And yet, at the same time, some of those very same publishers are perfectly happy to offer up free ebooks as promotional items. While some publishers are complaining that this is "devaluing" ebooks, others are recognizing that free can be quite useful in helping an author get past the obscurity barrier. We've already seen how many "top selling" Kindle books are actually free, and it's good to see publishers looking to take advantage of that, even if they haven't quite figured out that similar economic logic can apply to cheap ebooks as well. However, given the success of free ebooks, it seems likely that those publishers who are fighting against the tide will eventually come around to recognize the benefits of such things.

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shmG writes to share that according to a recent study on the impact of laws banning the use of cell phones during driving, there appears to be no reduction in accidents as a result. "The HLDI compared collisions of 100 insured vehicles per year in New York, Washington D.C., Connecticut, and California -- all states with currently enacted roadway text bans. Despite those laws, monthly fluctuations in crash rates didn't change after bans were enacted, all though there were less people using devices while driving. An earlier study conducted by the HLDI reported that cellphone use was directly linked to four-fold increases in crash injuries. Also independent studies done by universities have shown correlation between driving while using a phone and crashes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

(Video: live Chilean television coverage, shot off TV set on iPhone so pardon quality).

I'm in Guatemala for a brief personal trip. I was just now sitting here in the family home after lunch, with the TV on. Suddenly, regular programming was interrupted by a live feed from Chile: a giant mechanical doll-girl has taken over the streets of Santiago. There are a bunch of dudes in red velvet suits yanking her cables. WTF.

"La Pequeña Gigante" is what the Chilean TV announcers are calling her. Turns out she's the creation of French mechanical marionette street theatre company Royal de Lux. She, and they, have been blogged here on Boing Boing a number of times. They've performed in Chile before (and many other cities), and the troupe is headed to NYC later this year. I may be the last to know about the takeover of earth by our giant-doll-girl overlords, but I, for one, welcome them.

They keep dressing and undressing her on TV. She's done more outfit changes in the past half hour than Cher during a live show. They're saying it took 80 horse-tails to create her eyelashes and hair. Her blinking eyes and jointed neck are creepy. The live coverage has been going on for like 2 hours now. I can't stop watching.

On the blog Stuff I Like, they posted this heartbreakingly cute vintage trailer they saw while vacationing at Calaveras Big Trees. Talk about efficient use of space.

The Cutest Trailer You Ever Saw

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An anonymous reader writes "The Library of Congress has established an internal process to start creating more open source software which will make it easier for software developers and sponsors within the Library to produce software that can be freely redistributed to users worldwide. The Library has released some open source software to this point, concentrating on developing tools that support digital preservation processes, including the secure transfer of digital files. This includes the release of a full suite of digital content transfer tools that support the Bagit specification."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "The Library of Congress has established an internal process to start creating more open source software which will make it easier for software developers and sponsors within the Library to produce software that can be freely redistributed to users worldwide. The Library has released some open source software to this point, concentrating on developing tools that support digital preservation processes, including the secure transfer of digital files. This includes the release of a full suite of digital content transfer tools that support the Bagit specification."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Despite widespread demands from politicians around the globe, combined with promises from the USTR to be more open and transparent (despite unsubstantiated and totally ridiculous claims that countries would leave the negotiations if details were made public) and even entertainment industry lobbyists admitting that the process could be more transparent, ACTA negotiations are continuing in a veil of total secrecy to the public (unless you're a big industry lobbyist -- then it's open). The latest meetings in Mexico were again held in total secrecy, where public concerns were mocked, but appear to have continued to move the negotiations forward with claims coming out that the document is in "final drafting stages."

Yes, without any transparency or participation allowed from those who it would impact most: the public.

How is it that any government is willing to participate in such a process? It's a massive travesty. The details that have been revealed suggest that this is a sneaky way to significantly impact copyright laws around the world, greatly in favor of a few industries that have been unwilling to adapt to a changing marketplace. This is protectionism at its worst. At the same time that US politicians are slamming China for its internet restrictions, ACTA seeks to place the same type of limitations on ISPs around the world that the Chinese government places on its ISPs, all done through a secret process with no public input -- even from many elected officials who are greatly concerned about both the content of the agreement as well as the way in which it has been drafted.

That the US government is orchestrating the whole thing at the behest of the MPAA and the RIAA, among others, is a disgusting display of industry influence in government policy. The administration should be massively ashamed of itself for not just participating in such a travesty, but in many ways leading the way and providing cover for the bogus claims of industry representatives and lobbyists that this is a minor trade harmonization issue, rather than a significant change in policy and an attempt to route around existing venues (that are willing to listen to the public and consumer concerns) in order to push through these changes on a widespread level.

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Endloser writes "Bill Gates is going to invest $10 billion to provide vaccines to people worldwide. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation believes that vaccines are the way to a better future for the world. So they have decided to make 'the largest pledge ever made by a charitable foundation to a single cause.' This 10-year, 10 billion dollar project is expected to save 8.7 Million lives."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Endloser writes "Bill Gates is going to invest $10 billion to provide vaccines to people worldwide. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation believes that vaccines are the way to a better future for the world. So they have decided to make 'the largest pledge ever made by a charitable foundation to a single cause.' This 10 year, 10 billion dollar project is expected to save 8.7 Million lives."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rob Ryan makes papercuts. It's an art, and he's good at it, and maybe it's slightly unfair that it took the gimmick of mounting one over a piece of electroluminescent sheet for me to sit up and pay attention. Still, it looks great. Kudos, Ryan! [via Dude Craft]

More:

• Electroluminescent liquor labels
• DIY Electroluminescent (EL) photo frame
• Electroluminescent butterfly night-lights
• Light-emitting wallpaper

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We're excited to announce the first meeting of Make:PGH, a new Make city group based in Pittsburgh. In the area? You should definitely stop by!

Action! Excitement! Danger!

We're excited to announce the inaugural meeting of Make:PGH, the Steel City Makers! Interested in making stuff? Like the stuff that you see in MAKE magazine? Got cool projects to show off, or grand ideas that are soon to be realized? Want to hang out with other like-minded people? Then you should definitely come out to the meeting on Tuesday, February 9th, at 7pm!

We've got some good things lined up: presentations on the Makerbot, a laser harp, and an awesome activity, so be sure come out!

Marty McGuire: Makerbot

Marty McGuire is a research programmer at Carnegie Mellon and a council member for HackPittsburgh. He hopes one day to make "mad bank" thanks to open source hardware and the desktop fabbing revolution.

Marty will talk briefly about the MakerBot open source 3D printer, where it came from, and how it works. He'll also give a short printing demo, and answer your questions!

Matt Mets: Laser Harp

Engineer, Make: Online blogger, and aspiring inventor Matt Mets will share the secrets of his laser harp project, a MIDI-based instrument that you can play by waving your hands through the air. From designing and fabricating the thing in his apartment, to how it almost led to him running off with the freak show, he'll explain it all, and then even let you play with it!

Mystery Activity

Following the two fine presentations will be an activity of great interest and possible import!

Make:PGH Meeting 1
Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010, 7pm - 9pm
Hack Pittsburgh
1936 5th Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15219
Cost: Freeeeeeeee

Want to see a Make: City group in your area? Gather some friends and some ideas, and make it happen! Be sure to let us know, and we can help you get started. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Events | Digg this!

An anonymous reader writes "A company claims it has the technology to make writing on touchscreens more like writing with pencil and paper, when the harder you press the thicker the line you produce. The technology uses a material called Quantum Tunneling Composite (QTC), the resistance of which is extremely sensitive to pressure, unlike today's touchscreen phones, which might be fine for basic finger-pointing, but they are poor at gauging the pressure of the touch. The hope is that this will be useful in Asia for handwriting recognition, because Asian scripts use a lot of variation in line thickness. Interestingly, screens with a standard 2D touch matrix can get the extra measure of control using a narrow strip of QTC down the side."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Malkoff says: "I just released a new video entitled, "Man Carried 9.4 Miles by Strangers in NYC". In it I set out to disprove the myth that New York is unfriendly by attempting to transport myself from the southern most end of Manhattan as far north possible only by having people on the street physically carry me along the way. I ended up being carried 9.4 miles from the entrance of the Staten Island Ferry to 141st St & Broadway by 155 different people. The footage is quite incredible!"

With lots of people finding it rather amusing that a grand total of 35 people have subscribed to Newsday's paywall, a Newsday exec has responded by saying the purpose of the paywall was never about getting people to pay in the first place. It's all about reducing churn from cable subscribers. While the exec claims that those mocking the low number of subscribers ignored this, that's not at all true. In fact, at least in our case, the very title of our post about Newsday's paywall was all about how it was designed to reduce churn for Cablevision subscribers. The bigger point that people were making wasn't specifically about Newsday, but to alert all of those other folks who seem to think that people will jump up and pay for online access to their local newspaper. As Newsday is discovering, that's not the case.

Furthermore, if the goal was just to reduce churn, with no interest in getting outside subscribers, why offer a subscription plan at all? Why not just limit access to those who subscribe to Cablevision? Claiming no interest in signing up outside subscribers is shown to be a lie in the fact that they set up a system specifically to do just that.

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The O'Reilly Media Ebook Deal of the Day: Make: Electronics -- Only $9.99! (Regular price: $27.99) Use discount code ME999.

Trailrunner7 writes to mention that a new program from Google could pay security researchers $500 for every security bug found in Chromium. Of course if you find a particularly clever bug you could be eligible for a $1337 reward. "Today, we are introducing an experimental new incentive for external researchers to participate. We will be rewarding select interesting and original vulnerabilities reported to us by the security research community. For existing contributors to Chromium security — who would likely continue to contribute regardless — this may be seen as a token of our appreciation. In addition, we are hoping that the introduction of this program will encourage new individuals to participate in Chromium security. The more people involved in scrutinizing Chromium's code and behavior, the more secure our millions of users will be. Such a concept is not new; we'd like to give serious kudos to the folks at Mozilla for their long-running and successful vulnerability reward program."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.