news 11-30-05

more on video, network video, and moving TV to the internet:

IPod Seeks Advertising Revenues
Spending on online video advertising is expected to triple in the
next two years alone, according to research firm eMarketer, rising to
about US$640 million. The firm predicts it could hit $1.5 billion by
2010, which would once again put Apple in the right place at the
right time.
Just weeks after Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)  proved the viability of its
iPod video player, Walt Disney Studios and media giant Clear Channel
announced plans to begin advertising movies and other content over
video-enabled portable devices. Clear Channel will use portable
players, like the iPod and Sony (NYSE: SNE)  PSP, to promote shows
on its 1,200 radio stations. For example, Clear Channel's Premier
Radio Networks plans to air 60-second video clips from the "Rush
Limbaugh Show" starting Dec. 12. Disney plans to offer trailers from
its upcoming fantasy film "The Chronicles of Narnia," for starters.
Disney previously hooked up with Apple in October to offer its
current and past season episodes of ABC and Disney Channel television
shows for download at the iTunes Music Store. The Rise of Portable
Video Ads Who saw the rise of portable video ads coming? Perhaps
Apple CEO Steve Jobs did. On October 31, Apple announced that its
iTunes Music Store customers had purchased and downloaded more than 1
million videos since they debuted the service on Oct. 12. "Selling
one million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a
market for legal video downloads," Jobs said as part of the
announcement. "Our next challenge is to broaden our content
offerings, so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their
computers and new iPods." One has to wonder if those broadened
content offerings include advertising support all along. With popular
show like "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" streaming over the iPod,
it appears to be a strategic opportunity.

http://tinyurl.com/anrur

Wal-Mart VP: We lost the 'philosophical argument' with Steve Jobs

Wal-Mart on Tuesday said sales during this year's "Black Friday"
shopping bonanza faired much better than last, due partly to a more
desirable selection consumer products like Apple's iPod. During a
conference call hosted by J.P. Morgan & Co., Wal-Mart Senior Vice
President and Treasurer Jay Fitzsimmons told investors that Black
Friday sales "were good," noting strong sales of computers, dolls,
portable DVD players and video games.
According to Fitzsimmons, this year's Black Friday event was more
successful because Wal-Mart stepped-up marketing efforts and picked
better items for early-bird specials and other ad blitzes. Some of
the hot items included laptop computers for under $400 and a 15-inch
LCD TV for less than $200 -- both of which sold out within minutes.

http://tinyurl.com/d52s5

Mac OS X security under scrutiny

When the SANS Institute, a computer-security training organization,
released its Top-20 vulnerabilities last week, the rankings continued
an annual ritual aimed at highlighting the worst flaws for network
administrators. This year, the list had something different, however:
The group flagged the collective vulnerabilities in Apple Computer's
Mac OS X operating system as a major threat.

http://tinyurl.com/8znu6

Finding harmony among iPod rivals

Hoping to loosen Apple Computer's grip on the digital music player
market, Microsoft is rallying consumer electronics companies to form
a common link. The software maker is part of a working group
launched last week by the Consumer Electronics Association to develop
a standard port for connecting gadgets like music players to audio
systems in homes and cars. "It is important for the industry to
create an open, industrywide standard for docking connectors that
will give consumers greater access to the digital entertainment they
have stored on devices," Jai Jaisimha, the lead program manager in
Microsoft's Windows digital media division, said in a statement.

http://tinyurl.com/b2n3e

THE ULTIMATE DEVICE FOR HANDLING THOSE ANNOYING COMPUTER USER
COMPLAINTS:

Taiyo’s BuzzTrainer USB shock therapy device

For that ADD friend of yours that has everything, why don’t you
score them some USB shock therapy to keep them on track this holiday
season? The BuzzTrainer from Taiyo can also fulfill all your
personnel reprogramming needs; according to the marketing material
the device can “eliminate the desire to spend hours gaming, to file
share, or to download illegal music.” This works through setting up
Buzz Keywords, BuzzApps, and even Buzz Scripts (Buzz yeah!) to make
sure that devious peon of yours keeps to the straight and narrow, and
if not, gets a nice little shock to pay for it. Even more exciting
are the included tutorials for XP, Word, and IE which we’re sure
will learn you up right quick on spell checkin’ and the like. They
even recommend the BuzzTrainer as an acupressure system, but we’ll
pass, thanks.

http://tinyurl.com/ajf45

The new Mac mini — with Front Row 2.0 and DVR?

It’s on ThinkSecret, which means, of course, that we can’t verify
the information or its source, but now the rumor on top of the pile
for things we might see at Macworld in January is that the Mac mini
will be given a second life as a Front Row 2.0-bearing digital media
hub — complete with DVR features. Apparently it’ll also be an
Intel Mac, and feature an iPod dock, in addition to receiving a
larger (physically and logically) 3.5-inch drive — all of which
would undoubtedly result in a more corpulent Mac mini. There are a
lot of things we could (but won’t) get into here, but we would like
to take a moment to say that if Apple did want to get their foot in
the door to the living room really quick n’ easy, an Intel Mac mini
+ Front Row + DVR + iPod dock would be the way to do it. In fact, the
only thing they’d probably have to worry about would be the low-
margin mini really cannibalizing thes sales of their non-Intel, non-
DVR higher-margin iMac and Power Mac products (at least for the time
being). But again, this is all unconfirmed, so we’ll ease up on ya.

http://tinyurl.com/96mwg

FOR DONI:

DVGuru rates top video editors

If you're into video editing, be sure to check out this list from our
peeps at DVGuru. They've rated the top non-linear video editors, and
some of their choices may surprise you (no, I'm not going to give up
the goods here, but here's a hint: the top pick is Mac-only, and
number four used to be cross-platform, but has abandoned the Mac
platform to spite number one).

http://tinyurl.com/dbffv

Mechanical hard drives face tough NAND challenge Price of NAND to
slump THE BATTLE is on between solid state devices and mechanical
hard drives for consumer electronics, IDC said in a report. The
market research company predicted that NAND memory average selling
price will fall by 43% CAGR between 2004 and 2009, but other factors
than price per gigabyte are at play, IDC said. Those include
capacity, but also form factor, power consumption, weight,
durability, data rates and alliances between OEMs and storage suppliers.

http://tinyurl.com/bbrx4

COOL:

The dirt-cheap floppy-drive active solar tracking unit

This is still pretty much a work-in-progress, but I did manage to
create a successful heliostat (sun tracker) from the above TEAC model
FD-235HF 3.5" floppy drive. This procedure will likely work just
fine, with a bit of adaptation, on any drive new enough to have CMOS
logic on its chipset. This particular drive (probably a lot of
others) only needs a single 5V DC supply. It has two boards, one with
the stepper and main logic, and one with the spindle. The first is
the only one needed, and it draws 0.1 Watt with the motor off, and 1
Watt with the motor running, so it should be easy enough to power
with a cheapo hobbyist 5V solar cell if stand-alone operation is
needed, perhaps a sub-watt one if a large capacitor is supplied to
build up enough juice for a motor step over time.

http://tinyurl.com/bxsug

What Hollywood can learn from anime
Daniel Roth has an interesting piece in the current issue of Fortune
about the lessons Hollywood might learn from Mangawood. He tells
Boing Boing, "The story analyzes how the niche worlds of anime and
manga manage to pull off something increasingly rare in showbiz: they
court their customers instead of alienating them, encouraging
fansubbers (explained in detail in the piece), showing up at all fan
shows, and pursuing whatever cutting edge technology their viewers
are buying."
http://tinyurl.com/ctdwv

Hurricane season refuses to blow over
The record-breaking North Atlantic hurricane season of 2005 just will
not end – and it may get worse yet, say meteorologists as yet
another storm has surfaced in the Atlantic and the remnants of
Tropical Storm Delta blow towards Africa.

On Monday, Delta blew across the Canary Islands on its way towards
Morocco. The US National Hurricane Center predicts its remains may
reach northern Mauritania on Tuesday.

But this highly unusual transatlantic crossing does not wrap up this
already-record-breaking season, which officially ends Wednesday. On
Tuesday meteorologists at the NHC named tropical storm Epsilon, which
is the record 26th tropical storm of 2005.

Meanwhile, the centre's annual re-analysis of the storm season may
lead to upgrading of the peak strength of July’s Hurricane Emily to
the most intense class, Category 5, says NHC forecaster Stacy
Stewart. With Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma all recorded as
Category 5 storms, 2005 already holds the record for three such
powerful storms in one season. The total of 13 hurricanes is also a
record for the North Atlantic hurricane season.

http://tinyurl.com/aakkp

FOR THOSE WITH A BIG BACKYARD AND TOO MUCH TIME!

Solar Powered Coffee Roaster

Well we've covered news of a biodiesel-powered coffee roaster
previously. But now there's word that two brothers — Mike and David
Hartkop — have created a solar powered coffee roaster. Their solar
roaster is a parabolic mirror array that focuses on a roasting drum
and heats it to 600° F. The drum's motors are also solar powered. The
roaster can crank out 7 pounds of coffee per hour when the sun is a
shinin'.

http://tinyurl.com/aumk3

news...news... news 11-29-05

Gee.... You think they are opposing the option for 'only the channels
you want' out of some higher purpose? or because only people who
happened to be flipping through and got stuck ever join their 'flock'.
Televangelists on Unusual Side in Indecency Debate
By Jube Shiver Jr., Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON — Trying to preserve their electronic pulpits, the
nation's religious broadcasters find themselves in the unusual
position of fighting an effort by anti-indecency groups to thwart
channels offering racy programming.

The issue involves a debate over whether cable companies should
continue offering subscribers mainstream and niche channels in
bundles, or let them buy what they want on an a la carte basis.
http://tinyurl.com/debb4

Banking on a virtual economy
Late last month, Jon Jacobs, an independent filmmaker from Miami,
became the first person in the history of online gaming to spend
$100,000 on a single virtual item when he bought a space station in
the game "Project Entropia."

Jacobs, whose avatar Neverdie is somewhat of a celebrity in the space
fantasy game, is so confident of his ability to turn his hefty
investment into quick riches that he pulled cash out of his real-
world home to help raise the hundred grand.

His certainty is based partly on the experience of David Storey, who
earlier this year set the previous record for highest price paid for
a virtual item when he plopped down $26,500 for Treasure Island, a
private piece of "Project Entropia" land. Storey, Jacobs said, has
already made his money back through revenue earned by hunters and
miners who pay a tax to use his island.

http://tinyurl.com/8jdcy

Gartner sees less demand for IT specialists

Demand for IT specialists could shrink as much as 40 percent within
the next five years, according to Gartner analysts who unveiled a
list of key trends for 2006.

According to the market researcher, businesses will increasingly look
to employ "IT versatilists," employees who not only specialize in IT
but who demonstrate business smarts by handling multidisciplinary
assignments.

"The long-term value of today's IT specialists will come from
understanding and navigating the situations, processes and buying
patterns that characterize vertical industries and cross-industry
processes," Diane Morello, Gartner's research vice president, said
Tuesday in a statement.

http://tinyurl.com/d8zew

Baking privacy into personal data

It's not often that a high-school dropout becomes a distinguished
engineer at IBM. But Jeff Jonas, the company's chief scientist of
entity analytics, has done just that by developing ways to mine
personal data while maintaining privacy.

Jonas first developed "identity resolution" technology more than 20
years ago. He claims the software is now mature enough to let
government agencies and corporations do sophisticated analysis on the
reams of data they have--even sensitive personal information.

http://tinyurl.com/8ljpc

Attack code out for 'critical' Windows flaw

Computer code posted over the weekend can crash vulnerable computers
by exploiting a Windows flaw disclosed in October.

The exploit code takes advantage of a flaw Microsoft tagged as
"critical." The bug lies in a Windows component for transaction
processing called the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator,
or MSDTC. Microsoft addressed the flaw in security bulletin MS05-051.

Holographic Rival to Blu-ray, HD-DVD

The first holographic storage systems, capable of storing up to 300
GB on a single disc, will reportedly go on sale towards the end of 2006.
InPhase Technologies and Hitachi are jointly developing this
technology, dubbed "Tapestry holographic memory technology", which
uses laser light interference to store 300 GB on a single disc.
(Warning, this site might not be so fantastic.... make certain you
are not using explorer)
http://tinyurl.com/c2luk

SFFTech reviews and pans the AOpen Mini PC
SFFTech got their hands on the Apple AOpen Mini PC and churned out a
massive, and ultimately unflattering review of this Mac mini knock-
off. While Apple and AOpen target the low end or entry level market
with their mini offerings, SFFTech found the Mac mini to be a better
choice for beginners or the “less technologically inclined.” No
surprise there. And, although the Mini PC looks to be ideal for home
theater setup with its component, S-Video and composite video outputs
for standard and high definition television sets, SFFTech found
playback to “stutter and lag” HD videos while offering audio which
simply “isn’t up to the task.” While AOpen’s attempt at the
mini is actually 1.5-centimeters smaller in length and width than
Apple’s, you’ll still be limited in options for placement due to
the “very annoying whine” emitted by the Mini PC’s fans which
only intensifies when the system is pushed to its limit. In fact, it
was so bad during testing that the reviewer had to shut the machine
down at times. While SFFTech gives AOpen credit for offering a low
end PC in a “cool” form factor, they ultimately can’t recommend
it for PC enthusiasts or even as a file server due to the noise. Ouch.
http://tinyurl.com/88rgq

The Cyberhand bionic hand feels and flexes
The Europeans responsible for the “Cyberhand” have, along with
it’s scifi-esque moniker, given their creation some scifi-esque
capabilities that bode well for amputees and Luke Skywalker wannabees
the world over. The bionic hand not only has individually functioning
digits, including an opposing thumb for the multitude of actions that
require one, but those fingers should be able to feel, yet still only
take a relatively small number of nerves to control. It works in much
the same way as a real hand; by using synthetic tendons that run
through each finger, the artificial hand only needs 6 motors to
control motion. So far they’ve created a touch sensitive prototype,
and now it looks like their next task is to attach the hand and fire
it up. Though what’s really got us excited is the wireless
communication between the nerve endings and the hand, opening up a
whole realm of possibilities for hot-swapping arm attachments. We
think you know where we’re going with this.
http://tinyurl.com/bmtmy

Adaptec’s AVC-3610 USB TV tuner with dual encoding
If you’ve been looking for a tuner for your PC, and those PCI slots
are all full up, you might want to check Adaptec’s new USB 2.0 TV
tuner. The AVC-3610 is designed for the Windows Media Center 2005 OS,
but it should be fine with other DVR software. It has dual MPEG-2
hardware encoding from Coaxial, S-Video and RCA inputs, along with a
FM radio receiver, and they’re also throwing in a remote for
controlling your media center along with your other snazzy media
components. It’s no bargain, the box will cost you $229, but if you
can swing it we’re sure you can put all those inputs to good use.
http://tinyurl.com/bgw2o

Learn Ruby in your web browser
Why the Lucky Stiff, dynamo of the Ruby community and writer of the
Poignant Guide to Ruby, has created Try Ruby, an interactive Ruby
prompt that, though the magic of (you guessed it) AJAX runs right in
your web browser. If you've ever wanted to try programming in Ruby
but don't want to take the time to download and install it on your
machine, this is your chance. Try Ruby even has a built-in Ruby
tutorial, though Why says it's only half-finished, so if you run into
a brick wall and want to keep learning try the Poignant Guide above,
the Pickaxe, or, for the brand new programmer, Chris Pine's How to
Program.
http://tinyurl.com/drzl6

We already know how NOT to do this one:
How To: Create your own game company, Part One
While it's a little cost prohibitive to start developing Xbox 360 or
PS3 games from your bedroom, let's not forget games like Roller
Coaster Tycoon and Alien Hominid went from humble beginnings to
financially successful franchises. Although you'd have to spend
hundreds of hours developing AAA titles, there are some ways to get
slick games up and running quickly. I'm going to show you a few ways
to do just that.
http://tinyurl.com/cxcn6

USEFUL
The Definitive BIOS Optimization Guide
While I won't make any claims about its authority, I will say that
the Definitive BIOIS Optimization Guide is an impressive piece of
work. If you can get past the ads and the many cries to "Buy my
book!", the free text is an exhaustive list of arcane BIOS settings,
their purposes, and recommended settings for the best performance. If
you're having performance issues you think might be at the BIOS
level, or want to squeeze the very last drop of performance out of
your motherboard, it's worth a look.
http://tinyurl.com/bbghu

Pictures by Hive Mind
Posted by Hemos on Monday November 28, @06:48PM
from the we-are-playboy-of-borg dept.
nofrance writes "A very interesting little experiment where multiple
viewers get to select whether to set a single pixel to black or
white, to help build a picture. All pictures can also be viewed as
animations over time, often showing just how close the picture got to
finished before returning to something closer to static."
http://tinyurl.com/7frv5

The world’s lightest solid finds myriad other applications
November 29, 2005 When we first wrote about aerogel, we treated it as
somewhat of a technological novelty. Aerogel is 99.8% air and 1,000
times less dense than glass yet it can withstand high temperature,
delivering 39 times more insulation than the best fibreglass. This
exotic substance was invented in the 1930s but has been refined by
NASA in recent times for the purpose of catching space-dust. Now it
has been recognised that aerogel’s unique properties are in fact
very applicable to some of man’s greatest challenges. Its unique
nanostructure offers higher electrochemical surface areas, better
mass transport, reduced or eliminated ionic contamination and price
competitiveness – in short, lower cost and higher performance
compared to current membranes on the market, making it ideal as a
high performance electro-catalyst for fuel cells, non-electro-
catalysts for emissions control, and aerogel materials for energy
storage.
http://tinyurl.com/azwxp

Fantasy tabletop game built out of legos


BrickQuest is a tabletop fantasy game that is built out of legos,
both official and custom -- the "BrickMaster" snaps together
elaborate dungeons, and then little legomen move around the board,
fighting monsters, finding secret doors, etc. Link (Thanks, Mark!)
http://tinyurl.com/9cjfe

SCIENTOLOGISTS TAGGING THE EARTH WITH GRAFFITI THAT CAN BE SEEN FROM
SPACE:
http://tinyurl.com/8tsdn
A better view:
http://tinyurl.com/crblu

Rushkoff's Thought Virus #4
BB pal Douglas Rushkoff has posted the fourth excerpt from his
forthcoming book "Get Back In The Box: Innovation From The Inside
Out." From the excerpt:
In a renaissance society driven by the need to forge connections,
play is the ultimate system for social currency. It's a way to try on
new roles without committing to them for life. It's a way to test
strategies of engagement without being defined by them forever. It’s
a way to rise above the seemingly high stakes of almost any situation
and see it as the game it probably is. It’s a way to make one’s
enterprise a form of social currency from the beginning, and to
guarantee a collaborative, playful, and altogether more productive
path toward continual innovation.

And this play begins at work....
http://tinyurl.com/95fea

Mid-Range Graphics Card Round-Up


(review of midrange graphics cards)
http://tinyurl.com/ar5rg

Nanochannels Don't Feel the Humidity

By Adrian Cho
ScienceNOW Daily News
28 November 2005

Tiny, tight-cornered channels etched into a piece of glass dry out
far faster than round ones do and at the same rate regardless of the
humidity, nanotechnologists report. The curious phenomenon could one
day be adapted to cool computer chips or to make textiles that draw
away moisture with great efficiency, the researchers propose.
(they will dry quickly, even in 95% humidity)
http://tinyurl.com/9nn7n

CO2: This time it's personal
So you've filled your tank with petrol, wiped the bugs off your
windscreen, and you're standing in the queue holding two pieces of
plastic which will finalise the purchase.

One card carries the logo of your bank; the other, a picture of a
burning planet.

The first will deduct money from your bank account; the second,
credits from your carbon account.

You cough up your money and your credits, get back to the car and on
your way; your tank is filled, and, what's more, the planet saved
from the uncertain fallout of man-made global warming.

http://tinyurl.com/7ooak

Designer Emulation Kits: A 9-volt Castiglioni?

http://tinyurl.com/c992l

these are really cool little kits for things that fit on top of a
9volt battery... and here is the source site:

http://tinyurl.com/bd36k

First-ever analysis of green roofs’ ability to keep buildings warm
in winter
A Univerity of Toronto Professor will be presenting his findings on
the abilty of green or "living" roofs to offer energy benefits during
the cold season. Appropriately, his poster session will debute at the
Toronto Design Exchange, featured in the "Design for Cold"
exhibition. Professor Brad Bass' work is a vital element of spreading
Green Building concepts. Because Green Building designs were
pioneered in warm temperate zones, work like this is essential not
only to validate performance merits in different settings but also to
avoid getting arrows in our backs. The specializing-in-climate-change-
denial Think Tanks are doubtless ready to draw their bows at
whichever high profile green building project can be first claimed as
a "failure", blaming TreeHuggers for idealogical over-reach.
http://tinyurl.com/dezsc

How Many Hands Did She Shake?
Eary stage VC's must make investments decisions with very little
information. No wonder that barely half our investments turn a profit.
Here's a question I have often asked aspiring VC's to see if they
persist in the face of seemingly incomplete information...
My wife and I went to a dinner party with four other couples. At the
beginning of the party, some people shook hands. (Obviously, no one
shook his or her own hand or spouse's hand, and no one shook hands
with the same person twice.) During the party I surveyed all the
other people as to how many hands each one shook. I got different
answers from everyone. What did my wife say?
If the aspiring VC gives up on this solvable problem, I don't see how
he or she will face down the much murkier puzzle of predicting a
startup's success.
http://tinyurl.com/97w5w

news, quickly, 11-29-05

Ten (sensible) startup rules
Ev Williams, co-founder of Blogger and Odeo, has posted ten (really
eleven) eminently sensible rules for startups. I think these are
great -- they're the kind of thing I wish I'd known back when I was
starting a company.
#3: Be Casual
We're moving into what I call the era of the "Casual Web" (and casual
content creation). This is much bigger than the hobbyist web or the
professional web. Why? Because people have lives. And now, people
with lives also have broadband. If you want to hit the really big
home runs, create services that fit in with—and, indeed, help—
people's everyday lives without requiring lots of commitment or
identity change. Flickr enables personal publishing among millions of
folks who would never consider themselves personal publishers—
they're just sharing pictures with friends and family, a casual
activity. Casual games are huge. Skype enables casual conversations.
Link
http://tinyurl.com/ctuyt

Boiling the Ocean vs. JSTDT

One of the more interesting aspects of the VC business is meeting
with all kinds of folks that have ideas of all types. We see things
like a business plan for communicating with the dead via wireless
technology or putting RFID tags on gold fish for ease of inventory
and health management. Every idea gets a hearing in our office
because, well, you never know and listening is what it is all about.
My partners, associates, and Carla, the glue that keeps the place
together, all know that ideas are about passion, looking at things
from all kinds of angles and, well, you just never know about
stuff. It pays to be nice, listen, offer advice and show a little
respect. The other part of the job that is fun is when a JSI (Just
Ship It) walks in the door. You see something that just begs to be
out there collecting users yet lies waiting for the entrepreneur to
complete the grand vision, the master plan, the complete
transformation of all that he (or she) surveys, or putting it
bluntly, completing the rather large task of attempting to boil the
ocean. Having a conversation with such a passionate lad can be quite
the experience because you walk the fine line between coming off as
some know it all suit and missing the big picture in the rush to get
something out the door. Meet Albert. Albert is my kind of young,
aggressive, (aka cocky) entrepreneur who is doing some interesting
work on a software product he thinks will change the world. It is a
true labor of love and, to his credit, he managed to get some angels
to view the power point, drink the kool-aid, and toss some coin his
way. Way to go, Albert. Albert gives me a call and wants to
essentially do the no harm, no foul meeting. As you might have read
before, I make it a practice to give anybody a change to come by the
office for a 30 minute, no harm, no foul meeting that basically
doesn’t count toward anything formal when it comes to funding.
It’s great fun and, I hope, is a more relaxing way for new start ups
to get to know the world of Venture Capital. After going through the
first chunk -o– slides, we hit the demo of the product. Not bad. Not
killer, but not bad. The business problem he is trying to solve is
real but not sure if what he is showing me is going to nail it. As
I’m about to launch into the feedback loop, Albert says “oh,
lemmie show you one other thing” and proceeds to show me this little
desktop gizmo that is, well, killer (in my opinion, which is free and
worth every penny). “Ship that” are the words I uttered. Well
even tho it could be ready, it’s really only a small part of this
massive, change the world, yadda yadda yadda, says Albert. Right.
Albert, buddy, Just Ship The Damn Thing (JSTDT) and let the user
community tell you what’s really needed. And of course, it was here
that Albert and I launch into this massive debate over what the
‘right’ thing to do is. Does he ‘knee jerk’ and ship what I
suggest because it might/probably get him funded. Does he play nice
with me because he wants to get funded? Does he stick to his guns and
make me understand that his strategy is not one that amounts to a
boil the ocean plan rather a smart way to grow a long term business.
It goes on well past the 30 minutes and spills into some of the
better “flame mail” I’ve had since the days gone by at
Microsoft. I wonder if they still have flame mail at Microsoft or
have the corporate types taken over. I digress..

http://tinyurl.com/cedhd

Sky Spy Spots Energy-Wasting Homes

November 28, 2005 07:19 AM - Collin Dunn, Durham, North Carolina


British company BlueSky is helping improve energy efficiency in UK
homes. They're using aerial thermal imaging to pinpoint areas and
homes that are leaking too much energy. Local energy authorities can
then use this information to help advise homeowners to improve their
energy efficiency in accord with the mandated 30 percent increase in
domestic efficiency by 2006. BlueSky combines aerial thermal imaging
with digital mapping and geographical information systems to produce
a thermographic map that indicates the properties emitting the most
heat. BlueSky uses a modified military-use scanner mounted on the
underside of a twin-engine aircraft to record the infrared
images. ::BlueSky via ::We Make Money Not Art

http://tinyurl.com/77wk3

Some tips from experts on selecting right toys

Monday, November 28, 2005

By Karen MacPherson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Parents face a tough balancing act in choosing toys for their children.

On the one side, there's the highly coveted high-tech toys, those
flashy, animated playthings. On the other side, there are the
traditional construction sets, board games, arts and crafts kits that
inspire kid-powered creativity.

The balancing act is particularly challenging this year because some
of the new electronic toys offer more play value than their
predecessors, experts say.

http://tinyurl.com/ab3mn

The first United Nations climate conference since the Kyoto agreement
came into force in February is due to begin in the Canadian city of
Montreal.
Delegates will discuss how targets on cutting greenhouse gas
emissions over the next seven years will be met.
Talks over the next fortnight will also focus on what further action
to take after 2012 but the US says it will resist attempts to be
drawn in.
A no-confidence vote being held in Canada may disrupt proceedings.
The minority Liberal government looks set to lose, and its defeat
would trigger an election campaign.
http://tinyurl.com/al4mc

Woman charged for refusing to show ID on a public bus
Bill Scannell says: "On the 9th of December 2005, a Denver woman is
scheduled to be arraigned in U.S. District Court. Her crime: refusing
to show ID on a public bus. At stake is nothing less than the right
of Americans to travel freely in their own country.
"The woman who is fighting the good fight is named Deborah Davis.
She's a 50 year-old mother of four who lives and works in Denver,
Colorado. Her kids are all grown-up: her middle son is a soldier
fighting in Iraq.
"One morning in late September 2005, Deb was riding the public bus to
work. She was minding her own business, reading a book and planning
for work, when a security guard got on this public bus and demanded
that every passenger show their ID. Deb, having done nothing wrong,
declined. The guard called in federal cops, and she was arrested and
charged with federal criminal misdemeanors after refusing to show ID
on demand.
"She hasn't commuted by public bus since that day."
Link
http://tinyurl.com/b3f8w

Free 1200-page physics textbook
Motionmountain has a free, 1,200-page physics textbook that loads of
great examples. I haven't had a chance to do more than skim, but this
looks like a great basic text, and it's fully searchable, which makes
it perfect to dip into when you have a particular subject you want to
get up to speed on. Link (via Digg)
http://tinyurl.com/dgwy7

Body hacks
Men's Health has a great selection of 14 little body-hacks that use
little-known relationships between different parts of your body to
cause it to bend to your will.
11. Stanch blood with a single finger!
Pinching your nose and leaning back is a great way to stop a
nosebleed -- if you don't mind choking on your own O positive. A more
civil approach: Put some cotton on your upper gums -- just behind
that small dent below your nose -- and press against it, hard. "Most
bleeds come from the front of the septum, the cartilage wall that
divides the nose," says Peter Desmarais, M.D., an ear, nose, and
throat specialist at Entabeni Hospital, in Durban, South Africa.
"Pressing here helps stop them."
12. Make your heart stand still!
Trying to quell first-date jitters? Blow on your thumb. The vagus
nerve, which governs heart rate, can be controlled through breathing,
says Ben Abo, an emergency medical- services specialist at the
University of Pittsburgh. It'll get your heart rate back to normal.
Link (via Digg)
http://tinyurl.com/9exnn

Bosnian town unveils Bruce Lee statue of peace
A Bosnian city has erected a statue of Bruce Lee to commemorate his
65th birthday, as a symbol of universal peace -- Bruce was apparently
equally popular on all sides of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia.


"We will always be Muslims, Serbs or Croats," said Veselin Gatalo of
the youth group Urban Movement Mostar.
"But one thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee."
Link (Thanks, Dave!)
Update Erik sez, "Someone stole Bruce Lee's nunchucks! Apparently it
happened a few hours after the statue was unveiled in Mostar.
According to this article, several dozen citizens gathered in the
park where the statue was unveiled to 'express their disgust.' 'Once
again we've shown what Balkan savageness is!,' says one." (Thanks,
Erik, Marion and Sinisa!)

http://tinyurl.com/dpqhk

More mammoth hard drives set to arrive
Hardware Roundup DFI launches another ace motherboard

By Désiré Athow: Monday 28 November 2005, 05:32

TECH POWERUP does us a favour by reviewing the DFI Lanparty NF4 SL-DR
Expert, which is certainly on my Yule yodel list. Why DFI launched a
third SLI motherboard is anyone guess but the fact that it is priced
around $200 gives you a hint. It has two GbE ports, fabulous BIOS and
overclocking options, SLI, the ability to run 2GB of RAM etc.
Techpowerup gives it top gongs with a 97% approval rate and considers
it as the best enthusiast motherboard available, especially after
listening to that particular community.
http://tinyurl.com/9ueb5

AMD annihilates Intel in dual core benchmark tests
It's no contest

By INQUIRER staff: Monday 28 November 2005, 09:29

A SO-CALLED "prizefight" set of benchmarks run by news.com has pitted
a heavyweight champion against a dead lightweight failure, if the
results are to be believed. News.com pitted AMD versus Intel dual
core CPUs and tested areas including day to day computing, gaming,
multitasking, photo editing, MP3 encoding, video encoding and bangs
per buck, or price performance as others call it. That's seven
rounds of the "prizefight".
http://tinyurl.com/77gkj

99 useful Run commands
If you're like me, you probably use Windows' Run box more often than
you use the Start menu. To that end, FixMyXP.com has a list of 99
Useful Run Commands, i.e. stuff you can type into the Run box to get
stuff done faster. Chances are you won't find all 99 useful, and you
probably already use some of them daily (e.g. I couldn't live without
"cmd" and "calc"), but there are a few gems nonetheless. And in case
you're still using the mouse to open the Run box, try pressing the
Windows key and R.
http://tinyurl.com/92kjj

Flat panel prices in free-fall
We already sort of expect electronics prices to just keep falling and
falling, but PC World has the goods on just how much prices on flat
panel displays have plummeted this year. In case you haven’t been
paying close attention, it turns out that prices have dropped a
ridiculous amount over the past 12 months, mainly because of firece
competition from budget labels like Syntax and Westinghouse.
According to Displaysearch, the price of a 32-inch LCD TV will hit
almost $1500 this quarter, down from $3000 a year ago, with the price
of a 42-inch plasma sliding from just north of $4000 down to about
$2500 over the same time period. Prices will continue to go down next
year, but not quite as quickly as they did in 2005. Translation: if
you’ve been holding out on buying a new flat panel, it’s finally a
good time to buy.
http://tinyurl.com/9dzm7

3-in-1 Magic Joy Box puts old controllers to use
Now you can do more with your old video game consoles than just gut
the electronics for some Ben Heckendorn-style fun; the 3-in-1 Magic
Joy Box allows you to use old Xbox, Playstation, PS2, and GameCube
controllers with your PC games. Up to three controllers (or dance
pads) can be hooked up simulataneously, with all buttons and
vibration types supposedly supported. The Magic Joy Box is avaialable
to rescue your old controllers for about $30.

NBC might sue TiVo over PSP and iPod support
Posted Nov 28, 2005, 7:50 AM ET by Peter Rojas
Related entries: Home Entertainment
NBC is none too pleased with TiVo’s plans to make it easy for users
to use TiVoToGo to snag TV shows from their TiVo box and load them up
on their PSP or video-enabled iPod and are thinking about filing suit
to stop them. They’re being totally silly, of course. All TiVoToGo
does is let users copy a show that they’ve legally recorded and
watch it on another device (with loads of DRM to prevent file-
sharing). Up until now that other device was (usually) a PC, which
didn’t seem to bother the networks so much before, so why are they
all put out now? Because they want to own that relationship with the
viewer and charge money for people to watch shows on a portable
device, like how ABC charges $1.99 to download an episode of Lost.
Let’s see if they actually waste their time and money on a legal
battle.
http://tinyurl.com/baft4

Asiatotal’s iT: the return of the “free” PC
Every few years, it seems, the idea of a “free” PC resurfaces;
usually, it’s a computer that you pick up via a long-term commitment
to an ISP, like the boxes People PC used to offer. The latest
wrinkle, the iT from Hong Kong’s Asiatotal, is a little different.
The iT is a stripped-down desktop running Windows CE, with a 7-inch
LCD and a 400 MHz processor. Asiatotal plans to give away the iT in
developing markets, via a sponsorship model: the computer includes 10
dedicated hotkeys for sponsors. It’s an interesting concept, and one
that could potentially reach the developing world more rapidly than
the much-heralded $100 PC — the profit motive tends to make things
happen a little more quickly than altruism. However, it remains to be
seen whether Asiatotal can sell enough ads to make this work, and
whether advertisers, once on board, are willing to stick around long
enough to turn this into a mass-market product.
http://tinyurl.com/aall7

Bird flu might have spread to more provinces in Indonesia
Jakarta (dpa) - Government authorities said Monday that avian
influenza might have spread to more provinces in Indonesia as the
country's president appointed a state-run pharmaceutical company to
produce the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to fight the illness.
Authorities have so far confirmed that the deadly H5N1 strain of the
virus has infected fowl through 23 of Indonesia's 33 provinces, but
senior officials said new infections were suspected elsewhere, and
that the outbreaks increase the risk of the virus mutating into a
strain that's more contagious to humans and could lead to a pandemic
that health experts fear could kill millions.
http://tinyurl.com/bsnmh

SEATTLE--There was a time long ago when the word "computer" was a job
description referring to the humans who performed the tedious
mathematical calculations for huge military and engineering projects.

It is in the same sense that Kazushige Goto's business card says
simply "high performance computing." Goto, who is 37, might even be
called the John Henry of the information age. But instead of
competing against a steam drill, Goto, a research associate at the
Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas at Austin,
has bested the work of a powerful automated system and entire teams
of software developers in producing programs that run the world's
fastest supercomputers. He has done it alone at his keyboard the old-
fashioned way--by writing code that reorders, one at a time, the
instructions given to microprocessor chips. At one point recently,
Goto's software--collections of programs called subroutines--
dominated the rarefied machines competing for the title of the
world's fastest supercomputer. In 2003 his handmade code was used by
seven of the 10 fastest supercomputers. (The Japanese Earth
Simulator, which was then the world's fastest machine, however, did
not use his software.)

http://tinyurl.com/95bsg

Tech firms focus on TV

Ever since Edward R. Murrow and Ed Sullivan were doing their thing in
black and white, the living room television has been the centerpiece
of home entertainment.

Then, somewhere along the way, a lot of folks in the high-tech
industry got it into their heads that families should gather around
the PC to watch their favorite TV programs.

Guess what? The tube still rules. So it's little surprise that the
tech industry, led in a most unlikely way by computer networking
giant Cisco Systems, is looking to the TV to finally, once and for
all, get out of the home office and into the living room.

On Nov. 18, Cisco announced the $7 billion acquisition of video set-
top box maker Scientific-Atlanta. Microsoft has a deep home
entertainment strategy built around the TV. And Apple Computer
watchers speculate that Steve Jobs & Co. are preparing a new TV-
centric product. What exactly that product is, or whether it even
really exists, is still a mystery.

http://tinyurl.com/79boz

Yale engineers make standardized bulk synthesis of nanowires possible
A team of Yale scientists have demonstrated a method to understand
effective synthesis of semiconductor nanowires (NWs) for both their
quality and quantity, according to a report published in the journal
Nanotechnology. This reported technology produces ten-times the
number of NWs as previous technology and sets parameters for
standardization of NWs.
 Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Army Research Office,
Air Force Office of Scientific Research, NASA, US Department of
Homeland Security, National Science Foundation

daily news 11-25-05

Champion paper plane takes off

Martin Wainwright
Thursday November 24, 2005
The Guardian

A simple but ingenious paper dart was named Britain's best yesterday
after wafting through a Victorian university hall for almost seven
seconds.
Silently proving at least five laws of physics, the Spruce Moose
would have glided a fair bit further, had it not collided with a No
Smoking sign on one flight and a spectator's shoulder bag on another.
Modelled aeronautically on the F14A Tomcat fighter, its secrets were
revealed - though only after victory - by student designer Steve
Bond, who learned them at his high school in Bromley, Kent.

"The folds work so that the plane is tightly held and compact for its
flight up," he said. "Then they gradually open out as it peaks, so
that it glides gently down."
http://tinyurl.com/cfme6

FROM BOINGBOING:
Experiment: How hard is it to shoot off a lock?


A group of marksmen decided to see how hard it was to shoot a lock
off -- pistols and rifles didn't do the trick, but a shotgun tore it
to pieces. Link (via Charlie Stross)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:19:59 AM permalink |http://tinyurl.com/
dqeoo

Flat-pack refugee housing

A design company has announced a system for "flat-pack housing" --
long-term dwellings that sleep four and take up a quarter of a
shipping container.


The SHRIMP (Sustainable Housing for Refugees via Mass Production) is
an attempt to bring housing and other relief to large displaced or
homeless populations, especially those who have suffered in a natural
disaster. Providing shelter to a family of four, it folds up into 1/4
of a shipping container for efficient deployment.
Link (via Worldchanging)
posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:47:53 AM permalink http://tinyurl.com/
bqq8u

Holographic-memory discs may put DVDs to shame

A computer disc about the size of a DVD that can hold 60 times more
data is set to go on sale in 2006. The disc stores information
through the interference of light – a technique known as holographic
memory.

The discs, developed by InPhase Technologies, based in Colorado, US,
hold 300 gigabytes of data and can be used to read and write data 10
times faster than a normal DVD. The company, along with Japanese
partner Hitachi Maxell announced earlier in November that they would
start selling the discs and compatible drives from the end of 2006.

"Unlike other technologies, that record one data bit at a time,
holography allows a million bits of data to be written and read in
parallel with a single flash of light," says Liz Murphy, of InPhase
Technologies. "This enables transfer rates significantly higher than
current optical storage devices."

The discs, at 13 centimetres across, are a little wider than
conventional DVDs, and slightly thicker. Normal DVDs record data by
measuring microscopic ridges on the surface of a spinning disc. Two
competing successors to the DVD format – Blu-ray and HD-DVD – use
the same technique but exploit shorter wavelengths of light to cram
more information onto a surface.

http://tinyurl.com/c4jld

Bestmint by Ortek: A Disruptive Technology For More Than Tooth Decay

You can't put stuff like this in a SciFi plot. No one would believe
it when the dentist said "eat lots of this candy please". No fiction:
Ortek, Inc. is planning production of a candy that is reported to be
more effective than sodium fluoride at preventing tooth decay. The
active ingredient is an amino acid commonly found in nuts and whole
grains. Some plausible ourcomes from introduction of the Ortek
"Basicmints", assuming widespread popularity, include: a gradual end
to flouride drips at the public water supply; no more dental fluoride
treatments for kids; the phoenix-like "anti-fluoridation" movement,
which has periodicaly attracted support from either end of the
political spectrum, derails; toothpaste market shares are tossed in
the air and pasteless toothbrushing becomes fashionable; outlays for
filings are reduced; and, the need for one of the remaining consumer
uses of elemental mercury ...we're talking about amalgam production
by dentists... is reduced. While press coverage seemed to infer the
use of a "biotech" method in manufacture (whatever that means),
details are unclear. The meta-story is much bigger than an ingredient
list though. Brace yourself for many more such disruptive
technologies that confound and confuse our world views.

http://tinyurl.com/by8op

and the basicmints wweb site:

http://tinyurl.com/92wdd

More on business plans:

http://tinyurl.com/7umkm

Living camera uses bacteria to capture 100 megapixel photos

Up until now there’s been a slight gap in high-end digital cameras:
once your taste for megapixels surpassed the 16 that supposedly make
the Canon EOS 1Ds Mark II better than film, and the 34 and 39
megapixels from Leaf and Kodak, respectively, your only recourse used
to be starting your own country or company to try building a
ginormous sensor of your own in the vein of Better Light’s 144
megapixel monster or Fermilab’s 500 megapixel beast. Well a team of
researchers at UCSF, lead by Chris Voigt, may have found a nascent
contender for the triple-digit megapixel market. Apparently they have
modified E. Coli bacteria to act as together as a de facto
photosensitive sensor and produce astounding 100 megapixel-per-square-
inch monochrome images. Before you get too excited, besides only
being capable of black-and-white photography, this living camera
needs four hours to take a photo and only works in red light.
Appropriately enough, one of the first pictures taken using these
primitive organisms was of the flying spaghetti monster, a character
used to mock proponents of intelligent design.

http://tinyurl.com/93tgc

morning news.... I can't stop

A neat hack, useful if you don't like wires around your house or your car:

http://tinyurl.com/75tfd

bluetooth stereo bridge

 

posted nov 22, 2005, 11:00 am et by eliot phillips
related entries: portable audio hacks

[chris] had made a sturdy mount in his car for his ipaq. he uses the ipaq for directions and playing mp3s. after nearly ripping apart his line-in cable every time he took the ipaq out of its cradle he decided to create a wireless solution. he chopped up a pair of hp fa303a bluetooth headphones to extract the receiver portion. the headphone’s band is prone to breaking so it might be possible to find a damaged pair for cheap. the receiver was placed into an old mouse. once the buttons were hooked up to the mouse buttons and a voltage regulator added the unit was ready to start streaming audio directly to the stereo.

Green tea debate brews on

Some benefits seem clear, others need more research

Wednesday, November 23, 2005 By Alice Lesch Kelly and Rosie Mestel, Los Angeles Times

Tea, to China's 18th century emperor Chien Lung, was more than a whistle-wetting pick-me-up: It was "that precious drink which drives away the five causes of sorrow."

[I don't agree with many of these tips] 

Tea Tips

Here's how to get the most out of green tea:  Don't use boiling water: It can make green tea taste bitter. Cool boiled water for one to three minutes before adding leaves.  Allow tea to brew for several minutes. Loose tea needs more time than tea bags. Antioxidants degrade over time, so if you make iced green tea, drink it within 24 hours. Steer clear of green tea supplements. They may not provide the same benefits: A 2005 study found that mega-doses of green tea extract actually helped tumors grow. Check the label if you buy bottled green tea drinks. They may contain mainly sugar and not much green tea.

http://tinyurl.com/a5nfg

[A case of 'please pay us for what we should already be doing']

Ford lobbies Congress over energy  The boss of Ford has urged the US Congress to provide tax credits to carmakers to encourage them to invest in more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Bill Ford said more action was needed to stimulate the development of hybrid vehicles and those powered by ethanol.  Mr Ford called for greater help for US carmakers to modernize their plants and for research and development.  In keeping with other US carmakers, Ford has been struggling to cope with falling sales and high labour costs.

http://tinyurl.com/dp85z

[UH-OH]

Vietnam confirms new case of H5N1 bird flu in humans

AGENCIES , HANOI AND HONG KONG 

Wednesday, Nov 23, 2005,Page 1

A Vietnamese teenager has been confirmed as having the H5N1 bird flu virus, health officials in the northern port city of Haiphong said yesterday.  Doctors from the health department in Haiphong said laboratory tests showed 15-year-old Vu Van Hoa, who is being treated at a local hospital, had contracted the strain.

http://tinyurl.com/9xdmp

C.D.C. Proposes New Rules in Effort to Prevent Disease Outbreak

By LAWRENCE K. ALTMAN

Published: November 23, 2005

Federal officials yesterday proposed the first significant changes in quarantine rules in 25 years in an effort to broaden the definition of reportable illnesses, to centralize their reporting to the federal government and to require the airline and shipping industries to keep passenger manifests electronically for 60 days.

http://tinyurl.com/83anp

[Please take note.  Some months ago I set forward in an email and possibly on my blog a framework for making money through TV shows created for bittorrent style distribution.  No one took notice from among my friends and colleagues.  Now would be a good time to take note..... course that won't happen, but I like to point these things out anyway.]

Tech firms focus on TV

By Marguerite Reardon 

Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: November 23, 2005, 4:00 AM PST

Ever since Edward R. Murrow and Ed Sullivan were doing their thing in black and white, the living room television has been the centerpiece of home entertainment.  Then, somewhere along the way, a lot of folks in the high-tech industry got it into their heads that families should gather around the PC to watch their favorite TV programs.  Guess what? The tube still rules. So it's little surprise that the tech industry, led in a most unlikely way by computer networking giant Cisco Systems, is looking to the TV to finally, once and for all, get out of the home office and into the living room.  On Nov. 18, Cisco announced the $7 billion acquisition of video set-top box maker Scientific-Atlanta. Microsoft has a deep home entertainment strategy built around the TV. And Apple Computer watchers speculate that Steve Jobs & Co. are preparing a new TV-centric product. What exactly that product is, or whether it even really exists, is still a mystery.

http://tinyurl.com/95e63

[Speaking of bittorrent....]

Hollywood, BitTorrent creator strike deal

Hollywood studios announced an agreement with Bram Cohen, the creator of the popular BitTorrent file-swapping technology, that will keep him from helping users find pirated copies of movies online.  Cohen had launched a service on his Web site last May that searched the Internet for file downloads that use his BitTorrent technology. While many of these are legal files, such as open-source software packages, inevitably the search engine also found feature films.  In an event held at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, Cohen and executives from the Motion Picture Association of America said they were united in thwarting piracy.

http://tinyurl.com/8vry2

Survey finds toys dangerous to kids

Makers accused of disregarding safety

WASHINGTON -- Though decades of effort have made toys safer, children still choke on balloons, get strangled by yo-yo water balls and suffer hearing damage from loud playthings, a watchdog group warned Tuesday in its annual toy safety survey.

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group's 20th survey noted that the Consumer Product Safety Commission reported the deaths of 16 children in toy-related incidents last year, along with another 210,000 emergency room visits. Choking on small parts, balls and balloons remains a leading cause of death and injury in kids younger than 15.

http://tinyurl.com/9lk9a

Breast-Feeding May Lower Mom's Risk of Diabetes 

By Serena Gordon

HealthDay Reporter 

TUESDAY, Nov. 22 (HealthDay News) -- Breast-feeding your baby can cut your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, new research shows.  "We found that breast-feeding is really good for mothers. Each year she breast-feeds cuts the risk of type 2 diabetes by 15 percent," said study author, Dr. Alison Stuebe, a clinical fellow in maternal fetal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and an instructor at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

http://tinyurl.com/afvwd

Israel's technology to modernize farm system of Nepal

 KATHMANDU, Nov. 23 (Xinhuanet) -- Israel's experience, technology and cooperation are very important for the modernization and commercialization of Nepal's traditional farming system, the president of the Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI) said here Wednesday.  "Israeli technology is very important for developing and expanding farming of fruits and medical plants, developing solar energy and developing human resources as per need of the agriculture and industry sector of Nepal," said Chandi Raj Dhakal, president of FNCCI, the largest non-governmental federal organization of Nepal.  Efforts are needed to make through economic diplomacy in order to increase trade between the two countries and attract Israeli investment and tourists to Nepal, Dhakal said at a meeting of FNCCI office-bearers and Israeli Ambassador to Nepal Dan Stav.  "Israel has been supporting the development endeavors of Nepal including in the industry and trade sector," Stav said at the meeting.  In the last Nepali fiscal year (July 16, 2004 - July 15, 2005), goods worth of 5.14 million Nepali rupees (73,428 US dollars) was exported from Nepal to Israel, while Nepal imported Israeli goods worth of 65.4 million Nepali rupees (920,000 US dollars), Stav noted.  Nepal exports leather and leather goods, paper and woolen goods, cloth and handicrafts to Israel while it imports beverage, medicine, rubber, iron and steel, airplane and machinery spare-parts, electricity and security-related goods from Israel, Stav added.

http://tinyurl.com/bh5bp

[At less than $200 bucks, it hits the right price range for people who already own an ipod.]

Video Without Boundaries, Inc. Expands Portable Media Range

CoPilot Introduction Set to Make Portable Video More Affordable with sub $200 Price Tag. 

Ft. Lauderdale, FL - (November 22, 2005) — Video Without Boundaries, Inc. (OTCBB: VDWB ), a leading provider of interactive, media-convergent home entertainment devices, today announced it deploying a new portable media player/recorder device named CoPilot. The new flash-based MPEG-4 portable will retail for under $200 and features AV input recording allowing for easy connection to DVD Player, VCRs, cable and satellite set-top boxes for simple recording of TV and Movies.

http://tinyurl.com/8hmly

Top 10 things to do for mom's PC over Thanksgiving

She's always been there for you, and this Thanksgiving weekend it is time to give a little love back.  Since we are not the sentimental type here at Download Squad (flowers and puppies just don't do it for us), we thought we'd offer up 10 tips to make mom's computing experience more enjoyable.  So, take a break from the annual long weekend of awkward conversations, bad football games, and watching TV reruns in anticipation of the big feast.  It's time to fix mom's PC!

[abbreviated by me]

1) a full backup of her computer files

2) Clean up her photographs by putting them in the My Pictures folder on her computer.  Then download Picasa from Google and show her how to use it.  Picasa, along with its online companion Hello, are your friends.

3) it's time to buy her a nice LCD screen and some nice speakers.

4) setup Evernote for her

5) Update the anti-virus software on her machine, as well as the spyware detection software.

8) Introduce your mom to the world of VoIP by setting up Skype.

9) Run a system check utility on her machine to clean out the cobwebs that slow down system performance.  Systweak does a good job in cleaning up PCs.

10) Get her a real email account.

http://tinyurl.com/c54e2

[This might be useful]

Find lost product keys with ProduKey

Lost your key for Office, Windows, or SQL Server? ProduKey is a free utility for finding those keys, especially when you've lost your CD with the sticker on the back. In fact, ProduKey will show you the names of those apps, the Product ID number, and the key (which is what you'd need to reinstall). Being the obsessive-compulsive freak that I am, usually I'll photocopy said numbers and keep them in one handy file, but you might not be so dedicated. ProduKey isn't perfect, but what is? One new feature is the command /remoteall, which will show you the product keys for all the machines on your network. Now that might come in pretty handy...

http://tinyurl.com/79r7j

FROM SLASHDOT (was really on top of things for a change):

XBOX360 Unstable [HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA]

http://tinyurl.com/c5yjw

Quantum Computing around the corner with new breakthroughs in quantum measurement..... [will also create star-trek-level-tech anti heisenburg uncertainty principle device.]

http://tinyurl.com/cylnc

Star-Trek Spoof Movie is the top Finnish (as in, from Finland) Movie, and it was distributed completely by bittorent.

http://tinyurl.com/blynd

Hypnosis may not be as hokey as once thought.

http://tinyurl.com/al53u

The Next Bare Naked Ladies album will be sold n a reusable 128mb flash drive.

http://tinyurl.com/8e6ub

Home Hydrogen Refueling Technology Advances with the Honda Experimental Home Energy Station III

(link to this article)

November 23, 2005 Further advancing its vision of a gasoline- and emissions-free transportation future, Honda R&D and technology partner Plug Power has unveiled the Home Energy Station III, which provides heat and electricity for the home as well as fuel for a hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicle. This third generation unit is more compact and efficient than previous Home Energy Station models and follows Honda’s strategy to develop intermediate as well as longer-term alternatives to traditional energy sources like gasoline. Using natural gas as its base energy source, the Home Energy Station III is designed to work in a home-based refueling environment and is able to supply a sufficient amount of hydrogen to power a fuel cell vehicle, such as the Honda FCX, for daily operation while providing electricity for an average-sized household.

http://tinyurl.com/9skjp

FROM BOINGBOING (also busy day there today)

Study: How Internet copyright law is abused 

The law that allows copyright holders to take infringing materials off the Internet presents an attractive nuisance, inviting widespread abuse by those who want to censor political speech or shut down their competitors.

http://tinyurl.com/bdml2

Tech business niches begging to be filled 

This article, entitled "Companies I’d like to Profile (but don't exist)" contains ideas for 10 startups of varying viability that would make its author, a tech/business reporter happy.

http://tinyurl.com/8ukhq

Aussie Senator: air security is meaningless 

Amanda Vanstone is an Australian Senator who gave a stupendous speech to the Adelaide Rotarians about how meaningless airline security procedures are, arguing that they're in place to "make people feel better as opposed to actually achieve an outcome." I fly about 300,000 miles a year, and I couldn't agree more. Senator Vanstone is the first high-placed public official to say what we all know -- the crap we face at airports does squat to make us safer.

http://tinyurl.com/dq3cf

Electric fish jam rivals 

When an electric knifefish encounters a rival, both boost their electric field in an effort to jam the other's signal.

http://tinyurl.com/bbsf4

Nature: Up to one-third of US in compliance with Kyoto accords

Regions' GDP equivalent to globe's second largest economy

Even though the United States does not participate in the Kyoto protocol, about one-quarter of the population lives in states, counties or cities that have adopted climate change policies similar to those of the global initiative, according to a Brief Communication published in the November 17 issue of Nature.

Including regions classified as 'probable' and 'possible' adopters, which have pledged to reduce emissions, more than one-third of the U.S. population lives in such areas, say co-authors Brendan Fisher and Robert Costanza of the University of Vermont.

Together, these regions contribute up to half of the US gross domestic product, equivalent of 16.9% of global GDP, a slightly larger share than Japan, the world's second largest economy.

Although the numbers look promising, Fisher and Costanza caution that "compliance will be a challenge even for current adopters, who have on average increased their carbon dioxide emissions by 14% since 1990." There are no mechanisms to enforce such initiatives, they add.

However, the local nature of these initiatives could make it possible to develop adaptable, site-specific plans for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.

The United States produces 24% of worldwide greenhouse-gas emissions.

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