Friday, January 26, 2007

How to Fix Your Brain

Go to MIT for free One Man's Blog points out that MIT has joined the online learning bandwagon and is attempting to offer the complete course material for every class online for free. The program will be called "MIT Open Courseware." Susan Hockfield, MIT president, describes the program:

OpenCourseWare expresses in an immediate and far-reaching way MIT's goal of advancing education around the world. Through MIT OCW, educators and students everywhere can benefit from the academic activities of our faculty and join a global learning community in which knowledge and ideas are shared openly and freely for the benefit of all.

MIT Open Courseware 

http://tinyurl.com/2wxy85






How to fix your house

Learn how to make home repairs As part of America Online's recent push to promote on-line video, they launched a home improvement, do it yourself video site. All the videos included in the series are produced by America Online and hosted by Eric Stromer (upcoming host of NBC's "Three Wishes"). The videos are easy enough for a beginner and detailed enough for an expert. Currently there are only seven categories of improvements, but I anticipate this increasing if the site catches on. Each category five or more videos:

  • Improvements
  • Indoor
  • Outdoor
  • Refurbishment
  • Repairs
  • Starting From Scratch
  • Tools and Tips

Home Improvements with Eric Stromer -

http://tinyurl.com/2ab5mu






Friday, January 19, 2007

The Hype continues to go live

Sharp brings e-ink displays to the supermarket Posted Jan 18th 2007 6:30PM by Paul Miller Filed under: Displays, Misc. Gadgets While e-books might still be a bit out of the price range for most consumers, that quick trip to the store for a jar of mayonnaise might give the lowly proletariat its first glimpse at the wonders of e-ink, thanks to some new price tags from Sharp. The tags will include price info, along with extra data like place of origin and a sell-by date. Supermarkets will be able to update tags wirelessly from a central computer, and thanks to the battery sipping technology of e-ink, the batteries should last up to five years on each tag, leaving stocking jockeys with quite a bit less to worry about. Sharp plans to start selling the tags on the 25th, and will charge 2,000 yen ($16.61 US) for a 2-inch version, while the 3-inch display goes for 2,300 yen ($19.11 US) -- both prices we're guessing are wholesale, and there's no word how much the back-end will cost. Sharp hopes to sell about 10 billion yen ($83 million US) of these things in 2007, but we've no idea when they'll start shipping 'em over to our beautimus supermarket meccas in the States.

http://tinyurl.com/yspd2b






InAir Entertainment

This is for my friend jack who has special interest:




Virgin America has just rolled out a new fleet of high-tech Airbus A320 jets, with a "110V plug, USB port, and RJ-45 (Ethernet) port in every seat." Video overview after the jump.
What's also cool is the touchscreen feature on the back of every seat. There are music, games, and movie features, plus you can chat with people in other seats or go into a chatroom for the WHOLE PLANE


Virgin America Airlines Gets Gadget Friendly




Thursday, January 18, 2007

Stuff 01-18-07: Railgun, rootkits, geniology, metadata, toughbooks, FlashDisks, Tires and photoshop

5 Photoshop Tutorials, including removing wrinkles, adding color to B&W photos, and fading photos together:

Turns out, tires make a HUGEÊdifference in the handling of a car, even a standard use car.


Solid State Disks gather momentum - 32 GB, 64 GB and now 128GB



I LOVE THE TOUGHBOOK SERIES!
Panasonic's Toughbook R6: a 10.4-inch, 2-pound laptop for riot grrrlz
Panasonic updates Toughbooks: W5, T5, Y5 all Vista ready



Rosendahl Ice Scraper by Tim Yu

It's about 18û Farenheit (-8û Celsius) in New York todayÑthose of us who live in areas with cold temperatures, snow and ice storms know how delicate and ineffective most scraper/brushes are. Made of stainless steel and synthetics, the Rosendahl Ice Scraper is designed to remove anything from dew to a layer of hard ice. There is a soft edge for fogged up and frosty windows and a hard synthetic side for ice. Designed by Erik Bagger in cooperation with physical therapists, it grips well and is ergonomically designed to prevent strain on the hand, arm or shoulder. The smart engineering makes the brute strength that usually breaks most other scrapers unnecessary. And it doesn't hurt that it's much better looking than other conventional ice scrapers.ÊIt is available from Yanko Design for $29.

http://tinyurl.com/3ceblj


Managing MetadataÊPosted Jan 17th 2007 4:30PM by Sue PolinskyÊFiled under: Security, Windows, Office, Microsoft, How-TosÊWe send too much personal and corporate information when we transport documents throughout our electronic business world. Disclosing some personal data causes us problems; disclosing other data can have an international impact. Early in 2006, AT&T lawyers accidentally disclosed sensitive information in an NSA suit with a 25-page brief striped with thick black lines that were supposed to make portions of the document indecipherable but failed miserably. By dropping copied text into OS X or other PDF readers, or just using foolab's xpdf, the supposedly deleted portions were easy to read. So much for privacy and so much for that lawsuit and probably so much for those particular lawyers.ÊGLOBAL HUMILIATION ...SCO was humiliated internationally when documents with 'hidden' metadata revealed which companies it had considered targeting legally. EFF survived a sealed-document "mishap" and started using image files of documents to avoid sharing metadataIf you don't want to send strictly ASCII files yet be true to your fiduciary responsibility to your company and clients, then take 5 not-so-simple steps toward secure file sharing.Ê

http://tinyurl.com/2w5mf4



FOR THOSE USING MacFUSE:

Secure Remote Disks SSHFS for Mac the Made Easy

http://tinyurl.com/3x95yu



FOR MY MUM:

Create a family tree with Geni

Posted Jan 17th 2007 9:00AM by Chris GilmerÊFiled under: Fun, Internet, E-mail, Web servicesÊCreating a family tree seems like a boring thing to do. Don't get me wrong, its great to know where you've come from, but jotting it down on paper or in a massive, messy Excel document are not that appealing. Enter Geni. Michael Arrington broke the news on this intuitive family tree tool created entirely in Flash last week, and it just launched on Tuesday. Geni is like a living organism that beautifully expands your family information, and molds in to others on the web. Its ultimate goal is to create a family tree of the world. When you start to enter your information, you have the option of entering email addresses for each person added. Geni will then send out the tree to them as well. They add their data, thus expanding the tree further. It's a far cry from the pen and paper most trees are created on, and also much more interesting to navigate through.


Six Rootkit Detectors To Protect Your PC
Posted by samzenpus on Wednesday January 17, @10:05PM
from the rate-them dept.ÊAn anonymous reader writes
"InformationWeek has a review of 6 rootkit detectors.This issue became big last year when Sony released some music CDs which came with a rootkit that silently burrowed into PCs. This review looks at how you can block rootkits and protect your machine using F-Secure Backlight, IceSword, RKDetector, RootkitBuster, RootkitRevealer, and Rookit Unhooker."


Navy Gets 8-Megajoule Rail Gun Working (32 and 64 in the works)ÊPosted by Kurtis - Jan. 17, 2007 - 4:07 pm from Fredericksburg.comÊNormally, new weaponry tends to make defense more expensive. But the Navy likes to say its new railgun delivers the punch of a missile at bullet prices. A demonstration of the futuristic and comparatively inexpensive weapon yesterday at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren had Navy brass smiling. The weapon, which was successfully tested in October at the King George County base, fires nonexplosive projectiles at incredible speeds, using electricity rather than gun powder.ÊThe technology could increase the striking range of U.S. Navy ships more than tenfold by the year 2020. "It's pretty amazing capability, and it went off without a hitch," said Capt. Joseph McGettigan, commander of NSWC Dahlgren Division. "The biggest thing is it's real--not just something on the drawing board," he said.ÊThe railgun works by sending electric current along parallel rails, creating an electromagnetic force so powerful it can fire a projectile at tremendous speed. Because the gun uses electricity and not gunpowder to fire projectiles, it's safer, eliminating the possibility of explosions on ships and vehicles equipped with it. Instead, a powerful pulse generator is used. The prototype fired at Dahlgren is only an 8-megajoule electromagnetic device, but the one to be used on Navy ships will generate a massive 64 megajoules. Current Navy guns generate about 9 megajoules of muzzle energy. The railgun's 200 to 250 nautical-mile range will allow Navy ships to strike deep in enemy territory while staying out of reach of hostile forces.ÊRead the full story at Fredericksburg.com.



A new language barrier -- Why learning a new language may make you forget your old one











Automatic house building

Drop a couple of these things into a location and in a few days you could have a whole neighborhood built for you.
I have been watching this robot for a long time, can't wait fro it to go live and be used in emergency relocation events (like setting up long term living space for refugees of natural and not so natural disasters).

House building robot in action -- not as exciting as it sounds Posted Jan 18th 2007 7:45AM by Paul Miller Filed under: Household, Robots We were kind of hoping for more lasers, explosions and flashy sound effects, but we suppose this will have to do. The YouTubes have delivered unto us some incredibly boring (yet strangely mesmerizing) video of a mini-version of this bot doing its concrete / gypsum laying, house building thing we were hearing about yesterday. Apparently a second robotic arm handles the roof supports that the bot then slaps more concrete on top of, so you won't be able to see any roof building action here, in case that's your thing or whatever. Peep the vid after the break

http://tinyurl.com/yss35f







Phone Roundup

Seems everyone is now trying to beat the iPhone (apple version, no one cares about the cisco version).
Thing is, its not gonna be the touch screen or the music, its gonna be the OS, and thats hard to beat.  Though the price tag that apple has chosen will make it easier.


The Google Switch: an iPhone killer? Posted Jan 18th 2007 8:51AM by Thomas Ricker Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Handhelds


Color us skeptics on this one, but we've got a tipster claiming to have the scoop on Google Switch. This version of the mythical Googlephone is said to be the result of a collaboration between Samsung -- not Alpha Networks or HTC. Of course, it's a button-less touchscreen device as is the rage these days only this time with GPS built-in for pinpoint navigation around Google Maps. What's pictured in that all too familiar blur (Photoshopped?) is the phone's contact program said to be an extended version of Gtalk combining Gmail, text and instant messaging. According to our tipster, the device doesn't have any on-board storage. That's right, all your applications are served up over the network with new apps "attached" to your account via a web interface. So what is it... the real deal or engorged fanboy fantasy? Check the gallery below for biggie pics suitable for dissection. 


Google Switch: Phone by Google and Samsung?



LG's KE850 PRADA official: iPhone says, wha? Posted Jan 18th 2007 4:42AM by Thomas Ricker Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Portable Audio, Portable Video Check it Apple, LG just went official with their iPhone look-a-like LG KE850 Prada phone which they proudly tout as the world's "first completely touch screen mobile phone." A claim they can rightly make since the phone will hit select mobile shops and PRADA stores in the UK, France, Germany and Italy at the end of February and parts of Asia before March is through. Sadly, the KE850 is a non starter for the US market since this version is limited to tri-band GSM 900/1800/1900 with EDGE data. It's smaller that its fruity peer at just 98.8 × 54 × 12-mm resulting in a more compact, 3.0-inch display presumably with that 240x400 resolution we heard about earlier. In case you're keeping track (and we know you are), the iPhone goes quad-band GSM with EDGE and WiFi in a 115 x 61 x 11.6mm shell sporting a 3.5-inch, 320x480 display. Also, the KE850 seems to lack any significant on-board storage opting instead for microSD to boost capacity. Like the iPhone, it packs a 2 megapixel camera (with Schneider-Kreuznach lens) and LED flash and Bluetooth 2.0. However, there's no mention of multi-touch capabilities, an on-screen keyboard, or the accelerometer and proximity sensors found on the iPhone. The KE850 PRADA's UI is Macromedia Flash-based and opts for a minimalist, white-on-black display as opposed to the more, shall we say, OSXish GUI we've already seen floated. Feature-wise, the KE850 comes with a video player supporting MPEG4, H.264, and oddly, H.263 normally used for video conferencing; a document viewer supporting Microsoft's PPT, DOC, XLS formats, PDF and TXT; an audio player with support for MP3/ACC/ACC+/WMA/RA formats; and a "music multitasking function for messaging," whatever that is. How much? €600/$778... that's how much. Still, a compelling choice for those who can't wait for the iPhone's Q4 European introduction or 2008 Asia launch. Click-on for more pics.





Samsung SCH-W559 touts vibrating VibeTonz touchscreen Posted Jan 17th 2007 4:51PM by Darren Murph Filed under: Cellphones


Although Immersion's VibeTonz technology has been integrated into various Samsung handsets in the past, the shakin' technology was previously limited to ring tone and gaming enhancements. Today, however, Samsung is launching the keypad-less SCH-W559, which is the self-proclaimed "world's first" handset to utilize the VibeTonz system as a means of tactile feedback. The unit's QVGA touchscreen is meant to be a hands-on experience, and whether you use a stylus or the tips of your finger, the phone will provide a vibrating cue, which can be adjusted and customized within the phone's software, whenever you touch a virtual button. Immersion claims that its technology allows the on-screen buttons to feel more like "mechanical keys" rather than just a sheet of plastic. The device will be launching solely on China Unicom initially, will support both CDMA / GSM networks, and will feature a 1.3-megapixel camera, Bluetooth, handwriting recognition capability, and audio / video playback functions to boot. Of course, users will be able to pimp out their ringtones with integrated buzzing, and while we're not sure how much Samsung plans on charging for the rumbler, we can't wait for it to start shaking things up here on American soil.


Samsung SCH-W559 Mobile Phone with Immersion's VibeTonz System for Tactile Touchscreen Feedback


Samsung Intros SCH-W559 ShakyPhone



1-Minute Update: Samsung Ultra Music Phone Headed to Sprint








Pretty Watches

From Cool Hunting:

  

Literally out of this world, the classic-cased timepieces by Dutch watchmaker Christian van der Klauuw are astronomically complicated. Measuring everything from the position of the planets, the constellations, worldwide sunrises, sunsets, solar and lunar eclipses, each model is handmade by Christiaan himself resulting in a very limited edition of each. Originally an astronomical clockmaker, the watches were developed after he miniaturized highly complicated movements of his own design.

Self-lauded as the smallest planetarium in the world, the obviously named "Planetarium" (pictured above left) features a heliocentric revolution of the planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) and is available from Watch Buys for $23,700. It's best experienced by watching the animation here.

Introduced at the 2006 Basel World, his most recent invention, the "Venus" (pictured above center) features a very animated dial with separately rotating Earth, Moon and Venus orbiting the Sun amidst the Constellations. It sells from Watch Buys for $19,800 and the animation is here.

Frighteningly complex, the "Astrolibium" (pictured above left) measures celestial bodies and constellations. I won't even try to regurgitate the mind numbing details here, see the animation here and info here for yourself.

A variation of the Astrolibium, the "Mondial CK1" is customized according to your location on the globe, featuring a sunrise/sunset gauge for the rest of the planet. It's far better (and more expensive at $16,200 from Watch Buys) than your simple-minded moonphase. See the animation here.

For images of one of Christiaan van der Klaauw's original Astronomical Clocks and more images of the watches they inspired, go here.

http://tinyurl.com/2z26h3






Wednesday, January 17, 2007

now THEY do this right

a friend pointed this out to me: 
HBO to do A Song of Ice and Fire.


HBO turns 'Fire' into fantasy series
Cabler acquires rights to Martin's 'Ice'By MICHAEL FLEMING
HBO has acquired the rights to turn George R.R. Martin's bestselling fantasy series "A Song of Fire and Ice" into a dramatic series to be written and exec produced by David Benioff and D.B. Weiss.
"Fire" is the first TV project for Benioff ("Troy") and Weiss ("Halo") and will shoot in Europe or New Zealand. Benioff and Weiss will write every episode of each season together save one, which the author (a former TV writer) will script.
The series will begin with the 1996 first book, "A Game of Thrones," and the intention is for each novel (they average 1,000 pages each) to fuel a season's worth of episodes. Martin has nearly finished the fifth installment, but won't complete the seven-book cycle until 2011.
The author will co-exec produce the series along with Management 360's Guymon Casady and Created By's Vince Gerardis.
Martin's series has drawn comparisons to J.R.R. Tolkien, because both are period epics set in imagined lands. But Martin has eschewed Tolkien's good-vs.-evil theme in favor of flawed characters from seven noble families.
The book has a decidedly adult bent, with sex and violence comparable to series like "Rome" and "Deadwood."
"They tried for 50 years to make 'Lord of the Rings' as one movie before Peter Jackson found success making three," Martin said. "My books are bigger and more complicated, and would require 18 movies. Otherwise, you'd have to choose one or two characters."
Aside from writing the most recent draft of "Halo," Weiss recently adapted the William Gibson novel "Pattern Recognition" for WB and director Peter Weir.
Benioff and Weiss were repped by CAA and Management 360.





Living in the Post-Antibiotic world

I hate fear-mongering.
I do NOT believe we will all perish in a bacterial pandemic.
I do think this is worth noting.
My notes on this: MRSA and other resistant bacteria are not new but our options are running out. The total number killed by them is statistically small, but no one wants to be a statistic. Good hygiene and quick response can often help avoid many infections. This includes washing cuts with soap when they happen, and not picking at them (try telling that to your two year old).
And if anyone who develops drugs is listening: Emperor Penguins use something OTHER than their immune system to keep fish in their stomach from going bad while they walk it inland to feed their mates and offspring. No one, to my knowledge, has bothered to look at what that something is. It might be a quick rout to a new antibiotic. Along those same lines, many sea birds carry food long distances in their stomachs for their offspring to eat. Looking at the longest distance carriers might give more clues to other or related methods of avoiding spoilage.
Can anything stop the superbug?


MRSA is already notorious for killing the elderly and frail. But now a new form of the 'hospital superbug' is spreading through our parks and playgrounds. You can catch it with a single scratch, and the drugs that used to hold out some hope are rapidly becoming useless. Sarah Boseley reports

Wednesday January 17, 2007

Children gash their legs and graze their elbows. It's normal. Usually they recover incredibly fast. Occasionally, if the wound starts to look a little dodgy, they may be given an antibiotic - just in case it's infected. But in Texas, increasing numbers of healthy kids with the ordinary childhood lacerations from falling out of trees or being pushed over in the playground are being admitted to hospital. And some of them never make it home.

(more) GTD and a few other useful things


GTD for FirefoxReminderFox is a Firefox extension that adds a scheduler and to-do list manager to Firefox. ReminderFox sits in the bottom corner of Firefox and lets you manage your to-do list, and it displays any reminders you set. Although it has an alarm and calendar built in, ReminderFox is not meant to replace your existing calendaring system. I find it very useful for giving yourself daily reminders and using the alarm feature to help with time management. Also, since ReminderFox works with Firefox, I find it particularly useful to manage the tasks that can only be completed on-line. For example: checking bank and credit card statements, visiting a website (lifehack.org!), sending out pictures, etc.

ReminderFox is an extension for Firefox and Thunderbird that displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo's. ReminderFox does not seek to be a full-fledged calendar system. In fact, the target audience is anybody that simply wants to remember important dates (birthdays, anniversaries, etc) without having to run a fat calendar application.




GTD with RTM: Getting Things Done with Remember The MilkRemember The Milk is a pretty cool web app. As we introduced it before, it has many great features, including integration with Google Calendar. Now, what if could applies the GTD system onto Remember the Milk. Recently The Republic of Geektronica posts a tutorial on integrating Getting Things Done framework to RTM. Take a look how they implement the GTD context:

RTM supports tags, and GTD suggests specifying a context for each action that you have to take. For example, some actions have to be done at home (e.g. taking out the trash). When you're at home, pull up the @home tag, and you'll see all the things you need to do there. To tag an item, check it (or check multiple items to tag them all), then hit "s" on the keyboard. Type the tag, and hit enter twice. Hit escape to un-check the todo item, and you're done. Use @contextname to distinguish context tags from other types of tags. Making your context tags begin with @ will not only distinguish them from other tasks; it will also put them at the top of your tag cloud (which is as David Allen intended). I also set up an @read context tag for things I have to read (I figured that would be better than @bathroom, which would be the more literally application of the context-tagging principle).

http://tinyurl.com/ythdtn



22 Tips to Think Better Everyone would like to think a little faster or more clearly. Sometimes we forget to take care of our brain. Ririan offers 22 tips for improving your brain performance. It's simple, your brain is at the center of everything you do, all you feel and think, and every nuance of how you relate to people. It's both the supercomputer that runs your complex life and the tender organ that houses your soul. And while you may run, lift weights, or do yoga to keep your body in good condition, chances are you ignore your brain and trust it to do its job. The tips range from exercise to maintaining curiosity. The entire list is available at Ririan Project. What are your favorite tips and tricks for improving brain performance?

22 Ways to Overclock Your Brain [Ririan Project]

http://tinyurl.com/2twktx




8 ways to prepare to become a millionaire

http://tinyurl.com/2vhmua


AWESOME PUZZLE GAME, though it is a Microsoft advertising campaign, its still awesome.

http://www.vanishingpointgame.com/


Single-pixel camera takes on digital The camera has a way to go before it is available for practical use Researchers in the US are developing a single-pixel camera to capture high-quality images without the expense of traditional digital photography. Being developed by a lab at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the single-pixel camera is designed to tackle what its developers see as the "inefficiencies" of modern digital camera. It currently resembles and old-fashioned pinhole camera and is the size of a suitcase, but assistant professor of electrical engineering Kevin Kelly told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme that it is only "the beginning of things." "Hopefully it will get smaller," he said.



Crosslink flexible lighting could change the look of the future from Good Thinking (241 articles) January 16, 2007 Futurists' might need to reappraise their forecasts for the look of the future if the promise of a new electroactive polymer materials with remarkable properties reaches full commercialisation. Start-up Crosslink has developed a material with an array of real-world applications that could profoundly influence how our living environments, possessions and clothes look in the future as it effectively offers almost any object the ability to become a light source. SuperFlex is a lightweight, crushable, durable electroluminescent (EL) lighting technology based on polythiophene, an inherently conductive polymer known as PEDOT. SuperFlex can be formulated to emit light in both the visible and near-infrared (NIR) spectrums and can withstand being twisted, punctured, torn or scrunched-up (bottom images) without losing its ability to light up. The first commercialisation of the technology will be in the form of easily-transportable softwall shelters for the military (top image) with the lighting system semi-permanently attached to the inside of the shelter. The future prospects for SuperFlex are very bright as textiles, composites, plastics and metals all can be coated with SuperFlex, signalling a step-change approach to how we use light sources. The technology is applicable in myriad ways - from merchandising displays to packaging, walls, drapes, any part of a structure, clothes that light up at night for safety or decorative purposes ad infinitum. Then there are some compelling military applications, such as a foldable map that emits its own infrared light so it can be read in complete darkness using night vision goggles.

http://tinyurl.com/2r7ety