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Lawrence Lessig's Reaction to McCain's Technology Plan
In reaction to U.S. republican presidential candidate John McCain's release of his technology policy statement on August 14, Lawrence Lessig has released a video presentation criticizing the tech plan for lack of change to important issues such as broadband penetration declines in the country. In reaction to U.S. republican presidential candidate John McCain's release of his technology policy statement on August 14, Lawr... more
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IOC asks Sweden to block File Sharing Site Pirate Bay
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has requested the Swedish government to stop notorious file sharing site The Pirate Bay ( http://thepiratebay.org ) from distributing recordings of the Olympic Games opening ceremony.
"The rights to the opening ceremony cost big money and all forms of pirate copies are forbidden", according to Gunilla Lindberg, one of the IOC's four vice-presidents. The IOC had written a letter to the Swedish government, "requesting the government to ensure that The Pirate Bay remove the recordings."
Justice Minister Beatrice Ask (m) told TT news agency that she understood the IOC's position. "They want to know what the government can do to help them in this issue. They want to find out about their legal rights in Sweden and how we work to prevent internet piracy," she said. However, Ask pointed out that the government could not intervene in an individual case and said it was normal procedure to refer the matter to the police.
But the IOC is not just targeting Sweden. According to Gunilla Lindberg, the IOC has sent out a number of letters to other countries where similar file sharing sites have distributed recordings from the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has requested the Swedish government to stop notorious file sharing site The Pirate Bay ( ht... more -
India Sets Aside 40% of Regional Wasteland for Biodiesel Production
"By 2012, a large portion of India’s Uttar Pradesh region will be converted into Jatropha, a non-edible oil-seed crop that can be grown on marginal land.
40% of recently set aside “wasteland” in India’s populous norther region will be put into Jatropha production in the next few years, according to sources within the country. That makes for an estimated 26,721 hectares (about 66,000 acres) of land that will be converted into biodiesel crop production.
Jatropha is a member of the plant family Euphorbiacea, which is famous for tropical succulents that contain a number of highly toxic but useful compounds. Seeds from Jatropha can contain up to 40% oil, but productivity for domesticated plants varies. Estimates peg oil production yield around 58-73 US gallons per acre. Based on the estimated land use above.
India could be growing anywhere from 3.8 to 4.8 million gallons of oil per year in a few years..." "By 2012, a large portion of India’s Uttar Pradesh region will be converted into Jatropha, a non-edible oil-seed crop that can be... more -
Research Claims “Green” Catalysts Can Clean Up Toxic Pollutants
"Researchers at Carnegie Mellon have discovered environmentally-friendly molecule catalysts that can be used to clean up a variety of toxic substances including waste water and fuel.
The catalysts, known as Tetra-Amido Macrocyclic Ligands (TAMLs), could replace current industrial practices used in cleaning up environmental hazards.
TAMLs are made up of common elements of biochemistry—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen around a reactive core. They are usable at very low temperatures and form strong chemical bonds..." "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon have discovered environmentally-friendly molecule catalysts that can be used to clean up a variet... more -
Google Investing Over $10 Million in Geothermal Energy
"Geothermal energy has finally hit the big time. Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, announced today that it is investing $10.25 million in an energy technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). The funding will also go towards geothermal resource mapping, information tools, and a geothermal energy policy agenda.
And it looks like Google made a wise investment choice. According to an MIT report on EGS, only 2% of of the heat beneath the continental US between 3 and 10 kilometers (depths we can reach with current technology) is more than 2,500 the annual energy use of the United States.
While traditional geothermal energy relies on finding natural pockets of hot water and steam, EGS fractures the hot rock, circulates water in its system, and uses the steam created from the process to create electricity in a turbine.
Google’s investments will go towards three institutions: AltaRock Energy, Potter Drilling, and the Southern Methodist University Geothermal Lab..." "Geothermal energy has finally hit the big time. Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, announced today that it is investin... more -
Cellphones Double Up As Musical Instruments
"If we thought that the mobile phones couldn’t go any further, the participants at the AU Design Project from KDDI have shocked us all yet again with the diverse varieties. Now the phones might target niche crowds like the musicians. The AU Design Project x Yamaha have come up with instruments that double up as mobile phones.
The phones can actually make awesome music, and still let you make and receive calls. Some of the designs are Box to play which integrates a synthesizer, scratch pad, musical toys. A also has drumsticks with sensors and also DJ equipments. You could also have your own orchestra with the Band in My Pocket and many such designs were featured. This could be music to musicians ears, with all pun intended..." "If we thought that the mobile phones couldn’t go any further, the participants at the AU Design Project from KDDI have... more -
LinkedIn Implodes
If you haven't seen the news yet, LinkedIn threw a grenade into the "groups" hatch and closed their ears this week. The functionality that group owners used to identify fraudsters is gone, and now madness ensues. Just this week I had to delete accounts like "Jim Nasium" from the group I manage. Cats and dogs living together, total world chaos.
Hey Current, when are you guys gonna get groups going? I would switch my group over in a hearbeat if I could. If you haven't seen the news yet, LinkedIn threw a grenade into the "groups" hatch and closed their ears this week. Th... more -
Cool Concept BMW- Shape Shifter!
cool bmw. kind of synonymous
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Coming soon: 'wallet phones' from Japan
Japan will start an aggressive push to market abroad its mobile technology, especially the nation's popular "wallet phone," a government official said Tuesday.
Although Japan boasts some of the most sophisticated cell phones in the world, delivering high-speed Internet connections, digital TV broadcasts and video downloads, the nation has failed to make its handsets, wireless technology and mobile services hits outside of Japan.
he latest initiative spearheaded by the government with an industry group of Japanese carriers and manufacturers is an effort to help Japan catch up in wooing global users, said Masayuki Ito, official at the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications.
Among the wireless innovations Japan hopes to peddle is the wallet phone. The technology relies on a tiny computer chip called FeliCa, embedded in each cell phone, which communicates with a reader-device at stores, train stations and vending machines for cashless payments.
FeliCa was developed by Japanese electronics and entertainment company Sony Corp. Such technology is more common in smart cards, popular in Singapore and parts of Europe. But Japan hopes to market the technology abroad for cell phones. Japan will start an aggressive push to market abroad its mobile technology, especially the nation's popular "wallet phone,&#... more -
Does music have a more powerful effect on memory than images, words, or smells?
"Remember that great Stones' ballad you heard on your first date with that first great love? Well, despite music's importance to our lives, very little is known about the memories and emotions that are often evoked when hearing a piece of music from our past. Does music have a more powerful effect on memory than other influences, like images, words, or smells? ... " "Remember that great Stones' ballad you heard on your first date with that first great love? Well, despite music's impo... more
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Massive discovery at edge of solar system
"The Oort Cloud is a spherical cloud of comets believed to lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year from the Sun, which places the cloud at nearly a quarter of the distance to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. The Kuiper belt and scattered disc, the other two known reservoirs of trans-Neptunian objects, are less than one thousandth the Oort cloud's distance. The outer extent of the Oort cloud defines the boundary of our Solar System..." "The Oort Cloud is a spherical cloud of comets believed to lie roughly 50,000 AU, or nearly a light-year from the Sun, which plac... more
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R.I.P. Muxtape™
Muxtape Presses Pause To "Sort Out A Problem With The RIAA"
Muxtape launched, then the next day *everybody* had one, then the next day we made some for each other, and then the next day we all sorta stopped using it and waited for the RIAA to get pissed.
According to Muxtape: "Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA."
In the meantime, you could always make a REAL mixtape / cd.. . Muxtape Presses Pause To "Sort Out A Problem With The RIAA" ... more -
Cell Phones for Diabetics - The Infopia LG Glucophone
"This LG phone has a glucometer built in. The phone works alongside the company’s Eocene diabetic management system. Results are sent to a secure server which graphs and helps manage your disease..." "This LG phone has a glucometer built in. The phone works alongside the company’s Eocene diabetic management system. Results are ... more
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iPod nano 'caused Japan fires'
Japan's trade ministry said today that three fires had been caused by overheating Apple iPod nanos, which it said could be due to a battery defect.
No-one was injured in the three fires involving the music players made by Apple Inc but the government said in a statement that Apple had reported two other cases where people had suffered minor burns. Japan's trade ministry said today that three fires had been caused by overheating Apple iPod nanos, which it said could be due to... more -
A third of Vista PCs downgraded to XP
Vista’s death march picked up some pace yesterday, after a metrics researcher revealed that nearly 35 per cent of PCs built to run the Windows operating system have been downgraded to XP.
In a survey of more than 3,000 computers, performance testing software developer Devil Mountain Software estimated that more than one in three new machines had either been downgraded by vendors such as Dell, or by customers once they bought the PC. Vista’s death march picked up some pace yesterday, after a metrics researcher revealed that nearly 35 per cent of PCs built to run the... more -
The future of the desktop
Everything is moving to the cloud. As we enter the third decade of the Web we are seeing an increasing shift from native desktop applications towards Web-hosted clones that run in browsers. For example, a range of products such as Microsoft Office Live, Google Docs, Zoho, ThinkFree, DabbleDB, Basecamp, and many others now provide Web-based alternatives to the full range of familiar desktop office productivity apps. The same is true for an increasing range of enterprise applications, led by companies such as Salesforce.com, and this process seems to be accelerating. In addition, hosted remote storage for individuals and enterprises of all sizes is now widely available and inexpensive. As these trends continue, what will happen to the desktop and where will it live?
This is a post by Nova Spivack, founder and CEO of Twine. This is the final version of an article Spivack has been working on in his public Twine. (click link for entire article)
Topic outline:
Is the desktop of the future going to just be a web-hosted version of the same old-fashioned desktop metaphors we have today?
The desktop of the future is going to be a hosted web service
The browser is going to swallow up the desktop
The focus of the desktop will shift from information to attention
Users are going to shift from acting as librarians to acting as daytraders
The Webtop will be more social and will leverage and integrate collective intelligence
The desktop of the future is going to have powerful semantic search and social search capabilities built-in
Interactive shared spaces will replace folders
The Portable Desktop
The Smart Desktop
Federated, open policies and permissions
The personal cloud
The WebOS
Who is most likely to own the future desktop Everything is moving to the cloud. As we enter the third decade of the Web we are seeing an increasing shift from native desktop appli... more -
Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games
She isn't real! Extraordinarily life-like computer generated character.
'Emily' will set a new precedent for photo-realistic characters in video games and films, says her creator, Image Metrics.
Extraordinarily lifelike characters are to begin appearing in films and computer games thanks to a new type of animation technology.
Emily - the woman in the above animation - was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated.
She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.
(Check out the awesome animation on the Times website - I couldn't get it to embed on Current and had to pull one from Youtube) She isn't real! Extraordinarily life-like computer generated character. ... more -
Is Microsoft forcing Vista on users?
Microsoft Corp, the world’s largest software maker, is being probed by Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission after an activist group filed a complaint saying consumers are being forced to buy its Windows Vista operating system.
“We have received the complaint and are now conducting our own investigation, which may last around six months,” Chou Ya- shu, the antitrust regulator’s spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview.
Microsoft can face fines of as much as NT$25 million ($796,000) and be ordered to halt illicit practices if found guilty of fair-trade breaches, she said.
Sophia Chang, a spokeswoman for Microsoft in Taipei, denied the company forces people to buy Vista and declined to comment further on the case.
Microsoft should be fined for using its monopoly to force consumers to adopt Vista after the company ended sales of Windows XP in June, Taiwan’s Consumer Foundation, a non-profit group, said in its complaint posted on its Website.
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, stopped selling XP individually and pre-installing the operating system in most computers in June to spur Vista sales.
Vista, which was released for consumers in January last year, requires more memory capacity and greater processing power than XP.
“It would be a very unusual and creative interpretation of antitrust law to say that a company is obliged to keep selling a product,” said Brendon Carr, an attorney who advises multinational companies on antitrust issues at the law firm Hwang Mok Park in Seoul. Microsoft Corp, the world’s largest software maker, is being probed by Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission after an activist group filed a ... more -
Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte Announced
The latest addition to the premium 8800 series comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus, high quality audio, an OLED display, a generous 4GB memory capacity and a very premium feel.
Nokia today announced a brand new addition to the premium 8800 line-up - the Nokia 8800 Carbon Arte. With a carbon fiber body with bits of titanium, polished glass and stainless steel, the Carbon Arte sure exudes that premium feel. The latest addition to the premium 8800 series comes with a 3.2 megapixel camera with auto-focus, high quality audio, an OLED display,... more -
Android SDK Version 0.9 Out!
Android SDK version 0.9 is all set for release.
Hot on the heels of FCC approval for the HTC Dream - the first Android open handset alliance phone - comes news of the release of Android SDK version 0.9. The obvious next step is version 1.0, so is Android all set to go non-beta? Only time will tell.
The new interface screenshots available for us to drool on Engadget shows a revised home screen, nice contact sync options, camera and media player options. Android SDK version 0.9 is all set for release. ... more
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